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Please read just a few of the headlines that World Net Daily has published.
December,
2006
2006: Muslim year of perpetual outrage
It began with the Danish cartoons. It ended with the flying imams. The year 2006 was a banner year for the Religion of Perpetual Outrage. Twelve turbulent months of fist-waving, embassy-burning, fatwa-issuing mayhem, intimidation and murder resounded with the ululations of the aggrieved. All this in the name of defending Islam from "insult." Let's review.
In late January, masked Palestinian gunmen took over a European Union office in Gaza City to protest the publication of a dozen cartoons about Islam, Muhammad and self-censorship in the Danish newspaper the Jyllands-Posten. They stormed the building, burned Danish flags, and spearheaded an international boycott of Denmark's products across the Muslim world.
The rage was manufactured pretext. The cartoons had been published four months earlier with little fanfare. It wasn't until a delegation of instigating Danish imams toured Egypt with the cartoons – plus a few inflammatory fake ones, including an old image of a French hog-calling contest participant deceptively portrayed as "anti-Muslim" – that the fire started burning. Think the mainstream media will remember that? Not likely. They fell for the ruse and were slow to acknowledge it after American bloggers and Danish television exposed the scheme.
What was really behind Cartoon Rage? Muslim bullies were attempting to pressure Denmark over the International Atomic Energy Agency's decision to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council for continuing with its nuclear research program. The chairmanship of the council was passing to Denmark at the time.
Alas, Western journalists, analysts and apologists were too clouded by their cowardice and conciliation to see through the smoke. More than 800 were injured in the ensuing riots, and 130 people paid with their lives. The innocents included Italian Catholic priest Andrea Santoro, who was shot to death in Turkey on Feb. 5 by a teenage boy enraged by the illustrations. The Muslim gunman shouted, "Allahu Akbar!" as he murdered Father Santoro while the priest knelt praying in his church. Several brave moderate Muslim editors who stood up to the madness were jailed, fined and convicted of crimes related to insulting Islam. The Danish cartoonists remain in hiding.
The world soon tired of Cartoon Rage, but the "peaceful" Muslim ragers were just warming up. They found excuses large and small to riot and threaten Western infidels. In India, they protested the magazine publication of a picture of a playing card showing an image of Mecca and also burned Valentine's Day cards. An insult to Islam, they screamed. In Spain, they protested a Madrid store for selling a postcard with a mosque on it with the words "We slept here." An insult to Islam, they protested. In Pakistan, they burned down a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, a Pizza Hut, and toppled Ronald McDonald. In Jakarta, they smashed the offices of Playboy magazine. You know why.
In June, the trial against lioness journalist Oriana Fallaci for insulting Islam commenced in Bergamo, Italy. She had been charged by professional Muslim rager Adel Smith of the Muslim Union of Italy of "vilipendio" – vilifying Islam – in her post-9/11 books slamming jihad. A judge had refused to throw out the case. She faced a pile of death threats and accusations of "Islamophobia" for speaking truth to Islamo-power.
Fallaci's death from cancer during the fifth anniversary week of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks pre-empted the trial in Italy, but her passing did nothing to pre-empt the eternal rage of the perpetually outraged. The day she died, the grievance-mongers were shaking their fists and calling for the head of Pope Benedict XVI for his speech that made reference to a 14th-century conversation touching on holy war and jihad. For engaging in open, honest intellectual and spiritual debate, he was condemned, lit afire in effigy and targeted anew. The ragers bombed Christian churches in Gaza City and Nablus. They murdered Italian Sister Leonella Sgorbati, an elderly Catholic nun shot in the back by a Somalian jihadist stoked by Pope Rage. "Whoever offends our Prophet Muhammad should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim," a Somalian cleric had declared. The Vatican made nice with Muslim leaders.
New outrages are always in bloom. In late September, it was a Berlin production of Mozart's "Idomeneo" that featured the decapitated head of Muhammad. A week later, it was a banyan tree attacked by Indonesian Muslims who wanted to disprove its mystical powers. A few days after that, it was former British foreign secretary Jack Straw, who had the audacity to make the very obvious observation that full Muslim veils impede communications between women and Westerners. Offensive! Disturbing! An insult to Islam!
Not to be outdone, a delegation of extortionist imams boarded a US Airways flight in Minneapolis in November and tried to manufacture an international human-rights incident. They clamored for a boycott and threatened to sue.
The good news: The fire did not catch here this time.
The bad news: As Oriana Fallaci warned before her death: "The hate for
the West swells like a fire fed by the wind. The clash between us and
them is not a military one. It is a cultural one, a religious one, and
the worst is still to come."
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HOMELAND INSECURITY
Quantico mosque leader promoted
Pentagon honors Wahhabi-trained Muslim chaplain
In a special ceremony, the Pentagon recently promoted a Wahhabi-trained Muslim chaplain who catered to al-Qaida detainees at Guantanamo and fought to establish the first mosque in Marine Corps history.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England personally promoted Navy chaplain Abuhena Mohammed Saifulislam from lieutenant to lieutenant commander. Saifulislam also received a Joint Service Commendation Medal at the Pentagon ceremony held on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Pentagon officials say the ceremony was unprecedented.
"It's unusual for a deputy secretary to personally promote an officer of that rank," said one official who wished to go unnamed. "No one has known of such a high-level dignitary doing that."
England also earlier this year personally dedicated a new Islamic center at Marine headquarters in Quantico, Va., on the advice of Saifulislam, a Bangladesh immigrant who became a U.S. citizen in 1995.
The Muslim chaplain, who is stationed at Quantico, recited verses from the Quran in Arabic and English at the summer dedication ceremony, which included representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, several leaders of which have been convicted on terrorism-related charges.
Saifulislam, which is Arabic for "Sword of Islam," received his religious training at a radical Islamic school raided by federal agents after 9/11. The Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, based in Leesburg, Va., is run by Taha Jaber Al-Alwani, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Sami al-Arian terror case. A federal affidavit used to obtain a warrant to search the school alleges Al-Alwani gave at least $50,000 in jihad money "to support suicide bombings."
Saifulislam insists he is moderate and condemns "terrorism," but critics say his Wahhabi background and associations should give the Pentagon pause.
"The Pentagon is giving him a permanent, taxpayer-supported platform from which to convert grunts to Islam," said terror expert Paul Sperry, a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington."
"With the Quantico mosque, the Pentagon is facilitating the study of the holy text the enemy uses, heretically or not, as their manual of warfare."
Saifulislam's promotion along with the dedication of his new Quantico mosque – the first of its kind in the 230-year history of the Corps – comes on the heels of a Muslim spy scandal at Gitmo involving another Muslim chaplain.
Army Capt. James "Yousef" Yee, who ministered to al-Qaida detainees, was charged with mishandling classified information. Yee, a convert to Islam, quit the Army and the charges were dropped. But two of his Muslim military friends at Gitmo were convicted of espionage-related crimes.
Yee's predecessor at Gitmo was Saifulislam, who was first assigned to the terrorist prison camp after 9/11. While at the Cuban base, the Navy imam privately counseled al-Qaida prisoners in their native tongues of Urdu and Arabic. "I must give hope for them to cope," Saifulislam said at the time.
He set up the diet and prayer regimes for the detainees, recommending they be served halal meals – including traditional dates and lamb – prepared according to Islamic dietary law. Gitmo detainees can now choose from a menu of 113 Muslim-appropriate meals.
In addition, Saifulislam saw to it that detainees receive copies of the Quran and have access to prayer beads and skull caps. Saifulislam also set up a program to train guards to be more sensitive to the religious customs of their Muslim prisoners.
West Point bows to Mecca
Multiculturalism appears to trump concerns about Islamist infiltration of the military. Following the Marine's lead, the Army in October dedicated a new mosque at West Point.
The U.S. Military Academy's first worship hall for Muslims boasts green carpets, shoe racks and a pulpit facing Mecca. Officials agreed to set up the mosque, large enough for dozens of followers, after Muslim leaders complained that the office where Muslim cadets gathered for Friday prayers had become too crowded.
The Army has been recruiting international cadets from Muslim countries such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Muslim enrollment at the academy in New York has jumped to 32 from just two in 2001.
"We live in a world where everyone is looking at the United States saying, 'You're anti-Islam,'" explained West Point Chaplain Col. John Cook. "But here at West Point, that's not what we do."
The U.S. military now boasts more than 10,000 Muslim soldiers, many of them black converts. On the eve of the Army's push into Iraq, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar, a black Muslim convert, fragged commanding officers at a military camp in Kuwait. He killed two of them and wounded 15 others.
