This Spring, the Middle East Quarterly published a lengthy article by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha, “CAIR: Islamists Fooling the Establishment.”
According to the article, CAIR continues to presume to speak for the entire American Muslim community in spite of criticism from many quarters that they are badly compromised as "a radical fundamentalist front group for Hamas,” (according to Stephen Emerson) and an organization that the almost-always wrongheaded Senator Charles Schmer recognizes as an organization “"which we know has ties to terrorism."
Meanhwile, according to Pipes and Chadha,
CAIR, for its part, dismisses all criticism, blaming negative comments on "Muslim bashers" who "can never point to something CAIR has done in its 10-year history that is objectionable." Actually, there is much about the organization's history that is objectionable—and it is readily apparent to anyone who bothers to look.
Fortunately for the rest of us, Pipes and Chadha have bothered to look--carefully. Read the rest of this detailed story here.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Just What Is the MSA?
At the center of the foot-bath controversy coming out of the University of Michigan-Dearborn is the harmless-sounding Muslim Student Association (MSA). According to the MSA’s website, “MSA is dedicated to representing the Islamic perspective through lectures, cultural and social activities, community celebrations and social betterment programs.”
That, and as we in Dearborn have come to learn, the MSA is front and center in obtaining religious accommodations through its alter ego, the Muslim Accommodations Task Force (MATF).
But there’s more to the MSA than just baking brownies for fundraisers and bringing in guest speakers. Much, much more.
Stephen Schwartz, a senior policy analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, wrote the following about the MSA in 2003:
When its leaders speak to mainstream media, MSA presents itself as a campus-service organization not much different from other collegiate faith groups. But the reality is very different, and deeply sinister. MSA is a key element in the Wahhabi lobby, and a cornerstone of the conspiracy by Saudi-backed extremists to control American Islam, as well the public discourse about Islam in America. (“Butcher Enablers”).
Jonathon Dowd-Gailey of the Middle East Quarterly reports:
“There is overwhelming evidence that the MSA, far from being a benign student society, is an overtly political organization seeking to create a single Muslim voice on U.S. campuses—a voice espousing Wahhabism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism, agitating aggressively against U.S. Middle East policy, and expressing solidarity with militant Islamist ideologies, sometimes with criminal results.”
How can a campus service organization professing a mission to present "the Islamic perspective" at the same time be a sinister front for Wahhabism?
The answer is, that the organization was directly spawned for that purpose by the foundational Islamic terrorist group of the past century, the Muslim Brotherhood. That is, the Muslim Brotherhood created the MSA for the purpose of establishing Islamic dominance in North America by slow degrees.
The Mission of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America
The Muslim Brotherhood, al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, was founded in 1928 by 22-year-old Hassan Banna in the Egyptian city of Ismailiyya, in reaction to the end of the Ottoman Empire and Ataturk's abolishing in 1924 of the centuries-old Islamic caliphate. "Banna railed against the colonial powers' humiliation of Muslims, and preached that governments should be ruled by Islamic law, or sharia." (“In Search Of Friends Among The Foes”).
As Robert Spencer writes in Onward Muslim Soldiers, (p. 218), Banna’s political/religious “vision was in perfect accord with that of classical Muslim scholars such as Ibn Khaldun, who taught in the fourteenth century that ‘in the Muslims community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.’”
Force, as we are all aware, means armed jihad, the sword. Persuasion comes in the form of dawah.
In lands and situations where a weaker Muslim community cannot prevail through violent jihad, the teaching of al-Ikhwan “allows for the suspension of Jihad, and concentration on the non-violent Dawa campaign. Both Jihad and Dawa, in any event, are designed to serve an interim goal of advancing the long-term, ideological objective.” Ultimately, “[t]hrough Dawa the ground for Jihad is supposed to be prepared.” ("Hamas: Radical Islam in a National Struggle").
And dawah is Muslim-speak for the old frog-in-the-boiling-water experiment. It is meant to proceed by increments. But the objective remains the same: the eventual imposition, by force if necessary, of Islam and sharia law. Dawa doesn't accomplish this. It just gets us all used to the idea. (By the way, how do you think that's going?)
As reported in the Washington Post, (“In Search Of Friends Among The Foes”),
Advocating patience in achieving Brotherhood goals at an Ohio rally in 1995, "top Brotherhood official, Youssef Qaradawi, said victory will come through dawah .... ‘Conquest through dawah, that is what we hope for,’ said Qaradawi, an influential Qatari imam who pens some of the religious edicts justifying Hamas suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. ‘We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America, not through the sword but through dawah,’ said the imam, who has condemned the Sept. 11 attacks but is now barred from the United States.”
The Muslim Brotherhood Movement Homepage, under the heading of “Establishing the Islamic Government,” describes this step of preparation:
Al-Ikhwan believe that ruling a government should be the step which follows preparing (most of) the society for accepting the Islamic laws. Otherwise, ruling a totally corrupt society thru a militant government-overthrow is a great risk. Preparing the society is achieved thru plans for: spreading the Islamic culture, the possible media means, mosques, and da'wa work in public organizations such as syndicates, parliaments, student unions, .... Parallel to that, distinct muslims should be trained to administer political, economical, social, and student organizations efficiently (and Islamically), as another preparation step.
According the same source, the group’s theme is:
Allah is our objective.
The messenger is our leader.
Quran is our law.
Jihad is our way.
Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.
In his 1995 speech, Qaradawi said the dawah would work through Islamic groups set up by Brotherhood supporters in this country. After praising the old “supporters who were jailed by Arab governments in 1950s and then came to the United States to ‘fight the seculars and the Westernized’ by founding this country's leading Islamic groups,” he specifically singled out as an example of dawah the Muslim Students Association: “Twenty years later, the MSA -- using $21 million raised in part from Qaradawi, banker Nada and the emir of Qatar -- opened a headquarters complex built on former farmland in suburban Indianapolis. With 150 chapters, the MSA is one of the nation's largest college groups.”
Papers now surfacing because of the Houston terror-support trial US v. Holy Land Foundation provide a stark look at Muslim Brotherhood plans. One such document, prepared by Brotherhood official Mohamed Akram around 1991, is titled “An Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group In North America,” and provides this "general strategic goal" for the movement:
Enablement of Islam in North America, meaning, establishing an effective and stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims’ causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims’ efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic state wherever it is.
Key to this mission of "establishing an effective and stable Islamic Movement" is “Settlement,” a term meaning “That Islam and its Movement become a part of the homeland it lives in”, i.e., North America. In order for this to take place, “the Movement must plan and struggle to obtain ‘the keys’ and the tools of this process in [sic] carry out this grand mission as a ‘Civilization Jihadist’ responsibility which lies on the shoulders of Muslims and -- on top of them-- the Muslim Brotherhood in this country.”
Maybe the language is a bit heavy, but not as bad as all that, right? Maybe "Civilization Jihad" only means the same peaceful civiliazational advances we all hope for? You can think that until he gets more specific about the meaning of “settlement”:
“Understanding the role of the Muslim Brother in North America:
“The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
That seems clear enough. Down with Western civilization and the US Constitution, and up with Sharia. And the Muslim Brotherhood does hold an impressive track record for founding groups that successfully accomplish many of their deadly ends. Along with the MSA, the Brotherhood founded Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, all extremely efficient shedders of innocent blood. Those heavily influenced by Muslim Brotherhood ideas include Osama Bin Ladin and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The Brotherhood Founds the MSA
Joe Kaufman at FrontPage Magazine summarizes the well-documented history of how the MSA came into being:
The Muslim Students Association (MSA) was founded by members of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, in January of 1963. It was the first major project of the newly arrived Brotherhood immigrants, who numbered in the hundreds. Today, MSA chapters are found in most, if not all, of the leading universities throughout the United States and Canada. (“MSA, the Missing Co-Conspirator”).
Much like the Brotherhood overseas, the MSA is set up using “Zonal” representatives. Both the U.S. and Canada have East and West Zones and conferences staged at each.
In another Muslim Brotherhood memo made an exhibit in the Holy Land case, Brotherhood official Zeid-Al-Noman explains how in the early days of the Ikhwan in the 1960s, a "main condition of recruitment in the ranks of this Movement was that a brother...must be active in the general activism in the MSA, a person who attends its general conferences or participating in its executive committees, whether local or central, and this was the Movement's condition in the 60s." Zeid also explains that one dynamic element of the organizational base in North America is that "the vast majority of the Muslim Brotherhood here are students."
And, according to Minneapolis-Star reporter Katherine Kirsten, neither the contemporary MSA or MATF, in spite of being student organizations, is merely being "operated by overly enthusiastic college students. Its professional staff, based in the Washington, D.C., area, includes coordinators who provide legal advice, teach students to lobby, write letters on their behalf, and help them overcome ‘obstacles’ such as college administrators' concerns about violating the separation of church and state.”
And just to show how the MSA is a chip off the old Muslim Brotherhood block, in March 2003 the MSA hosted a guest speaker at an MSA meeting in Queensborough Community College in New York who declared openly,
“‘We reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order. Don't lobby Congress or protest because we don't recognize Congress. The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it ... Eventually there will be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of Shariah.’” (Jonathon Dowd-Gailey, “Islamism's Campus Club: The Muslim Students' Association”).
As Dowd-Gailey explains:
The MSA reflects a prime characteristic of militant Islamic groups: a refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of secular society and personal spirituality. The MSA's Starters Guide contains an open call to Islamicize campus politics:
It should be the long-term goal of every MSA to Islamicize the politics of their respective university … the politicization of the MSA means to make the MSA more of a force on internal campus politics. The MSA needs to be a more "In-your-face" association.
All of this, the guide explains, results from the MSA's duty "to bring morality back into the campus" and to convince students to practice Islam "as a complete way of life."
In the process, the MSA preaches a creed of "special treatment" and "self-segregation" that sounds reminiscent of, and may actually borrow from, Afro-centric campus politics of the 1990s. Demanding that universities be more "Muslim-friendly," the MSA's newly established National Religious Accommodations Task Force (RATF) directs local MSA chapters to insist that universities provide separate housing and meals for Muslims only.
(NOTES: The RATF has since been renamed the Muslim Accommodation Task Force (MATF). Also, The Starter’s Guide is no longer available online, and online searches reveal no traces of it aside from Dowd-Gailey’s footnote.)
Indeed, The Muslim Accommodations Task Force (MATF), is “an initiative by theby [sic] MSA National to invite Muslim students, their colleagues, educators and administrators to discover how Muslim student leaders and colleges and universities have worked hand in hand to make campuses ‘Muslim-friendly.’”
