Dearborn Underground is not a Catholic group, but we at the Clancy household are Catholics who respect our Archbishop, Adam Cardinal Maida. So we cringe when we read things like this in the Detroit News, where our Archbishop is describing the “great discussion taking place in the world…between Catholics and Muslims.” As always, Cardinal Maida was meeting his Islamic co-discussionists on their turf, so Muslims would not demean themselves appearing in an equal position with dhimmis.
As to the great worldwide discussion, “an organization of 56 Islamic nations” were still demanding the Pope to apologize (submit) for having offended Muslims, according to an article in World News Daily.
One “prominent Gaza strip preacher” was interviewed, sharing some great discussion points for the great Catholic-Muslim dialogue:
“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.
Sheikh 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.’”
As usual, Imam Hassan Qazwini, spiritual leader of Dearborn's Islamic Center of America dismissed all those crazy rioters and extremists as “fringe groups [that] do not represent the faith or the genuine teachings of the prophet Muhammad.” Right. Remember, that fringe group demanding Benedict's submission are Islamic groups from 56 nations.
And, as usual, and tragically, a Catholic spokesman, in this case our own Cardinal Maida, repeated the same old thing about how the official Church teaching is that we respect Islam as worshipping the same one God as Catholics do. Pay attention to how you will never hear an Islamic teacher saying, “we respect Christians because we all worship the same God.” That's because they hate our God, and they hate Christians as polytheists. But, other than that minor point of difference, and the demands we all convert to Islam, it's been a grrrreat dialogue so far!
This is dhimmitude, folks. Get used to it. Or fight back.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Like a Bad Neighbor, Hezbollah Is Still There
An article in Wednesday’s Dearborn Press & Guide, “Businessmen organizing funds to rebuild Lebanon,” announced how local Lebanese-born philanthropist and executive Yousif Ghafari, has joined with three other American executives to create the U.S. Lebanon Partnership Fund. The fund is meant to provide resources to assist in the reconstruction in Lebanon following the recent conflict. Joining with Ghafari and his company, Dearborn-based GHAFARI, Inc., are leaders of Intel Corporation, Cisco Systems, and Occidental Petroleum Corporation. The fund complements $230M in U.S. taxpayer funded aid already going to Lebanon by means of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Naturally, there are already a significant amount of private charities contributing to Lebanon, many of them from right here in Dearborn.
Mr. Ghafari, whose motives seem genuine, has been known to support President Bush’s Middle East policies, and is no apologist for terrorism, expresses a desire the fund would help “re-establish an economically strong, democratic Lebanon that has hope for a bright future.” Executive John Chambers, president and CEO of Cisco, also stated the Partnership’s hope to focus on “long-term solutions” in Lebanon.
But there are two big problems not addressed by Mr. Ghafari’s press release, both having a bearing on long-term solutions and whether or not there can be a bright future in Lebanon.
The first problem with the aid pouring into Lebanon from public and private sources around the world is Hezbollah. Every dime of it passes through the hands of this murderous terrorist organization.
As the Washington Times reported in a September 2 editorial, President Bush’s man running the $230M USAID program to Lebanon, administrator Randall Tobias, was unable to rebut reports that all government and private assistance, including funds from the Red Cross, actually goes to Hezbollah.
Tobias outlined a program whereby USAID would have to “work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to distribute U.S. aid. The problem is that in Hezbollah-dominated regions of the country -- including southern Lebanon, Beirut's southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon -- it is virtually impossible to find NGOs that are not beholden to Hezbollah.” And, quoting a dispatch from Lebanon appearing in the New York Times, “Groups like UNICEF and Mercy Corps are having trouble trying to help civilians with[out] aiding or going through Hezbollah.”
Nor do I see any reason to believe that the same channeling of funds to Hezbollah isn’t going to happen with Ghafari’s partnership contributions, as well. Nor, for that matter, why it won’t happen to the many local Dearborn charities and fundraisers that are sending money, much of it well-intentioned, (much of it not) for the rebuilding of Lebanon and assistance to family and friends there.
And so what is the harm if the money does go to Hezbollah? Hasn’t it turned out that Hezbollah are the now good guys, having morphed from a terrorist army into a charitable organization as soon as the cease-fire with Israel (to which Hezbollah refused to be a party) was signed? Hezbollah is now being widely described not for its terrorist identity, but for being a social services agency looking after the poor and dispossessed of southern Lebanon.
One report, from Bint Jabail in southern Lebanon, “Hezbollah takes lead in rebuilding south Lebanon,” describes how Hezbollah, through its Struggle for Reconstruction wing, Jihad al-Bina, is handing out up to $13,000 per house, and locals are impressed that Hezbollah got there faster than other aid groups, and are less bureaucratic. The report describes one bombed-out resident, Jumaa, beginning to rebuild his business:
“Already he has made a start, and Jumaa says it is the very Shi'ite group that sparked the war by capturing two Israeli soldiers in a July 12 cross-border raid that is now helping get him back into business.
"’Hezbollah turned up very quickly after the war,’" said Jumaa. "’They saw my wrecked truck, machinery and tools in need of replacing and my house in ruins.’"
This reads just like the voiceover on an Allstate commercial I saw on CSI last night. I half expect Jumaa to smile into the camera as he shakes hands with green-helmet guy in a gold blazer and says, “Those bombs really did a number on my plumbing shop. But once the dust settled my local Hezbollah fighter was there, and he couldn’t have been more friendly and professional!”
The article doesn’t need to mention that Hezbollah, (which has never registered anywhere as an insurance company), can afford to be generous when it gets to control funding from USAID, and the Red Cross, and any of the other organizations that never made a decision for Hezbollah to be their agency in charge of distribution. (Nor is it remarkable that Hezbollah showed up so fast after the Israeli withdrawal, since they had orders to rush back into their former villages to inventory their remaining weapons caches. ) But what are you going to do? The reality is that Hezbollah still runs southern Lebanon.
But how can that not cast a shadow over Mr. Ghafari and his partners’ optimistic efforts on behalf of Lebanon? I can’t imagine they think they can come up with any long-term solution for rebuilding Lebanon that doesn’t even address the long-term problem of Hezbollah.
Which leads to the other problem of philanthropy aimed at Lebanon relief--the problem that also happens to be Hezbollah.
It seems that Hezbollah’s murderer-in-chief, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, (known to far too many in Dearborn simply as “Our Leader,”) was staging a victory rally last Friday at the very moment Mr. Ghafari and others were rushing rebuilding aid to Lebanon. Nasrallah made some telling remarks that weren't exactly expressing gratitude for all the international help repairing the damage:
Hezbollah's leader said Friday his guerrilla force would not give up its weapons until Lebanon was "strong," demanding changes in the government as he spoke at a rally of hundreds of thousands of supporters in a defiant challenge to Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah made his first public appearance since Israel launched its massive offensive against Lebanon on July 12, leading the "victory over Israel" rally in front of a sea of cheering supporters waving yellow Hezbollah flags in the bombed-out southern suburbs of Beirut.
The black turbaned cleric said Hezbollah possesses more than 20,000 rockets even after firing nearly 4,000 rockets at Israel during the 34 days of fighting, and he vowed that the U.N. peacekeeping force deploying in the south and helping guard Lebanon's borders from new weapons shipments will not affect the guerrillas' arsenal.
"No army in the world will be able to make us drop the weapons from our hands," he said.
Now doesn’t this speech coming from Lebanon's leading social services organization sound promising for Lebanon's future peace and reconstruction?
Nasrallah is wrong, anyway, that no army can disarm him. Any army of greater than 10,000 trained fighters, allowed to do so, could disarm Hezbollah within days, though civilian casualties would be high, thanks to Hezbollah’s devilish tactic of using Lebanese civilians instead of sandbags for their bunkers. Certainly the Israeli Defense Force could have disarmed Hezbollah, had it been let to do so. But at this moment, Israel is so jumpy it isn’t even willing to whack Nasrallah when he’s in Beirut in their crosshairs, bravely out of hiding in the broad daylight, not even disguised in his hijab and blonde wig.
But I expect Israel to recover from its momentary indecision, and then we’ll see something.
Instead of bragging that no army in the world would be able to make them drop their weapons, Nasrallah would have been more accurate to simply brag that no army in the world is currently willing to make Hezbollah drop them. And that includes the Lebanese army, the IDF, the UN forces, the U.S. Army, nor anyone else.
But I can’t imagine how anyone who cares about the people of Lebanon can receive a boast like that as good news for Lebanon, when it is obviously very, very bad news for Lebanon. It's bad news that Nasrallah feels strong enough to call for change in the government, defying Prime Minister Saniora, which is a guarantee of further instability and strife. It's bad news because it means that Hezbollah hasn’t changed a whit since July 12, and that Nasrallah is already looking forward to Round Two with Israel, which will be the Last Round for Hezbollah, but devastating to innocent Lebanese forced by Hezbollah into the crossfire.
In spite of all those dollars flowing into Hezbollah coffers, some portion of which is being diverted from weapons-buying solely to help purchase loyalty from local property-owners, none of those new buildings is ever going to be safe enough to qualify for insurance coverage as long as Hezbollah is controlling things. A still-armed armed Hezbollah is going to start firing rockets into Israel again as sure as night turns into day, because destroying Israel and killing Jews is the only mission Hezbollah ever had, or ever will have. And Israel’s response next time, after letting herself be uncharacteristically fooled into withdrawal before victory by the liars in the capitals of the world, will respond to Hezbollah’s next attack by making the July invasion look like a mugging in the park. And poor Jumaa’s business is going to be knocked flat again. But don’t try blaming it on Israel this time, Jumaa. You can thank green-helmet and the Jihad al-Bina for it.
But this could all be prevented, of course, if the rebuilders of Lebanon, the fund raisers, those who champion the safety and security of the people of Lebanon, start the rebuilding off right, by doing a proper demolition job of clearing Hezbollah out of there once and for all.
By demanding, when they send aid, that what’s left of the legitimate government of Lebanon start shaming the international community into helping Lebanon disarm and neutralize Hezbollah for good, as promised, but as no one is even pretending to do now. And as no one is demanding, including Lebanese patriots in Dearborn.
And you can finally stop misplacing blame onto Israel, especially those of you from southern Lebanon, (living there and by the thousands here in Dearborn), who know that region has been used for decades by people who don’t care about Lebanon, first by Arafat’s PLO, then by the Syrians, and now by Hezbollah, to stage their infernal, unnecessary wars against Israel.
If you can’t stop blaming Israel, and blame the real invaders and destroyers of Lebanon—Hezbollah—shame on you. Who can protect you from yourselves?
Many of us nonMuslims and nonArabs, have hearts that go out to the suffering victims in Lebanon. But we aren’t willing to see our charitable funds and giving misued paying for missiles so the same Hezbollah killers that caused all this can kill more Israelis, our allies, and draw down more destruction on Lebanese villages in the process--the villages Hezbollah lyingly claim to be defending. Lies too many of you insist on believing.
Hezbollah can defend Lebanon best by leaving, or better yet, by dying.
You are not in good hands with Hezbollah.
Mr. Ghafari, whose motives seem genuine, has been known to support President Bush’s Middle East policies, and is no apologist for terrorism, expresses a desire the fund would help “re-establish an economically strong, democratic Lebanon that has hope for a bright future.” Executive John Chambers, president and CEO of Cisco, also stated the Partnership’s hope to focus on “long-term solutions” in Lebanon.
But there are two big problems not addressed by Mr. Ghafari’s press release, both having a bearing on long-term solutions and whether or not there can be a bright future in Lebanon.
The first problem with the aid pouring into Lebanon from public and private sources around the world is Hezbollah. Every dime of it passes through the hands of this murderous terrorist organization.
As the Washington Times reported in a September 2 editorial, President Bush’s man running the $230M USAID program to Lebanon, administrator Randall Tobias, was unable to rebut reports that all government and private assistance, including funds from the Red Cross, actually goes to Hezbollah.
Tobias outlined a program whereby USAID would have to “work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to distribute U.S. aid. The problem is that in Hezbollah-dominated regions of the country -- including southern Lebanon, Beirut's southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon -- it is virtually impossible to find NGOs that are not beholden to Hezbollah.” And, quoting a dispatch from Lebanon appearing in the New York Times, “Groups like UNICEF and Mercy Corps are having trouble trying to help civilians with[out] aiding or going through Hezbollah.”
Nor do I see any reason to believe that the same channeling of funds to Hezbollah isn’t going to happen with Ghafari’s partnership contributions, as well. Nor, for that matter, why it won’t happen to the many local Dearborn charities and fundraisers that are sending money, much of it well-intentioned, (much of it not) for the rebuilding of Lebanon and assistance to family and friends there.
And so what is the harm if the money does go to Hezbollah? Hasn’t it turned out that Hezbollah are the now good guys, having morphed from a terrorist army into a charitable organization as soon as the cease-fire with Israel (to which Hezbollah refused to be a party) was signed? Hezbollah is now being widely described not for its terrorist identity, but for being a social services agency looking after the poor and dispossessed of southern Lebanon.
One report, from Bint Jabail in southern Lebanon, “Hezbollah takes lead in rebuilding south Lebanon,” describes how Hezbollah, through its Struggle for Reconstruction wing, Jihad al-Bina, is handing out up to $13,000 per house, and locals are impressed that Hezbollah got there faster than other aid groups, and are less bureaucratic. The report describes one bombed-out resident, Jumaa, beginning to rebuild his business:
“Already he has made a start, and Jumaa says it is the very Shi'ite group that sparked the war by capturing two Israeli soldiers in a July 12 cross-border raid that is now helping get him back into business.
"’Hezbollah turned up very quickly after the war,’" said Jumaa. "’They saw my wrecked truck, machinery and tools in need of replacing and my house in ruins.’"
This reads just like the voiceover on an Allstate commercial I saw on CSI last night. I half expect Jumaa to smile into the camera as he shakes hands with green-helmet guy in a gold blazer and says, “Those bombs really did a number on my plumbing shop. But once the dust settled my local Hezbollah fighter was there, and he couldn’t have been more friendly and professional!”