Akbar, recently convicted of murder and given the death sentence, said at the time he did it out of loyalty to the umma, or global community of Muslims.
"You guys are coming into our countries," he said, "and you're going to rape our women and kill our children."
Within months of Akbar's traitorous 2003 attacks, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued an internal report warning that Muslim soldiers pose a possible security threat, according to national security reporter Bill Gertz in his new book "Enemies."
It was also in 2003 that Yee was accused of spying for the enemy while serving as a Muslim chaplain at Gitmo. Yee graduated from West Point, site of the Army's new mosque.
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Muslim Ellison
should not sit in Congress
Last month Keith (Hakim Mohammad) Ellison of Minnesota became the first Muslim elected to serve in the United States Congress and shocked many Americans by declaring that he would take his oath of office by placing his hand on the Quran rather than the Bible. Can a true believer in the Islamic doctrine found in the Quran swear allegiance to our Constitution? Those who profess a sincere belief in Allah say "no!"
In 1789, George Washington, our first president under the Constitution, took his oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God." Placing his hand on the Holy Scriptures, Washington recognized the God who had led our Pilgrim fathers on their journey across the Atlantic in 1620 and who gave our Founding Fathers the impetus to begin a new nation in 1776. Soon after Washington's oath, Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, which required all judges of the federal courts to "faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties" incumbent upon them "agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God." Placing their hand on the Bible, the members of Congress had already sworn to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States ... So help me God."
Thus began a long tradition that extended both to state and federal government of acknowledging the Judeo-Christian God as the source of our law and liberty. Today, some believe that it does not matter what we believe or before Whom we take our oath. But as Keith Ellison is demonstrating, it does matter.
To support the Constitution of the United States one must uphold an underlying principle of that document, liberty of conscience, which is the right of every person to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience, without interference by the government. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, in his "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States" in 1833, observed concerning the First Amendment that "The rights of conscience are, indeed, beyond the just reach of any human power. They are given by God and cannot be encroached upon by human authority without a criminal disobedience of the precepts of natural, as well as revealed religion." Justice Story echoed the sentiments of Thomas Jefferson in his Bill for Religious Freedom in 1777 in which he stated that "Almighty God" (El Shaddai in Hebrew) "hath created the mind free and manifested His supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint." It was a specific God who endowed us with a freedom of conscience with which government could not interfere.
The Islamic faith rejects our God and believes that the state must mandate the worship of its own god, Allah. Last week, the Associated Press reported that the Islamic Court in Bulo Burto, a small town in southern Somalia, had ordered that residents would be beheaded "according to Islamic law" if they failed to pray five times a day. Sheik Hussein Barre Rage, chairman of the Islamic court, stated, "As Muslims, we should practice Islam fully ... and that is what our religion enjoins us to do." In other regions of Somalia, Islamic courts have introduced flogging, public execution and other punishments for those who deny Quranic law or refuse to worship Allah.
Islamic law is simply incompatible with our law. Jaafar Sheikh Idris, founder and chairman of American Open University, a radical Islamic school that has received funding from suspected al-Qaida sources and which supports Islamic law, recently stated that "Islam cannot be separated from the state," and that no Muslim elected to Congress or the White House can swear to uphold the United States Constitution and still be a Muslim, because the law of Allah as expressed in the Quran is supreme. Idris was recently deported for his illegal activities. While we certainly disagree with Idris' radical extremism, he at least knows what Islam is all about!
According to a Dec. 6, 2006, WorldNetDaily article, Keith Ellison's campaign was not only backed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which shares the views of American Open University, but he also spoke to the North American Islamic Federation in November in Minneapolis with American Open University on the same program. Perhaps Ellison is confused about what he believes, or else he has another agenda. In either event, according to Idris, Ellison cannot swear an oath on the Quran and an allegiance to our Constitution at the same time.
Our Constitution states, "Each House [of Congress]
shall be the judge ... of the qualifications of its own members."
Enough evidence exists for Congress to question Ellison's
qualifications to be a member of Congress as well as his commitment to
the Constitution in view of his apparent determination to embrace the
Quran and an Islamic philosophy directly contrary to the principles of
the Constitution. But common sense alone dictates that in the midst of
a war with Islamic terrorists we should not place someone in a position
of great power who shares their doctrine. In 1943, we would never have
allowed a member of Congress to take their oath on "Mein Kampf," or
someone in the 1950s to swear allegiance to the "Communist Manifesto."
Congress has the authority and should act to prohibit Ellison from
taking the congressional oath today!
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ELECTION 2006
'They just don't get it' is why Republicans lost
Dobson, Bauer, Minnery, Perkins
say GOP ignored voters' values
The so-called "values voters" who handed both houses of Congress and the White House to Republicans in 2000 and 2004 were at this year's election, they just didn't see anybody promising to represent them, according to several leaders influential to that group of Americans.
"The unfortunate thing is that Republican leaders still don't appear to get it. Sen. Arlen Spector, R-Pa., said on Wednesday that the election results represented a 'seismic earthquake' and that his party must become 'a lot more progressive and a lot less ideological,'" said James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and director of its dozens of publications and broadcast service that reaches about five million Americans daily.
"Dick Armey emerged from four years in the wilderness to blame conservative Christians for Tuesday's defeat. They were, he said, 'too involved' with the party. He can't be serious! Someone should tell him that without the support of that specific constituency, John Kerry would be president and the Republicans would have fallen into a black hole in '04," he said.
"In fact, that is where they are headed if they continue to abandon their pro-moral, pro-family and pro-life base. The big tent will turn into a three-ring circus," Dobson said.
"Values Voters are not going to carry the water for the Republican Party if it ignores their deeply held convictions and beliefs," he said.
Dobson was joined on his radio program by Gary Bauer, Tony Perkins, Tom Minnery and Carrie Gordon Earll.
Bauer directs Our American Values, Perkins heads the Family Research Council, Minnery is the Focus on the Family vice president, and Earll is in the public policy division at Focus.
Minnery pointed out that in 2004, 11 out of 11 state constitutional amendments defining marriage as being between one man and one woman were passed by voters on one night. This year the record was just about as good, at seven out of eight, and the one that lost failed by only a few percentage points in Arizona, where the pro-marriage campaign had suffered several serious difficulties, including the death in an auto accident of a key leader.
"In 2004 voters handed them a 10-seat majority in the Senate and a 29-seat advantage in the House. What did they do with this advantage? Very little that values voters are concerned about," Minnery said.
"We thought there finally was a Congress that was going to nail down the definition of marriage. It was like pulling teeth (to get them to talk about it)," he said.
Bauer noted that in Virginia, where a heavily-favored George Allen was expected to win a Senate seat easily but relinquished the battle to Democratic challenger James Webb, the marriage amendment ran hundreds of thousands of votes better than Allen.
But instead of emphasizing his support for marriage being limited to between one man and one woman, Allen spent money attacking his opponent on the concept of women in combat.
Dobson noted that the U.S. economy is as high, and unemployment as low as ever, so it couldn't have been reaction to economics.
"There are people who have these values, values voters haven't vanished," said Minnery. "What they're looking for is someone who will articulate their values, and then really importantly, to get them to come back, to act on those promises they made during the campaign."
Perkins said exit polling showed two-thirds of the voters expressed concern over Iraq, but three-fourths of all voters said scandals were a major concern.
"That's the values gap, the values voters. The values voters of 2004 have become the integrity voters of 2006. Values are not something you can just talk about at election time. They should guide your conduct. The Republicans failed to do that and they lost," he said.
Bauer noted that 60 percent of the voters responded that America is headed in the wrong direction. "The evidence is overwhelming what most Americans are thinking about is not the economy. Some may be thinking about the war. A good deal are thinking about the breakdown in values, the attack on marriage," he said.
Meanwhile, several Democrats had won great support campaigning on values: One cited was Barack Obama, who said in a recent speech about gangs that the problem is moral, that there is a "hole in that young man's heart, a hole that government cannot fill," said Minnery.
"Republican leaders in Congress during this term apparently never understood, or they forgot, why Ronald Reagan was so loved and why he is considered one of our greatest presidents. If they hope to return to power in '08, they must rediscover the conservative principles that resonated with the majority of Americans in the 1980s – and still resonate with them today. Failure to do so will be catastrophic," Dobson said.
Earll noted confirmation of the presence of values voters came in South Dakota and Missouri, even though those abortion and cloning issues were decided wrong, from a pro-life perspective.