The MSA Founds the ISNA
In 1981 the MSA spun off the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), "an umbrella organization for Islamic groups that holds annual conventions drawing more than 25,000 people."
International Communication Professor J. Michael Waller described the ISNA's function at length in recent Congressional testimony:
The Islamic Society of North America is an influential front for the promotion of the Wahhabi political, ideological and theological infrastructure in the United States and Canada.
Established by the Muslim Students Association, ISNA seeks to marginalize leaders of the Muslim faith who do not support its ideological goals. Through sponsorship of propaganda, doctrinal material and mosques, is pursuing a strategic objective of dominating Islam in North America. ISNA provides ideological material to about 1,100 of an estimated 1,500 to 2,500 mosques in North America. It vets and certifies Wahhabi-trained imams and is the main official endorsing agent for Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military.
Politically, ISNA has promoted leaders of the American Muslim Council (AMC), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).
NRO's Stephen Schwartz describes ("Butcher Enablers"), how Western Muslim scholar Hamid Algar, in his essay, Wahhabism: A Critical Essay, “calls attention to MSA's role in the creation of the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, which is best described as a branch of the Saudi religious militia operating to impose Wahhabi conformity on all of American Islam.”
In 1971 some of the same people who founded MSA also founded the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), “a financing arm that holds title to hundreds of U.S. mosques and manages bank accounts for Muslim groups using Islamic principles.” (“In Search Of Friends Among The Foes”).
I don’t know about you, but those sound like some hefty spin-offs from just a college student’s group. I’ll bet InterVarsity never appointed a subcommittee that ended up controlling the pulpits of more than half the Bible churches in America.
“In addition,”continues Schwartz, “the MSA has strong ties with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), established in 1972 and directed from the Saudi capital, Riyadh. WAMY's U.S. offices in Northern Virginia have been a central target of the federal investigation of terrorist funding and money laundering by Islamist groups following the horrors of September 11th.”
For that matter, in January 2006 the U.S. Senate Finance Committee requested the Internal Revenue Service to turn over documents concerning several Muslim charities, including the MSA, in search of ties between tax-exempt organizations and terror groups.
So we've got the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Wahhabists, CAIR, the ISNA, financial ties to terrorists, anti-American propaganda, and an ideology of religious contempt for the West. That's a perfect storm of bad guys amongst whom is nestled your local MSA. Is it any wonder Joe Kaufman refers to the Muslim Student Association as “the missing coconspirator” in the Holy Land case?
But more to my point, remember that Qaradawi promised the Muslim Brotherhood and its puppet front, the MSA, would “conquer America, not through the sword but through dawah.”
Objections to the foot baths were never about people just being unhappy about installing new plumbing for a few students showering their feet in a rest room. The objections are about parrying the thrust of dawah.
There is a reason why, when a few of us pinched the University and the MSA over these foot baths, it was CAIR that squealed.
They are telling us this is only preparation. And like the old saying goes, Allah is in the details.
That, and as we in Dearborn have come to learn, the MSA is front and center in obtaining religious accommodations through its alter ego, the Muslim Accommodations Task Force (MATF).
But there’s more to the MSA than just baking brownies for fundraisers and bringing in guest speakers. Much, much more.
Stephen Schwartz, a senior policy analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, wrote the following about the MSA in 2003:
When its leaders speak to mainstream media, MSA presents itself as a campus-service organization not much different from other collegiate faith groups. But the reality is very different, and deeply sinister. MSA is a key element in the Wahhabi lobby, and a cornerstone of the conspiracy by Saudi-backed extremists to control American Islam, as well the public discourse about Islam in America. (“Butcher Enablers”).
Jonathon Dowd-Gailey of the Middle East Quarterly reports:
“There is overwhelming evidence that the MSA, far from being a benign student society, is an overtly political organization seeking to create a single Muslim voice on U.S. campuses—a voice espousing Wahhabism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism, agitating aggressively against U.S. Middle East policy, and expressing solidarity with militant Islamist ideologies, sometimes with criminal results.”
How can a campus service organization professing a mission to present "the Islamic perspective" at the same time be a sinister front for Wahhabism?
The answer is, that the organization was directly spawned for that purpose by the foundational Islamic terrorist group of the past century, the Muslim Brotherhood. That is, the Muslim Brotherhood created the MSA for the purpose of establishing Islamic dominance in North America by slow degrees.
The Mission of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America
The Muslim Brotherhood, al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, was founded in 1928 by 22-year-old Hassan Banna in the Egyptian city of Ismailiyya, in reaction to the end of the Ottoman Empire and Ataturk's abolishing in 1924 of the centuries-old Islamic caliphate. "Banna railed against the colonial powers' humiliation of Muslims, and preached that governments should be ruled by Islamic law, or sharia." (“In Search Of Friends Among The Foes”).
As Robert Spencer writes in Onward Muslim Soldiers, (p. 218), Banna’s political/religious “vision was in perfect accord with that of classical Muslim scholars such as Ibn Khaldun, who taught in the fourteenth century that ‘in the Muslims community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.’”
Force, as we are all aware, means armed jihad, the sword. Persuasion comes in the form of dawah.
In lands and situations where a weaker Muslim community cannot prevail through violent jihad, the teaching of al-Ikhwan “allows for the suspension of Jihad, and concentration on the non-violent Dawa campaign. Both Jihad and Dawa, in any event, are designed to serve an interim goal of advancing the long-term, ideological objective.” Ultimately, “[t]hrough Dawa the ground for Jihad is supposed to be prepared.” ("Hamas: Radical Islam in a National Struggle").
And dawah is Muslim-speak for the old frog-in-the-boiling-water experiment. It is meant to proceed by increments. But the objective remains the same: the eventual imposition, by force if necessary, of Islam and sharia law. Dawa doesn't accomplish this. It just gets us all used to the idea. (By the way, how do you think that's going?)
As reported in the Washington Post, (“In Search Of Friends Among The Foes”),
Advocating patience in achieving Brotherhood goals at an Ohio rally in 1995, "top Brotherhood official, Youssef Qaradawi, said victory will come through dawah .... ‘Conquest through dawah, that is what we hope for,’ said Qaradawi, an influential Qatari imam who pens some of the religious edicts justifying Hamas suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. ‘We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America, not through the sword but through dawah,’ said the imam, who has condemned the Sept. 11 attacks but is now barred from the United States.”
The Muslim Brotherhood Movement Homepage, under the heading of “Establishing the Islamic Government,” describes this step of preparation:
Al-Ikhwan believe that ruling a government should be the step which follows preparing (most of) the society for accepting the Islamic laws. Otherwise, ruling a totally corrupt society thru a militant government-overthrow is a great risk. Preparing the society is achieved thru plans for: spreading the Islamic culture, the possible media means, mosques, and da'wa work in public organizations such as syndicates, parliaments, student unions, .... Parallel to that, distinct muslims should be trained to administer political, economical, social, and student organizations efficiently (and Islamically), as another preparation step.
According the same source, the group’s theme is:
Allah is our objective.
The messenger is our leader.
Quran is our law.
Jihad is our way.
Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.
In his 1995 speech, Qaradawi said the dawah would work through Islamic groups set up by Brotherhood supporters in this country. After praising the old “supporters who were jailed by Arab governments in 1950s and then came to the United States to ‘fight the seculars and the Westernized’ by founding this country's leading Islamic groups,” he specifically singled out as an example of dawah the Muslim Students Association: “Twenty years later, the MSA -- using $21 million raised in part from Qaradawi, banker Nada and the emir of Qatar -- opened a headquarters complex built on former farmland in suburban Indianapolis. With 150 chapters, the MSA is one of the nation's largest college groups.”
Papers now surfacing because of the Houston terror-support trial US v. Holy Land Foundation provide a stark look at Muslim Brotherhood plans. One such document, prepared by Brotherhood official Mohamed Akram around 1991, is titled “An Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group In North America,” and provides this "general strategic goal" for the movement:
Enablement of Islam in North America, meaning, establishing an effective and stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims’ causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims’ efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic state wherever it is.
Key to this mission of "establishing an effective and stable Islamic Movement" is “Settlement,” a term meaning “That Islam and its Movement become a part of the homeland it lives in”, i.e., North America. In order for this to take place, “the Movement must plan and struggle to obtain ‘the keys’ and the tools of this process in [sic] carry out this grand mission as a ‘Civilization Jihadist’ responsibility which lies on the shoulders of Muslims and -- on top of them-- the Muslim Brotherhood in this country.”
Maybe the language is a bit heavy, but not as bad as all that, right? Maybe "Civilization Jihad" only means the same peaceful civiliazational advances we all hope for? You can think that until he gets more specific about the meaning of “settlement”:
“Understanding the role of the Muslim Brother in North America:
“The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
That seems clear enough. Down with Western civilization and the US Constitution, and up with Sharia. And the Muslim Brotherhood does hold an impressive track record for founding groups that successfully accomplish many of their deadly ends. Along with the MSA, the Brotherhood founded Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, all extremely efficient shedders of innocent blood. Those heavily influenced by Muslim Brotherhood ideas include Osama Bin Ladin and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The Brotherhood Founds the MSA
Joe Kaufman at FrontPage Magazine summarizes the well-documented history of how the MSA came into being:
The Muslim Students Association (MSA) was founded by members of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, in January of 1963. It was the first major project of the newly arrived Brotherhood immigrants, who numbered in the hundreds. Today, MSA chapters are found in most, if not all, of the leading universities throughout the United States and Canada. (“MSA, the Missing Co-Conspirator”).
Much like the Brotherhood overseas, the MSA is set up using “Zonal” representatives. Both the U.S. and Canada have East and West Zones and conferences staged at each.
In another Muslim Brotherhood memo made an exhibit in the Holy Land case, Brotherhood official Zeid-Al-Noman explains how in the early days of the Ikhwan in the 1960s, a "main condition of recruitment in the ranks of this Movement was that a brother...must be active in the general activism in the MSA, a person who attends its general conferences or participating in its executive committees, whether local or central, and this was the Movement's condition in the 60s." Zeid also explains that one dynamic element of the organizational base in North America is that "the vast majority of the Muslim Brotherhood here are students."
And, according to Minneapolis-Star reporter Katherine Kirsten, neither the contemporary MSA or MATF, in spite of being student organizations, is merely being "operated by overly enthusiastic college students. Its professional staff, based in the Washington, D.C., area, includes coordinators who provide legal advice, teach students to lobby, write letters on their behalf, and help them overcome ‘obstacles’ such as college administrators' concerns about violating the separation of church and state.”