The article doesn’t need to mention that Hezbollah, (which has never registered anywhere as an insurance company), can afford to be generous when it gets to control funding from USAID, and the Red Cross, and any of the other organizations that never made a decision for Hezbollah to be their agency in charge of distribution. (Nor is it remarkable that Hezbollah showed up so fast after the Israeli withdrawal, since they had orders to rush back into their former villages to inventory their remaining weapons caches. ) But what are you going to do? The reality is that Hezbollah still runs southern Lebanon.
But how can that not cast a shadow over Mr. Ghafari and his partners’ optimistic efforts on behalf of Lebanon? I can’t imagine they think they can come up with any long-term solution for rebuilding Lebanon that doesn’t even address the long-term problem of Hezbollah.
Which leads to the other problem of philanthropy aimed at Lebanon relief--the problem that also happens to be Hezbollah.
It seems that Hezbollah’s murderer-in-chief, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, (known to far too many in Dearborn simply as “Our Leader,”) was staging a victory rally last Friday at the very moment Mr. Ghafari and others were rushing rebuilding aid to Lebanon. Nasrallah made some telling remarks that weren't exactly expressing gratitude for all the international help repairing the damage:
Hezbollah's leader said Friday his guerrilla force would not give up its weapons until Lebanon was "strong," demanding changes in the government as he spoke at a rally of hundreds of thousands of supporters in a defiant challenge to Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah made his first public appearance since Israel launched its massive offensive against Lebanon on July 12, leading the "victory over Israel" rally in front of a sea of cheering supporters waving yellow Hezbollah flags in the bombed-out southern suburbs of Beirut.
The black turbaned cleric said Hezbollah possesses more than 20,000 rockets even after firing nearly 4,000 rockets at Israel during the 34 days of fighting, and he vowed that the U.N. peacekeeping force deploying in the south and helping guard Lebanon's borders from new weapons shipments will not affect the guerrillas' arsenal.
"No army in the world will be able to make us drop the weapons from our hands," he said.
Now doesn’t this speech coming from Lebanon's leading social services organization sound promising for Lebanon's future peace and reconstruction?
Nasrallah is wrong, anyway, that no army can disarm him. Any army of greater than 10,000 trained fighters, allowed to do so, could disarm Hezbollah within days, though civilian casualties would be high, thanks to Hezbollah’s devilish tactic of using Lebanese civilians instead of sandbags for their bunkers. Certainly the Israeli Defense Force could have disarmed Hezbollah, had it been let to do so. But at this moment, Israel is so jumpy it isn’t even willing to whack Nasrallah when he’s in Beirut in their crosshairs, bravely out of hiding in the broad daylight, not even disguised in his hijab and blonde wig.
But I expect Israel to recover from its momentary indecision, and then we’ll see something.
Instead of bragging that no army in the world would be able to make them drop their weapons, Nasrallah would have been more accurate to simply brag that no army in the world is currently willing to make Hezbollah drop them. And that includes the Lebanese army, the IDF, the UN forces, the U.S. Army, nor anyone else.
But I can’t imagine how anyone who cares about the people of Lebanon can receive a boast like that as good news for Lebanon, when it is obviously very, very bad news for Lebanon. It's bad news that Nasrallah feels strong enough to call for change in the government, defying Prime Minister Saniora, which is a guarantee of further instability and strife. It's bad news because it means that Hezbollah hasn’t changed a whit since July 12, and that Nasrallah is already looking forward to Round Two with Israel, which will be the Last Round for Hezbollah, but devastating to innocent Lebanese forced by Hezbollah into the crossfire.
In spite of all those dollars flowing into Hezbollah coffers, some portion of which is being diverted from weapons-buying solely to help purchase loyalty from local property-owners, none of those new buildings is ever going to be safe enough to qualify for insurance coverage as long as Hezbollah is controlling things. A still-armed armed Hezbollah is going to start firing rockets into Israel again as sure as night turns into day, because destroying Israel and killing Jews is the only mission Hezbollah ever had, or ever will have. And Israel’s response next time, after letting herself be uncharacteristically fooled into withdrawal before victory by the liars in the capitals of the world, will respond to Hezbollah’s next attack by making the July invasion look like a mugging in the park. And poor Jumaa’s business is going to be knocked flat again. But don’t try blaming it on Israel this time, Jumaa. You can thank green-helmet and the Jihad al-Bina for it.
But this could all be prevented, of course, if the rebuilders of Lebanon, the fund raisers, those who champion the safety and security of the people of Lebanon, start the rebuilding off right, by doing a proper demolition job of clearing Hezbollah out of there once and for all.
By demanding, when they send aid, that what’s left of the legitimate government of Lebanon start shaming the international community into helping Lebanon disarm and neutralize Hezbollah for good, as promised, but as no one is even pretending to do now. And as no one is demanding, including Lebanese patriots in Dearborn.
And you can finally stop misplacing blame onto Israel, especially those of you from southern Lebanon, (living there and by the thousands here in Dearborn), who know that region has been used for decades by people who don’t care about Lebanon, first by Arafat’s PLO, then by the Syrians, and now by Hezbollah, to stage their infernal, unnecessary wars against Israel.
If you can’t stop blaming Israel, and blame the real invaders and destroyers of Lebanon—Hezbollah—shame on you. Who can protect you from yourselves?
Many of us nonMuslims and nonArabs, have hearts that go out to the suffering victims in Lebanon. But we aren’t willing to see our charitable funds and giving misued paying for missiles so the same Hezbollah killers that caused all this can kill more Israelis, our allies, and draw down more destruction on Lebanese villages in the process--the villages Hezbollah lyingly claim to be defending. Lies too many of you insist on believing.
Hezbollah can defend Lebanon best by leaving, or better yet, by dying.
You are not in good hands with Hezbollah.
Friday, September 29, 2006
CHOMSKY’S CHUM’S Local Professor Honors Those who hate America
"I walked away feeling great despair," she said and her feelings were based upon the rhetoric used at the rally as well as the strong language displayed on the signs. One of the signs Shapiro said, read "
Shapiro said she found it insulting that the organizers of the rally brought in two people from an anti-Zionist group to represent the Jewish community. Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a spokesperson for Neturei Karta International-Jews against Zionism was one of the attendees. He also attended a press briefing at the Lebanese American Heritage Club that week wearing an Israeli flag with a slash through it.
Shapiro decided to attend the rally as part of her ongoing work to promote relationships between different religious groups.
Shapiro said she thinks the Arabic community should be doing all they can to build up the Lebanese government because, as she points out, Hezbollah does not just call for "death to
Here is a response from Dr. Nabeel Abraham, HFCC. It doesn’t actually address the complaints of Ms. Shapiro, but uses her words to spread more propaganda on a wide variety of subjects.
The Dearborn Press & Guide – Be Our Guest
Sunday, August 13, 2006 for full article click here
“ One has to turn to the alternative press to discover that leading intellectuals and writers, many Jewish, issued an open letter blaming Israel for escalating the conflict in the Middle East as part and parcel of a sinister policy of eliminating the Palestinian nation, the real crux of the Middle East conflict. Among the letter’s signatories are Nobel Prize winner, Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize laureate Jose’ Saramago, American authors Russell Banks and Gore Vidal, and world famous linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky”.
by Nabeel Abraham, Honors Program Director - HFCC
You really have to pity Ms. Shapiro and welcome her to
Hate Bush + Love Hitler = Dead Jews but, BUSH = HITLER? You can rewrite history but, not this fast. Try again.
Why bring this up now? It is several weeks in the past. Well, I though of Ms Shapiro and her indignation when American’s reacted similarly last week to Hugo Chavez. I recalled a “Be OUR GUEST” editorial by
The visual picture of Chavez clutching Chomsky’s book reminded me of Mr. Abraham who wields “Chomsky speak” as a weapon of mass distraction. It is used only on special occasions when the spotlight hits Islamic ugliness and there is no where for it to hide. This is curious behavior for well educated agnostic intellectuals. Is it possible he is not as irreligious as he purports?
If you found yourself shocked by Chavez’s boldness you can empathize with Ms. Shapiro. But, don’t dismiss him as a half cracked nut. His views are very similar to the views of Abraham al HFCC professor and many Islamic leaders who seem to live in an alternate universe where history has been rewritten to accommodate their religious and political agendas. Ms. Shapiro was shocked but, she should not have been.
Where do our fellow citizens get all this information? Have you seen the number of satellite dishes in
We all need to be critically evaluating what is said. There are many inconsistencies and a hidden agenda. Allies in strange places are working toward a movement of rallying the masses against
The war of words – they are rallying the masses by satellite TV. It is the only way they can rationalize the horrific behavior of jihad and terrorism. It’s a propaganda war and the only way to win is by defeat. If 10,000rally/protesters were out and shouting
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Misguided Muslim Groups
| This article posted and recommended by Darby Shaw Dearborn Underground |  |
| |
| Focus should be on extremists' war against the West. On Aug. 10, British police arrested 24 Muslim suspects in a plot to blow up 10 U.S.-bound jetliners over the Atlantic. If successful, the attack would have killed thousands of people. The terrorists were motivated by religious extremism. Rather than just condemn the plot and address the scourge of Islamic extremism, Muslim groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Muslim American Society (MAS) sought to both legitimize terror and portray Muslims as victims. Do these organizations really represent Muslims in the West? Hardly. It is their apologia of Islamic extremism, rather than discrimination or religious hatred in Western society, which most victimizes American Muslims. The basic narrative of these self-described civil-rights groups is twofold: The United States provokes terrorism because of its foreign policy, and Muslims in the West face a backlash in the wake of terror. On July 31, for example, Salam al-Marayati, executive director of MPAC, penned an op-ed piece in the Denver Post arguing that "we should not be surprised" when Islamist extremists "respond with belligerence to their continued humiliation and not-quite-human treatment by the international community." He made no mention of the Saudi religious schools that indoctrinate generations of children into a philosophy of hate and violence. After law enforcement stopped the mid-Atlantic massacre, Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR, warned, "We ought to take advantage of these incidents to make sure that we do not start a religious war against Islam and Muslim." He called on Muslims to step up security at mosques and community centers to counter negative backlash to news of the plot. But does such a backlash exist? According to the 2004 FBI hate-crimes report, the latest published, there were 156 incidents of anti-Muslim hate crimes; in comparison, there were 95 anti-Christian, and 954 anti-Jewish attacks in the United States. Rather than fear American freedom, most Muslims embrace it. At more than $42,000, average income for Muslim families is higher than the American average. Rather than help Muslims in America, most Muslim organizations hinder them. Self-appointed representatives downplay religious extremism and focus more on the image of Muslims rather than on the loss of innocent life. They remain silent on the assault waged on liberalism by Islamists. Most Muslims in America, though, fled the Middle East for the liberal values of their adopted country. On Aug. 7, Bush condemned this extremist assault on liberal values, defining it as "Islamo-fascist" in nature. He chose his words carefully. For most Muslims, Islam is a religion of peace. But rather than side with these Muslim victims, MPAC criticized Bush for saying that the British plot was a "stark reminder" the United States is "at war with Islamic fascists." Edina Lekovic, MPAC spokeswoman, issued a statement saying, "The problem with the phrase is it attaches the religion of Islam to tyranny and fascism, rather than isolating the threat to a specific group of individuals." It is not Bush's wording that makes this attachment, though, but the 24 terrorists in Britain and the imams who instructed them. Parvez Ahmed, CAIR chairman, sent an open letter to Bush: "You have on many occasions said Islam is a 'religion of peace.' Today you equated the religion of peace with the ugliness of fascism." But what would Ahmed suggest calling people who intend to blow themselves up in commercial airplanes, taking thousands of innocent lives with them? Flying angels? Kamikazes? If these organizations wish to represent American Muslims, they should be at the forefront of defending both Muslims and non-Muslims against Islamic extremists who hate moderate Muslims almost as much if not more than Western governments. Terrorists deny the legitimacy of Western Muslims, arguing that their Western co-religionists just sit placidly while they, the true Muslims, are "waging jihad against infidels and crusaders." It is wrong to argue so much over terminology and image that we lose sight of the real threat: Extremists who find motivation in religion to preach intolerance and wage war against Western values and peoples. This is the nonsense that causes Muslims to flee the Middle East. We should not defend its emergence here. Posted Thu., August 31, 2006 Omran Salman (omrans80@yahoo.com), a Bahraini journalist, is editor in chief of www.aafaq.org. | |
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
London BRIDGES
Local Arab leaders would have just cause for envy of the considerable attention being paid, at least by the small community of us who give a damn about such things, to the decision by London police announced this past Sunday. Police there have agreed to willingly hobble future investigations and raids by an agreement to submit all such decisions to a non-government group of Muslims, the Muslim Safety Forum, MSF, drawn from the target population. According to the Sunday Times, Azad Ali, chairman of the MSF, said the group will provide "independent scrutiny of intelligence.” And this within a few days of the brilliant success of the British in foiling the airline terror plot. It was nice while it lasted.
Dearborn, or more specifically the entire region under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Detroit, has had this kind of bad deal for years. It goes by the name of BRIDGES, an acronym for Building Respect In Diverse Groups to Enhance Sensitivity. It is one of the least reported programs going. If you don’t believe me, try finding anything out about it on the Internet.
Co-chair of BRIDGES is Imad Hamad, local boss of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, or ADC, and able to appear for comment to so many media outlets at once he is believed to possess the powers of bi-location. Hamad is a vocal supporter of Hezbollah, and an embarrassed FBI narrowly missed giving him an achievement award named to honor an airline attendant who behaved heroically before dying on Flight 11 on 9/11. You can read about him here.
If you want to know what kind of weight he throws around with the feds, he recently predicted the arrest of three Texas Muslims in Caro who were purchasing a suspicious number of cell phones, throwing away their chargers, and carrying suspicious photos of the Mackinac Bridge, would not result in terror charges, because “federal officials haven't told him about this case, indicating to him that it's not a serious terrorism case.”