Almost half of the voters in South Dakota voted for a total abortion ban, a measure that pro-life organizations in the United States have only been able to dream about since the 1973 "Roe" decision. In Missouri, even though outspent 10-1, pro-life groups very nearly defeated the constitutional amendment that will now create the "right" to clone human embryos, she said.
The voters weren't looking at party, Dobson said, they were looking for an endorsement of their values. In many cases, they were able to vote on issues, but failed to find a candidate worthy, he noted.
Earll noted the divide was stark in Colorado. Voters chose a Democratic governor and constitutionally protected marriage between one man and one woman and at the same time torpedoed a "gay partnership" proposal that that same gubernatorial candidate endorsed.
"The way it's being spun by the media, and some Republicans, is that this is a rejection of the pro-family agenda, the values voters perspective," said Dobson. "That's simply not true when you look at the individual races. What is happening is we're seeing values embraced and the parties being rejected."
Focus spokesman Gary Schneeberger told WND the election can be described easily: voters rejected what the Republicans did after they were given a mandate to run the country on faith and values.
Dobson noted he'd been interviewed by U.S. News and World Report after the 2004 elections and warned if Republicans squandered their opportunity, they would pay a price at the polls in either 2008 or 2006.
Dobson's predictions about values and the Republican Party go back even further than that, too.
In 1998 he told a reporter that the GOP was in danger of losing its ability to "claim to speak for those of us with deep moral convictions."
He said at that time the party has "ignored the moral issues year after year, term after term" and said at that time it was "time to fish or cut bait."
Eight years ago he warned the GOP Christians and conservatives "will abandon them if they continue to ignore the most important issues."
Even before he made that forecast, Dobson said that Christians should tell the GOP leadership – at that time Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey and Trent Lott – that "the ground is shifting underneath their feet; that they are aware that they have been ignored … and if that lack of commitment to the things in which they believe continues then they will abandon the Republican Party."
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Muslim insurgents behead 14-year-old Christian boy
Attack happened at Iraq plant where victim was running electric generator
A website in Assyria is confirming that a 14-year-old Christian boy who was working a 12-hour shift maintaining an electric generator has been murdered by Muslim insurgents.
The Assyrian International News Agency said the tragedy was reported by an Assyrian language web page at www.ankawa.com.
(Story continues below)
The youth was identified as Ayad Tariq, who lived in Baqouba, Iraq, and was at work on Oct. 21 when a group of "disguised Muslim insurgents" went into the power plant shortly after his shift began at 6 a.m.
The website reported the insurgents asked him for his identification and, according to other witnesses who hid and stayed alive to report on the attack, questioned his identification card's reference to him as a "Christian."
Are you truly a "Christian sinner," they asked.
"Yes, I am Christian but I am not a sinner," he replied.
The insurgents then called him a "dirty Christian sinner," grabbed his limbs and held them while beheading him, the witnesses reported.
They were shouting, "Allahu akbar! Allahu Akbar!" during the murder, witnesses said.
An organization called AssyrianChristians.com said they are the indigenous people of Iraq, with a population that has been in the Middle East from the time of Christ.
However, they have faced a number of purges by the region's rulers over time, including the present attacks by powerful Islamic factions across Iran, Iraq and neighboring nations, officials said.
Only two generations back, Assyrian Christians made up 20 percent of the population of the Middle East, but during the Assyrian Genocide of 1915, an estimated three million Christians were slaughtered there, the organization said.
Current estimates are that there are about 2.5 million Assyrian Christians in Iraq.
Kenneth Scott LaTourette wrote in "A History of Christianity" that the Assyrian Christians became the first nation to accept Christianity, and one of the largest missionary-sending peoples in Christian history.
"The Assyrian Christians are one of the last remaining Christian communities in the Middle East," said Rev. Ken Joseph Jr., of the Assyrian Christians organization.
Tens of thousands of Assyrian Christians have fled their traditional homelands in recent months, officials confirmed.
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Teen's testimony of faith unstopped by death
Missionary into Kim Jong-Il's kingdom of
religious oppression martyred
A new report from a ministry with a longtime record of support for members of the persecuted Christian church has described the torture and death, and ultimate surviving ministry, of a Christian in North Korea, one the most restrictive nations in the world regarding people of faith.
The report from The Voice of the Martyrs tells of four young men who chose pseudonyms – Pencil, Eraser, Pen and Paper Clip – while training for a Christian mission expedition into North Korea.
They were trained by "Andrew," a Christian worker in China, for the work that would face them after crossing the Tumen River into North Korea.
While three were studious in their work, the VOM report said, the young man who chose the name "Pencil" seemed to pay little attention, but all four were dispatched into the kingdom of Kim Jong-Il a short time later.
(Story continues below)
Reports from within North Korea several months later came to VOM that three – Eraser, Pen and Paper Clip – had been arrested by North Korean police and beaten, thrown into vehicles and taken away. Reports came back the three were in a concentration camp, but "Pencil," who had watched the arrests, never saw them again.
"Pencil," who feared a similar arrest, lived as a beggar to avoid detection, then returned to Andrew in China.
"With tears in his eyes, 'Pencil' told Andrew the fate of his three friends. He shared how they had been bold witnesses for Christ, and how he had hid in fear as his best friends were taken away," the report said.
"What do you want to do with the rest of your life?" Andrew asked, and "Pencil" told him, "I want to learn how to be brave like my friends, and unafraid to share Jesus."
"The boy whose mind always seemed to wander was now a young man completely committed to Christ," the VOM report said. "When 'Pencil' was ready to return to North Korea, he looked into the eyes of his friend and mentor, and said, 'I need nothing more.'"
He immediately connected with a Christian couple inside North Korea, and together they worked on their ministry. For five months, they planted seeds of faith and prayed, VOM said.
"One day the three of them were sharing with a small group of beggars and gave them some tracts and a Bible. One of the young beggars went home and proudly showed the Bible to his mother," VOM's report, written by P. Todd Nettleton, said.
The mother promptly grabbed it and marched into a police station, where commanders dispatched officers to arrest the couple and "Pencil."
His following interrogation quickly turned to torture, VOM said, as officers demanded to know the source of the Bible, and that "Pencil" recant.
Instead, he told them of his friends and their fearless witness.
"There was a time when I couldn't be like them," he said. "I was too afraid. But now I can be since Jesus is with me."
Beatings and torture, including pulling out his fingernails, followed.
"If you kill me, someday you will become a Christian," "Pencil" told the officers.
Eventually, the officers gave up, ordering him to a labor camp but with instructions that he not be fed. For two months, "Pencil" told the other prisoners and the camp guards, "Jesus is the reason I am able to go on."
"Because of his endurance and how he shared the love of Jesus, many in the camp turned to Christ," the VOM report said. "After two months in the camp, Pencil died. He never saw his 20th birthday. His body was removed from the camp, but the fruit of his short ministry there lived on."
VOM is a non-profit, interdenominational ministry working worldwide to help Christians who are persecuted for their faith, and to educate the world about that persecution. Its headquarters are in Bartlesville, Okla., and it has 30 affiliated international offices.
It was launched by the late Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, who started smuggling Russian Gospels into Russia in 1947, just months before Richard was abducted and imprisoned in Romania where he was tortured for his refusal to recant Christianity.
He eventually was released in 1964 and the next year he testified about the persecution of Christians before the U.S. Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee, stripping to the waist to show the deep torture wound scars on his body.
The group that later was renamed The Voice of the Martyrs was organized in 1967, when his book, "Tortured for Christ," was released.
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BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Why Johnny is reading
Islamist propoganda
Critics charge Muslim radicals
determining textbook content
Islam is being taught in the nation's public schools as a religion to be embraced because "organized Islamists have gained control of textbook content," according to an organization that analyzes textbooks.
The American Textbook Council has concluded that the situation is the consequence of "the interplay of determined Islamic political activists, textbook editors, and multiculturally minded social studies curriculum planners."
It has gone so far that correcting the situation now becomes a problem, because "educational publishers and educational organizations have bought into claims propounded by Islamists – and have themselves become agents of misinformation."
That comes from Gilbert T. Sewall, who not only wrote the organization's report on Islam and textbooks, but also generated a response to the flood of criticism he encountered.
(Story continues below)
William J. Bennetta, author of The Textbook Letter and a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, also has documented dozens of instances of advocacy for or against a belief system, and has produced a list of books where the "religion preaching" leaves them "unfit for use."
Indeed, Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes even has repeatedly expressed concern about the "privileging of Islam in the United States" and warns the stakes go well beyond 7th-grade texts. His opinion of Houghton Mifflin's "Across the Centuries? Full of "apologetics" and "distortions."
