Archive for category Terrorism

Historically, Peaceful Majorities Are Irrelevant

I recently received an email tagged as “A German’s View on Islam” which essentially advanced the proposition that complacency of the “silent majorities” in Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, or Tojo’s Japan is responsible for the fanatics accession to power. The email is taken from a dated article by Paul E. Marek and is currently applied to Islam. It reads in part:

“The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history; it is
the fanatics who march…it is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting
wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian
or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire
continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder,
or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It
is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims
and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to
become suicide bombers..” In other words, peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence!

With this historical logic difficult to refute, it was heartening to see today’s WSJ article, “A Symposium: What Is Moderate Islam?” This is a collection of six answers given by Islamic scholars and commentators. I commend a full reading to the piece, but I was particularly drawn to the last two essays, “Don’t Gloss Over The Violent Texts” and “Mystics, Modernists and Literalists.”

From the first, “Radical Islam is not limited to the act of terrorism; it also includes the embrace of teachings within the religion that promote hatred and ultimately breed terrorism. Those who limit the definition of radical Islam to terrorism are ignoring—and indirectly approving of—the Shariah teachings that permit killing apostates, violence against women and gays, and anti-Semitism.”

“Moderate Islam must not be passive. It needs to actively reinterpret the violent parts of the religious text rather than simply cherry-picking the peaceful ones. Ignoring, rather than confronting or contextualizing, the violent texts leaves young Muslims vulnerable to such teachings at a later stage in their lives.”

And, from the second: “The literalists believe that Muslim behavior must approximate that of the Prophet in seventh-century Arabia. Their belief that Islam is under attack forces many of them to adopt a defensive posture. And while not all literalists advocate violence, many do. Movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Taliban belong to this category.”

Islam has a foundational text problem which gives rise to the terrorists. It is difficult to see how that will be solved even if the silent majorities rise up in force in their totalitarian societies.

By modern analogy, silent majorities are responsible for the ills of great democratic nations. We have witnessed as much here over the last half century with our gradual descent on the road to serfdom, our slip into socialism.  Hopefully we wake up soon!

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One Brit’s Opinion-No Mosque

Europe, indeed England, is witnessing its own Islamifcation. When I traveled to London in the ’70s half the hotel signs were in Arabic; it has only accelerated in succeeding decades. And Shria law governs the local Muslim enclaves. Well here’s a no-holds-barred opinion from across the pond:

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Irresponsibility of Leftist Press-Treason

WikiLeaks is anonymous. No identified founders. No manager. No nuthin! Oh, there the is that cute little fop, Julian Asuange who describes himself as being on the WikiLeaks advisory board. He recently released Pentagon files, heretofore secret, on the war in Afghanistan. As a result according to Defense Secretary Gates, the lives of our troops and our Afghan partners are in danger.

This is not a case of “loose lips sink ships;” this an intentional broadcast of secret information while the country is at war. The military traitor should get military justice.

But the rub is the self important Julian Assnage and his co-conspirators in the New York Time, the Guardian and Der Spiegel, the so-called responsible press. In the NYT case, it’s printing all the news “fit to print”

As Tony Blankley points out in his “Wiki Espionage” post their conduct is a clear violation of the Espionage Act (Title 18 U.S. Code, Section 794). Opposition to the war cannot justify treason.

“If Mr. Assange had perpetrated this outrage against Russia, inevitably there would be a news report a few month later announcing the death of Mr. Assange and his loved ones (should he have any) because of an unlikely street accident. Thank goodness we live in nation of laws — not of executive actions.

“But the rule of law will not last long if the law is not used to avenge grievous wrongs committed against our nation.

“It is the high duty of our government not to let Mr. Assange walk free (assuming the evidence in court of his espionage is as convincing as the news accounts suggest). Let the federal prosecutions proceed — wiki, wiki.”

The conceit, self aggrandizement, and above-the-law attitude of the NYT is appalling.

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Understand Islam, Fail To At Your Peril

I recently received a You Tube video entitled “Three Things About Islam.” It is long but provides good source references at the end. In sum, it makes three points: 1. Islam has not been hijacked. Westerners have been told and assume that it has been hijacked by violent jihadists, how otherwise could a religion be so violent. The Qur’an has both peaceful and jihadist verses often thought contradictory but it provides a rule for resolving apparent conflicts, the last in time governs. Unfortunately, the violent jihadist verses are later in time than the peaceful verces.