In other words, if it were a serious terrorism case, he gets first look. And if it were a serious case, what are the odds he'd back off and say, "do your duty. boys"? Kind of like the London MSF, who are now providing the kind of “independent scrutiny of intelligence” formerly reserved under both British and American legal systems for judges or other accountable government officials.
The co-chair of BRIDGES with Hamad is US Attorney Stephen Murphy, who, (along with Hamad), is in charge of all federal law enforcement for the Eastern District of Michigan, such as it is. If Murphy were paid on commission, he'd be holding a cardboard sign by the Lonyo exit ramp off I-94.
Another key member of BRIDGES is CAIR, a group so entwined with terrorists even liberal senators like Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin had to admit as much.
These are the people who are doing to American law enforcement what the MSF in Britain plans to do to British law enforcement: chill it so cold its heart slows almost to a stop. I honestly don't understand how, if you're a cop faced with the alternatives of 1) busting terrorists who want to kill your family, or 2) chasing good relations with the Muslim community, any cop would choose 2). At least 1) is doable, as the number of terrorists must be finite. But soothing Muslim feelings is a rank impossibility, and only leads to heartache and depair.
And federal agents are getting discouraged. It has recently been reported that federal terror prosecutions are below 9/11 levels. Christopher Hamilton, former FBI terrorist investigator and senior fellow for terrorism at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, explains why: "Terrorism cases are a whole lot of work, and the likelihood of getting a conviction is very low." I wonder if having to get a sign-off from the likes of Imad Hamad makes the FBI's job any harder?
I can’t believe but that we have the BRIDGES program to thank in part for the refusal of the feds to take seriously the two Arab-American males arrested in Ohio after lying to police about what they were doing with $10,000 in cash, and for local charges having to be dropped against 3 Texas-Arab-Americans arrested in Caro. Local authoriites can't prosecute terrorism. If the feds don't show up, guys like this go free.
As for Britain, until now they always had one advantage we lacked here in the USA—the Official Secrets Act--wuich makes it a crime for public officials to leak classified information. So isn’t it strange that the Muslims, who are given high intelligence clearances in order to act as watchdogs over British law enforcement, were not required to sign the Act? That means they are immune from prosecution if they leak classified information from investigations they’re allowed to snoop into. Between this and losing Tony Blair, I wouldn't give tuppence for British security in a couple years.
But what am I so worried about? BRIDGES here in Michigan has proved to be a huge success! Under it, hardly any one is ever actually charged with terrorism, and no one is convicted. And that must mean there really aren’t any terrorists, right, only racists, profilers, and Islamophobics who imagine terrorists?
Right?
Well, am I right?
Dearborn, or more specifically the entire region under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Detroit, has had this kind of bad deal for years. It goes by the name of BRIDGES, an acronym for Building Respect In Diverse Groups to Enhance Sensitivity. It is one of the least reported programs going. If you don’t believe me, try finding anything out about it on the Internet.
Co-chair of BRIDGES is Imad Hamad, local boss of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, or ADC, and able to appear for comment to so many media outlets at once he is believed to possess the powers of bi-location. Hamad is a vocal supporter of Hezbollah, and an embarrassed FBI narrowly missed giving him an achievement award named to honor an airline attendant who behaved heroically before dying on Flight 11 on 9/11. You can read about him here.
If you want to know what kind of weight he throws around with the feds, he recently predicted the arrest of three Texas Muslims in Caro who were purchasing a suspicious number of cell phones, throwing away their chargers, and carrying suspicious photos of the Mackinac Bridge, would not result in terror charges, because “federal officials haven't told him about this case, indicating to him that it's not a serious terrorism case.”
In other words, if it were a serious terrorism case, he gets first look. And if it were a serious case, what are the odds he'd back off and say, "do your duty. boys"? Kind of like the London MSF, who are now providing the kind of “independent scrutiny of intelligence” formerly reserved under both British and American legal systems for judges or other accountable government officials.
The co-chair of BRIDGES with Hamad is US Attorney Stephen Murphy, who, (along with Hamad), is in charge of all federal law enforcement for the Eastern District of Michigan, such as it is. If Murphy were paid on commission, he'd be holding a cardboard sign by the Lonyo exit ramp off I-94.
Another key member of BRIDGES is CAIR, a group so entwined with terrorists even liberal senators like Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin had to admit as much.
These are the people who are doing to American law enforcement what the MSF in Britain plans to do to British law enforcement: chill it so cold its heart slows almost to a stop. I honestly don't understand how, if you're a cop faced with the alternatives of 1) busting terrorists who want to kill your family, or 2) chasing good relations with the Muslim community, any cop would choose 2). At least 1) is doable, as the number of terrorists must be finite. But soothing Muslim feelings is a rank impossibility, and only leads to heartache and depair.
And federal agents are getting discouraged. It has recently been reported that federal terror prosecutions are below 9/11 levels. Christopher Hamilton, former FBI terrorist investigator and senior fellow for terrorism at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, explains why: "Terrorism cases are a whole lot of work, and the likelihood of getting a conviction is very low." I wonder if having to get a sign-off from the likes of Imad Hamad makes the FBI's job any harder?
I can’t believe but that we have the BRIDGES program to thank in part for the refusal of the feds to take seriously the two Arab-American males arrested in Ohio after lying to police about what they were doing with $10,000 in cash, and for local charges having to be dropped against 3 Texas-Arab-Americans arrested in Caro. Local authoriites can't prosecute terrorism. If the feds don't show up, guys like this go free.
As for Britain, until now they always had one advantage we lacked here in the USA—the Official Secrets Act--wuich makes it a crime for public officials to leak classified information. So isn’t it strange that the Muslims, who are given high intelligence clearances in order to act as watchdogs over British law enforcement, were not required to sign the Act? That means they are immune from prosecution if they leak classified information from investigations they’re allowed to snoop into. Between this and losing Tony Blair, I wouldn't give tuppence for British security in a couple years.
But what am I so worried about? BRIDGES here in Michigan has proved to be a huge success! Under it, hardly any one is ever actually charged with terrorism, and no one is convicted. And that must mean there really aren’t any terrorists, right, only racists, profilers, and Islamophobics who imagine terrorists?
Right?
Well, am I right?
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Catholic Schoolgirls Learn to Cover Hair, Think Islam Is 'Cool'
Monsignor Patrick Halfpenny, pastor of St. Paul of the Lake Parish and school in Grosse Pointe Farms, described the “interfaith” trip of his schoolkids to the Islamic Center of America Mosque in Dearborn on Thursday as “providential.” Msgr. Halfpenny is also the archdiocesan ecumencial and interfaith adviser, which helps explain a lot. Something tells me what he had in mind by calling the mosque field trip “providential’ was that he felt Islam was, once again, due a big fat act of contrition because of what the Pope said. So what better way to do that than a spectacle of Catholic schoolgirls with heads covered sitting meekly beneath the teachings of the Prophet? You have to admit, it is a strong symbol. But what message is Msgr. Halpenny trying to send?
Though the trip had been planned since last spring, Msgr. Halfpenny, "as a man of faith," sees the field trip as providential for falling at the end of a week during which Catholics heard their Pope commanded to bow to a Muslim cleric and convert, ordered by Muslim religious leaders to be executed, saw a Catholic missionary sister in Somalia murdered by Islamists, saw Christian churches burned in Gaza, and heard Al Qaida declaring again the timeless Jihadist battle cry to break all the crosses and reduce the Christian West to slavery or death. In other words, it came when local Muslims were profoundly sensitive about an apology being badly overdue—that is, an apology due to them.
So the kids visited the mosque and got to hear about Muslim interpretations of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, and “heard Muslims disparaging those who commit violence in the name of Islam.” (But not, mind you an apology for the violence. Muslim activist Najah Bazzy, a person describing herself as “embarrassed to be an American,” told the schoolchildren those violent Muslims doing all that killing are just a few people “hijacking the faith…And I do not apologize for them, because I do not associate myself with them.” It isn’t exactly accurate she's not associated with them, but either way, they associate themselves with Najah by means of a common devotion to behaviors prescribed in the Koran. The main lesson to Catholic kids: Muslims never have to apologize.
The very thing in Monsignor’s mind that made the timing of this trip such a blessed event was how easily it could be adapted into a gesture whereby the local Church and the Church's schoolchildren could express their need for pardon from a religion that sees itself as intrinsically superior to the Catholic faith, and strictly forbids any suggestion that it is ever wrong about anything. "I don't know that it smooths over controversies," says the Monsignor of the successful field trip, "but it demonstrates...our relationships are not going to be misdirected or derailed by a single incident of misunderstanding." You betcha. In other words, pay no attention to that man in Peter's chair, because our agenda is still on track, i.e., we're still going to keep coming back to you Imams with our red hats in our hands--and all just for the sake of protecting our fantasy dialogue with you.
But all the horrible behavior of Muslims towards the Pope, the Church, and the West were the very reason why this school trip should have been canceled, or at least postponed.
My Dear Monsignor, we know what you think about Vatican II, but Catholics aren’t the only ones who need to stop and reflect and apologize; Muslims do, too. But no one ever insists they do that. That is, until Benedict finally did, last week. And this is how the Archdiocese responds?
To think that even while unretracted threats of murder, war, and execution hang over the Pope and the Christian West, a Catholic seventh-grader is trotted into a mosque, where she is asked to hide her hair in deference to the Islamic Prophet's malevolence towards women, is then told lies about Islam, and finally goes home to tell her parents, “I think it’s very cool.” The photo above , and the other one in the Detroit News article in which all the females, including someone I expect is the St. Paul teacher, obediently covered up, should be speaking volumes to the Archdiocese about the effectiveness of this interfaith "dialogue" it's trying so hard to protect.
Besides, whatever you guys think your duty is to ecumenism, isn't it your main responsibility to be teaching these children the True Faith?
Though the trip had been planned since last spring, Msgr. Halfpenny, "as a man of faith," sees the field trip as providential for falling at the end of a week during which Catholics heard their Pope commanded to bow to a Muslim cleric and convert, ordered by Muslim religious leaders to be executed, saw a Catholic missionary sister in Somalia murdered by Islamists, saw Christian churches burned in Gaza, and heard Al Qaida declaring again the timeless Jihadist battle cry to break all the crosses and reduce the Christian West to slavery or death. In other words, it came when local Muslims were profoundly sensitive about an apology being badly overdue—that is, an apology due to them.
So the kids visited the mosque and got to hear about Muslim interpretations of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, and “heard Muslims disparaging those who commit violence in the name of Islam.” (But not, mind you an apology for the violence. Muslim activist Najah Bazzy, a person describing herself as “embarrassed to be an American,” told the schoolchildren those violent Muslims doing all that killing are just a few people “hijacking the faith…And I do not apologize for them, because I do not associate myself with them.” It isn’t exactly accurate she's not associated with them, but either way, they associate themselves with Najah by means of a common devotion to behaviors prescribed in the Koran. The main lesson to Catholic kids: Muslims never have to apologize.
The very thing in Monsignor’s mind that made the timing of this trip such a blessed event was how easily it could be adapted into a gesture whereby the local Church and the Church's schoolchildren could express their need for pardon from a religion that sees itself as intrinsically superior to the Catholic faith, and strictly forbids any suggestion that it is ever wrong about anything. "I don't know that it smooths over controversies," says the Monsignor of the successful field trip, "but it demonstrates...our relationships are not going to be misdirected or derailed by a single incident of misunderstanding." You betcha. In other words, pay no attention to that man in Peter's chair, because our agenda is still on track, i.e., we're still going to keep coming back to you Imams with our red hats in our hands--and all just for the sake of protecting our fantasy dialogue with you.
But all the horrible behavior of Muslims towards the Pope, the Church, and the West were the very reason why this school trip should have been canceled, or at least postponed.
My Dear Monsignor, we know what you think about Vatican II, but Catholics aren’t the only ones who need to stop and reflect and apologize; Muslims do, too. But no one ever insists they do that. That is, until Benedict finally did, last week. And this is how the Archdiocese responds?
To think that even while unretracted threats of murder, war, and execution hang over the Pope and the Christian West, a Catholic seventh-grader is trotted into a mosque, where she is asked to hide her hair in deference to the Islamic Prophet's malevolence towards women, is then told lies about Islam, and finally goes home to tell her parents, “I think it’s very cool.” The photo above , and the other one in the Detroit News article in which all the females, including someone I expect is the St. Paul teacher, obediently covered up, should be speaking volumes to the Archdiocese about the effectiveness of this interfaith "dialogue" it's trying so hard to protect.
Besides, whatever you guys think your duty is to ecumenism, isn't it your main responsibility to be teaching these children the True Faith?
Friday, September 22, 2006
Benedict as Chess Player
Daniel Henninger writes in a Wall Street Journal editorial on Friday about how Pope Benedict "at his weekly Vatican audience two days ago moved one of his knights forward on the global chessboard of Islamic politics."
Henninger continues:
"And so Pope Benedict has decided it is time to act, no matter that it may hurt the sensibilities of Islamic believers or Western elites ever alert to the delicacies of language."
Did he say "no matter that it may hurt the sensibilities of Islamic believers"? Is that possible?
Read the rest of Henninger's editorial here.
Henninger continues:
"And so Pope Benedict has decided it is time to act, no matter that it may hurt the sensibilities of Islamic believers or Western elites ever alert to the delicacies of language."
Did he say "no matter that it may hurt the sensibilities of Islamic believers"? Is that possible?
Read the rest of Henninger's editorial here.
Yemeni Young Man’s One Liner to Screeners: ‘Take My Knife—Please!’
I’ve decided Al Jazeera must not be airing re-runs of Get Smart!, because if he'd ever watched it one young Yemeni male, Mohammed Ghanem, would have known better than to think airport security would fall for the ridiculous ploy Agent 86 once referred to as “the old knife in the hollowed-out address book trick.” That TV show was still on about the last time this corny trick was tried, and as I recall now, C.O.N.T.R.O.L. Agent Max Smart wasn’t fooled when KAOS tried it on him, either.