And just to show how the MSA is a chip off the old Muslim Brotherhood block, in March 2003 the MSA hosted a guest speaker at an MSA meeting in Queensborough Community College in New York who declared openly,
“‘We reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order. Don't lobby Congress or protest because we don't recognize Congress. The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it ... Eventually there will be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of Shariah.’” (Jonathon Dowd-Gailey, “Islamism's Campus Club: The Muslim Students' Association”).
As Dowd-Gailey explains:
The MSA reflects a prime characteristic of militant Islamic groups: a refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of secular society and personal spirituality. The MSA's Starters Guide contains an open call to Islamicize campus politics:
It should be the long-term goal of every MSA to Islamicize the politics of their respective university … the politicization of the MSA means to make the MSA more of a force on internal campus politics. The MSA needs to be a more "In-your-face" association.
All of this, the guide explains, results from the MSA's duty "to bring morality back into the campus" and to convince students to practice Islam "as a complete way of life."
In the process, the MSA preaches a creed of "special treatment" and "self-segregation" that sounds reminiscent of, and may actually borrow from, Afro-centric campus politics of the 1990s. Demanding that universities be more "Muslim-friendly," the MSA's newly established National Religious Accommodations Task Force (RATF) directs local MSA chapters to insist that universities provide separate housing and meals for Muslims only.
(NOTES: The RATF has since been renamed the Muslim Accommodation Task Force (MATF). Also, The Starter’s Guide is no longer available online, and online searches reveal no traces of it aside from Dowd-Gailey’s footnote.)
Indeed, The Muslim Accommodations Task Force (MATF), is “an initiative by theby [sic] MSA National to invite Muslim students, their colleagues, educators and administrators to discover how Muslim student leaders and colleges and universities have worked hand in hand to make campuses ‘Muslim-friendly.’”
The MSA Founds the ISNA
In 1981 the MSA spun off the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), "an umbrella organization for Islamic groups that holds annual conventions drawing more than 25,000 people."
International Communication Professor J. Michael Waller described the ISNA's function at length in recent Congressional testimony:
The Islamic Society of North America is an influential front for the promotion of the Wahhabi political, ideological and theological infrastructure in the United States and Canada.
Established by the Muslim Students Association, ISNA seeks to marginalize leaders of the Muslim faith who do not support its ideological goals. Through sponsorship of propaganda, doctrinal material and mosques, is pursuing a strategic objective of dominating Islam in North America. ISNA provides ideological material to about 1,100 of an estimated 1,500 to 2,500 mosques in North America. It vets and certifies Wahhabi-trained imams and is the main official endorsing agent for Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military.
Politically, ISNA has promoted leaders of the American Muslim Council (AMC), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).
NRO's Stephen Schwartz describes ("Butcher Enablers"), how Western Muslim scholar Hamid Algar, in his essay, Wahhabism: A Critical Essay, “calls attention to MSA's role in the creation of the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, which is best described as a branch of the Saudi religious militia operating to impose Wahhabi conformity on all of American Islam.”
In 1971 some of the same people who founded MSA also founded the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), “a financing arm that holds title to hundreds of U.S. mosques and manages bank accounts for Muslim groups using Islamic principles.” (“In Search Of Friends Among The Foes”).
I don’t know about you, but those sound like some hefty spin-offs from just a college student’s group. I’ll bet InterVarsity never appointed a subcommittee that ended up controlling the pulpits of more than half the Bible churches in America.
“In addition,”continues Schwartz, “the MSA has strong ties with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), established in 1972 and directed from the Saudi capital, Riyadh. WAMY's U.S. offices in Northern Virginia have been a central target of the federal investigation of terrorist funding and money laundering by Islamist groups following the horrors of September 11th.”
For that matter, in January 2006 the U.S. Senate Finance Committee requested the Internal Revenue Service to turn over documents concerning several Muslim charities, including the MSA, in search of ties between tax-exempt organizations and terror groups.
So we've got the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Wahhabists, CAIR, the ISNA, financial ties to terrorists, anti-American propaganda, and an ideology of religious contempt for the West. That's a perfect storm of bad guys amongst whom is nestled your local MSA. Is it any wonder Joe Kaufman refers to the Muslim Student Association as “the missing coconspirator” in the Holy Land case?
But more to my point, remember that Qaradawi promised the Muslim Brotherhood and its puppet front, the MSA, would “conquer America, not through the sword but through dawah.”
Objections to the foot baths were never about people just being unhappy about installing new plumbing for a few students showering their feet in a rest room. The objections are about parrying the thrust of dawah.
There is a reason why, when a few of us pinched the University and the MSA over these foot baths, it was CAIR that squealed.
They are telling us this is only preparation. And like the old saying goes, Allah is in the details.
The Talibanization of Gaza
We noted in a referral to a Jerusalem Post article in July (“Religious Bridge-Building, Gaza Style”), that the newly-founded Islamic state declared in Gaza by Hamas has set about persecuting Gaza’s Christian Arabs, forcing them to accept Islamic rule.
Jonathan Schanzer at National Review Online provides an update on what he calls “the Talibanization of Gaza” :
Hamas Rules
The Talibanization of Gaza.
By Jonathan Schanzer
The Hamas terror organization that gained power through a violent coup in the Gaza Strip in June is now signaling that it will maintain its rule through a combination of violence, authoritarianism, and Islamism. Witness the Talibanization of Gaza.
Forced Conversions. According to Fatah officials, Professor Sana al-Sayegh, a teacher at Palestine University in Gaza City, was kidnapped two weeks ago by Hamas and forced to convert to Islam against her will. Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh turned down repeated meeting requests from family members and leaders of the dwindling Christian minority in Gaza City. Meanwhile, Ala Aklouk, a senior Muslim cleric in Gaza City asked by Hamas to look into the case, said the professor converted to Islam of her free will. “She was too afraid to inform her family that she had converted to Islam,” he said. Other Christians now fear for their lives, and are making plans to flee.
Muzzling the Media. Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh of the Jerusalem Post reported last week that Hamas’s Executive Force (EF) prevented the distribution of three Fatah newspapers, including the al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida dailies, in the Gaza Strip. Hamas even took some of the newspapers’ circulation officials into custody for a short time. This is the first time that West Bank newspapers were ever barred from the Gaza Strip. According to the al-Jazeera website, Hamas attacked two cameramen from the Abu Dhabi satellite television channel, and stormed the Gaza bureau of Al-Arabiya satellite channel. Moreover, the EF has closed a pro-Fatah television station and radio station. In fact, Hamas now controls all electronic media in Gaza, except one radio station linked to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), another Iran-backed terrorist organization.
Beating Demonstrators. The al-Jazeera website also reports that the Hamas EF beat Fatah demonstrators on Monday when protestors chanted, “What is happening in Gaza is not acceptable,” and “What has happened to security and human rights?” According to the al-Jazeera correspondent in Gaza, “Cameramen recording the protest were not allowed to film, or get out of their cars.” Hamas has now banned unlicensed demonstrations in Gaza by the Fatah party.
Disintegration of Law. The armed wing of Hamas, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, reportedly seized legal documents from a lawyer that documented the confiscation of a car by Hamas. The militiamen took the lawyer’s affidavit at gunpoint. Human and legal rights groups have documented the crime, but since Hamas is now the law in Gaza, they have no way to escalate the matter. Similarly, when the EF recently stormed the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions headquarters, raised the green Hamas flag over the building, and “nationalized” it, the Federation could do nothing. Rule of law continues to deteriorate.
Killing Political Rivals. Hamas has attacked its rivals with utter brutality. During the Hamas assault on Gaza in July, according to a Palestinian human-rights group, some 160 Palestinians were killed, including 45 civilians, and 800 were wounded. Fatah accounted for most of the casualties in grisly violence that included summary executions, kneecapping, and throwing handcuffed prisoners from tall buildings. More recently, one PIJ member was killed and six were wounded Wednesday in a battle between Hamas and PIJ in the Gaza Strip. Hamas moved against PIJ after gunmen fired their weapons in the air during a wedding celebration. Claiming a need to enforce a ban on firing weapons in public, Hamas fired a rocket at a PIJ stronghold, and gunfire could be heard for hours.
Islamizing the Police. Tellingly, the Hamas Executive Force that has been beating demonstrators and banning free press held a teach-in two weeks ago on being a Muslim policeman. How Islam will play a role in policing Gaza is not yet known, but the very notion of religious police smacks of the Taliban’s Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which punished Afghanis for straying from sharia law.
Al Qaeda Links? In 2006, Hamas Interior Minister Said Sayyam stated that he would not order the arrests of operatives who carried out attacks against Israel. This was tantamount to an invitation for al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups to join Hamas in its war against Israel. Embattled Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has since stated that al-Qaeda maintains a presence in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Gaza Strip has never been idyllic. But, under Hamas, as one New York Times reporter notes, “Gaza looks like Somalia: broken and ravenous.” Hamas conquered Gaza by force. It will need to maintain its grip on power by force. This is the beginning of the Talibanization of Gaza, and the end of hope for the rule of law.
Jonathan Schanzer at National Review Online provides an update on what he calls “the Talibanization of Gaza” :
Hamas Rules
The Talibanization of Gaza.
By Jonathan Schanzer
The Hamas terror organization that gained power through a violent coup in the Gaza Strip in June is now signaling that it will maintain its rule through a combination of violence, authoritarianism, and Islamism. Witness the Talibanization of Gaza.
Forced Conversions. According to Fatah officials, Professor Sana al-Sayegh, a teacher at Palestine University in Gaza City, was kidnapped two weeks ago by Hamas and forced to convert to Islam against her will. Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh turned down repeated meeting requests from family members and leaders of the dwindling Christian minority in Gaza City. Meanwhile, Ala Aklouk, a senior Muslim cleric in Gaza City asked by Hamas to look into the case, said the professor converted to Islam of her free will. “She was too afraid to inform her family that she had converted to Islam,” he said. Other Christians now fear for their lives, and are making plans to flee.
Muzzling the Media. Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh of the Jerusalem Post reported last week that Hamas’s Executive Force (EF) prevented the distribution of three Fatah newspapers, including the al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida dailies, in the Gaza Strip. Hamas even took some of the newspapers’ circulation officials into custody for a short time. This is the first time that West Bank newspapers were ever barred from the Gaza Strip. According to the al-Jazeera website, Hamas attacked two cameramen from the Abu Dhabi satellite television channel, and stormed the Gaza bureau of Al-Arabiya satellite channel. Moreover, the EF has closed a pro-Fatah television station and radio station. In fact, Hamas now controls all electronic media in Gaza, except one radio station linked to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), another Iran-backed terrorist organization.