2. Sharia Law is a duty for all Muslims. Sharia is the anthesis of separation of church and state, indeed the anthesis of freedom. It combines religion and political aspects into one totalitarian society commanded by the Qur’an. The law is ancient commanding eye for eye justice, stoning, and dismemberment for proscribed offenses. It governs contracts and commerce. The world will not be at peace until all nations are governed by Shria Law. So creeping Shria as in the UK where Shria courts already exist is indeed a danger. At current birth rates Europe will be majority muslim within our children’s lifetimes. So whether through the bed room and creeping Shria or through 911 type jihad, Muslims are installing Shria worldwide.

3. Muslims lie to non-Muslims. The Qur’an sanctions these lies in order to convert infidels and advance Shria Law. This principal is called TAQIYYA. To say one thing to non-Muslims and the exact opposite to Muslims is frequently used in the Arab world today. This is the very means of calling Islam the religion of peace!

Hussein Obama has curried favor in the Arab world bowing to its leaders and apologizing for the United States. He is an advocate of the “religion of peace” view of Islam. He even urged the NASA director to reach out to Muslim countries. Methinks Hussein’s Muslim roots are getting in the way of his job as president!

The YouTube video is long and made for a British audience so I did not embed it in this post. If you are so inclined to further study, the link is here.

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Gingrich on the Islamic Terrorist Threat

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NASA’s New Role: Diplomacy

Stretch goals are important, they compel reaching, thinking outside the box, innovation, risk-taking; yes and ultimately excellence. Where better to expand U.S. horizons than at the space agency, NASA? Kennedy challenged a shot for a man moon landing in 1961, a dramatic stretch goal. This to answer the Russians unmanned landing in 1959. The challenged worked: on July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.

What’s Obama’s stretch goal for NASA? Well …, er …., it’s diplomacy. Yes, you heard right, diplomacy. Obama wants better relations. With whom you ask. The Muslims! Not the English, the Poles, the Germans, nor the Israelis; no, the Muslims.

According to this Fox News item, “NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his “foremost” mission as the head of America’s space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.” Bizarre! Mars? No, the Muslim world!

And, note the contrast with Kennedy. JFK was answering the USSR. It was an “in your face” response to an enemy seeking to burry us. Obama confronts Islamists seeking to burry us. What’s he do? Well, he goes about the Middle East bowing, scraping and apologizing for the United States. Oh, and he gives NASA a charge to improve relations with Muslims.

Hussein Obama is well named!

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Unprotected Against Jihad

Hussein Obama’s counterterrorism tzar, John Brennan trivializes the danger of Islam according to Andy McCarthy in today’s NRO post, An Islam of Their Very Own. The article is a must read with only two conclusions possible: Obama is stupid or naive or he is converting the U.S. to sharia, that is Islamic law. In essence, become Muslim or die, so ruled Mohamed after his militant successes.

“Brennan admonished that we must not “describe our enemy as ‘jihadists.’” Why not? “Because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam.” Right again. There is no gainsaying that jihad is deemed to be a divine injunction in Islam. If one regards all forms of Islam as “legitimate,” then jihad, too, must be legitimate. Yet “legitimate” is a slippery concept. It could mean that something is good. Or it could just mean that something is authentic — something that really exists, for good or ill.

“Islam falls into the latter category. It exists. In many of its iterations — not just al-Qaeda’s ideology but Islamist ideology, which is quite mainstream — Islam means the West existential harm. This is why we are supportive of reformist Muslims, however pessimistic some of us may be about their prospects. The point, though, is that Islam is not going away. It is part of the hand we are dealt, like it or not. We don’t need to trash-talk it gratuitously, but neither should we pretend that it is an asset on our security ledger. It’s not.

“Alas, the Hope administration doesn’t see it that way. For Brennan, as for Obama, Islam is immovably in the first category: “legitimate” as in “good” — end of discussion. To sculpt this alternative reality, two things are required. First, we must ignore Islam’s many troublesome elements — e.g., its supremacism, inequality, intolerance, denial of freedom of conscience, endorsement of violence, etc. Second, to the extent that the resulting atrocities can’t be ignored, we must pretend that what ails the Islamic world is our fault, not Islam’s.”