Part of me wants to see this incident as a small victory for the good guys and a reason to revise downward my estimation of jihadist terrorists, and my estimation upward of law enforcement; but I’m not quite ready to be that optimistic just yet. Let's see first if this guy actually goes down for this, and stays down, or if he gets off for not meeting what appears to be the prima facie standard for an attempted terrorist attack—that is, actually completing it. If you don’t think that ever happens, check this out on Debbie Schlussel’s blog.
If there is any consolation to this glaring indicator that Al Qaeda in southeast Michigan and elsewhere is still experimenting with how to get lethal weapons on board our airplanes, it's that this particular experiment failed this time, and perhaps AQ will have to figure out some better way. There is no telling how many times it has succeeded in the past already. And though I hate to think about it, there is no telling how many other young Arab males breezed through security in front of or behind this guy and boarded that same flight with their hollowed-out books intact, knowing that Metro Airport security had already met their quota of scrutiny of Middle Easterners, and because we're all sharply forbidden to add two plus two if it adds up the horror of profiling.
Is that so absurd? Think about it: you’re airport security, you just caught Middle Eastern male number one with a knife, and look up to see a handful of his countrymen waiting in line to board, glaring at you in defiance that you'll do something the ACLU isn’t going to like. Now you just know what isn’t going to happen next, because it is considered to be against the law. Now I have no way of knowing if something like that really happened when they busted Ghanem, or on any other occasion, but based on the restrictions our security personnel are forced to operate within, I can imagine it. And we all remember that a failure of imagination brought upon us 9/11.
As it was, Mohammed Ghanem’s lawyer, Nabih Ayad, was on the scene following Ghanem’s detention before the target flight’s onboard chicken dishes had a chance to properly get cold. Ayad has no problems with his imagination, glibly explaining how someone else hollowed out his client's address book and planted a knife unbeknownst to the innocent Yemeni pasenger. (Who, by the way, says he was on his way to get married. Somewhere in Yemen I'm sure Ghanem's almost-bride is quietly indulging herself in the Happy Dance). Attorney Ayad thinks the arrest of his client is an obvious misunderstanding fueled by anti-Arab prejudice, and complained that the half-million dollar bail the judge set was a punishment for his client being Middle Eastern. Which makes perfect sense if the judge just discounted the evidence of the knife, the attempted deception, and the jihad prayer "artfully" secreted in Ghanem's KAOS gadget book.
Let’s hope now these dry runs are nipped in the bud and don’t lead to someone having to tell America after another airline massacre, “Sorry about that, Chief.”
Part of me wants to see this incident as a small victory for the good guys and a reason to revise downward my estimation of jihadist terrorists, and my estimation upward of law enforcement; but I’m not quite ready to be that optimistic just yet. Let's see first if this guy actually goes down for this, and stays down, or if he gets off for not meeting what appears to be the prima facie standard for an attempted terrorist attack—that is, actually completing it. If you don’t think that ever happens, check this out on Debbie Schlussel’s blog.
If there is any consolation to this glaring indicator that Al Qaeda in southeast Michigan and elsewhere is still experimenting with how to get lethal weapons on board our airplanes, it's that this particular experiment failed this time, and perhaps AQ will have to figure out some better way. There is no telling how many times it has succeeded in the past already. And though I hate to think about it, there is no telling how many other young Arab males breezed through security in front of or behind this guy and boarded that same flight with their hollowed-out books intact, knowing that Metro Airport security had already met their quota of scrutiny of Middle Easterners, and because we're all sharply forbidden to add two plus two if it adds up the horror of profiling.
Is that so absurd? Think about it: you’re airport security, you just caught Middle Eastern male number one with a knife, and look up to see a handful of his countrymen waiting in line to board, glaring at you in defiance that you'll do something the ACLU isn’t going to like. Now you just know what isn’t going to happen next, because it is considered to be against the law. Now I have no way of knowing if something like that really happened when they busted Ghanem, or on any other occasion, but based on the restrictions our security personnel are forced to operate within, I can imagine it. And we all remember that a failure of imagination brought upon us 9/11.
As it was, Mohammed Ghanem’s lawyer, Nabih Ayad, was on the scene following Ghanem’s detention before the target flight’s onboard chicken dishes had a chance to properly get cold. Ayad has no problems with his imagination, glibly explaining how someone else hollowed out his client's address book and planted a knife unbeknownst to the innocent Yemeni pasenger. (Who, by the way, says he was on his way to get married. Somewhere in Yemen I'm sure Ghanem's almost-bride is quietly indulging herself in the Happy Dance). Attorney Ayad thinks the arrest of his client is an obvious misunderstanding fueled by anti-Arab prejudice, and complained that the half-million dollar bail the judge set was a punishment for his client being Middle Eastern. Which makes perfect sense if the judge just discounted the evidence of the knife, the attempted deception, and the jihad prayer "artfully" secreted in Ghanem's KAOS gadget book.
Let’s hope now these dry runs are nipped in the bud and don’t lead to someone having to tell America after another airline massacre, “Sorry about that, Chief.”
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
SOMETHING DUMB ABOUT MUSLIMS? Stupid Is As Stupid Does
The DFP reports Metro-area Muslim & Catholics are licking their wounds. Our community is not divided on this issue. According to the article, local religious leaders Christian and Muslim, agree the pope quote reveals the popes dearth of Islamic education and understanding. If he had more knowledge of Islam he would have censored his comments. Local Catholic leaders are trying to repair the damage.
Rev. Tom Reese (Jesuit scholar at
Well, I know who could say this – Muslims. They say it to everyone else. But, Rev. Reese explains why censoring His Holiness is necessary, “If the
Local Muslim leaders respond to perceived insults of Islam with a call for more dialogue and building bridges. Local Christian leaders respond by apologizing for everything. We agree there is too much religious conflict. But, the source of conflict manages to evade critisism with bombs and violence. The Islamic religion is compelled to subsume all in the name of All-ah.
Judaism, Christianity, & Islam are three separate religions. The gaps that are supposed to be bridged are simply differences. If they were not there all religion would be the same. If Islam has its way then these "gaps" which define religious freedom will no longer exist. One world religion could end the wars and violence at the cost of free will. But, the absense of war is not peace.
Tolerance should be defined as a disposition. It should allow freedom of choice and behavior. It is not coercive and requires no instruction. I'll sing, "Muslim bridges falling down" and let freedom ring.
Bigmouth Jesuit to St. Peter: ‘You Can’t Say These Words!’
Hardly a day goes by when the Detroit Free Press can resist indulging one of its two favorite vices, either attacking the Catholic Church or championing Islam. In today’s paper, “Area Catholics, Muslims, seek healing over pope,” the Free Press gets to indulge both at once. The drift of David Crumm's article is that, since the stupid old Pope went and put his foot in it last week, local ecumenical efforts between Muslims and Catholics are now at risk. You’ll notice not one local Catholic parishioner was asked to comment on how worried he or she is about the threat to Muslim relations in the diocese. That’s because if posed such a question the average Catholic parishioner would respond with a blank, uncomprehending stare that there even exist such ecumenical efforts, nor care. Or he or she might say what he or she really thinks of Muslims, which of course would not be allowed to be printed in the paper.
For color commentary on the wisdom, or lack of, of what the Pope said, the Free Press speed dialed over to Father Thomas Reese, S.J., who is puffed by Mr. Crumm as “Jesuit scholar at Georgetown University and an expert on the Vatican.” But what the article forgets to note is that Fr. Reese’s most recent expertise on the Vatican was deepened last year when he left the editor’s chair at the Jesuit's America magazine, in significant part because of his uncontrolled antagonism to Catholic orthodoxy—and his years-long antagonism of Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict.
For those who don’t know what a Jesuit is, the term is a shorthand reference to priests belonging to the Society of Jesus, an Order founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century, and whose members, literally, swore personal allegiance to the Pope, and to his defense, and the defense of the truth of the faith. But this majestic definition of the term has fallen out of favor in recent years. In fact, an upcoming edition of one Catholic encyclopedia has revised its definition of “Jesuit” for accuracy, to now say simply “a hippie with Holy Orders.” My only point being, if you want fair commentary on the Vatican, don’t go to someone who blames the Pope for scaring him off his magazine.
But, even if Father Reese isn’t exactly a reliable spokesman for the Church or the Vatican, he does seem to be quite sound on the salient Muslim doctrine that free speech and Islam can’t exist together on the same planet at the same time. Father Reese’s impassioned plea to his liege lord, the Pope, is: “'Your Holiness, you just can't say these words!' "
And why can’t the Pope say these words? Because they aren’t true? Because they aren’t just? Because they are misleading? No, no, a thousand and one times no. It is because if he says these words, Muslims will use it as an excuse to murder Christians in Muslim lands where, according to Muslims, the Christians live under their “protection” and are beneficiaries of their fabled (literally) Muslim tolerance. And if the Pope says these words, says Father Reese, “people will die in parts of Africa, and churches will be burned in Indonesia, let alone what happens in the Middle East,” In the mind of a man like Fr. Reese, the irrational acting out of violent Muslims is what makes the Pope’s remarks, in Father Reese’s Georgetown terminology, “dumb.” (And undoubtedly, in Father’s Jesuitical mind. Benedict’s remarks automatically consign the Holy Father to being a “big dumbhead.”)
Now, the really irritating thing about a man like Father Reese is that he undoubtedly sees himself a victim of unjust punishment for his own commitment to free speech, or, as they love calling it in his circle of self-righteous know-it-alls, “speaking out,” “calling for justice,” and, my personal favorite, “speaking truth to power.” And, when faced with nuts burning down churches in Gaza and the Pope’s passing reference to the irrational quality of Islam, at whom does Father Reese choose to address his call to justice? At Benedict, of course.
On the theological level alone the idea that the successor of St. Peter, whose forebear began his ministry by getting beat up by religious leaders for saying things they didn’t like, should be commanded by one of his own silly priests to stop saying anything, let alone the unvarnished naked truth about the differences between Christianity and Islam, is a perversion of justice the only appropriate remedy for which require Father Reese to serve the rest of his life in the Dhimmi parish in Mogadishu where the late Sr. Leonella went to Mass. Mind you, I don’t think the Vatican should silence him. We're all for free speech at DU. Just let him serve in Mogadishu, where they murder nuns, and he should be free to indulge his speaking the truth to the religious power there, if he dares. Such an assignment would be justice for Reese, but then again, these brave missionaries deserve a much better priest.
But religious considerations aside, even as a matter of simple civic virtue how can Father Reese seriously believe that a perpetually outraged Islam will ever be pacified if we just keep shutting up?
And as for all that Catholic-Muslim bridge-building the Free Press goes on about, when local Muslims talk about the wonderful relationships with other faiths they've been building through the years, and over which they worry oh so tenderly, notice the relationships are always suspiciously one way. Consider this telling paragraph: “Imam Achmat Salie of the Muslim Unity Center in Bloomfield Hills said Tuesday, ‘There are so many wonderful relationships we've built between our communities. Just last summer, a Vatican official came and spent a day at our mosque, learning from us and even attending a wedding here.’”
Notice that little bit, “learning from us”? Don’t get me wrong, but isn't this how Baptists sound when someone’s on the verge of getting saved? This isn’t bridge-building. It’s proselytism, only when Muslims do it, (not Baptists!), it's convert--or die.
As proof, consider how we will never hear or read about any Muslim religious leader describing an interfaith encounter in which a Muslim learns from anyone else, or deigns to sit still for a few words about faith in Christ, or the meaning of the Incarnation, or the Eucharist, or the Day of Atonement. No, it's always about their customs, their Halal, their beliefs. They already know enough about our beliefs to know they hate and despise them. Their idea of conversation is, we talk, you become Muslim.
I don’t really believe for a second that Muslim religious leaders are building bridges so that everybody can pass happily back and forth in the sunshine of religious diversity and just plain spiritual fun. They are building siege works, and like the clever guys that, in many ways, they really are, they get the besieged enemies to do most of the building for them.
We at DU are used to seeing public statements from the likes of CAIR, and the ADC, demanding that we can’t say this, and we can’t say that, and we can’t say the other thing. That’s why we’re here, because we think we can say these things, and we intend to keep right on saying them.
So phooey on useful idiots like Father Reese telling Christian leaders, who are speaking out for our side, to be quiet just because Muslims don't like what they're hearing. We're getting sick of being told that Muslims will stop their killing if only we nonMuslims will all just shut up.
For color commentary on the wisdom, or lack of, of what the Pope said, the Free Press speed dialed over to Father Thomas Reese, S.J., who is puffed by Mr. Crumm as “Jesuit scholar at Georgetown University and an expert on the Vatican.” But what the article forgets to note is that Fr. Reese’s most recent expertise on the Vatican was deepened last year when he left the editor’s chair at the Jesuit's America magazine, in significant part because of his uncontrolled antagonism to Catholic orthodoxy—and his years-long antagonism of Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict.
For those who don’t know what a Jesuit is, the term is a shorthand reference to priests belonging to the Society of Jesus, an Order founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century, and whose members, literally, swore personal allegiance to the Pope, and to his defense, and the defense of the truth of the faith. But this majestic definition of the term has fallen out of favor in recent years. In fact, an upcoming edition of one Catholic encyclopedia has revised its definition of “Jesuit” for accuracy, to now say simply “a hippie with Holy Orders.” My only point being, if you want fair commentary on the Vatican, don’t go to someone who blames the Pope for scaring him off his magazine.