Beating Demonstrators. The al-Jazeera website also reports that the Hamas EF beat Fatah demonstrators on Monday when protestors chanted, “What is happening in Gaza is not acceptable,” and “What has happened to security and human rights?” According to the al-Jazeera correspondent in Gaza, “Cameramen recording the protest were not allowed to film, or get out of their cars.” Hamas has now banned unlicensed demonstrations in Gaza by the Fatah party.
Disintegration of Law. The armed wing of Hamas, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, reportedly seized legal documents from a lawyer that documented the confiscation of a car by Hamas. The militiamen took the lawyer’s affidavit at gunpoint. Human and legal rights groups have documented the crime, but since Hamas is now the law in Gaza, they have no way to escalate the matter. Similarly, when the EF recently stormed the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions headquarters, raised the green Hamas flag over the building, and “nationalized” it, the Federation could do nothing. Rule of law continues to deteriorate.
Killing Political Rivals. Hamas has attacked its rivals with utter brutality. During the Hamas assault on Gaza in July, according to a Palestinian human-rights group, some 160 Palestinians were killed, including 45 civilians, and 800 were wounded. Fatah accounted for most of the casualties in grisly violence that included summary executions, kneecapping, and throwing handcuffed prisoners from tall buildings. More recently, one PIJ member was killed and six were wounded Wednesday in a battle between Hamas and PIJ in the Gaza Strip. Hamas moved against PIJ after gunmen fired their weapons in the air during a wedding celebration. Claiming a need to enforce a ban on firing weapons in public, Hamas fired a rocket at a PIJ stronghold, and gunfire could be heard for hours.
Islamizing the Police. Tellingly, the Hamas Executive Force that has been beating demonstrators and banning free press held a teach-in two weeks ago on being a Muslim policeman. How Islam will play a role in policing Gaza is not yet known, but the very notion of religious police smacks of the Taliban’s Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which punished Afghanis for straying from sharia law.
Al Qaeda Links? In 2006, Hamas Interior Minister Said Sayyam stated that he would not order the arrests of operatives who carried out attacks against Israel. This was tantamount to an invitation for al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups to join Hamas in its war against Israel. Embattled Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has since stated that al-Qaeda maintains a presence in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Gaza Strip has never been idyllic. But, under Hamas, as one New York Times reporter notes, “Gaza looks like Somalia: broken and ravenous.” Hamas conquered Gaza by force. It will need to maintain its grip on power by force. This is the beginning of the Talibanization of Gaza, and the end of hope for the rule of law.
Friday, August 17, 2007
New York Police Reports Secrets to Growing a Domestic Jihadist
On Wednesday the New York Police Department issued “Radicalism in the West: A Homegrown Threat,” a report “that examines, in 90 pages, how ordinary people in the West can become radicalized and followers of what the report calls a jihadist ideology.” (“Police Issue Report on ‘Homegrown’ Terror Threat”).
According to the New York Times, the findings in the report were similar to those of other such reports. But within hours, both national CAIR, and Detroit area Muslims were condemning the report.
According to the Detroit News, (“Area Muslims find faults in NYPD radical terror report”):
"This makes it sound like any pious, decent Muslim is a potential terrorist," said Victor Ghalib Begg, a founder of the Council of Islamic Organizations, who helped establish the Muslim Unity Center mosque in Bloomfield Hills. "Islamophobia is a bitter fruit from the same tree that produces anti-Semitism and racism."
CAIR’s press release reads this way:
In a statement, CAIR Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed said:"Whatever one thinks of the analysis contained in the report, its sweeping generalizations and mixing of unrelated elements may serve to cast a pall of suspicion over the entire American Muslim community.”
Both Ahmed and the Detroit area’s Muslim leaders wrongly characterize the report on two points: that it paints all Muslims as potential terrorists, and that it ignores the Muslim community’s (as they see it) heroic efforts (!) to work with “law enforcement nationwide on proactive measures to keep our country safe and secure.”
For instance, Imad Hamad, regional director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, calls the report “disturbing”: “It goes against all of the good work and the constructive engagement that we had over the past few years with our friends in government, at all levels.”
The report doesn’t actually do that, as the subject matter of the report doesn’t happen to be Muslim cooperation with law enforcement, but how to prevent homegrown Muslim terrorism. A radiologist’s report can still indicate liver cancer without having to mention that the patient’s lifelong dental hygiene means he still has all his own teeth. Implicit in this type of complaint, though, is the enduring hope of Muslim advocates that their cooperation will be rewarded with a total law-enforcement ban against looking at member of the community for terror connections.
CAIR’s Ahmed said:
“Whatever one thinks of the analysis contained in the report, its sweeping generalizations and mixing of unrelated elements may serve to cast a pall of suspicion over the entire American Muslim community.”
In other words, even if one thinks the analysis in the report is sound, and therefore its conclusions reliable, the bottom line is that the American Muslim community must be preserved at all costs from any “palls of suspicion.”
Nor does the report, (or what I skimmed of it), paint with a broad brush that “portrays all Muslim men ages 17-35 as suspects -- even marking the mere abstention from alcohol and tobacco as evidence of potential radicalism.”
As yesterday’s almost unexpected conviction of Jose Padilla shows, the indictments of Muslim men in this country for terrorism since 9/11, let alone convictions, are startlingly few and far between. The suggestion that all young Muslim males are portrayed as suspects is nonsense.
As summarized in the New York Times, the report “identifies four steps in the process of radicalization: pre-radicalization, self-identification, indoctrination and jihadization. The report found that “homegrown” terrorist plots — involving seemingly “unremarkable” people — were behind terror plots or attacks in Britain, Spain, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands.”
The report proceeds by painstakingly analyzing the transformation of recent radical attackers from nominal Muslims into single-minded jihadists.
CAIR and the rest are very unhappy that, in the process of laying all that out, “’[t]he report lists sites that are likely to be visited by any American Muslim as radicalization “incubators.” The sites listed include mosques, cafes, cab driver hangouts, student associations, nongovernmental organizations, butcher shops, and book stores.”
But that’s not much of a criticism. The report lists those sites because there is a consistent pattern of evidence leading to these conclusions. If the shoe fits, and all.
What’s really going on here is this report is very dangerous for domestic jihadism, and CAIR knows it. The NYPD has taken a thorough and unafraid look at the environment and process of making radicals in America--and they’ve done it, as far as I can see--with little or nor concerns about accusations of “Islamophobia.” Every time that happens and valuable information like this comes out, we all become a bit less unsafe.
I intend to spend more time with this report. I hope a lot of Americans do.
According to the New York Times, the findings in the report were similar to those of other such reports. But within hours, both national CAIR, and Detroit area Muslims were condemning the report.
According to the Detroit News, (“Area Muslims find faults in NYPD radical terror report”):
"This makes it sound like any pious, decent Muslim is a potential terrorist," said Victor Ghalib Begg, a founder of the Council of Islamic Organizations, who helped establish the Muslim Unity Center mosque in Bloomfield Hills. "Islamophobia is a bitter fruit from the same tree that produces anti-Semitism and racism."
CAIR’s press release reads this way:
In a statement, CAIR Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed said:"Whatever one thinks of the analysis contained in the report, its sweeping generalizations and mixing of unrelated elements may serve to cast a pall of suspicion over the entire American Muslim community.”
Both Ahmed and the Detroit area’s Muslim leaders wrongly characterize the report on two points: that it paints all Muslims as potential terrorists, and that it ignores the Muslim community’s (as they see it) heroic efforts (!) to work with “law enforcement nationwide on proactive measures to keep our country safe and secure.”
For instance, Imad Hamad, regional director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, calls the report “disturbing”: “It goes against all of the good work and the constructive engagement that we had over the past few years with our friends in government, at all levels.”
The report doesn’t actually do that, as the subject matter of the report doesn’t happen to be Muslim cooperation with law enforcement, but how to prevent homegrown Muslim terrorism. A radiologist’s report can still indicate liver cancer without having to mention that the patient’s lifelong dental hygiene means he still has all his own teeth. Implicit in this type of complaint, though, is the enduring hope of Muslim advocates that their cooperation will be rewarded with a total law-enforcement ban against looking at member of the community for terror connections.
CAIR’s Ahmed said:
“Whatever one thinks of the analysis contained in the report, its sweeping generalizations and mixing of unrelated elements may serve to cast a pall of suspicion over the entire American Muslim community.”
In other words, even if one thinks the analysis in the report is sound, and therefore its conclusions reliable, the bottom line is that the American Muslim community must be preserved at all costs from any “palls of suspicion.”
Nor does the report, (or what I skimmed of it), paint with a broad brush that “portrays all Muslim men ages 17-35 as suspects -- even marking the mere abstention from alcohol and tobacco as evidence of potential radicalism.”
As yesterday’s almost unexpected conviction of Jose Padilla shows, the indictments of Muslim men in this country for terrorism since 9/11, let alone convictions, are startlingly few and far between. The suggestion that all young Muslim males are portrayed as suspects is nonsense.
As summarized in the New York Times, the report “identifies four steps in the process of radicalization: pre-radicalization, self-identification, indoctrination and jihadization. The report found that “homegrown” terrorist plots — involving seemingly “unremarkable” people — were behind terror plots or attacks in Britain, Spain, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands.”
The report proceeds by painstakingly analyzing the transformation of recent radical attackers from nominal Muslims into single-minded jihadists.
CAIR and the rest are very unhappy that, in the process of laying all that out, “’[t]he report lists sites that are likely to be visited by any American Muslim as radicalization “incubators.” The sites listed include mosques, cafes, cab driver hangouts, student associations, nongovernmental organizations, butcher shops, and book stores.”
But that’s not much of a criticism. The report lists those sites because there is a consistent pattern of evidence leading to these conclusions. If the shoe fits, and all.
What’s really going on here is this report is very dangerous for domestic jihadism, and CAIR knows it. The NYPD has taken a thorough and unafraid look at the environment and process of making radicals in America--and they’ve done it, as far as I can see--with little or nor concerns about accusations of “Islamophobia.” Every time that happens and valuable information like this comes out, we all become a bit less unsafe.
I intend to spend more time with this report. I hope a lot of Americans do.
He Was Slain for the Truth, But Bailey's Old Newspaper Isn't Taking Chances
The late Chauncey Bailey’s former employer, the Detroit News, ran a story today covering the reporter's Thursday-night eulogy under the headline, “Slain journalist was ‘after the truth’”.