Andy’s point echos the points made during Herman Pirchner’s presentation and discussion at our last Reno Hayek dinner, namely that radical Islam and its Jihad is closer to the Koran than any reformist/secular branch of that “religion.” I put that in quotes to denote that it is more than just our concept of “religion;” it is government, society and religion in the sense that Mohamed imposed upon his conquests.

Here’s my empirical observation: not many, if any, Moslems have condemned the Jihads, the terror, the 911 carnage, the call to exterminate Israel.

These people are backward, immoral, intolerant, and violent. They advocate or tolerate “supremacism, inequality, intolerance, denial of freedom of conscience, endorsement of violence, etc.” For them, the end justifies the means, no matter how distorted either end or means in reality are. They blow themselves up in hopes of “virgins in heaven.” Pity those few virgins in number! But, that is the level of their intelligence.

Hussein Obama apparently ignores “man caused disasters.” Islam is good because he wishes it so. This is contrary to the reality that we witness every day. Islam is bad.

“Our political leaders can continue to trivialize jihad as if it were some benign struggle to brush after every meal. They can continue to ignore the core tenets that make sharia antithetical to a free, self-determining society. But they can’t do that and do the only job we need them to do: protect our lives and our liberties.” Andy McCarthy’s article is a must read.

Hussein Obama is hell-bent-for-leather to “hope and change” the United States into an Islamic nation under Sharia law. Be very fearful for our nation.

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U.S. Foreign Policy: Provocative Weakness

Our kudos and thanks go out to Herman Pirchner, Jr. President of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington DC for an excellent presentation and discussion last evening on America’s foreign policy. Herman took us around the world with using radical islam as the unifying link. It was truly enlightening and very sobering to hear his observations. Among them:

  • Russia is extending its “sphere of influence” toward former satellites to counter radical islam and re-assert itself by keeping the U.S. off balance in the Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. In some respects our interest are aligned like controlling radical islam, and in others they are opposed like reforming the white USSR.
  • China is due for a generational change that leaves a big question-mark. Unlike the current leadership which grew amid the turmoil of the cultural revolution, the next generation is being raised in relative wealth and security and being educated in the best universities around the world. It thus understands world values. China is the only major nation without a significant islamic population.
  • Europe will have a majority islamic population within two generations. Already there are community pockets of society governed by Shia law. There is a distinct possibility that Europe will break apart financially.
  • Israel is gravely at risk since the U.S. has permitted Iran to go nuclear. The odds are against its survival.
  • Arab world nations fear Persian hegemony and will thus arm themselves with nuclear weapons.

U.S. foreign policy under Hussein Obama has been one of being nice rather than right. We have given up numerous positions without getting anything in return. We have shown ourselves to be weak, frustrating our allies and emboldening our enemies. We are inviting trouble in both aspects.

The doctrine of “provocative weakness” enunciated by Fritz Kraemer in the Nixon years is that the only effective foreign policy was one backed by the realistic threat of using military force to achieve its goals; the failure to use this realistic threat was a provocative invitation to our enemies to use aggression against us.  This variation of Teddy Roosevelt’s “speak softly and carry a big stick” is antithetical to Hussein Obama’s administration. Obama is disarming and withdrawing from defensive alliances. He relies on bowing, scraping, apologizing and addressing dictators like Chavez as “mi amigo.” Here’s a picture to refresh memories:

Yes, provocative weakness is Obama’s order of the day!

One chilling observation brought up during the discussion was that the radical islamic version of Islam was more true to the Koran than the secular, passivists’ version. In either version the goal is to conquer non-believers and convert them either peacefully by out populating them or violently with the sword as Mohamed did from Medina. So we will see more September 11ths. Obama has invited them.

Again we wish to thank Herman Pirchner for the excellent presentation and discussion.

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“I am Ann Frank”

This, one of the powerful ending lines in Jeffrey Lord’s American Spectator article, Jon Stewart Flunks His Spartacus Test, in which Stewart’s position on Comedy Central’s censorship of South Park’s episode on Islamic fanatics is slammed. Lord sets the courage test in terms of Kubrick’s Spartacus, the iconic film of the Greek gladiator at Capua and his courage to the last. With that in mind he fast forwards to United Airlines Flight 93 on 911 where ordinary Americans were confronted with their Spartacus moment and proudly passed the test earning our tribute or what the ancient Greeks would call arete, courageously living up to their full potential, excellence.