WND recently reported on a case in Oregon, where parent Kendalee Garner objected to having her son being taught Islam, including the memorization of the "Five Pillars" of Islam and dressing up as a Muslim.
That episode followed a U.S. Supreme Court decision just a few weeks ago not to review a lower court's ruling that a similar class requirement in the Byron Union School District in California, where students were instructed to "become Muslims" was "cultural education."
WND also has reported that a man arrested as a terror suspect for allegedly trying to transport $340,000 from a group tied to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, and who reputedly had connections to Osama bin Laden, helped write the "Religious Expression in Public Schools" guidelines issued by President Clinton during his tenure in office.
Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was president of the American Muslim Council and a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, worked with President Clinton and the American Civil Liberties Union when the guidelines, guidelines later used by a federal judge to conclude such teaching was legal, were compiled.
Sewall said in his elaboration that his study showed world history textbooks "hold Islam and other non-Western civilizations to different standards than those that apply to the West" even while "Islamic pressure groups and their allies seek to suppress the critical analysis of Islam inside and outside classrooms."
Such textbooks result when "nervous publishers" obey educational fashion and rely more heavily on diversity experts than on trustworthy scholarship, he said.
"Textbook editors seem not to recognize that a school-related Islamic agenda in the U.S. uses multiculturalism as a device to guarantee a purely favorable and uncritical view of all things Muslim. At extremes, the report suggested, multiculturalism contributes to a form of peaceable cultural jihad meant to discredit or 'problematize' European civilization in favor of non-Western cultures," he wrote.
The ATC describes itself as an independent national research organization set up in 1989 to review the history and social studies textbooks used in the nation's schools.
Also contributing to the criticism is the work of Bennetta, whose conclusions are available at TextbookLeague.org. He finds that textbooks from a wide range of many of the best-known publishing houses used in public schools today simply shouldn't be there.
"When we examine the textbooks that major publishers try to sell to public schools, we sometimes find fraudulent passages that function as instruments of religious indoctrination: Religious myths are depicted as accounts of real people and events, religious superstitions are depicted as matters of fact, and the origins of religious writings are obscured or are wrapped in outright lies," Bennetta wrote.
"These passages of religious propaganda have been devised by individuals or groups that seek to use the public schools for spreading their own sectarian doctrines and for recruiting converts. In various cases, publishers evidently have accepted material from religious pressure groups and have put the material into textbooks, even though it is laden with blatant preaching, miracle-mongering and fake 'history,'" he wrote.
Bennetta, who is equally adamant that no religious beliefs be included as preaching in textbooks, cites a Houghton Mifflin book "Across the Centuries" as having a lot of Muslim "propaganda." He said the 1999 version has one thing an earlier edition didn't: an apparent source.
Listed as a consultant is "Shabbir Mansuri, Founding Director, Council on Islamic Education, Fountain Valley, California."
Bennetta said the CIE is "a conspicuous Muslim outfit that evidently specializes in inducing schoolbook-writers to sanitize and eulogize Islam, to retail Muslim religious claims as facts, to retail Muslim woo-woo as history, and to depict Islam as an amicable religion that resembles, and is compatible with, Judaism and Christianity."
He said other texts and publishers for which he's found a basis for criticism include "Human Heritage: A World History" by Glencoe/McGraw-Hill; "A Message of "Ancient Days" by Houghton Mifflin; "Across the Centuries" by Houghton Mifflin; "Heath World History: Perspectives on the Past" by McDougal Littell; "Ancient World" by McGraw-Hill School Division; "Making Thirteen Colonies" by Oxford University Press, "World History: Continuity and Change" by Holt, Rinehart and Winston; and "World Cultures: A Global Mosaic" by Prentice Hall, among others.
Sewall said in his treatise that older textbooks didn't so much misrepresent Islam as neglected and ignored it. Now, those same textbook publishers have moved from ignorance to "self-censorship."
For example, a concern raised by Swarthmore historian James Kurth notes "the possibility of structural incompatibility between Islam and the American polity" because of the resistance of American Muslims to assimilate.
"These scholars should at least obtain a fair hearing. They do not," Sewall concluded.
And, he said, the California-based Council on Islamic Education director Shabbir Mansuri concluded the ATC was an "extremist" organization for issuing a report on such concerns, even though there's no evidence of that.
Houghton Mifflin's chief publicist, Collin Earnst, also criticized the report, suggesting that such "bias has misled the public into believing that Islam is a barbaric and murderous religion."
Earnst told WND that his company has a careful process for obtaining input on books, reviewing that input, and then deciding what should be published. Where issues of "belief" by a religious group are involved, reasonable citations and attribution are included, he told WND.
He said among the groups used for comment in the past have been Hadassah and the Christian Educators Association.
But Sewall said there were no such conclusions in his report. "The publisher made these cynical claims to deflect attention from the source of the problem: the textbooks themselves."
He cited one passage from Houghton Mifflin's "Patterns of Interaction":
"In Islam, following the law is a religious obligation. Muslims do not separate their personal life from their religious life, and Islamic law regulates almost all areas of human life. Because of this, Islamic law helped to bring order to Muslim states. It provided the state with a set of values that shaped a common identity. In addition to unifying individual states, law helped to unify the Muslim world. Even though various Muslim states might have ethnic or cultural differences, they lived under a common law."
That, Sewall said, "conveys nothing." Further, it never explains that sharia bears "no resemblance to U.S. law, which grew out of the British constitution."
Other criticism came from the report's concerns over why Muslims so often don't get along with neighbors. "Looking at Algeria, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Philippines, for example, where religious wars are being conducted today against infidels, this proposition is more than plausible," Sewall wrote.
In the California case that was litigated, Edward White III, of the Thomas More Law Center wondered, "Would it have been 'just cultural education' if students were in simulated baptisms, wearing a crucifix, having taken the name of St. John and with praise banners saying 'Praise be to Jesus Christ' on classroom walls?"
From Nyssa, Ore., where one parent raised objections to the Islamic teachings, Supt. Don Grotting, said the text includes assignments for students to learn the "Five Pillars" and study Ramadan.
Grotting acknowledged to WND that textbooks do "take a slant" on some issues, because publishers "are wanting to sell a textbook that is meeting the needs of the state and federal mandates."
And in the California case, school officials also blamed the "possible cant" of the textbook.
Sewall said textbooks in America should "explain the historically potent strain of Islam that promotes separatism and theocracy. Instead, they are trying to trim history to please Islamic pressure groups and allied ideologues.
"The implications for U.S. civic education are immense, especially if students are unaware of or even accept the idea that for politically esthetic reasons they are being lied to or emotionally manipulated."
"If our nation's cultural underpinnings are in conflict with religious dogma and values that are intent on replacing or even eradicating them, should not children and their teachers be made aware? Just as pro-Soviet enthusiasms, Mao worship, and Cold War revisionism seem naïve today, currently prescribed views of Islam may also some day seem like dangerous nonsense. And what key points might replace the obvious flaws in the current generation of textbooks? That militant Islam is a real force in the world today, an insurgency that is a real threat to the nation's democratic way of life and freedoms that its citizens often take for granted."
"Today, Christmas and Nativity scenes are outlawed while Clinton's nominee, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton, recently approved 'Islam: A Simulation' where children learn to become Muslim, recite the Quran, fast for Ramadan and pray to Allah including this prayer: 'In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of Creation, The Compassionate, the Merciful, King of Judgment-day! You alone we worship, and to You alone we pray for help, Guide us to the straight path,'" wrote Jen Shroder, on her BlessedCause.org website.
"America does not comprehend Muslim resolve to make America Islam," Shroder wrote. "Suicide bombers have already demonstrated their willingness to kill and die for it."
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Teen's testimony of faith unstopped by death
Missionary into Kim Jong-Il's kingdom of religious oppression martyred
A new report from a ministry with a longtime record of support for members of the persecuted Christian church has described the torture and death, and ultimate surviving ministry, of a Christian in North Korea, one the most restrictive nations in the world regarding people of faith.
The report from The Voice of the Martyrs tells of four young men who chose pseudonyms – Pencil, Eraser, Pen and Paper Clip – while training for a Christian mission expedition into North Korea.
They were trained by "Andrew," a Christian worker in China, for the work that would face them after crossing the Tumen River into North Korea.
While three were studious in their work, the VOM report said, the young man who chose the name "Pencil" seemed to pay little attention, but all four were dispatched into the kingdom of Kim Jong-Il a short time later.