Only appropriate, considering the circumstances of his being gunned down for investigating the underside of Black Muslims in Oakland, California.
Unfortunately, the Detroit News, where Bailey worked for years, isn’t sufficiently “after the truth” any more to dare mentioning in their news article why Bailey was gunned down, nor what kind of people his murderer was associated with.
This, in spite of admitting the newsworthiness of a slaying that that “sent shock waves through newsrooms across the country. It had been 30 years since an American journalist was slain in this country.”
Instead, News readers only are told this:
Bailey was killed in the line of duty Aug. 2. He was shot in downtown Oakland, Calif., as he strolled to the Oakland Post, where he was editor. The suspect, 19-year-old Devaughndre Broussard, admitted he killed Bailey because Bailey was working on an investigative piece about the bakery where Broussard worked, police have said.
That certainly explains why Bailey became the first American journalist shot down in 30 years. We all know how dangerous it can be snooping around a bakery, after all.
The Detroit News, unworthy of Bailey’s memory, purposely fails to mention that the establishment was the “Your Black Muslim Bakery,” and that rounded up along with the killer were bakery owner and Black Muslim thug, Yusuf Bay IV, son of the bakery’s founder, and proud enforcer of Islamic prohibitions against selling liquor in Oakland’s Muslim-owned beer-and-wine stores, (which he refers to as “cleaning up the streets”).
Nor did the News mention that Broussard told police "that when he killed Chauncey Bailey, he was acting 'as a good soldier.'" ("The Black Muslims Of Oakland").
According to News reporter Cindy Rodriguez's account of Thursday's memorial service:
A life-size photo of Bailey, lips curled into a faint smile, was perched at the altar. At the conclusion of Mass, the four eulogists captured the essence of Bailey's persona.
"He was not a thermometer. He didn't just take the temperature of a community. He was a thermostat," said Joe Madison, former president of the Detroit branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and now a radio talk show host in Washington, D.C.
Madison said Bailey knew how to turn up the heat.
And he did.
And the Detroit News obviously knows how to turn it right back down again.
Only appropriate, considering the circumstances of his being gunned down for investigating the underside of Black Muslims in Oakland, California.
Unfortunately, the Detroit News, where Bailey worked for years, isn’t sufficiently “after the truth” any more to dare mentioning in their news article why Bailey was gunned down, nor what kind of people his murderer was associated with.
This, in spite of admitting the newsworthiness of a slaying that that “sent shock waves through newsrooms across the country. It had been 30 years since an American journalist was slain in this country.”
Instead, News readers only are told this:
Bailey was killed in the line of duty Aug. 2. He was shot in downtown Oakland, Calif., as he strolled to the Oakland Post, where he was editor. The suspect, 19-year-old Devaughndre Broussard, admitted he killed Bailey because Bailey was working on an investigative piece about the bakery where Broussard worked, police have said.
That certainly explains why Bailey became the first American journalist shot down in 30 years. We all know how dangerous it can be snooping around a bakery, after all.
The Detroit News, unworthy of Bailey’s memory, purposely fails to mention that the establishment was the “Your Black Muslim Bakery,” and that rounded up along with the killer were bakery owner and Black Muslim thug, Yusuf Bay IV, son of the bakery’s founder, and proud enforcer of Islamic prohibitions against selling liquor in Oakland’s Muslim-owned beer-and-wine stores, (which he refers to as “cleaning up the streets”).
Nor did the News mention that Broussard told police "that when he killed Chauncey Bailey, he was acting 'as a good soldier.'" ("The Black Muslims Of Oakland").
According to News reporter Cindy Rodriguez's account of Thursday's memorial service:
A life-size photo of Bailey, lips curled into a faint smile, was perched at the altar. At the conclusion of Mass, the four eulogists captured the essence of Bailey's persona.
"He was not a thermometer. He didn't just take the temperature of a community. He was a thermostat," said Joe Madison, former president of the Detroit branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and now a radio talk show host in Washington, D.C.
Madison said Bailey knew how to turn up the heat.
And he did.
And the Detroit News obviously knows how to turn it right back down again.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
'An Irritating Contradiction' to What the World Wants to Believe
The German magazine Der Spiegel, no supporter of the Iraq war or the Bush administration, has just published a lengthy article on , is the surprising progress (from Der Spiegel’s point of view) of the surge in Iraq. (“Hope and Despair in Divided Iraq”). It is well worth reading.
Citing Ramadi in particular as an “irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq,” the article says the peaceful situation there today:
is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq -- not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers -- are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn't hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious "Sunni Triangle," is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.
Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters (“German Mag: US Military in Iraq More Successful Than World Wants To Believe”), cites numerous quotes from the piece, asking over and over, “Can you imagine any American journalist writing such words?”
Here's another example:
Since June, Ramadi residents have only known the war from televison. [sic] Indeed, US military officials at the Baghdad headquarters of Operation Iraqi Freedom often have trouble believing their eyes when they read the reports coming in from their units in Ramadi these days. Exploded car bombs: zero. Detonated roadside bombs: zero. Rocket fire: zero. Grenade fire: zero. Shots from rifles and pistols: zero. Weapons caches discovered: dozens. Terrorists arrested: many.
Here’s another outstanding passage from the Der Spiegel article, thanks in particular to the golden-tongued observations of US Army Captain Lauer:
The US military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe.
The Iraq war came within a hair of returning to Ramadi in early July. The attackers had already gathered four kilometers (about 2.5 miles) south of the city, on the banks of the Nasr canal. Between 40 and 50 men dressed in light uniforms were armed like soldiers and prepared to commit a series of suicide bombings. They had already strapped explosive vests to their bodies and loaded thousands of kilograms of explosives, missiles and grenades onto two old Mercedes trucks. But their plan was foiled when Iraqis intent on preserving peace in Ramadi betrayed them to the Americans.
Army Units of the 1st Battalion of the 77th United States Armored Regiment -- nicknamed the "Steel Tigers" and sent from an American base in Schweinfurt, Germany -- approached from the north and south. But the enemy was strong and they quickly realized that in order to defeat it, they needed air support. Before long, Apache combat helicopters, F-18 Hornet and AV-8 Harrier jets approached, the explosions from their guns lighting up the night sky on June 30.
The "Battle of Donkey Island," named after the wild donkeys native to the region, lasted 23 hours. The Americans forced the enemy to engage in trench warfare in the rough brush, eventually trapping them in the vast riverside landscape. It wasn't until later, after the soldiers lost two of their own and killed 35 terrorists, that they realized the scope of the disaster they had foiled.
Three of the captured attackers, who claimed to be members of al-Qaida in Iraq, revealed their plan to plunge Ramadi into chaos once again by staging multiple attacks in broad daylight. By unleashing a devastating series of suicide attacks on the city, they hoped to destroy the delicate peace in Ramadi and bring the war back to its markets, squares, streets and residential neighborhoods.
Two weeks after the battle, Ian Lauer is walking through Ramadi's western Tameem neighborhood, the edges of which melt into the vast Syrian Desert. Lauer, a captain, is in charge of Charlie Company. He hasn't forgotten the Battle of Donkey Island. The members of his company have just emerged from four armor-plated Humvees and are now strolling toward a nearby mosque.
"A few months ago, you couldn't have taken a single step here without getting shot at," says Lauer, a fair-skinned 30-year-old who still seems oddly pale under his suntan "We couldn't leave our fucking camp without being fucking shot at," he says. "Now it's peaceful and it's fucking great."
Great, naturally, unless you happen to be one of those clinging to what “the world wants to believe” about the US losing the war in Iraq--and because you have some personal stake in the bad guys winning.
In that case, you find this kind of news an “irritating contradiction” to what you want to believe.
You may recall that in early July, just around the time of the Battle of Donkey Island, Harry Reid, Carl Levin, and Dick Lugar were in Washington trying to push through Congress a plan to admit failure and pull out of Iraq. (“Sensing a Shift, Reid Will Press for an Iraq Exit”). They are convinced that there is no military solution. I think the recent Ramadi says otherwise.
Personally, I welcome the input and honesty from Der Spiegel (and O'Hanlon's and Pollock's honest assessment in the New York Times last week in A War We Just Might Win). I also welcome the good news these stories are reporting from Ramadi and elsewhere.
In fact, I think it's fucking great.
But if you just find it irritating, why in the world would that be?
Citing Ramadi in particular as an “irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq,” the article says the peaceful situation there today:
is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq -- not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers -- are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn't hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious "Sunni Triangle," is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.
Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters (“German Mag: US Military in Iraq More Successful Than World Wants To Believe”), cites numerous quotes from the piece, asking over and over, “Can you imagine any American journalist writing such words?”
Here's another example:
Since June, Ramadi residents have only known the war from televison. [sic] Indeed, US military officials at the Baghdad headquarters of Operation Iraqi Freedom often have trouble believing their eyes when they read the reports coming in from their units in Ramadi these days. Exploded car bombs: zero. Detonated roadside bombs: zero. Rocket fire: zero. Grenade fire: zero. Shots from rifles and pistols: zero. Weapons caches discovered: dozens. Terrorists arrested: many.
Here’s another outstanding passage from the Der Spiegel article, thanks in particular to the golden-tongued observations of US Army Captain Lauer:
The US military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe.
The Iraq war came within a hair of returning to Ramadi in early July. The attackers had already gathered four kilometers (about 2.5 miles) south of the city, on the banks of the Nasr canal. Between 40 and 50 men dressed in light uniforms were armed like soldiers and prepared to commit a series of suicide bombings. They had already strapped explosive vests to their bodies and loaded thousands of kilograms of explosives, missiles and grenades onto two old Mercedes trucks. But their plan was foiled when Iraqis intent on preserving peace in Ramadi betrayed them to the Americans.
Army Units of the 1st Battalion of the 77th United States Armored Regiment -- nicknamed the "Steel Tigers" and sent from an American base in Schweinfurt, Germany -- approached from the north and south. But the enemy was strong and they quickly realized that in order to defeat it, they needed air support. Before long, Apache combat helicopters, F-18 Hornet and AV-8 Harrier jets approached, the explosions from their guns lighting up the night sky on June 30.
The "Battle of Donkey Island," named after the wild donkeys native to the region, lasted 23 hours. The Americans forced the enemy to engage in trench warfare in the rough brush, eventually trapping them in the vast riverside landscape. It wasn't until later, after the soldiers lost two of their own and killed 35 terrorists, that they realized the scope of the disaster they had foiled.