Faster forward to today and the edgy, over-the-top, iconoclastic South Park created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone who decided to take on Islamic Fascists but gently by disguising the Prophet Mohammed as a bear. A web site called “Revolution Muslim” warned the creators that they would end up like Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch film maker killed by Islamic terrorists after he made a film on the treatment of Muslim women. This fatwa put the fear of Allah into Comedy Central which promptly bleeped a 35 second speech warning of “fear and intimidation.”

Now to Jon Stewart, darling of the leftists, brave defender of Democrats, epitome of all moral good. Jon gets his chance to stand up for Free Speech. Jon get his “Spartacus test.” What say, this paragon of leftist virtue, when confronted with intimidation based censorship by Comedy Central?

“It’s their right,” he said of Comedy Central in a verbal shrug of indifference. “We all serve at their pleasure.” In other words, they sign the checks!

The problem is that these Islamic terrorists want to bury us. “American and Western culture — the good, the bad and the ugly of it over a few thousand centuries, from Plato to Parker and Shakespeare to Stone — can thrive only in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom. That freedom, as has been made abundantly clear since 9/11, is under full scale assault.”

“The right answer is never to pretend that if you somehow were transported back in time, say to a house in Amsterdam in August of 1944 and the German Grüne Polizei were pounding at your door, you could get away with saying: “Hi. Fox News can %$#@@ themselves. You guys sign the checks. Seig Heil. Ann Frank is upstairs, third door to the right, the room behind the bookcase.”

“The right answer would be, the right answer is always: I am Ann Frank.”

The clever, liberal leftist, Jon Stewart gets an F on his Spartacus test. For all practical purposes, his Obama Hussein idol with his fawning Mideast diplomacy has also flunked the Spartacus test. A great article by Jeff Lord.

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Obama: the “peace in our times” president

Like a broadway scripted play Obama is into his foreign policy-defense act. (This, the act that follows Obamacare!) It is, to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a policy “Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” (Act 5, Scene 5)

No, that is to naive but not too harsh. As I think Clifford May’s tax day NRO post, The Obama Doctrine, points out well, Obama has showcased his photo-op national security initiatives: the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (STARTT), new National Security Strategy (NSS) and his international Nuclear Security Summit with 40 heads of state.

  • STARTT: Reduce US/Russian nukes by 30% for good example to others. “That’s a lovely vision, but which do you think is more likely: that rogue regimes will see these reductions as virtuous and emulate them? Or that they will see these reductions as an opportunity and exploit them?”
  • NSS: We pledge not to use nukes against non-nuclear nations. But we fail to define our non-nation enemies. Obama strips terms like “islamic extremism” from the document for fear of offending! We’re back to “man-caused disasters” and “overseas contingency operations.” ” Imagine if President Roosevelt had decided not to speak about German Nazism, lest he offend Germans who were not Nazis, nor utter the words “Italian Fascism” since not all Italians were of the Fascist persuasion, and of course refrained from mentioning Japanese militarism . . . you get the idea.”
  • Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit made little progress on cleaning up “loose nukes” and ignored Iran and North Korea.
  • NPR: Obama will not modernize our nuclear weapons nor will he use nukes against enemy attacks against us with chemical or biological weapons. In other words, deterrence is a thing of the past. The policy will “actually provide our adversaries with an incentive to accelerate development of offensive capabilities. They clearly do nothing to strengthen deterrence.” Deterrence is what has kept us safe since 1945. The concept that attacks on us or our allies will not bring measured response but extreme, disproportionate devastation is what prevented such attacks. In this regard, Obama is the equivalent of the Russian in Dr. Strangelove who kept the doomsday machine secret, Obama wants to eliminate deterrence–really dumb!

Finally, our own Neville Chamberlain has decided to eliminate necessary missile-defense! “President Obama has scrapped a missile-defense system for eastern Europe, cut the number of planned deployed ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California from 44 to 30 (these provide the only protection to the U.S. homeland against long-range ballistic missiles), cut $1.5 billion from the missile-defense budget (then, curiously, restored about $600 million), and nominated a missile-defense opponent, Philip Coyle, as his top missile-defense adviser.”

In sum, the “Obama Doctrine” postures against non-existant threats, fails to treat real threats, and removes and reduces our defense capability. He’s an articulate empty-suit and a danger to our security.

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