(Story continues below)
Reports from within North Korea several months later came to VOM that three – Eraser, Pen and Paper Clip – had been arrested by North Korean police and beaten, thrown into vehicles and taken away. Reports came back the three were in a concentration camp, but "Pencil," who had watched the arrests, never saw them again.
"Pencil," who feared a similar arrest, lived as a beggar to avoid detection, then returned to Andrew in China.
"With tears in his eyes, 'Pencil' told Andrew the fate of his three friends. He shared how they had been bold witnesses for Christ, and how he had hid in fear as his best friends were taken away," the report said.
"What do you want to do with the rest of your life?" Andrew asked, and "Pencil" told him, "I want to learn how to be brave like my friends, and unafraid to share Jesus."
"The boy whose mind always seemed to wander was now a young man completely committed to Christ," the VOM report said. "When 'Pencil' was ready to return to North Korea, he looked into the eyes of his friend and mentor, and said, 'I need nothing more.'"
He immediately connected with a Christian couple inside North Korea, and together they worked on their ministry. For five months, they planted seeds of faith and prayed, VOM said.
"One day the three of them were sharing with a small group of beggars and gave them some tracts and a Bible. One of the young beggars went home and proudly showed the Bible to his mother," VOM's report, written by P. Todd Nettleton, said.
The mother promptly grabbed it and marched into a police station, where commanders dispatched officers to arrest the couple and "Pencil."
His following interrogation quickly turned to torture, VOM said, as officers demanded to know the source of the Bible, and that "Pencil" recant.
Instead, he told them of his friends and their fearless witness.
"There was a time when I couldn't be like them," he said. "I was too afraid. But now I can be since Jesus is with me."
Beatings and torture, including pulling out his fingernails, followed.
"If you kill me, someday you will become a Christian," "Pencil" told the officers.
Eventually, the officers gave up, ordering him to a labor camp but with instructions that he not be fed. For two months, "Pencil" told the other prisoners and the camp guards, "Jesus is the reason I am able to go on."
"Because of his endurance and how he shared the love of Jesus, many in the camp turned to Christ," the VOM report said. "After two months in the camp, Pencil died. He never saw his 20th birthday. His body was removed from the camp, but the fruit of his short ministry there lived on."
VOM is a non-profit, interdenominational ministry working worldwide to help Christians who are persecuted for their faith, and to educate the world about that persecution. Its headquarters are in Bartlesville, Okla., and it has 30 affiliated international offices.
It was launched by the late Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, who started smuggling Russian Gospels into Russia in 1947, just months before Richard was abducted and imprisoned in Romania where he was tortured for his refusal to recant Christianity.
He eventually was released in 1964 and the next year he testified about the persecution of Christians before the U.S. Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee, stripping to the waist to show the deep torture wound scars on his body.
The group that later was renamed The Voice of the Martyrs was organized in 1967, when his book, "Tortured for Christ," was released.
World Net Daily
October, 2006
BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Terror suspect contributed
to school 'religion guidelines'
Issued by Clinton, rules let students
pray to Allah, but banish Christmas
A man arrested as a terror suspect for allegedly trying to transport $340,000 from a group tied to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, and who reputedly had connections to Osama bin Laden, helped write the "Religious Expression in Public Schools" guidelines issued by President Clinton during his tenure in office.
And that could explain why students at a California school were told as part of their required classes they would become Muslims and pray to Allah – and a federal judge approved that, and why an Oregon school this year is delivering similar lessons to its students, as WND has reported.
Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was president of the American Muslim Council and a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, worked with President Clinton and the American Civil Liberties Union when the guidelines, launched by Clinton in 1995, were being developed, according to reports.
Those are the same guidelines that the ACLU's Nadine Strossen referred to for authority when supporting organization lawsuits to restrict Christmas celebrations and the removal of the Nativity from public display, the reports said.
(Story continues below)
When Clinton issued the guidelines, he announced that they had been developed by "35 religious groups" but didn't disclose that many of those were civil rights organizations such as the ACLU, and committed whole-heartedly to the separation of church and state.
Alamoudi, who ended up serving time in jail, also founded the American Muslim Foundation and the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council.
He ran afoul of the law because the U.S. banned such money transfers under economic sanctions imposed in 1986 when Libya was tied to terrorist bombings in Vienna and Rome.
The U.S. attorney's office told WND at that time Alamoudi was accused under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
It was an affidavit filed with the complaint in which his support of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas was described. There, he also said, "If we are outside (the U.S.) we can say 'Oh, Allah destroy America,' but once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it." He also allegedly had connections to relatives of bin Laden, reports said.
For a time he also was employed in choosing Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military and in his role as leader of the American Muslim Council, he frequently met with senior Clinton and Bush administration officials.
The Muslim leader said "he intended eventually to deposit the ($340,000) in banks located in Saudi Arabia, from where he would feed it back in smaller sums into accounts in the United States," according to the affidavit.
Before his close encounter with the law, however, he was described as a friend of Hillary Clinton and an adviser on Islamic affairs. It was during this time, as he helped with the presidential guidelines for schools, that Muslim beliefs started appearing in Houghton Mifflin textbooks, which are being used in some of the Islamic indoctrination courses.
The guidelines note that, "Students generally do not have a federal right to be excused from lessons that may be inconsistent with their religious beliefs or practices."
But under those guidelines, California, and now Oregon students, are allowed to be told as part of their public schooling: "You are beginning a simulation of the history and culture of Islam. It is important to study the origins of this religion and how it has affected mankind. … It is impossible to study Islam without understanding the relationship between the teaching of Prophet Muhammad and the entire Mid-Eastern culture. It was the early Muslims, primarily the Arabs, who shaped the future of a wide area of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Muslim contributions are extraordinary in art, architecture, philosophy, science, mathematics, government, and of course, religion.
"From the beginning, you and your classmates will become Muslims. You will be a member of a caravan starting from a trading center based around an Islamic city. The task of each caravan group is to be the first group to complete a pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest of Islamic cities, with the most amount of dirhems (Arabic money). This pilgrimage or 'haij' is a requirement of all faithful Muslims once in their lifetime."
Those words are taken from text material provided to students in California, a district that was challenged by Christian parents, who just weeks ago saw the U.S. Supreme Court decline to intervene in the lower court's ruling.
"Today, Christmas and Nativity scenes are outlawed while Clinton's nominee, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton, recently approved 'Islam: A Simulation' where children learn to become Muslim, recite the Quran, fast for Ramadan and pray to Allah including this prayer: 'In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of Creation, The Compassionate, the Merciful, King of Judgment-day! You alone we worship, and to You alone we pray for help, Guide us to the straight path,'" wrote Jen Shroder, on her BlessedCause.org website.
"The double-standard is shocking, but one need only look at our public school guidelines and who wrote them, with clauses designed to open or close doors at the will of the ACLU, to discover how our nation finds itself in such a dreadful state today," Shroder continued.
Schroder, on the NewsWithViews.com website, said Clinton "preferred to 'negotiate' with Muslim leaders rather than answer terrorist bombings with our military.
"He colluded with the ACLU to present religious guidelines worded to manipulate court rulings at the ACLU's discretion, successfully censoring Christians and the Bible in public school while promoting every other faith, specifically Islam.
"Clinton disguised these guidelines with much profession of his Christian faith, but sincerity is lost when one examines the fruit," she wrote. "Lying under oath, dubious activities with staff, slipping in an ACLU document as written by 'religious groups' is compounded when one remembers how Hillary demanded public funding for (brace yourself) a dung covered depiction of the Virgin Mary, with breasts of elephant dung, surrounded by genital pornography at the Brooklyn Museum.
"America does not comprehend Muslim resolve to make America Islam," Shroder wrote. "Suicide bombers have already demonstrated their willingness to kill and die for it. … Clinton gave them … our schools, our very children with his religious guidelines."
Following the guidelines, the judge ruled that the Muslim teaching could continue in the Byron Union School District in California, deciding that it was just cultural education.
But Edward White III, of the Thomas More Law Center which handled the California lawsuit, asked, "Would it have been 'just cultural education' if students were in simulated baptisms, wearing a crucifix, having taken the name of St. John and with praise banners saying 'Praise be to Jesus Christ' on classroom walls?"
His comments followed the newest protest from in Nyssa, Ore., where one parent raised objections to the Islamic teachings. The district there, according to Supt. Don Grotting, is teaching a chapter in a history textbook "Journey Across Time" that talks about "how civilization has developed and some of the particular aspects of Islam."