But, even if Father Reese isn’t exactly a reliable spokesman for the Church or the Vatican, he does seem to be quite sound on the salient Muslim doctrine that free speech and Islam can’t exist together on the same planet at the same time. Father Reese’s impassioned plea to his liege lord, the Pope, is: “'Your Holiness, you just can't say these words!' "
And why can’t the Pope say these words? Because they aren’t true? Because they aren’t just? Because they are misleading? No, no, a thousand and one times no. It is because if he says these words, Muslims will use it as an excuse to murder Christians in Muslim lands where, according to Muslims, the Christians live under their “protection” and are beneficiaries of their fabled (literally) Muslim tolerance. And if the Pope says these words, says Father Reese, “people will die in parts of Africa, and churches will be burned in Indonesia, let alone what happens in the Middle East,” In the mind of a man like Fr. Reese, the irrational acting out of violent Muslims is what makes the Pope’s remarks, in Father Reese’s Georgetown terminology, “dumb.” (And undoubtedly, in Father’s Jesuitical mind. Benedict’s remarks automatically consign the Holy Father to being a “big dumbhead.”)
Now, the really irritating thing about a man like Father Reese is that he undoubtedly sees himself a victim of unjust punishment for his own commitment to free speech, or, as they love calling it in his circle of self-righteous know-it-alls, “speaking out,” “calling for justice,” and, my personal favorite, “speaking truth to power.” And, when faced with nuts burning down churches in Gaza and the Pope’s passing reference to the irrational quality of Islam, at whom does Father Reese choose to address his call to justice? At Benedict, of course.
On the theological level alone the idea that the successor of St. Peter, whose forebear began his ministry by getting beat up by religious leaders for saying things they didn’t like, should be commanded by one of his own silly priests to stop saying anything, let alone the unvarnished naked truth about the differences between Christianity and Islam, is a perversion of justice the only appropriate remedy for which require Father Reese to serve the rest of his life in the Dhimmi parish in Mogadishu where the late Sr. Leonella went to Mass. Mind you, I don’t think the Vatican should silence him. We're all for free speech at DU. Just let him serve in Mogadishu, where they murder nuns, and he should be free to indulge his speaking the truth to the religious power there, if he dares. Such an assignment would be justice for Reese, but then again, these brave missionaries deserve a much better priest.
But religious considerations aside, even as a matter of simple civic virtue how can Father Reese seriously believe that a perpetually outraged Islam will ever be pacified if we just keep shutting up?
And as for all that Catholic-Muslim bridge-building the Free Press goes on about, when local Muslims talk about the wonderful relationships with other faiths they've been building through the years, and over which they worry oh so tenderly, notice the relationships are always suspiciously one way. Consider this telling paragraph: “Imam Achmat Salie of the Muslim Unity Center in Bloomfield Hills said Tuesday, ‘There are so many wonderful relationships we've built between our communities. Just last summer, a Vatican official came and spent a day at our mosque, learning from us and even attending a wedding here.’”
Notice that little bit, “learning from us”? Don’t get me wrong, but isn't this how Baptists sound when someone’s on the verge of getting saved? This isn’t bridge-building. It’s proselytism, only when Muslims do it, (not Baptists!), it's convert--or die.
As proof, consider how we will never hear or read about any Muslim religious leader describing an interfaith encounter in which a Muslim learns from anyone else, or deigns to sit still for a few words about faith in Christ, or the meaning of the Incarnation, or the Eucharist, or the Day of Atonement. No, it's always about their customs, their Halal, their beliefs. They already know enough about our beliefs to know they hate and despise them. Their idea of conversation is, we talk, you become Muslim.
I don’t really believe for a second that Muslim religious leaders are building bridges so that everybody can pass happily back and forth in the sunshine of religious diversity and just plain spiritual fun. They are building siege works, and like the clever guys that, in many ways, they really are, they get the besieged enemies to do most of the building for them.
We at DU are used to seeing public statements from the likes of CAIR, and the ADC, demanding that we can’t say this, and we can’t say that, and we can’t say the other thing. That’s why we’re here, because we think we can say these things, and we intend to keep right on saying them.
So phooey on useful idiots like Father Reese telling Christian leaders, who are speaking out for our side, to be quiet just because Muslims don't like what they're hearing. We're getting sick of being told that Muslims will stop their killing if only we nonMuslims will all just shut up.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
THE RELIGION OF PEACE AT ANY PRICE$ BUT IT MAY COST YOU YOUR HEAD
Pope Benedict’s quote from a 14th century emperor and the worldwide Muslim response is another rock to throw on my scale weighing the facts on whether Islam is really the religion of peace. So far I have enough on the nay side to start a quarry.
Here is a list of world headlines:
- Al Qaeda - states only a major attack can stop the infidel pope
- Palestinians - wield guns
- Militants - open fire on Greek Orthodox Church
So, the pope apologized and deeply regrets what he said. I suppose he had to since all this violence is his fault. This seems to be the fallacious logic repeated over and over by many Detroit News and Free Press journalists.
The Detroit Free Press interviewed
Why do Islamic leaders insist Islam is the most peaceful religion? There is clearly a global movement of violent Muslims who prove them wrong. Imam Elahi’s shock over the words of the pope and speculation regarding how the pope would react to an insulting statement about Jesus are esoteric and irrelevant. The Detroit Free Press doesn’t challenge him and I believe it is because they understand that to criticize or question Islam can create headaches they don’t want to have to deal with. Mr. Fleming Rose, the former editor of Jyllands Posten in
Why Al Qaeda Has Already Lost
According to the AP:
“Al Qaeda in Iraq and its allies said Muslims would be victorious and called the pope ‘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 death by "the sword."
Sister Leonella is reported to have joked through her years in Somalia that there was a bullet with her name on it. The real joke was that just one of these flaccid bastard’s bullets wasn't enough to do it, so they had to use four. Maybe they panicked after the first shot from fear of being slapped with a ruler. Which reminds me of another bad joke about how many warriors of Allah does it take to lay a fatal ambush for an unarmed 65-year-old nun? Well, it wasn’t that good a joke anyway.
Break up the cross? I don’t think so. You’ve had 1400 years to try, and in all these years the harder you’ve pushed, the farther back you’ve regressed. You couldn’t even defeat Sister Leonella, who died victorious marked with the Sign of the Cross. And as you did your war dance over her dying form--or more likely ran way, leaving her shot in the back four times--she was still unbowed enough to tumble and bat your little god in the dust where he was spawned, before rising higher above you than you can ever imagine, and spoke back down the words that will crack every mosque from floor to dome:
“I forgive, I forgive.”
“Al Qaeda in Iraq and its allies said Muslims would be victorious and called the pope ‘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 death by "the sword."
Sister Leonella is reported to have joked through her years in Somalia that there was a bullet with her name on it. The real joke was that just one of these flaccid bastard’s bullets wasn't enough to do it, so they had to use four. Maybe they panicked after the first shot from fear of being slapped with a ruler. Which reminds me of another bad joke about how many warriors of Allah does it take to lay a fatal ambush for an unarmed 65-year-old nun? Well, it wasn’t that good a joke anyway.
Break up the cross? I don’t think so. You’ve had 1400 years to try, and in all these years the harder you’ve pushed, the farther back you’ve regressed. You couldn’t even defeat Sister Leonella, who died victorious marked with the Sign of the Cross. And as you did your war dance over her dying form--or more likely ran way, leaving her shot in the back four times--she was still unbowed enough to tumble and bat your little god in the dust where he was spawned, before rising higher above you than you can ever imagine, and spoke back down the words that will crack every mosque from floor to dome:
“I forgive, I forgive.”
The Sound It Makes When a Nickel Drops
Come, here, dear. SSShh...I just love that look of sweet bewilderment when they first start waking up…
"Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies. " Read the rest of this LA Times article here.
All sarcasm aside, welcome back to Planet Earth, Mr. Harris. And welcome to the war.
"Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies. " Read the rest of this LA Times article here.
All sarcasm aside, welcome back to Planet Earth, Mr. Harris. And welcome to the war.
From the Jerusalem Post: "Gazans warn pope to accept Islam"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1157913651799&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The next time you read comments from local Dearborn Muslims in the Free Press, the News, or the Press & Guide, who feel they have been targets of persecution because they heard somewhere that a downriver delinquent teased a Muslim woman because her head was covered, compare the following example of what genuine religious targeting looks like. Alas, this burning of churches is nothing new for the Orthodox, who have suffered the depredations of the most peaceful of religions for more than 1200 years.
As for Dr. Imad Hamto’s calls for the Pope to convert, or die, he is telling the truth that this comes straight from the Prophet. Strange thing of it is, this was precisely what Pope Benedict, indirectly, was criticizing when he referred to the unreason of a religion urging conversion under the threat of force. Yet when Hamto or his maniac colleagues say this is what Islam stands for, no one accuses them of going too far, or being ignorant of Islam. Like too much blood sugar, this level of irony is reaching a toxic effect with me, and the last couple days I have been in a near comatose state.
The next time you read comments from local Dearborn Muslims in the Free Press, the News, or the Press & Guide, who feel they have been targets of persecution because they heard somewhere that a downriver delinquent teased a Muslim woman because her head was covered, compare the following example of what genuine religious targeting looks like. Alas, this burning of churches is nothing new for the Orthodox, who have suffered the depredations of the most peaceful of religions for more than 1200 years.
As for Dr. Imad Hamto’s calls for the Pope to convert, or die, he is telling the truth that this comes straight from the Prophet. Strange thing of it is, this was precisely what Pope Benedict, indirectly, was criticizing when he referred to the unreason of a religion urging conversion under the threat of force. Yet when Hamto or his maniac colleagues say this is what Islam stands for, no one accuses them of going too far, or being ignorant of Islam. Like too much blood sugar, this level of irony is reaching a toxic effect with me, and the last couple days I have been in a near comatose state.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Too Many Ironies in the Fire
By now a thousand commentators will have chimed in on the tiring predictability and utter lack of self-awareness of global Islam, as it responds to mild verbal criticism with acts of violence, both verbal and physical, big and small, in response to Pope Benedict’s remarks about Islam on Friday in Germany. By now, the burning effigies and the tossed grenades will probably have degenerated into real fatalities, as they can always be counted on to do.
The funniest lead so far is from the Chinese business newspaper, The Standard, which was written, I’m sure, without a trace of ironic intention:
“A wave of Muslim outrage is sweeping the globe after Pope Benedict linked Islam with violence.”
But I really don’t think it’s funny, after all. The behavior of Muslims is getting monotonous, acting as they do like the world's biggest collection of strong-willed children.
Here we have an Indian cleric threatening that the Pope must take back what he said about Muslims and violence, "otherwise Muslims of the world will take to the streets in protest" (violently, of course). Another cleric was quoted as saying "that Muslims all over the world had been enraged by the Pope’s unprovoked comments against Islam. He said this could lead to 'devastating results' if the Pope did not apologise. “Unhein iska bada khaamiyaza bhugatna pad sakta hai,” he said, meaning to say that the Christian world may have to pay heavily for this indiscretion." And I don't think he meant that we'd pay in money.
So we get to watch the pattern repeat again —the demands for apologies from Islamic leaders, the threats of escalating violence unless there is some form of reparation, and then the preservation of the injury where it can be trotted out forever by Islam’s leaders as yet one more excuse for violence and calls for death to America. This by religious leaders who regularly refer to Christians and Jews as pigs and apes.
Locally, Detroit’s Archbishop, Cardinal Adam Maida, has been summoned to a meeting with Imam Sayed Hassan Qazwini of the Islamic Center of America, who had the audacity to criticize Benedict for being “more political than spiritual.” The arch-hypocrite Qazwini hasn’t been bashful about his own entanglement with politics, having been political condemning the United States:
“Imam Hassan Qazwini used his Friday prayer service at the Islamic Center of America to condemn the United States, saying it was killing innocent Afghan citizens. 'We should not accept this, said Mr. Qazwini, who had used his sermons immediately after the attack to denounce Mr. bin Laden. 'Just as we were outraged and hurt by the thousands of people who were killed in New York, we are also hurt and outraged to see many hundreds of people being killed in Afghanistan. We are terrorizing a whole nation because a few terrorists live behind them.'"
A Shiite cleric in Pakistan is accusing the Pope of "reviving the mentality of the Crusades." The mentality of the Crusades meant the West thought it would be a good idea to fight back after years of invasions, wars, and provocations by Islam. It was the mentality of the Crusades that makes it possble for the French to despise us for our bad French, instead of for our bad Arabic. (Stay tuned on that one.) Maybe the Pakistani cleric is right. Maybe the Pope does have the makings of the mentality of the Crusades in mind.
That's what a lot of us have been praying for.
The funniest lead so far is from the Chinese business newspaper, The Standard, which was written, I’m sure, without a trace of ironic intention:
“A wave of Muslim outrage is sweeping the globe after Pope Benedict linked Islam with violence.”
But I really don’t think it’s funny, after all. The behavior of Muslims is getting monotonous, acting as they do like the world's biggest collection of strong-willed children.
Here we have an Indian cleric threatening that the Pope must take back what he said about Muslims and violence, "otherwise Muslims of the world will take to the streets in protest" (violently, of course). Another cleric was quoted as saying "that Muslims all over the world had been enraged by the Pope’s unprovoked comments against Islam. He said this could lead to 'devastating results' if the Pope did not apologise. “Unhein iska bada khaamiyaza bhugatna pad sakta hai,” he said, meaning to say that the Christian world may have to pay heavily for this indiscretion." And I don't think he meant that we'd pay in money.
So we get to watch the pattern repeat again —the demands for apologies from Islamic leaders, the threats of escalating violence unless there is some form of reparation, and then the preservation of the injury where it can be trotted out forever by Islam’s leaders as yet one more excuse for violence and calls for death to America. This by religious leaders who regularly refer to Christians and Jews as pigs and apes.