Three of the captured attackers, who claimed to be members of al-Qaida in Iraq, revealed their plan to plunge Ramadi into chaos once again by staging multiple attacks in broad daylight. By unleashing a devastating series of suicide attacks on the city, they hoped to destroy the delicate peace in Ramadi and bring the war back to its markets, squares, streets and residential neighborhoods.
Two weeks after the battle, Ian Lauer is walking through Ramadi's western Tameem neighborhood, the edges of which melt into the vast Syrian Desert. Lauer, a captain, is in charge of Charlie Company. He hasn't forgotten the Battle of Donkey Island. The members of his company have just emerged from four armor-plated Humvees and are now strolling toward a nearby mosque.
"A few months ago, you couldn't have taken a single step here without getting shot at," says Lauer, a fair-skinned 30-year-old who still seems oddly pale under his suntan "We couldn't leave our fucking camp without being fucking shot at," he says. "Now it's peaceful and it's fucking great."
Great, naturally, unless you happen to be one of those clinging to what “the world wants to believe” about the US losing the war in Iraq--and because you have some personal stake in the bad guys winning.
In that case, you find this kind of news an “irritating contradiction” to what you want to believe.
You may recall that in early July, just around the time of the Battle of Donkey Island, Harry Reid, Carl Levin, and Dick Lugar were in Washington trying to push through Congress a plan to admit failure and pull out of Iraq. (“Sensing a Shift, Reid Will Press for an Iraq Exit”). They are convinced that there is no military solution. I think the recent Ramadi says otherwise.
Personally, I welcome the input and honesty from Der Spiegel (and O'Hanlon's and Pollock's honest assessment in the New York Times last week in A War We Just Might Win). I also welcome the good news these stories are reporting from Ramadi and elsewhere.
In fact, I think it's fucking great.
But if you just find it irritating, why in the world would that be?
Ralph Peters on 'Whacking Iran'
From today's New York Post:
WHACKING IRAN
By RALPH PETERS
August 16, 2007 -- THE media missed a big one yesterday.
They ran with the story that the Bush administration will soon designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps - a major troublemaker in Iraq - as a terrorist organization. But they didn't look past the public-consumption explanation that the move lets our government go after the Revolutionary Guards' finances and the international companies that cut deals with Tehran's thugs.
The real reason for the move is to set up a legal basis for airstrikes or special operations raids on the Guard's bases in Iran.
Our policy is that we reserve the right to whack terrorists anywhere in the world. Now we have newly designated terrorists. And we know exactly where they are.
This doesn't mean we won't go after their money, too. The Revolutionary Guards have built up a financial empire - they're religious fanatics, but, in their version of Islam, "greed is good."
Hurting Iran's assassins in the pocketbook reduces their ability to export terror.
But watch that space: We've long delayed taking action against the Iranians who provide Iraq's Shia extremists with the sophisticated IEDs that kill and maim our troops. We fell into the Vietnam-era trap of allowing the enemy a sanctuary - this time, in Iran. The Revolutionary Guards' al-Quds subsidiary helped butcher hundreds of our troops - and got away with it virtually scot-free.
Looks like those days are nearing an end.
Let's hope so.
WHACKING IRAN
By RALPH PETERS
August 16, 2007 -- THE media missed a big one yesterday.
They ran with the story that the Bush administration will soon designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps - a major troublemaker in Iraq - as a terrorist organization. But they didn't look past the public-consumption explanation that the move lets our government go after the Revolutionary Guards' finances and the international companies that cut deals with Tehran's thugs.
The real reason for the move is to set up a legal basis for airstrikes or special operations raids on the Guard's bases in Iran.
Our policy is that we reserve the right to whack terrorists anywhere in the world. Now we have newly designated terrorists. And we know exactly where they are.
This doesn't mean we won't go after their money, too. The Revolutionary Guards have built up a financial empire - they're religious fanatics, but, in their version of Islam, "greed is good."
Hurting Iran's assassins in the pocketbook reduces their ability to export terror.
But watch that space: We've long delayed taking action against the Iranians who provide Iraq's Shia extremists with the sophisticated IEDs that kill and maim our troops. We fell into the Vietnam-era trap of allowing the enemy a sanctuary - this time, in Iran. The Revolutionary Guards' al-Quds subsidiary helped butcher hundreds of our troops - and got away with it virtually scot-free.
Looks like those days are nearing an end.
Let's hope so.
Al Qaeda Does Some Religious Cleansing in Iraq
A U.S. commander in northern Iraq said it was “ethnic cleansing” when al Qaeda in Iraq killed as many as 500 members of an ancient religious sect on Wednesday. (“'Act of ethnic cleansing'.”)
“’This is an act of ethnic cleansing, if you will, almost genocide,’ Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, told CNN.”
But as the Detroit News report indicates,
“The victims of Tuesday night's coordinated attack by four suicide bombers were Yazidis, a small Kurdish-speaking sect that has been targeted by Muslim extremists who consider its members to be blasphemers.”
Killing people because you think they are blasphemers isn't ethnic cleansing, but religiously-motivated murder. Motivated, that is, by the Islamic religion, which considers blasphemy against Islam a sound justification for homicide.
Gen. Mixon is correct that the murders were “almost genocide.” But we’d all be better off if we could be more careful to understand what the actual motive for the genocide is.
“’This is an act of ethnic cleansing, if you will, almost genocide,’ Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, told CNN.”
But as the Detroit News report indicates,
“The victims of Tuesday night's coordinated attack by four suicide bombers were Yazidis, a small Kurdish-speaking sect that has been targeted by Muslim extremists who consider its members to be blasphemers.”
Killing people because you think they are blasphemers isn't ethnic cleansing, but religiously-motivated murder. Motivated, that is, by the Islamic religion, which considers blasphemy against Islam a sound justification for homicide.
Gen. Mixon is correct that the murders were “almost genocide.” But we’d all be better off if we could be more careful to understand what the actual motive for the genocide is.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Bailey's Accused Murderers Have History of Enforcing Islam the Hard Way
As reports pointed to yesterday, the gun used to murder former Detroit News writer Chauncey Bailey in Oakland, California has been traced by police there to the Black Muslim group that operates the Your Black Muslim Bakery. (“Police believe they have journalist's killer”). Among the seven men arrested on Friday are Yusuf Bey IV, son of Yusuf Bey, the founder of the bakery. (“Black Muslim bakery members suspected in Bailey death").
As of this morning, a 19-year-old handyman connected with the bakery has confessed to the killing (“Report: Bakery Handyman Confesses To Bailey Slaying”).
It was fairly widely known that Bailey, who was working for the Oakland Post at the time of his killing, “had been working on a story about ‘the financial status of the organization’' and the ‘`activities of a number of people who were working in the organization,’ including possible criminal activity.”
According to the San Francisco Chronicle and other sources, the Black Muslim group had a long history of violence, intimidation, and other criminal activity, including rape and kidnapping. Though Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam denies connection with the bakery group, the bakery gang’s founder, Yusuf Bey, and its current members, all wear the distinctive "You Can Call Me Minister Farrakhan bow-tie and slick street menace, and they call themselves "Black Muslims." You can get a look at the younger Yusuf Bey’s TV interview on Thursday night. The highlight of Bey’s spiel, which he gave after Bailey's murder, was his stated devotion to “cleaning the streets up.”
According to Bay Area KTVU-TV:
"Lt. Ersey Joyner, head of the homicide unit at the Oakland Police Department, said, 'In my opinion several members of the bakery have been involved in a very violent enterprise and carried themselves in a manner that was disrespectful to the community and to law enforcement.' Joyner said, 'They are very callous and appear to have believed that they were untouchable.'" ("OAKLAND POLICE: Muslim Bakers Lived Lawless Life”).
Maybe this was why they seemed so unconcerned at being caught on security video when a bunch of them trashed a liquor store in November 2005--one of two they wrecked that night. Significantly, the attackers made clear to the store clerks that they were angry that the “Muslim-owned business would sell liquor when it's against the teachings of Islam to do so.” (“Oakland Liquor Store Vandalism Defendants Considering Plea Bargains”).
Still, in spite of the clearly religious basis of the attacks, Oakland police at the time said “the motive for the attacks was to express anger about the large number of liquor stores in the city's black community.” In the same vein, now Oakland Assistant Police Chief Howard Jordan, “[r]eferring to the alleged criminal activity and today's arrests…said, ‘This should not be seen as religious.’”
Intimidating reporters is also an important part of the Your Black Muslim Bakery's community outreach. In 2002 a previous series of reports on the group for the San Francisco weekly, East Bay Express, led to escalating threats against the reporter to the point the paper “stopped writing about the group," and the reporter had to hide out in another county after that. (“Bakery linked to violence in the past”).
In this case, Walter Riley, the attorney for the Oakland Post, the newspaper for whom Bailey was investigating the gang’s criminal activity when he was gunned down, now says “the newspaper was unable to verify key details of the story and decided not to run it, possibly abandoning the article altogether.” Since Bailey was just killed the day before, the newspaper has no business saying it couldn't verify the details of what was probably a complicated investigative story. But we all know what Riley meant: 'we get the message and we're laying off."
Donna Ayo, a community leader who knew Bailey a long time, said she knew about Bailey’s story. She said "'I know about the article they did not approve of. But they're not above the board. They (the Black Muslims) don't get a pass.’”
Two newspapers have already dropped stories about these thugs out of fear. We'll see if they get a pass or not.
As of this morning, a 19-year-old handyman connected with the bakery has confessed to the killing (“Report: Bakery Handyman Confesses To Bailey Slaying”).
It was fairly widely known that Bailey, who was working for the Oakland Post at the time of his killing, “had been working on a story about ‘the financial status of the organization’' and the ‘`activities of a number of people who were working in the organization,’ including possible criminal activity.”
According to the San Francisco Chronicle and other sources, the Black Muslim group had a long history of violence, intimidation, and other criminal activity, including rape and kidnapping. Though Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam denies connection with the bakery group, the bakery gang’s founder, Yusuf Bey, and its current members, all wear the distinctive "You Can Call Me Minister Farrakhan bow-tie and slick street menace, and they call themselves "Black Muslims." You can get a look at the younger Yusuf Bey’s TV interview on Thursday night. The highlight of Bey’s spiel, which he gave after Bailey's murder, was his stated devotion to “cleaning the streets up.”
According to Bay Area KTVU-TV:
"Lt. Ersey Joyner, head of the homicide unit at the Oakland Police Department, said, 'In my opinion several members of the bakery have been involved in a very violent enterprise and carried themselves in a manner that was disrespectful to the community and to law enforcement.' Joyner said, 'They are very callous and appear to have believed that they were untouchable.'" ("OAKLAND POLICE: Muslim Bakers Lived Lawless Life”).