He said one assignment was to learn the "five pillars" of Islam, study Ramadan and listen to guest speakers including an American Muslim who arrived dressed in her religious costume to talk to the kids about her Quran.
Parent Kendalee Garner, however, objected to having her son being taught Islam.
"I just don't understand the ban on Christianity but Islam has free rein," she told WND.
Grotting acknowledged to WND that textbooks do "take a slant" on some issues, because publishers "are wanting to sell a textbook that is meeting the needs of the state and federal mandates."
And in the California case, school officials also blamed the "possible cant" of the textbook.
A review online of information from the text shows that it teaches Christianity spread because "it gave meaning to peoples' lives, appealed to their emotions and promised happiness after death."
Its description also focuses on Christians' conflicts with Rome (when they were fed to lions), and splits between Christians following Roman teachings and those following the teachings of Constantine.
However, the article praises how the Muslims founded the system for banking, created important centers for learning, government and the arts, how they ran "government, society and business" and made valuable contributions in math, science and the arts.
The text also credits Muslims with inventing algebra and chemistry as well as creating beautiful buildings, citing the Taj Mahal, although the text does not mention that that is a tomb.
There's also no mention of the Quranic instruction that Muslims must behead infidels, or nonbelievers.
One blogger said Christians should think strategically on such issues.
"Cases like this present Christians with a golden opportunity to introduce elements of religious teaching back into the state curriculum by using the left's double standard towards Islam against it," said one commentator. "Now that this case is on the books in the Ninth Circuit as precedent, expect Christian immersion classes to follow."
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GLOBAL JIHAD
American citizens
aided Hamas terror
Former CAIR member gets 7 years,
imam in 'quiet' town pleads guilty
Two American citizens with ties to a major U.S. Islamic civil rights group faced judgment in court today for aiding the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, with one sentenced to seven years prison and the other pleading guilty.
Ghassan Elashi, a founder of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and a member of the founding board of directors of the Texas branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for financial ties to a high-ranking terrorist and for making illegal computer exports to countries that back terrorism.
Meanwhile, an Atlanta imam, Mohamed Shorbagi, pleaded guilty to providing material support to Hamas.
A Justice Department statement said Shorbagi, 42, of Rome, Ga., "provided the support through donations to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development knowing that some or all of the money was in fact destined for Hamas."
Hamas, which won a parliamentary majority in the Palestinian territories in January, was designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.
"This case illustrates that people who illegally support foreign terrorist organizations may be found anywhere in the United States, even in quiet and pleasant places like Rome, Georgia," said U.S. Attorney David E. Nahmias in a statement.
The Holy Land Foundation is tied to CAIR through the relief group's founder, Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook. CAIR's parent organization, the Islamic Association for Palestine, also was founded by Marzook, who was deported by the U.S. to Jordan in 1997.
CAIR casts itself as the leading Islamic civil rights group in the U.S., but other associated figures convicted of terrorism-related charges since 9-11 include Randall Todd "Ismail" Royer, a former communications specialist and civil rights coordinator, and Bassem Khafagi, former director of community relations.
Royer was sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges he trained in Virginia for holy war against the United States and sent several members to Pakistan to join Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmiri terrorist group with reported ties to al-Qaida.
In a plea bargain, Royer claimed he never intended to hurt anyone but admitted he organized the holy warriors after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.
After his arrest, Royer sought legal counsel from Hamas lawyer Stanley Cohen, who said after 9-11 he would consider serving as a defense lawyer for Osama bin Laden if the al-Qaida leader were captured.
Khafagi was arrested in January 2003 while serving with CAIR and convicted on fraud and terrorism charges.
Current CAIR leaders also have made statements in support of Hamas and the domination of the U.S. by Islam.
As WorldNetDaily reported, CAIR founder Omar Ahmad was cited by a California newspaper in 1998 declaring the Quran should be America's highest authority.
He also was reported to have said Islam is not in America to be equal to any other religion but to be dominant.
At a youth session of the Islamic Association for Palestine's annual convention in Chicago in 1999, Ahmad praised suicide bombers who "kill themselves for Islam," according to a transcript provided by terror expert Steve Emerson's Investigative Project.
"Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam, that is not
suicide," Ahmad asserted. "They kill themselves for Islam."
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"Iran has no problem transferring its successes and experience in any field to the Hamas government."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Thursday, "Palestine is the front line of the Islamic nations in their struggle against the aggressive superpowers."
In a chilling prelude of what a nuclear Iran could bring, Ahamdinejad also told Hamas official Sa'eed Seeyam, "Iran has no problem transferring its successes and experience in any field to the Hamas government."
Hamas has killed more Israelis than any other terrorist group, using suicide bomb attacks and other means to target civilians.
Ahmadinejad praised the "victories" of Hamas and Hizbullah, saying, "Such victories have called the fake Zionist regime to challenge inside the occupied territory and have raised questions on the existence of this regime throughout the world, including Europe and the US."
According to the typographical error in the official Iranian release of Ahmadinejad's statements, "The chief executive said that reliance on Gold Almighty [sic] and resistance are the secret to the victory of the Palestinian nation in various fields."
Hamas official Seeyam said at the close of the meeting that all Moslems are credited with the victory of every Islamic state, adding: "Muslims across the world should take pride in the victory of Islamic resistance in Lebanon, that of the popular Hamas government in Palestine and remarkable success of Iran in various domains."
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Muslim stabs wife when daughter becomes Christian
'If children fail, the mother is at fault and will bear the brunt of the blame'
A devout Muslim woman was attacked and stabbed to death, allegedly by her husband, after their 17-year-old daughter announced she was embracing Christianity, according to police and news reports.
Officials say Dr. Muhammad Hussain, 48, remained in critical condition in the Gold Coast Hospital with knife wounds, under police guard, as authorities investigated the death from stabbing injuries of his wife, Yasmine, 41.
According to Assist News Service, neighbors of the Australian family reported "blood curdling" and "terrifying" screams, along with cries of "Help me, help me, they're trying to kill me," on Monday night.
(Story continues below)
Shortly after, the report said, Kaihana Hussain fled from the family's apartment, dressed in underwear because her clothes had been torn off, with blood splattered over her scratched and cut body.
Police found the mother inside the apartment, dead, and the father seriously hurt.
"From what we understand the daughter decided to tell her father of her radical plan to convert to Christianity which, in the eyes of most Muslims, is totally unacceptable and to be honest, sadly, many would react as he has done," a Muslim source told "The Gold Coast Bulletin."
"It is the Islamic way that if a son or daughter does or plans to do something that is unacceptable or wrong for a Muslim then it is the mother who is automatically at fault and will bear the brunt of the blame," the source said.
The mother and daughter apparently had arrived in the popular East Australia region only a few days earlier. The doctor apparently had been there for several weeks, establishing his medical practice.
Elizabeth Kendal, of the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission, told ASSIST that the tragedy highlights "the great and urgent need for rigorous, open debate on what Western religious liberty means for Muslim immigrants, and what Islam's rejection of apostasy means for Christians in terms of convert care."
Reports said Hussain finished his medical training in Bangladesh in 1982 and in 2001 finished a masters in family medicine program in Australia. The family settled earlier in Adelaide, where the daughter attended a local nondenominational Christian school.
Police indicated the religious dispute was being reviewed, but they couldn't confirm the details. Neighbors, however, supported that account.
Neighbor Caitlin Dalton told The Australian that many people heard the screams as the girl fled the luxury apartment.
She told the neighbors she had wanted to "convert from the Islam religion … and obviously her father didn't handle it very well," Dalton said.
A police detective-inspector said the investigation would determine if charges will be filed.
"This matter may end up in a criminal trial or may end up in a coroner's court. Before we know the full facts, I'm not willing to speculate," he said.
Officials at Pembroke school in Adelaide, where the teen had attended, said the school is nondenominational and students are encouraged "to seek their own spiritual journeys."
Students are not required to participate in Christian services, officials said.
Pembroke principal Malcolm Lamb released a statement explaining the school's practice.
"In the case of Islamic students the school is in principle and in practice very supportive of students observing religious customs, such as wearing the Hijab – this has happened in the past, observing fasting and the need for prayer rooms," Lamb said.
The Quran does instruct the faithful to kill those who leave
the faith but Muslim leaders have said that is not to be taken
literally.
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China's Execution Buses
Sky News has obtained chilling new evidence of mobile execution buses being used by the Chinese government. It comes less than two years before China hosts the next Olympic Games.