Locally, Detroit’s Archbishop, Cardinal Adam Maida, has been summoned to a meeting with Imam Sayed Hassan Qazwini of the Islamic Center of America, who had the audacity to criticize Benedict for being “more political than spiritual.” The arch-hypocrite Qazwini hasn’t been bashful about his own entanglement with politics, having been political condemning the United States:
“Imam Hassan Qazwini used his Friday prayer service at the Islamic Center of America to condemn the United States, saying it was killing innocent Afghan citizens. 'We should not accept this, said Mr. Qazwini, who had used his sermons immediately after the attack to denounce Mr. bin Laden. 'Just as we were outraged and hurt by the thousands of people who were killed in New York, we are also hurt and outraged to see many hundreds of people being killed in Afghanistan. We are terrorizing a whole nation because a few terrorists live behind them.'"
A Shiite cleric in Pakistan is accusing the Pope of "reviving the mentality of the Crusades." The mentality of the Crusades meant the West thought it would be a good idea to fight back after years of invasions, wars, and provocations by Islam. It was the mentality of the Crusades that makes it possble for the French to despise us for our bad French, instead of for our bad Arabic. (Stay tuned on that one.) Maybe the Pakistani cleric is right. Maybe the Pope does have the makings of the mentality of the Crusades in mind.
That's what a lot of us have been praying for.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
9/11's Worst Victims: Muslims Who Don't Get Enough Love
Detroit News writer Gregg Krupa took some time off from reporting last week to practice his shorthand while under dictation from the usual talky activists, and the results of his notes were mistakenly printed as a news story on the front page of last Friday’s Detroit News.
This kind of thing is precisely the reason we at Dearborn Underground are here.
Responding to stories like these can be tough, since they tend to be grocery-lists of unsupported charges, with no logic to make it easy to determine which is the most important to contradict. Falsehoods swarm off the page like the mosquitos that attacked Bogart and Hepburn on the African Queen, until they just had to escape the area or be driven mad. I just can’t fathom a reporter asking professional Islamist advocates what their grievances are, and then simply printing them, unchallenged, as if they were demonstrated facts. Krupa’s article is meant to make nonMuslims feel guilty for having such a low opinion of our Islamic neighbors. It turns out that after America witnessed Muslim murderers attacking New York on 9/11, plunging the country into—so far---five years of war on Islamic terrorism—with no end in sight, and throughout which our Islamist enemies—in the name of Islam and the most prominent leaders of which are invariably egged on by Islamic “spiritual advisors”-- have engaged in beheadings, kidnappings, suicide bombings, forced conversions, threats of annihilation, and an endless litany of lies—anyway, it turns out that after all this, American feelings towards Muslims have inexplicably turned negative. It can only be explained by Islamophobia.
Local activist Abed Hammoud is truly puzzled by widespread mistrust of Muslims. Hammoud bragged in the Arab American News recently about his support for the “resistance in Southern Lebanon,” a/k/a Hezbollah, a/k/a the same guys who murdered our Marines in 1983, and are dedicated to the genocide of our ally, Israel. But now Hammoud feels just a little bit hurt, and can’t figure out why Americans look at him and say “'You know, that is a nice guy, but I am surprised that he can support terrorism.'" Yeah, isn’t that weird? I mean, what’s the big deal? Then there’s Ronald Stockton, a professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, quoted by Kruppa saying that if Muslims "don't constantly go around and say they love America and hate Osama bin laden, then people are suspecting them." Believe me, the American standard has never been anything like that high. At this point most Americans would be thrilled with any expression from the Muslim community of opposition to bin Laden and the rest of these savages, an expression that wasn’t promptly neutered in the very next clause by the disclaimer, “but.”
And this account of a rally, reported by NPR during the recent war in Lebanon, doesn’t exactly build trust on my side of town, either:
"Daily protests occur in Dearborn. At one recent demonstration, organized by the Congress of Arab-Americans, about 1,000 people attended. College-age men asked, in call and response fashion, "Who is your army?" Protestors responded: "Hezbollah." "Who is your leader?" they were asked. "Nasrallah," the chanters responded. Many carried placards of the Hezbollah leader. A few days earlier at an even larger demonstration, more than 15,000 turned out, about half of Dearborn's Arab community."
So Stockton can’t figure out why Americans keep asking, “’Why aren't the Muslims denouncing these things?’” Here’s a suggestion: because the Muslims are too busy supporting these things? 15,000 of my fellow townsmen chanting that Nasrallah is their leader gives an old Jew-lover like me misgivings. Then you can try comparing the description of the Nasrallahfest rally with what Tarek Baydoun, president of the student government at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, says about how Muslim leaders are finally grabbing media exposure in order to “reiterate that Muslims and Arabs in America and around the world don't support terrorism.” I’ll admit that on a rare occasion I do hear the reiterations that Muslims don’t support terrorism. But I just don’t quite believe them since, all things considered, they are simply unbelievable.
To listen to the guys helping Krupa write his article, the daily lives of Muslims in Dearborn are an endless round of persecution, harassment, abuse, and that greatest of American atrocities, not being “tolerated.” The article's mentions of harassment, as is too typical, lack detail and always happens to some unidentified third parties, like cabbies who get yelled at by fares , or young Muslim men who get hassled at the airport. (As if there is any class of persons who don’t get hassled at airports, or for that matter a class of cabbies who don’t get abused by fares!).
And the term “toleration” is being used, or misused, in the very special way it is by the gay-rights activisits, so it doesn’t mean “tolerance” at all—that is, putting up with something we don’t like for the sake of peace and social harmony—instead, it means, absolute and unquestioning acceptance.
The choicest complaint of the piece comes from Imam Sayed Hassan Al-Qazwini, who says the area’s Muslims are worried when they hear “calls for the wholesale deportation of Muslims when surveys suggest that more than 50 percent of them were born in the United States.” Al-Qazwini doesn’t say where these poor folks are hearing these “calls,” or who's making them, which would be helpful things to know for someone like me, who hasn’t heard, even once, any calls for wholesale deportation: not by the President, nor Congress, nor the ICE, nor the Justice Department, nor the State Department or any other government source actually affecting deportation policy.
But it certainly sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it be awful indeed if the President were traveling around giving talks calling for the illegal mass deportation of American citizens of Arabic descent. That's if he were, which he's not, and if the suggestion weren't pure fantasy, which it is. I don't know enough to say Al-Qazwini just made the whole thing up, but he seems to know a lot of Muslims who are worried about these "calls for the wholesale deportation of Muslims.” One has to wonder from whom these poor worried folks keep hearing it. I do know Al-Qazwini's wild charge about calls for deportation didn’t seem to phase Krupa, though, who gives no indication he followed up, just being careful he spelled “deportation” right. Would it be too far-fetched to conlcude that whatever Al-Qazwini tells Krupa goes directly into the paper as if it’s true?
This kind of thing is precisely the reason we at Dearborn Underground are here.
Responding to stories like these can be tough, since they tend to be grocery-lists of unsupported charges, with no logic to make it easy to determine which is the most important to contradict. Falsehoods swarm off the page like the mosquitos that attacked Bogart and Hepburn on the African Queen, until they just had to escape the area or be driven mad. I just can’t fathom a reporter asking professional Islamist advocates what their grievances are, and then simply printing them, unchallenged, as if they were demonstrated facts. Krupa’s article is meant to make nonMuslims feel guilty for having such a low opinion of our Islamic neighbors. It turns out that after America witnessed Muslim murderers attacking New York on 9/11, plunging the country into—so far---five years of war on Islamic terrorism—with no end in sight, and throughout which our Islamist enemies—in the name of Islam and the most prominent leaders of which are invariably egged on by Islamic “spiritual advisors”-- have engaged in beheadings, kidnappings, suicide bombings, forced conversions, threats of annihilation, and an endless litany of lies—anyway, it turns out that after all this, American feelings towards Muslims have inexplicably turned negative. It can only be explained by Islamophobia.
Local activist Abed Hammoud is truly puzzled by widespread mistrust of Muslims. Hammoud bragged in the Arab American News recently about his support for the “resistance in Southern Lebanon,” a/k/a Hezbollah, a/k/a the same guys who murdered our Marines in 1983, and are dedicated to the genocide of our ally, Israel. But now Hammoud feels just a little bit hurt, and can’t figure out why Americans look at him and say “'You know, that is a nice guy, but I am surprised that he can support terrorism.'" Yeah, isn’t that weird? I mean, what’s the big deal? Then there’s Ronald Stockton, a professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, quoted by Kruppa saying that if Muslims "don't constantly go around and say they love America and hate Osama bin laden, then people are suspecting them." Believe me, the American standard has never been anything like that high. At this point most Americans would be thrilled with any expression from the Muslim community of opposition to bin Laden and the rest of these savages, an expression that wasn’t promptly neutered in the very next clause by the disclaimer, “but.”
And this account of a rally, reported by NPR during the recent war in Lebanon, doesn’t exactly build trust on my side of town, either:
"Daily protests occur in Dearborn. At one recent demonstration, organized by the Congress of Arab-Americans, about 1,000 people attended. College-age men asked, in call and response fashion, "Who is your army?" Protestors responded: "Hezbollah." "Who is your leader?" they were asked. "Nasrallah," the chanters responded. Many carried placards of the Hezbollah leader. A few days earlier at an even larger demonstration, more than 15,000 turned out, about half of Dearborn's Arab community."
So Stockton can’t figure out why Americans keep asking, “’Why aren't the Muslims denouncing these things?’” Here’s a suggestion: because the Muslims are too busy supporting these things? 15,000 of my fellow townsmen chanting that Nasrallah is their leader gives an old Jew-lover like me misgivings. Then you can try comparing the description of the Nasrallahfest rally with what Tarek Baydoun, president of the student government at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, says about how Muslim leaders are finally grabbing media exposure in order to “reiterate that Muslims and Arabs in America and around the world don't support terrorism.” I’ll admit that on a rare occasion I do hear the reiterations that Muslims don’t support terrorism. But I just don’t quite believe them since, all things considered, they are simply unbelievable.
To listen to the guys helping Krupa write his article, the daily lives of Muslims in Dearborn are an endless round of persecution, harassment, abuse, and that greatest of American atrocities, not being “tolerated.” The article's mentions of harassment, as is too typical, lack detail and always happens to some unidentified third parties, like cabbies who get yelled at by fares , or young Muslim men who get hassled at the airport. (As if there is any class of persons who don’t get hassled at airports, or for that matter a class of cabbies who don’t get abused by fares!).
And the term “toleration” is being used, or misused, in the very special way it is by the gay-rights activisits, so it doesn’t mean “tolerance” at all—that is, putting up with something we don’t like for the sake of peace and social harmony—instead, it means, absolute and unquestioning acceptance.
The choicest complaint of the piece comes from Imam Sayed Hassan Al-Qazwini, who says the area’s Muslims are worried when they hear “calls for the wholesale deportation of Muslims when surveys suggest that more than 50 percent of them were born in the United States.” Al-Qazwini doesn’t say where these poor folks are hearing these “calls,” or who's making them, which would be helpful things to know for someone like me, who hasn’t heard, even once, any calls for wholesale deportation: not by the President, nor Congress, nor the ICE, nor the Justice Department, nor the State Department or any other government source actually affecting deportation policy.
But it certainly sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it be awful indeed if the President were traveling around giving talks calling for the illegal mass deportation of American citizens of Arabic descent. That's if he were, which he's not, and if the suggestion weren't pure fantasy, which it is. I don't know enough to say Al-Qazwini just made the whole thing up, but he seems to know a lot of Muslims who are worried about these "calls for the wholesale deportation of Muslims.” One has to wonder from whom these poor worried folks keep hearing it. I do know Al-Qazwini's wild charge about calls for deportation didn’t seem to phase Krupa, though, who gives no indication he followed up, just being careful he spelled “deportation” right. Would it be too far-fetched to conlcude that whatever Al-Qazwini tells Krupa goes directly into the paper as if it’s true?
Friday, September 08, 2006
Judge Taylor Fosters Hatred and Intolerance
But, speaking of chilling free speech, it isn’t all bad, because, as noted elsewhere, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has wisely guaranteed the free speech rights of, well, terrorists' lawyers, so they can safely have telephone and email exchanges with members of terrorist groups without having to worry about Homeland Security listening in. I wonder what the chances are that while Nabih Ayad, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit who made a declaration in court that he is providing legal advice to "individuals abroad whom the United States government believes to be terrorist suspects," (quoted in Judge Taylor's opinion), if there are ever any statements made that “foster hatred and intolerance,” something some of our own Michigan lawmakers have frowned on in a proposed Resolution HR 214, discussed below? It’s nice to know that at least some people’s opinions are still protected, even if the opinions happen to include “death to America.”
The Taylor opinion has been fairly heavily raked by scholars, as, for instance, by Ann Althouse in the New York Times. But what shocked me most in reading it was the frankness of the plaintiff-lawyers, including Ayad and fellow traveler Mohammed Abdrabboh, that they are communicating by email and telephone with guys they know the US government is looking for. Bear that in mind when you read about how local Muslims can't figure out why Americans keep thinking of them as pro-terrorist. But the NSA program keeps messing these poor lawyers up. The terrorists were so worried their calls were being overheard they wouldn't come to the phone any more, so their poor lawyers had to actually fork out to travel overseas to meet with them. That's how the lawyers suffered "damages" that gave them standing to sue the USA and stop a program that is saving American lives.
No one could make this up.
The Taylor opinion has been fairly heavily raked by scholars, as, for instance, by Ann Althouse in the New York Times. But what shocked me most in reading it was the frankness of the plaintiff-lawyers, including Ayad and fellow traveler Mohammed Abdrabboh, that they are communicating by email and telephone with guys they know the US government is looking for. Bear that in mind when you read about how local Muslims can't figure out why Americans keep thinking of them as pro-terrorist. But the NSA program keeps messing these poor lawyers up. The terrorists were so worried their calls were being overheard they wouldn't come to the phone any more, so their poor lawyers had to actually fork out to travel overseas to meet with them. That's how the lawyers suffered "damages" that gave them standing to sue the USA and stop a program that is saving American lives.
No one could make this up.