Maybe this was why they seemed so unconcerned at being caught on security video when a bunch of them trashed a liquor store in November 2005--one of two they wrecked that night. Significantly, the attackers made clear to the store clerks that they were angry that the “Muslim-owned business would sell liquor when it's against the teachings of Islam to do so.” (“Oakland Liquor Store Vandalism Defendants Considering Plea Bargains”).
Still, in spite of the clearly religious basis of the attacks, Oakland police at the time said “the motive for the attacks was to express anger about the large number of liquor stores in the city's black community.” In the same vein, now Oakland Assistant Police Chief Howard Jordan, “[r]eferring to the alleged criminal activity and today's arrests…said, ‘This should not be seen as religious.’”
Intimidating reporters is also an important part of the Your Black Muslim Bakery's community outreach. In 2002 a previous series of reports on the group for the San Francisco weekly, East Bay Express, led to escalating threats against the reporter to the point the paper “stopped writing about the group," and the reporter had to hide out in another county after that. (“Bakery linked to violence in the past”).
In this case, Walter Riley, the attorney for the Oakland Post, the newspaper for whom Bailey was investigating the gang’s criminal activity when he was gunned down, now says “the newspaper was unable to verify key details of the story and decided not to run it, possibly abandoning the article altogether.” Since Bailey was just killed the day before, the newspaper has no business saying it couldn't verify the details of what was probably a complicated investigative story. But we all know what Riley meant: 'we get the message and we're laying off."
Donna Ayo, a community leader who knew Bailey a long time, said she knew about Bailey’s story. She said "'I know about the article they did not approve of. But they're not above the board. They (the Black Muslims) don't get a pass.’”
Two newspapers have already dropped stories about these thugs out of fear. We'll see if they get a pass or not.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Chauncey Bailey Murder in Oakland, CA May Be Linked With Islam
Former Detroit News writer, Chauncey Bailey, was shot dead execution-style Thursday morning while on his way to work in Oakland, CA, killed by a lone gunman dressed in black and wearing a black mask. (“Former News staffer shot dead in California").
This morning, police detained more than a dozen people in possible connection with the killing, picked up during raids on four locations, including “the often-troubled Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland.” (“Oakland, Fremont descend on Your Black Muslim Bakery”).
The son of the bakery's founder, the late Yusuf Bey, along with “some other young men were identified as the young toughs who bashed liquor bottles in Oakland corner stores and berated the owners for selling alcohol in the community.”
The AP also reports that “Chauncey Bailey was reportedly researching an investigative piece into Your Black Muslim Bakery before he was shot and killed just yesterday morning.”
I remember Bailey from when he was a writer for the News here in Detroit.
Really, when was the last time you heard of a garden-variety street hood wearing all black and a black mask?
JihadWatch is also watching this story.
This morning, police detained more than a dozen people in possible connection with the killing, picked up during raids on four locations, including “the often-troubled Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland.” (“Oakland, Fremont descend on Your Black Muslim Bakery”).
The son of the bakery's founder, the late Yusuf Bey, along with “some other young men were identified as the young toughs who bashed liquor bottles in Oakland corner stores and berated the owners for selling alcohol in the community.”
The AP also reports that “Chauncey Bailey was reportedly researching an investigative piece into Your Black Muslim Bakery before he was shot and killed just yesterday morning.”
I remember Bailey from when he was a writer for the News here in Detroit.
Really, when was the last time you heard of a garden-variety street hood wearing all black and a black mask?
JihadWatch is also watching this story.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
MSA-CAIR Double-Teaming Gets Results at Pace University, and at UM-Dearborn
The recent travesty at New York’s Pace University in which student Stanislav Shmulevich was arrested and charged with two felony counts of Criminal Mischief in the Fourth Degree as a Hate Crime for tossing a Koran in a campus men’s room toilet has the hands of the Muslim Student Association’s dawa policy all over it.
Your local campus MSA is not just an ordinary student organization, but a serious pressure group that can throw enough weight against college administrators to get their way. As envisioned by its Muslim Brotherhood founders, MSA's primary mission includes dawa, that is, the non-violent method by which nonMuslim society is prepared for jihad and, ultimately, Islamic rule:
“Preparing the society is achieved thru plans for: spreading the Islamic culture, the possible media means, mosques, and da'wa work in public organizations such as syndicates, parliaments, student unions, ... Parallel to that, distinct muslims should be trained to administer political, economical, social, and student organizations efficiently (and Islamically), as another preparation step.”
At Pace, the university’s decision to categorize the vandalism as a hate crime wasn’t arrived at because administrators had a weakness for the victim claims of Muslim students. According to the New York Times, Pace officials discussed it first with police, and between them decided it was only “an act of vandalism rather than a hate crime.” This made sense.
Then, according to a former MSA board member, Haseeb, who blogs at Hahmed.com, it was only “[a]fter much deliberation between the Muslim Students’ Association with the school’s administration, [that] the university finally agreed to define this as a hate crime and investigated the issue.”
Indeed after the second incident a few weeks later, though it was no more of a intimidating nor a hate crime than the first incident, the MSA was ready to pounce.
The New York Times quoted the MSA's spokeswoman: "This time, the MSA @ Pace was quick to action again, and the university was much more supportive in their concerns“I would say that the university has kind of done a 180 and is definitely working with us in terms of labeling it as a hate crime."
Nor did MSA act without coordinated support from CAIR.
While Ibrahim Hooper and other flacks are complaining that finding pages of the Koran in a campus toilet is an act of intimidation creating a “hostile environment” for Muslim students at Pace, Haseeb more sincerely characterizes the incidents as an “opportunity.” The MSA welcomes the incident to leverage concessions from a scared university administration.
And the MSA never wants only what they’re demanding at the moment. They’re always taking the long view, and incidents like these are handy excuses to leverage greater and greater demands for special treatment for Islam.
At Pace, once they'd gotten the university to investigate the vandalism as a hate crime, the MSA kept up the pressure. Once the university did their "180" on the calling vandalism a hate crime, they pitched in to offer "sensitivity forums," according to Faiza Ali of the Muslim Students Association.
Haseeb explains the larger success of the Pace MSA, in that, ‘”aside from the proper labeling of the crime (as a hate crime) and the ensuing investigation, the MSA is also working hard with the administration in starting an anti-hate campaign which “will include sensitivity training for students and senior administrators, a program to train people in the proper protocols for handling bias incidents, public forums to discuss the hate crimes that have taken place, and the issuing of wallet cards with phone numbers for people to call in emergencies.”
Nor do local MSA chapters ever seem to make a move without CAIR providing public relations services--consisting largely of reckless charges of “Islamophobia” against anyone who criticizes any MSA goals. From CAIR-NY's press release:
“On Tuesday, October 3, the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) will participate in a town hall meeting at Pace University to discuss a recent incident in which a Quran, Islam’s revealed text, was found in the toilet in a campus men’s room. CAIR-NY is calling on the university to treat the incident as a possible hate crime….CAIR-NY sees this incident as evidence of the growing phenomenon of Islamophobia in the United States and will encourage Pace University to hold more town hall meetings for the student population in order to create a better understanding of Islam.”
Closer to home, CAIR-MI and the MSA chapter at the University of Michigan-Dearborn have revealed a similar cooperative strategy, pressuring the University to install Muslim foot baths as a sign of special status for Muslim students. While the MSA has carefully disguised its years-long pressure on the administration to install the foot baths, when the plan finally “came to light,” CAIR-MI executive director Dawud Walid suddenly appeared as the main spokesperson for the plan, defending the University, the MSA, and even the ACLU--none of which organizations he is formally associated with. And, of course, as spokesman, he is condemning all critics of the foot-bath plan as “Islamophobic.”
We at DU never thought the foot baths in themselves were serious enough to cause a fuss, though we have always believed they were unlawful. Instead, we have always seen them as symbolic concessions, just another step in preparing a cowed administration for provide greater and greater concessions to Islam as a religion with a special status--concessions perhaps even to soon include an “anti-hate campaign” for UM-Dearborn, including a mandatory world religion class to infuse students with a greater appreciation for the world’s most misunderstood world religion -- Islam.
Sound far-fetched? Well, Ms. Ali of the PACE MSA isn’t stopping with just charging a student with a hate crime. She “would like to see Pace do more, like hiring a campus chaplain.... She also wants a world religions course to be required for all students. Both are suggestions Pace officials say they will consider.
“’We have science, computers, public speaking as requirements,’ Ms. Ali said. ‘Especially in New York, you are exposed to so many people. A world religions course would be a great way to prepare students for what they’re in store for.’”
What they’re in store for is right.
Your local campus MSA is not just an ordinary student organization, but a serious pressure group that can throw enough weight against college administrators to get their way. As envisioned by its Muslim Brotherhood founders, MSA's primary mission includes dawa, that is, the non-violent method by which nonMuslim society is prepared for jihad and, ultimately, Islamic rule:
“Preparing the society is achieved thru plans for: spreading the Islamic culture, the possible media means, mosques, and da'wa work in public organizations such as syndicates, parliaments, student unions, ... Parallel to that, distinct muslims should be trained to administer political, economical, social, and student organizations efficiently (and Islamically), as another preparation step.”
At Pace, the university’s decision to categorize the vandalism as a hate crime wasn’t arrived at because administrators had a weakness for the victim claims of Muslim students. According to the New York Times, Pace officials discussed it first with police, and between them decided it was only “an act of vandalism rather than a hate crime.” This made sense.
Then, according to a former MSA board member, Haseeb, who blogs at Hahmed.com, it was only “[a]fter much deliberation between the Muslim Students’ Association with the school’s administration, [that] the university finally agreed to define this as a hate crime and investigated the issue.”
Indeed after the second incident a few weeks later, though it was no more of a intimidating nor a hate crime than the first incident, the MSA was ready to pounce.
The New York Times quoted the MSA's spokeswoman: "This time, the MSA @ Pace was quick to action again, and the university was much more supportive in their concerns“I would say that the university has kind of done a 180 and is definitely working with us in terms of labeling it as a hate crime."
Nor did MSA act without coordinated support from CAIR.
While Ibrahim Hooper and other flacks are complaining that finding pages of the Koran in a campus toilet is an act of intimidation creating a “hostile environment” for Muslim students at Pace, Haseeb more sincerely characterizes the incidents as an “opportunity.” The MSA welcomes the incident to leverage concessions from a scared university administration.
And the MSA never wants only what they’re demanding at the moment. They’re always taking the long view, and incidents like these are handy excuses to leverage greater and greater demands for special treatment for Islam.