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'Boy
snatched off street, set alight and murdered for being white'
JOHN ROBERTSON LAW CORRESPONDENT
- Evidence given in Kriss Donald murder trial
- One of accused apparently sought revenge for previous assault
- Kriss Donald may have been targetted simply due to being white
Story in full
MURDERED schoolboy Kriss Donald pleaded: "I'm only 15. What did I do?"
as he was beaten up and dragged into the back of a car by his
abductors, a court heard yesterday.
He was forced face down into the back of a silver Mercedes, threatened with a knife and told there was a gun in the car as he was driven off after being snatched from the street "because he was white".
The High Court in Edinburgh yesterday heard that Kriss was attacked and taken from a street in Pollokshields, Glasgow, because one of the men accused of his murder, Imran Shahid, 29, was angry and sought revenge after claiming he had been attacked with a glass bottle outside a nightclub the night before.
It is alleged that Kriss was later set on fire and murdered. In the days following the discovery of his body, friends and family created an impromptu shrine, featuring photographs and football colours. A witness told the court that one of the gang had said: "He took it quietly."
The witness, Zahid Mohammed, 22, was originally accused of taking part in the murder. He pleaded guilty at the High Court in Glasgow in November 2004 to assault to injury on Kriss and attempting to pervert the course of justice. He was given a five-year jail term and was released on licence on Wednesday after applying for parole, the jurors were told.
The jury also heard that he gave evidence again in November 2004 at the same court in the trial of his co-accused, Daanish Zahid, who is named as an alleged accomplice in the current trial.
Imran Shahid, Mohammed Faisal Mushtaq, 27, and Zeeshan Shahid, 29, deny racially aggravated murder.
All three are on trial in Edinburgh, accused of abducting and killing Kriss by striking him with a knife or knives, then setting him on fire on 15 March, 2004.
Mohammed said that in March 2004 he was subject to a tagging order for motoring offences and possession of a knife. On Monday, 15 March, he went to Mushtaq's home in Pollokshields. The Shahid brothers were there, and Zahid joined them later. Mohammed described Imran Shahid, known as "Baldy", as quite angry and added: "He said he got attacked with a glass bottle the night before, outside a nightclub ... [by] the boys from McCulloch Street [Pollokshields]."
The witness said the "McCulloch Street boys" were white and Imran Shahid had vowed that he was going to take revenge and would "chop them up, take their eyes out, things like that".
It was planned that the group would go out in a car and look in McCulloch Street for "them ... anybody".
Mohammed said Imran Shahid asked for weapons and Mushtaq took a hammer and a screwdriver from a tool box and they were put in a blue carrier bag. Mohammed gave Imran Shahid a knife and helped him to dye his blond hair back to its natural dark colour.
They all got into a silver Mercedes car and drove to McCulloch Street where they saw two boys, now known to be Kriss Donald and a friend, Jamie Wallace, turning into Kenmure Street.
Imran Shahid said to let him out and he began fighting with the boys, especially Kriss. Mohammed agreed with a description of Imran Shahid's build as "massive" and said Kriss was "quite small" and could not fight back. Imran Shahid pushed Kriss into the car while Mushtaq pulled him in from the other side.
The advocate-depute, Mark Stewart, QC, asked how successful Kriss was in resisting and Mohammed replied: "Very little."
Mohammed said he had never met him before the incident. He agreed that nothing would have happened if Kriss and his friend had been Chinese, African-American or Asian. He said they were targeted because they were white.
Mr Stewart asked if Kriss had said anything. Mohammed answered: "Yes, he said, 'I'm only 15. What did I do?' or something like that."
Kriss was "scrunched down" in the footwell at the rear of the car, facing the floor. He was "scared".
Mohammed said that both he and Imran Shahid punched Kriss on the back and Imran Shahid had said: "I'm Baldy. Nobody f***s with me."
Also, Imran Shahid pressed the point of a knife against Kriss's back, and asked if he could feel it. The car went to a flat in the Parkhead area, but no-one was at home. A number of phone calls were made to try to find "a place or a park or something ... to batter Kriss". Imran Shahid threatened Kriss to force him to name the people from were the previous night. Kriss appeared to know what he was talking about and gave a few names.
Mohammed said he was dropped off at Strathclyde Park because he had to be home in time for his tagging curfew.
Next day, he went to Mushtaq's flat and spoke to Zeeshan Shahid, known as Crazy. "I asked what had happened. Crazy said, 'He took it quietly'." Mr Stewart ended by asking Mohammed: "Is the evidence you have given here today, sworn on the holy Koran, the truth?" Mohammed replied: "Yes."
David Burns, QC, for Imran Shahid, said Mohammed had done a deal with the prosecution by which he received a five-year sentence and agreed to give evidence against others. "You knew you would get life imprisonment if convicted of murder, and much less if you pleaded to something less?" asked Mr Burns.
Mohammed said: "Yes."
Donald Findlay, QC, for Mushtaq, accused the witness of being "a liar, pure and simple" and someone who was "cunning and conniving". The witness denied it.
Mr Findlay continued: "Co-incidentally, you were released from prison [in England] the day before you give evidence and got a lift here from the police."
He said on Mohammed's account, he might have supplied the weapon which killed Kriss. "Up to your neck in it is an understatement," suggested Mr Findlay.
Mohammed agreed with Norman Ritchie, QC, for Zeeshan Shahid,
that he had been granted parole at the first time of asking and a
police agreement that offered him a new home and a new identity when
the trial ends.
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Muslims
are waging civil war against us, claims police union
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Radical Muslims in France's housing estates are waging an undeclared "intifada" against the police, with violent clashes injuring an average of 14 officers each day. As the interior ministry said that nearly 2,500 officers had been wounded this year, a police union declared that its members were "in a state of civil war" with Muslims in the most depressed "banlieue" estates which are heavily populated by unemployed youths of north African origin. It said the situation was so grave that it had asked the government to provide police with armoured cars to protect officers in the estates, which are becoming no-go zones. The number of attacks has risen by a third in two years. Police representatives told the newspaper Le Figaro that the "taboo" of attacking officers on patrol has been broken. Instead, officers – especially those patrolling in pairs or small groups – faced attacks as soon as they tried to arrest locals. Senior officers insisted that the problem was essentially criminal in nature, with crime bosses on the estates fighting back against tough tactics. The interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also the leading centre-Right candidate for the presidency, has sent heavily equipped units into areas with orders to regain control from drug smuggling gangs and other organised crime rings. Such aggressive raids were "disrupting the underground economy in the estates", one senior official told Le Figaro. However, not all officers on the ground accept that essentially secular interpretation. Michel Thoomis, the secretary general of the hardline Action Police trade union, has written to Mr Sarkozy warning of an "intifada" on the estates and demanding that officers be given armoured cars in the most dangerous areas. He said yesterday: "We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada, with stones and Molotov cocktails. You no longer see two or three youths confronting police, you see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their 'comrades' free when they are arrested." He added: "We need armoured vehicles and water cannon. They are the only things that can disperse crowds of hundreds of people who are trying to kill police and burn their vehicles." However, Gerard Demarcq, of the largest police unions, Alliance, dismissed talk of an "intifada" as representing the views of only a minority. Mr Demarcq said that the increased attacks on officers were proof that the policy of "retaking territory" from criminal gangs was working. Mayors in the worst affected suburbs, which saw weeks of riots and car-burning a year ago, have expressed fears of a vicious circle, as attacks by locals lead the police to harden their tactics, further increasing resentment. As if to prove that point, there were angry reactions in the western Paris suburb of Les Mureaux following dawn raids in search of youths who attacked a police unit on Sunday. The raids led to one arrest. They followed clashes on Sunday night when scores of youths attacked seven officers who had tried to arrest a man for not wearing his seat belt while driving. That driver refused to stop, and later rammed a police car trying to block his path. The mayor of Les Mureaux, Francois Garay, criticised
aggressive police tactics that afterwards left "the people on the
ground to pick up the pieces".
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WHISTLEBLOWER MAGAZINE
THE PROBLEM WITH ISLAM
And what Americans need to do about it
It may be the single most vexing question in today's world: What to do about Islam and its rapidly expanding violent jihad?
The answer can be found in the October issue of WND's
always-groundbreaking monthly magazine, Whistleblower, in a provocative
issue titled "THE PROBLEM WITH ISLAM."
Most Americans were oblivious to Islam until a certain Tuesday morning five years ago. But on Sept. 11, 2001, they woke up to learn they were in the midst of a world war, targeted for destruction by an enemy they had scarcely ever heard of. Today, militant Muslims are on the rampage worldwide, some recently calling for the assassination of the pope, with others threatening that unless Benedict XVI converts to Islam, Christian churches will be burnt to the ground.