HR 214: Lest We Forget
A commentator was kind enough to share with DU the explanatory letter he received from Representative Gino Polidori regarding his sponsorship in the Michigan House of HR 214, a resolution “expressing opposition to a recent Detroit News editor's opinion piece labeling all Palestinians as terrorists.” Look for HR 214 at http://rmail.s4online.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(nxyyksyf210jwq5511dbky55)/mileg.aspx?page=getObject%26objectName=2006-HR-0214
What the resolution is referring to is a February 5, 2006 editorial in the Detroit News in which Nolan Finley wrote his opinion that “"Palestinians' lust for Jewish blood is stronger than their desire for peace.’"
Now to me, the statement that Palestinians lust for Jewish blood at the cost of peace is as self-evident as if one were to say, “Poodles' lust for squirrels' blood is stronegr than their fear of traffic." To my even greater amazement, the drafters of HR 214 tried to offset the calumny that Palestinians are violent, (never!) by a reference to “history dating back to the Old Testament,” as if that’s going to clear things up. Apparently the drafters believe that Goliath—when he wasn’t loudly cursing the armies of Israel—was nothing more than a freedom-fighter who fell victim to that sawed-off little shepherd boy, David. I do believe now I remember reading some apocryphal scriptures quoting the Philistine commander admitting he hadn’t anticipated the Israelites would react so harshly to their minor cross-border incursion.
Anyway, I’m glad to see Rep. Polidori’s response now. Though I am a constituent, I didn’t receive a copy of Rep. Polidori’s letter when I asked for an explanation.
The lawmaker wrote as follows:
Regarding the issue of HR 214, I would like to explain my position. I respect people of all cultures and oppose any generalizations which discriminates against a group of people. Free speech is a national right which we must respect, even if we do not agree.
HR 214 does nothing except express opposition to what was said in the opinion piece. As legislators, we also have a right to free speech. This resolution is an expression of our support for free speech yet against discriminating opinions. While we must respect Mr. Finley's right to free speech, we must also recognize that we endure this same right.
I appreciate your support for me in the past and hope that I was able to make my reasoning clear. If you have any further questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact my office.
Respectfully
Gino H. Polidori State RepresentativeDistrict 15
(Love that slip, "endure the same right." We miss you, Freud.) According to Rep. Polidori’s letter, HR 214 is not an attack on Finley’s free-speech rights, nor on the free-press rights of the News, because he's just expressing his opinion, right?
Of course Rep. Polidori and his cohorts in the Legislature have free speech rights, as all citizens do. That’s not the point. The point is whether the Legislature has the right to censure an individual’s free speech. I can’t believe this is even something that needs to be considered by informed citizens, because of course the Legislature doesn’t have that right! The problem is, HR 214 isn’t drafted in the name of Reps. Polidori, Lemmons, or the rest, but in the name of the Michigan House of Representatives, and holds itself out to speak for the State itself. You, me, the whole political entity. It’s one thing to sound off as a private citizen, to say something in an interview, or even to submit a written opinion piece of his own to the Detroit News. But it’s quite something else for the state government to do it. Resolutions aren’t for denouncing editorial opinions that a minority, or even a majority, of constituents don’t like. To quote from the Michigan Legislature’s own website, a resolution expresses
… the will of the House or the Senate (or both, in the case of concurrent resolutions). Resolutions are used to urge state agencies or the Congress to take certain actions; to formally approve certain plans of governmental agencies; to conduct certain legislative business; or to establish study committees to examine issues. Some resolutions are also offered by members as an expression of congratulations, commemoration or tribute to an individual or group.
Notice there’s no language in there about resolutions expressing the opinions of individual legislators. Resolutions aren't the legislators' public letter box. That’s because a legislative resolution is an act of government will. True, it doesn’t have the force of law, something I’m confident the real sponsors of this monstrosity are genuinely regretful about. But if you read the text of HR 214, you’ll notice that it’s been referred to the Government Operations committee. Why? Because HR 214 is a Government Operation – a government operation to shut Nolan Finley up.
Nor, in spite of Rep. Polidori’s claim in his letter, is HR 214 “an expression of our support for free speech.” This is just not true. HR 214 doesn’t contain one syllable about free speech. What it does contain is all kinds of free-speech chilling language like “malicious view,” “hate-filled backlash of violence,” “malicious statements,” and “fan the flames of intolerance and bigotry.” This kind of writing has the stink of something steamed up from the cauldrons of CAAO, ADC, and CAIR activists, all of whom are champions of government-sponsored censorship when it comes to the subject of Muslims.
I almost wonder if Rep. Polidori even read HR 214. If he did, he had no business writing what he did in his explanatory letter. I mean, I have no idea what Rep. Polidori could have been thinking when he says the equivalent of, “Finley gets to say something, now it’s the State lawmaker's turn.” The whole point about freedom of speech and press is that the individual and the newspapers enjoy rights of free expression the government simply doesn’t have. If I talk it’s fair for you to talk back. Fine. But if I talk it isn’t fair for the government to talk back. In fact, it’s kind of a discouragement to me talking, which is the whole point of the First Amendment. When an individual expresses an opinion with his weak, individual voice, that doesn’t make it government’s turn to reply with the full force of the government, just because that sounds “fair.” When some disgusted Britisher mentioned in a tavern that King George was a pear-shaped whoreson, the government reply was quite likely to come in the form of some type of cruel and unusual punishment. That’s how governments talk: if not always by force, the threat of force is always present. That's why it's called the government. So maybe HR 214 doesn’t have the force of law—but it’s a good start. The First Amendment was precisely intended to take away from government the right to use the blunt force of government to respond to free opinion from its citizens.
But blunt force is exactly what HR 214 has in mind, using the apparatus of government to punish speech its sponsors don’t like. Not that the sponsors are kidding anyone: they don’t speak for the people of Michigan at all, but for a handful of activists who will hound them with political activism if they don’t. But it’s ludicrous for Rep. Polidori to say HR 214 is nothing more than him, or Lemmons, Jr., or the other sponsors, innocently exercising their First Amendment right to speak.
The resolution itself holds itself out to be speaking on behalf of the State of Michigan, as is made clear in the clause saying, “Whereas, A state that prides itself on the diversity of its people should speak out against statements that foster hatred and intolerance.”
Think about that. The state should speak out against statements it doesn’t like? The state speaking out is no novelty in itself, as witness Iran, Cuba, Egypt, the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, and on and on. But Government forcefully expressing its views is supposed to be a novelty here in the USA. Here in the USA, we cherish the idea, which politicians used to have at least a general acquaintance with, that the people can express opinions freely only when the government is bound by law to keep its big official mouth shut. HR 214 is the marriage of repressive Islamism and liberal thought at its best. It doesn’t just stop you from saying things, it aims to stop you from even thinking them.
Let’s hope the novelty behind HR 214 remains a novelty, and is recognized for the stupid unlawful blunder that it is. I am extremely disappointed that any American lawmaker would put his name on such a thing.
To the credit of the full Michigan House, this baby has been bottled up in committee since March, and will probably die there, never to embarrass its sponsors again. But if anyone owes an apology, it isn’t Finley and the News, it’s the people who tried to foist this blatant censorship on all of us.
What the resolution is referring to is a February 5, 2006 editorial in the Detroit News in which Nolan Finley wrote his opinion that “"Palestinians' lust for Jewish blood is stronger than their desire for peace.’"
Now to me, the statement that Palestinians lust for Jewish blood at the cost of peace is as self-evident as if one were to say, “Poodles' lust for squirrels' blood is stronegr than their fear of traffic." To my even greater amazement, the drafters of HR 214 tried to offset the calumny that Palestinians are violent, (never!) by a reference to “history dating back to the Old Testament,” as if that’s going to clear things up. Apparently the drafters believe that Goliath—when he wasn’t loudly cursing the armies of Israel—was nothing more than a freedom-fighter who fell victim to that sawed-off little shepherd boy, David. I do believe now I remember reading some apocryphal scriptures quoting the Philistine commander admitting he hadn’t anticipated the Israelites would react so harshly to their minor cross-border incursion.
Anyway, I’m glad to see Rep. Polidori’s response now. Though I am a constituent, I didn’t receive a copy of Rep. Polidori’s letter when I asked for an explanation.
The lawmaker wrote as follows:
Regarding the issue of HR 214, I would like to explain my position. I respect people of all cultures and oppose any generalizations which discriminates against a group of people. Free speech is a national right which we must respect, even if we do not agree.
HR 214 does nothing except express opposition to what was said in the opinion piece. As legislators, we also have a right to free speech. This resolution is an expression of our support for free speech yet against discriminating opinions. While we must respect Mr. Finley's right to free speech, we must also recognize that we endure this same right.
I appreciate your support for me in the past and hope that I was able to make my reasoning clear. If you have any further questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact my office.
Respectfully
Gino H. Polidori State RepresentativeDistrict 15
(Love that slip, "endure the same right." We miss you, Freud.) According to Rep. Polidori’s letter, HR 214 is not an attack on Finley’s free-speech rights, nor on the free-press rights of the News, because he's just expressing his opinion, right?
Of course Rep. Polidori and his cohorts in the Legislature have free speech rights, as all citizens do. That’s not the point. The point is whether the Legislature has the right to censure an individual’s free speech. I can’t believe this is even something that needs to be considered by informed citizens, because of course the Legislature doesn’t have that right! The problem is, HR 214 isn’t drafted in the name of Reps. Polidori, Lemmons, or the rest, but in the name of the Michigan House of Representatives, and holds itself out to speak for the State itself. You, me, the whole political entity. It’s one thing to sound off as a private citizen, to say something in an interview, or even to submit a written opinion piece of his own to the Detroit News. But it’s quite something else for the state government to do it. Resolutions aren’t for denouncing editorial opinions that a minority, or even a majority, of constituents don’t like. To quote from the Michigan Legislature’s own website, a resolution expresses
… the will of the House or the Senate (or both, in the case of concurrent resolutions). Resolutions are used to urge state agencies or the Congress to take certain actions; to formally approve certain plans of governmental agencies; to conduct certain legislative business; or to establish study committees to examine issues. Some resolutions are also offered by members as an expression of congratulations, commemoration or tribute to an individual or group.
Notice there’s no language in there about resolutions expressing the opinions of individual legislators. Resolutions aren't the legislators' public letter box. That’s because a legislative resolution is an act of government will. True, it doesn’t have the force of law, something I’m confident the real sponsors of this monstrosity are genuinely regretful about. But if you read the text of HR 214, you’ll notice that it’s been referred to the Government Operations committee. Why? Because HR 214 is a Government Operation – a government operation to shut Nolan Finley up.
Nor, in spite of Rep. Polidori’s claim in his letter, is HR 214 “an expression of our support for free speech.” This is just not true. HR 214 doesn’t contain one syllable about free speech. What it does contain is all kinds of free-speech chilling language like “malicious view,” “hate-filled backlash of violence,” “malicious statements,” and “fan the flames of intolerance and bigotry.” This kind of writing has the stink of something steamed up from the cauldrons of CAAO, ADC, and CAIR activists, all of whom are champions of government-sponsored censorship when it comes to the subject of Muslims.
I almost wonder if Rep. Polidori even read HR 214. If he did, he had no business writing what he did in his explanatory letter. I mean, I have no idea what Rep. Polidori could have been thinking when he says the equivalent of, “Finley gets to say something, now it’s the State lawmaker's turn.” The whole point about freedom of speech and press is that the individual and the newspapers enjoy rights of free expression the government simply doesn’t have. If I talk it’s fair for you to talk back. Fine. But if I talk it isn’t fair for the government to talk back. In fact, it’s kind of a discouragement to me talking, which is the whole point of the First Amendment. When an individual expresses an opinion with his weak, individual voice, that doesn’t make it government’s turn to reply with the full force of the government, just because that sounds “fair.” When some disgusted Britisher mentioned in a tavern that King George was a pear-shaped whoreson, the government reply was quite likely to come in the form of some type of cruel and unusual punishment. That’s how governments talk: if not always by force, the threat of force is always present. That's why it's called the government. So maybe HR 214 doesn’t have the force of law—but it’s a good start. The First Amendment was precisely intended to take away from government the right to use the blunt force of government to respond to free opinion from its citizens.
But blunt force is exactly what HR 214 has in mind, using the apparatus of government to punish speech its sponsors don’t like. Not that the sponsors are kidding anyone: they don’t speak for the people of Michigan at all, but for a handful of activists who will hound them with political activism if they don’t. But it’s ludicrous for Rep. Polidori to say HR 214 is nothing more than him, or Lemmons, Jr., or the other sponsors, innocently exercising their First Amendment right to speak.
The resolution itself holds itself out to be speaking on behalf of the State of Michigan, as is made clear in the clause saying, “Whereas, A state that prides itself on the diversity of its people should speak out against statements that foster hatred and intolerance.”
Think about that. The state should speak out against statements it doesn’t like? The state speaking out is no novelty in itself, as witness Iran, Cuba, Egypt, the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, and on and on. But Government forcefully expressing its views is supposed to be a novelty here in the USA. Here in the USA, we cherish the idea, which politicians used to have at least a general acquaintance with, that the people can express opinions freely only when the government is bound by law to keep its big official mouth shut. HR 214 is the marriage of repressive Islamism and liberal thought at its best. It doesn’t just stop you from saying things, it aims to stop you from even thinking them.
Let’s hope the novelty behind HR 214 remains a novelty, and is recognized for the stupid unlawful blunder that it is. I am extremely disappointed that any American lawmaker would put his name on such a thing.
To the credit of the full Michigan House, this baby has been bottled up in committee since March, and will probably die there, never to embarrass its sponsors again. But if anyone owes an apology, it isn’t Finley and the News, it’s the people who tried to foist this blatant censorship on all of us.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Dearborn Federation of Teachers Funding Target/Refugees Program
Underground resister Darby Shaw writes this interesting bit about the Dearborn teacher’s union:
This past summer the National Teacher's Federation accepted a resolution supporting Israel. Mr. Kevin Harris the President of the Dearborn Federation of Teacher's Union made various public protests but, was outnumbered and it passed anyway. Here is his new humanitarian mission:
From: Harris, Kevin Sent: Wed 9/6/2006
Good Morning,
Given the recent events that have taken place in the Middle East, the DFT Executive Board has decided to provide help in obtaining school supplies for those students and their families who have come to our community to escape the devastation in their homeland. We are asking for your help in identifying those students who have both a demonstrated need and would be considered refugees from the Middle East.