At Pace, once they'd gotten the university to investigate the vandalism as a hate crime, the MSA kept up the pressure. Once the university did their "180" on the calling vandalism a hate crime, they pitched in to offer "sensitivity forums," according to Faiza Ali of the Muslim Students Association.
Haseeb explains the larger success of the Pace MSA, in that, ‘”aside from the proper labeling of the crime (as a hate crime) and the ensuing investigation, the MSA is also working hard with the administration in starting an anti-hate campaign which “will include sensitivity training for students and senior administrators, a program to train people in the proper protocols for handling bias incidents, public forums to discuss the hate crimes that have taken place, and the issuing of wallet cards with phone numbers for people to call in emergencies.”
Nor do local MSA chapters ever seem to make a move without CAIR providing public relations services--consisting largely of reckless charges of “Islamophobia” against anyone who criticizes any MSA goals. From CAIR-NY's press release:
“On Tuesday, October 3, the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) will participate in a town hall meeting at Pace University to discuss a recent incident in which a Quran, Islam’s revealed text, was found in the toilet in a campus men’s room. CAIR-NY is calling on the university to treat the incident as a possible hate crime….CAIR-NY sees this incident as evidence of the growing phenomenon of Islamophobia in the United States and will encourage Pace University to hold more town hall meetings for the student population in order to create a better understanding of Islam.”
Closer to home, CAIR-MI and the MSA chapter at the University of Michigan-Dearborn have revealed a similar cooperative strategy, pressuring the University to install Muslim foot baths as a sign of special status for Muslim students. While the MSA has carefully disguised its years-long pressure on the administration to install the foot baths, when the plan finally “came to light,” CAIR-MI executive director Dawud Walid suddenly appeared as the main spokesperson for the plan, defending the University, the MSA, and even the ACLU--none of which organizations he is formally associated with. And, of course, as spokesman, he is condemning all critics of the foot-bath plan as “Islamophobic.”
We at DU never thought the foot baths in themselves were serious enough to cause a fuss, though we have always believed they were unlawful. Instead, we have always seen them as symbolic concessions, just another step in preparing a cowed administration for provide greater and greater concessions to Islam as a religion with a special status--concessions perhaps even to soon include an “anti-hate campaign” for UM-Dearborn, including a mandatory world religion class to infuse students with a greater appreciation for the world’s most misunderstood world religion -- Islam.
Sound far-fetched? Well, Ms. Ali of the PACE MSA isn’t stopping with just charging a student with a hate crime. She “would like to see Pace do more, like hiring a campus chaplain.... She also wants a world religions course to be required for all students. Both are suggestions Pace officials say they will consider.
“’We have science, computers, public speaking as requirements,’ Ms. Ali said. ‘Especially in New York, you are exposed to so many people. A world religions course would be a great way to prepare students for what they’re in store for.’”
What they’re in store for is right.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Taliban Murders a Victory for South Korea's Missionaries
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
Psalm 116.15
Second Korean Hostage In Afghanistan Shot Dead
7/30/2007 3:11:39 PM
Taliban militants have killed a second South Korean from a group of 23 held hostage in south Afghanistan on Monday. A spokesman for the militants has said that they have shot dead the Christian missionary because the Afghan authorities did not listen to their demands. It is reported that the Taliban will kill more hostages if Kabul ignores their demand to release rebel prisoners, but the militants gave no new deadline.With this, the number of Koreans killed by the hijackers since they have captured 23 Koreans 12 days ago from a bus in Ghazni province to the southwest of Kabul has increased to two. The militants killed the leader of the group on Wednesday after an earlier deadline passed. The office of the governor of Ghazni and local police have confirmed the killing. The identity of the victim has not been disclosed, except that it is a male. The rebels had threatened to start killing the South Korean hostages if their demand for releasing militants from prison was not met within the deadline. The capturers have extended the deadline seven times since the Christian missionaries including women were abducted.Earlier on Monday, Afghan governor Waheedullah Mujadadi had pleaded with the militants to give more time for negotiations.
The quiet story of the South Korean Christian missionaries being murdered one by one by a Taliban gang in Pakistan is not attracting very much attention. It’s easy to miss the story among the growing pile of reports of battles large and small being fought by Islam against the rest of the world on cultural, political, and military fronts.
It needs to be kept in mind, though, that in spite of what our political leaders have to say, (out of deference, really, to the limits of our secular democracies to wage wars of religion), this struggle with Islam is first and foremost a religious war. The Taliban murdered the missionaries mainly because they are Christians, and secondarily to terrify South Korea into squelching its generous evangelistic impulse to keep sending missionaries to Taliban-land in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This latter tactic seems to be having at least some success: in South Korea there have been angry outburst directed at the missionaries, for being foolish enough to “to go to Afghanistan and preach about the Christian God," (“South Koreans question Afghan aid mission”).
Not that all all South Koreans are critical. One Christian says that, in spite of the critics, “Some Korean Christians think it's a good thing to go to Afghanistan and die trying to proselytize on behalf of their religion."
That's die trying to proselytize, notice, not kill.
I understand that South Korea is second only to the USA in the number of missionaries they send abroad. Seeing Christian missionaries murdered this way, by the worst examples of the worst and most demonic perversion of monotheistic religion, is painful. But I can’t believe any Christian martyrdom is ever a tragedy, when each martyr's death is always a victory in the larger, and often unrecognized, spiritual battle that rages.
As the Korean Christian pointed out, some Christians think it’s a “good idea,” to die trying to proselytize. While I’ve never personally known a Christian martyr (now Christians with martyr complexes, that's another story), but I’m sure risking life never seems like a good idea to the martyrs’ survivors. Those left behind regret that more caution would have spared their loved one’s life. History records that the Judean Christians warned St. Paul that if he returned to Jerusalem it would surely lead to his death, and even St. Peter tried to prevent Jesus from his mission in Jerusalem, but to no avail.
Here's a thought: Do you remember Ann Coulter’s famous suggestion after 9/11 that our best response to Islamism would be to "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity"? ("Journalism: Where even the men are women").
The model she had in mind, by the way, was not the made-up myth of the Crusades, but the much more recent American policy in the Far East after World War II and the Korean War:
“this is…what America [did] after World War II, after the Korean War. MacArthur put out a call for Christian missionaries to come, and missionaries poured into Japan. They poured into Korea. It didn't work as well, the conversion in Japan, but it certainly did in Korea."
Now, while the armies of civiliazation struggle against flesh-and-blood Islamic adversaries in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, South Koreans are alongside anxious to wagethe genuine spiritual warfare by sending Ambassadors for Christ into some of the most malevolently anti-Christian corners of the planet.
Ann Coulter made a great point, as usual. It seems to me McArthur's timing couldn't have been better.
Psalm 116.15
Second Korean Hostage In Afghanistan Shot Dead
7/30/2007 3:11:39 PM
Taliban militants have killed a second South Korean from a group of 23 held hostage in south Afghanistan on Monday. A spokesman for the militants has said that they have shot dead the Christian missionary because the Afghan authorities did not listen to their demands. It is reported that the Taliban will kill more hostages if Kabul ignores their demand to release rebel prisoners, but the militants gave no new deadline.With this, the number of Koreans killed by the hijackers since they have captured 23 Koreans 12 days ago from a bus in Ghazni province to the southwest of Kabul has increased to two. The militants killed the leader of the group on Wednesday after an earlier deadline passed. The office of the governor of Ghazni and local police have confirmed the killing. The identity of the victim has not been disclosed, except that it is a male. The rebels had threatened to start killing the South Korean hostages if their demand for releasing militants from prison was not met within the deadline. The capturers have extended the deadline seven times since the Christian missionaries including women were abducted.Earlier on Monday, Afghan governor Waheedullah Mujadadi had pleaded with the militants to give more time for negotiations.
The quiet story of the South Korean Christian missionaries being murdered one by one by a Taliban gang in Pakistan is not attracting very much attention. It’s easy to miss the story among the growing pile of reports of battles large and small being fought by Islam against the rest of the world on cultural, political, and military fronts.
It needs to be kept in mind, though, that in spite of what our political leaders have to say, (out of deference, really, to the limits of our secular democracies to wage wars of religion), this struggle with Islam is first and foremost a religious war. The Taliban murdered the missionaries mainly because they are Christians, and secondarily to terrify South Korea into squelching its generous evangelistic impulse to keep sending missionaries to Taliban-land in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This latter tactic seems to be having at least some success: in South Korea there have been angry outburst directed at the missionaries, for being foolish enough to “to go to Afghanistan and preach about the Christian God," (“South Koreans question Afghan aid mission”).
Not that all all South Koreans are critical. One Christian says that, in spite of the critics, “Some Korean Christians think it's a good thing to go to Afghanistan and die trying to proselytize on behalf of their religion."
That's die trying to proselytize, notice, not kill.
I understand that South Korea is second only to the USA in the number of missionaries they send abroad. Seeing Christian missionaries murdered this way, by the worst examples of the worst and most demonic perversion of monotheistic religion, is painful. But I can’t believe any Christian martyrdom is ever a tragedy, when each martyr's death is always a victory in the larger, and often unrecognized, spiritual battle that rages.
As the Korean Christian pointed out, some Christians think it’s a “good idea,” to die trying to proselytize. While I’ve never personally known a Christian martyr (now Christians with martyr complexes, that's another story), but I’m sure risking life never seems like a good idea to the martyrs’ survivors. Those left behind regret that more caution would have spared their loved one’s life. History records that the Judean Christians warned St. Paul that if he returned to Jerusalem it would surely lead to his death, and even St. Peter tried to prevent Jesus from his mission in Jerusalem, but to no avail.
Here's a thought: Do you remember Ann Coulter’s famous suggestion after 9/11 that our best response to Islamism would be to "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity"? ("Journalism: Where even the men are women").
The model she had in mind, by the way, was not the made-up myth of the Crusades, but the much more recent American policy in the Far East after World War II and the Korean War:
“this is…what America [did] after World War II, after the Korean War. MacArthur put out a call for Christian missionaries to come, and missionaries poured into Japan. They poured into Korea. It didn't work as well, the conversion in Japan, but it certainly did in Korea."
Now, while the armies of civiliazation struggle against flesh-and-blood Islamic adversaries in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, South Koreans are alongside anxious to wagethe genuine spiritual warfare by sending Ambassadors for Christ into some of the most malevolently anti-Christian corners of the planet.
Ann Coulter made a great point, as usual. It seems to me McArthur's timing couldn't have been better.
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