Once you have identified these students, we need to know: student's name, teacher's name, administrator's name and school. Please forward this information to the DFT office. You can either call the office at 313-584-5311, or email the information to dft@dft681.org .
Once we receive the information, we will contact the school to verify what has been submitted, and the Union will forward a Target gift card to the school, to be given to the student's family.
The goal is to make this transition for your students as seamless as possible and make the start to their school year a positive one. Any assistance you can provide us in expediting this would be greatly appreciated.
Kevin R. Harris, President
Dearborn Federation of Teachers
I am guessing the students do not have legal refugee status. This would make them illegal refugees, or what the United States Government calls them: “illegal immigrants." They make it into the U.S., and then Dearborn’s own Social Welfare agency “for Arabs” - ACCESS - covers them in a soft blanket of protection. The blanket is funded by our tax dollars so we know it is very warm and cozy. ACCESS appears to follow its own model of government reflecting socialist or communist style welfare. They take tax dollars from American citizens to fund programs offering “refugees” free access to healthcare, housing, food, and clothing. It is a very generous endeavor and I am sure the American and Dearborn governments are highly regarded for their generosity. ACCESS also uses grant money but, even if some of the grants are private the monies are still gutted from the public domain.
Darby Shaw
Dearborn, Michigan
This past summer the National Teacher's Federation accepted a resolution supporting Israel. Mr. Kevin Harris the President of the Dearborn Federation of Teacher's Union made various public protests but, was outnumbered and it passed anyway. Here is his new humanitarian mission:
From: Harris, Kevin Sent: Wed 9/6/2006
Good Morning,
Given the recent events that have taken place in the Middle East, the DFT Executive Board has decided to provide help in obtaining school supplies for those students and their families who have come to our community to escape the devastation in their homeland. We are asking for your help in identifying those students who have both a demonstrated need and would be considered refugees from the Middle East.
Once you have identified these students, we need to know: student's name, teacher's name, administrator's name and school. Please forward this information to the DFT office. You can either call the office at 313-584-5311, or email the information to dft@dft681.org .
Once we receive the information, we will contact the school to verify what has been submitted, and the Union will forward a Target gift card to the school, to be given to the student's family.
The goal is to make this transition for your students as seamless as possible and make the start to their school year a positive one. Any assistance you can provide us in expediting this would be greatly appreciated.
Kevin R. Harris, President
Dearborn Federation of Teachers
What does all this mean? Dearborn school employees are being asked to “identify” students who have a “demonstrated need” and “considered refugees.” These questions immediately come to mind:
- Where are these "refugees" from? I am unaware of any U.S. refugee programs recently put into place.
- What should employees consider when attempting to ID a refugee?
- What qualifies as a “demonstrated need”?
- Should they have accents or speak no English at all?
- Should they look Jewish? Arabic? This is racial profiling and racial profiling is bad.
When the Dearborn Public School staff ID a refugee, they are instructed to contact the union office. The union office will verify information submitted by the student’s family. These are public school student records. Are they clear to access them without violating privacy laws? They are verifying refugee status but, what if the student is not a refugee? It’s possible the student could turn out to be an illegal immigrant. This could be dangerous for Mr. Harris and Dearborn Federation of Teachers. Families who are in our country illegally are according to our immigration laws, subject to deportation. It is possible the families will have a negative view of unsolicited racial profiling and private record verification. Racial profiling and snooping in private records - Osama Siblani from Dearborn’s Arab-American Anti Discrimination Committee should be notified.
I am guessing the students do not have legal refugee status. This would make them illegal refugees, or what the United States Government calls them: “illegal immigrants." They make it into the U.S., and then Dearborn’s own Social Welfare agency “for Arabs” - ACCESS - covers them in a soft blanket of protection. The blanket is funded by our tax dollars so we know it is very warm and cozy. ACCESS appears to follow its own model of government reflecting socialist or communist style welfare. They take tax dollars from American citizens to fund programs offering “refugees” free access to healthcare, housing, food, and clothing. It is a very generous endeavor and I am sure the American and Dearborn governments are highly regarded for their generosity. ACCESS also uses grant money but, even if some of the grants are private the monies are still gutted from the public domain.
Darby Shaw
Dearborn, Michigan
Dearborn Schools and Religious Accomodation
Dearborn resident and mother, J.S. sends the following comment:
I have children in the Dearborn Public Schools and am concerned over the blurring of understanding between culture and religion. I have had meetings with folks in the central offices when I was told in my elementary school not to say "Merry Christmas," but then my child brought home a Ramadan lesson! When I approached the administration, they said that we need to be sensitive to others' culture. I have no problem with sensitivity to culture, but Ramadan and its associated accommodations are religious, not cultural. I had to explain the difference. I also see Halal food as a religious accommodation, as well as physical education restrictions.
When I send my children to school, I am sending them to an American Public School. As a result, I don't expect any accommodations be made for my own faith. Otherwise, I would send them to a private religious school. There are so many different expressions of faith, such as lighting of novena candles, Buddhist chanting, Christian evangelizing, etc. that would not and should not be practiced in the schools. I am concerned that in the Dearborn Public Schools, one religion is allowed to bring its practices into classrooms and lunchrooms. Should one religion be allowed to express itself publicly, while others must do so privately? Are public schools the place for private religion?
J.S.
Dearborn, Michigan
I have children in the Dearborn Public Schools and am concerned over the blurring of understanding between culture and religion. I have had meetings with folks in the central offices when I was told in my elementary school not to say "Merry Christmas," but then my child brought home a Ramadan lesson! When I approached the administration, they said that we need to be sensitive to others' culture. I have no problem with sensitivity to culture, but Ramadan and its associated accommodations are religious, not cultural. I had to explain the difference. I also see Halal food as a religious accommodation, as well as physical education restrictions.
When I send my children to school, I am sending them to an American Public School. As a result, I don't expect any accommodations be made for my own faith. Otherwise, I would send them to a private religious school. There are so many different expressions of faith, such as lighting of novena candles, Buddhist chanting, Christian evangelizing, etc. that would not and should not be practiced in the schools. I am concerned that in the Dearborn Public Schools, one religion is allowed to bring its practices into classrooms and lunchrooms. Should one religion be allowed to express itself publicly, while others must do so privately? Are public schools the place for private religion?
J.S.
Dearborn, Michigan
ACLU & Islam Sink Public Health & Safety
Fellow Dearborn Undergound resister Darby Shaw contributes the following regarding this September 4, 2006 Detroit Free Press article, “Washtenaw County’s change helps women to take plunge”:
Free Press writer Niraj Warikoo's story appears to be another propaganda piece designed to manipulate readers into believing our community discriminates against individuals on the basis of their religion. Looking at the face of this 14 year old Muslim girl and hearing of her predicament is designed to distract us from a haunting and familiar truth. Muslim leaders using sleight of hand have replaced another American law with Islamic or Shari’a law. These leaders tell Ms. Warikoo that this is another example of Islam shaping the culture of Southeastern Michigan.
The facts are clear and this girl was not discriminated against. She chose to wear hijab to a public pool. Her religion might require this, but the choice to follow the religion belongs to her. The language Warikoo uses reveals a victory for Islam and defeat of reason. The article makes it sound as if the girl was denied a fun pool day by a pool supervisor (lifeguard?) who “admonished” her by “barking”, “’Hey you Come here! You can’t swim in that.’” The girl says she felt humiliated and disappointed. But, is the lifeguard to blame? We should consider her attempt to juggle 1) her desire for fun 2) public pool rules and 3) Obeying 1400 year old dictates of the Prophet Mohammad. Her feelings are now very understandable and so is the source.
Let me suggest a different interpretation of the pool supervisor’s words. Perhaps his phrase should be taken literally. “You can’t swim in that!” might mean it is dangerous to wear long pants, shirt, and head scarf while under water because they will keep you from being able to swim.
The laws of physics don’t discriminate; the greater the mass, the greater the force – weighted objects are characteristically less buoyant – unless buoyed by the ACLU. These are laws that are absolute and not compelled to change according to the whims of the ACLU. Taking a plunge into water while wearing several yards of any material (no matter how light weight) is a life threatening impairment. The regulations also prohibited street clothes; ensuring swimmers water unpolluted by dirty garments.
Islamic law forbids a female to be touched by a male. Washtenaw County is now obligated to offer same sex swimming for all Muslims who cannot be touched by the opposite sex. Should male lifeguards avoid saving females with Islamic dress? What if a lifeguard is homosexual? Would this be an exemption? How would they perform CPR if necessary to revive someone? What would Muhammad do?
According to Ms. Warikoo “Islam encourages women and men to learn to swim, say local Muslims. Their prophet, Muhammad, urged followers to be able to swim in case of emergencies.” This is difficult to interpret and the source is not provided. I don’t see anything in my copy of the Quran regarding swim safety in the 7th century Middle East.
As I stated above, the truth is haunting. What began in our area 15 years ago as a multicultural phenomenon now appears to be a religion, intent on shaping our way of life to fit its laws. It looks much more like a political agenda to supersede American law with Shari’a law.
Darby Shaw
Dearborn, Michigan
Free Press writer Niraj Warikoo's story appears to be another propaganda piece designed to manipulate readers into believing our community discriminates against individuals on the basis of their religion. Looking at the face of this 14 year old Muslim girl and hearing of her predicament is designed to distract us from a haunting and familiar truth. Muslim leaders using sleight of hand have replaced another American law with Islamic or Shari’a law. These leaders tell Ms. Warikoo that this is another example of Islam shaping the culture of Southeastern Michigan.
The facts are clear and this girl was not discriminated against. She chose to wear hijab to a public pool. Her religion might require this, but the choice to follow the religion belongs to her. The language Warikoo uses reveals a victory for Islam and defeat of reason. The article makes it sound as if the girl was denied a fun pool day by a pool supervisor (lifeguard?) who “admonished” her by “barking”, “’Hey you Come here! You can’t swim in that.’” The girl says she felt humiliated and disappointed. But, is the lifeguard to blame? We should consider her attempt to juggle 1) her desire for fun 2) public pool rules and 3) Obeying 1400 year old dictates of the Prophet Mohammad. Her feelings are now very understandable and so is the source.
Let me suggest a different interpretation of the pool supervisor’s words. Perhaps his phrase should be taken literally. “You can’t swim in that!” might mean it is dangerous to wear long pants, shirt, and head scarf while under water because they will keep you from being able to swim.
The laws of physics don’t discriminate; the greater the mass, the greater the force – weighted objects are characteristically less buoyant – unless buoyed by the ACLU. These are laws that are absolute and not compelled to change according to the whims of the ACLU. Taking a plunge into water while wearing several yards of any material (no matter how light weight) is a life threatening impairment. The regulations also prohibited street clothes; ensuring swimmers water unpolluted by dirty garments.
Islamic law forbids a female to be touched by a male. Washtenaw County is now obligated to offer same sex swimming for all Muslims who cannot be touched by the opposite sex. Should male lifeguards avoid saving females with Islamic dress? What if a lifeguard is homosexual? Would this be an exemption? How would they perform CPR if necessary to revive someone? What would Muhammad do?
According to Ms. Warikoo “Islam encourages women and men to learn to swim, say local Muslims. Their prophet, Muhammad, urged followers to be able to swim in case of emergencies.” This is difficult to interpret and the source is not provided. I don’t see anything in my copy of the Quran regarding swim safety in the 7th century Middle East.
As I stated above, the truth is haunting. What began in our area 15 years ago as a multicultural phenomenon now appears to be a religion, intent on shaping our way of life to fit its laws. It looks much more like a political agenda to supersede American law with Shari’a law.
Darby Shaw
Dearborn, Michigan
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Monday, September 04, 2006
Detroit News Editor Defies Fatwa
In today’s Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley dares to endorse the President’s use of the term “fascist” to describe our Islamic enemies. We at DU have the stopwatch running to see how fast the local ADC and CAIR chapters respond. But we aren’t expecting any public rally out of them this time, since Muslim firebrands just now learned how much those Dearborn traffic cops really cost. (This was unexpected: back home in southern Lebanon, at least in the good old days before July 12, you could use your own local soldiery to enforce order at mass rallies. Enforce attendance, too. We in America could learn a few things about free expression from Hezbollah.)
Finley, as informed dhimmis know, was recently censured by CAIR and the ADC, through its factotum the Michigan Legislature, in House Resolution 214, which was intended to punish Finley and the News for daring to remark that Hamas has an appetite for killing Jews. The Resolution was a breathtaking attack on free speech. I’m convinced the ACLU would have been more critical if they weren’t so busy trying to protect the rights of lawyer Nabih Ayad to give confidential advice to terrorists in the Middle East without the nosey old government wanting to listen in. Dearborn’s, and my, own representative in Lansing, Gino Polidori, voted for Resolution 214, but he never answered my letter asking for an explanation.
Anyway, good for Finley for ignoring the fatwa. May God protect him.
Finley, as informed dhimmis know, was recently censured by CAIR and the ADC, through its factotum the Michigan Legislature, in House Resolution 214, which was intended to punish Finley and the News for daring to remark that Hamas has an appetite for killing Jews. The Resolution was a breathtaking attack on free speech. I’m convinced the ACLU would have been more critical if they weren’t so busy trying to protect the rights of lawyer Nabih Ayad to give confidential advice to terrorists in the Middle East without the nosey old government wanting to listen in. Dearborn’s, and my, own representative in Lansing, Gino Polidori, voted for Resolution 214, but he never answered my letter asking for an explanation.
Anyway, good for Finley for ignoring the fatwa. May God protect him.
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