But such outrageous threats, as well as the mass murder that often follows, have become commonplace. On the slightest provocation – a newspaper publishing cartoons depicting Muhammad, a journalist making a comment about Muhammad during the Miss Universe pageant – angry Muslims erupt into a campaign of arson, brutality and murder.
Meanwhile, as Western governments and journalism organizations continue to refer to Islam as a "religion of peace," virtually all terrorist acts worldwide – over 5,000 instances since 9-11 – have been committed by Muslims, against Jews, against Christians, against other non-Muslims, even against other types of Muslims.
Yet, there's an even bigger Islamic threat than violent jihad. Today, the West is being transformed by Islam. Especially in Britain and Europe, where Islamic immigration is already well advanced, analysts conclude it's simply a matter of time before some of these nations have Muslim majorities. Then comes Sharia law and the total transformation of these formerly Christian countries into repressive Islamic states.
Exaggeration? Consider that the Netherlands' justice minister, Piet Hein Donner, recently announced he would welcome Sharia law to his European nation – already rapidly filling up with Muslims – if the majority votes for it. Under Sharia, just as in Arab-Muslim nations currently under this strict Islamic legal system like Saudi Arabia, Europe may see amputations – as prescribed in the Quran – as punishment for certain crimes; women publicly flogged and sometimes hanged or stoned to death for adultery or other so-called "crimes against chastity"; and death sentences for leaving the Muslim religion, or even for preaching Christianity, as occurs in Pakistan under its notorious "blasphemy laws."
What about America? Though the percentage of Muslims in this huge nation is much lower than in Europe, the growth of radical Islam already has a powerful foothold in many parts of American society. Beyond the rapid proliferation of Saudi-funded mosques, Islamic centers and schools teaching hatred for America, consider the nation's prison system.
"Radical Muslim chaplains, trained in a foreign ideology, certified in foreign-financed schools, and acting in coordination to impose an extremist agenda have gained a monopoly over Islamic religious activities in American state, federal, and city prisons and jails," says author Stephen Schwartz. "Imagine each prison Islamic community as a little Saudi kingdom behind prison walls, without the amenities. They have effectively induced American authorities to establish a form of 'state Islam' or 'government-certified Islam' in correctional systems."
Despite all this, most politicians and journalists in the West – whether out of sympathy, or out of fear of having their throats cut – are afraid to criticize Islam publicly. Yet if radical Islam can succeed in throttling all criticism, from the pope on down, it will have succeeded in imposing de facto sharia law– which prohibits all criticism of Islam or its prophet – on the entire world.
Highlights of "THE PROBLEM WITH ISLAM" include:
- "My prescription for peace" by Joseph Farah
- "A view from the eye of the storm," by Haim Harari, in which the renowned scientist, born and bred in the Middle East, shares uncommon insight on how to deal with Islam
- "Time to profile airline passengers?" by Daniel Pipes, who identifies new high-tech systems designed to identify flyers with "hostile intent"
- "Why we must profile" by Robert Spencer, author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam"
- "'Glimpse into the heart of the Arabic world,'" shocking first-hand insights by former Middle East TV news anchor Brigitte Gabriel
- "The perfect enemy and how to defeat it" by "Infiltration" author Paul Sperry, who reveals – in detail – what FBI agents, terrorism investigators, and detectives confide will really work in defeating radical Islamists
- "The Crusade we must fight today" by Robert Spencer, who specifies what citizens and government must do to reverse the global jihad
- "The God vacuum: America and the barbarian hordes" by David Kupelian, on the bottom-line answer to the big question, "What to do about Islam?"
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Suicide bombers follow Quran,
concludes Pentagon briefing
Tasked with pinpointing motivation,
analysts find
terrorists 'rational actors' following 'holy book'
With suicide bombings spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, the Pentagon has tasked intelligence analysts to pinpoint what's driving Muslim after Muslim to do the unthinkable.
Their preliminary finding is politically explosive: it's their "holy book" the Quran after all, according to intelligence briefings obtained by WND.
In public, the U.S. government has made an effort to avoid linking the terrorist threat to Islam and the Quran while dismissing suicide terrorists as crazed heretics who pervert Islamic teachings.
"The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder," the White House maintains in its recently released "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" report.
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But internal Pentagon briefings show intelligence analysts have reached a wholly different conclusion after studying Islamic scripture and the backgrounds of suicide terrorists. They've found that most Muslim suicide bombers are in fact students of the Quran who are motivated by its violent commands – making them, as strange as it sounds to the West, "rational actors" on the Islamic stage.
In Islam, it is not how one lives one's life that guarantees spiritual salvation, but how one dies, according to the briefings. There are great advantages to becoming a martyr. Dying while fighting the infidels in the cause of Allah reserves a special place and honor in Paradise. And it earns special favor with Allah.
"Suicide in defense of Islam is permitted, and the Islamic suicide bomber is, in the main, a rational actor," concludes a recent Pentagon briefing paper titled, "Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers."
Suicide for Allah a 'win-win'
"His actions provide a win-win scenario for himself, his family, his faith and his God," the document explains. "The bomber secures salvation and the pleasures of Paradise. He earns a degree of financial security and a place for his family in Paradise. He defends his faith and takes his place in a long line of martyrs to be memorialized as a valorous fighter.
"And finally, because of the manner of his death, he is assured that he will find favor with Allah," the briefing adds. "Against these considerations, the selfless sacrifice by the individual Muslim to destroy Islam's enemies becomes a suitable, feasible and acceptable course of action."
The briefing – produced by a little-known Pentagon intelligence unit called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA – cites a number of passages from the Quran dealing with jihad, or "holy" warfare, martyrdom and Paradise, where "beautiful mansions" and "maidens" await martyr heroes. In preparation for attacks, suicide terrorists typically recite passages from six surahs, or chapters, of the Quran: Baqura (Surah 2), Al Imran (3), Anfal (8), Tawba (9), Rahman (55) and Asr (103).
CIFA staffs hundreds of investigators and analysts to help coordinate Pentagon security efforts at U.S. military installations at home and abroad.
The Pentagon unit is especially concerned about a new wave of suicide bombings hitting Afghanistan.
Suicide bombings have killed more than 200 people in Afghanistan this year, up from single digits two years ago. On Tuesday, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest and killed 18 outside an Afghan government compound. Last week, a suicide bomber riding a bike killed at least four NATO soldiers. And earlier this month, a suicide car bomber rammed into a U.S. military convoy near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, killing 16 people, including two American soldiers.
500 suicide bombers in reserve
The U.S. command in Afghanistan now warns that a suicide bombing cell is operating inside the Afghan capital. Meanwhile, the Taliban's top military commander told ABC News he has 500 suicide bombers at his disposal.
"We have so many of them that it is difficult to accommodate and arm and equip them," Mullah Dadullah Akhund said. "Some of them have been waiting for a year or more for their turn to be sent to the battlefield."
The emergence of a suicide cell in Kabul troubles military analysts because suicide attacks are the most effective weapon Muslim terrorists can use against the West. The Rand Corp. predicts they'll pose a serious and constant threat to the U.S. for years to come.
The U.S. intelligence community is growing increasingly worried, as well.
"Most jihadist groups will use suicide attacks focused primarily on soft targets to implement asymmetric warfare strategy," warns the just-declassified executive summary of the National Intelligence Estimate on the global terror threat. "Fighters with experience in Iraq are a potential source of leadership for jihadists pursuing these tactics."
Many scholars and media pundits, however, insist Muslim suicide bombers are not driven by religion.
"Beneath the religious rhetoric with which [such terror] is perpetrated, it occurs largely in the service of secular aims," claims Professor Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago. "Suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation rather than a product of Islamic fundamentalism."
He says U.S. foreign policy is more a factor than faith.
"Though it speaks of Americans as infidels, al-Qaida is less concerned with converting us to Islam than removing us from Arab and Muslim lands," Pape said.
But what about the recent video by Adam Gadahn, the American al-Qaida, warning fellow Americans to convert to Islam before al-Qaida attacks again?
"He never mentions virgins or the benefits Islamic martyrs receive in Heaven," Pape asserted.
In fact, Gadahn notes 36 minutes into his speech that Allah reserves the highest rewards – "honors and delights" – for martyrs in Paradise.
"[He] promised the martyr in his path the reward over and above the reward of the believer," Gadahn said. "He has promised them honors and delights too numerous to go into here."
The 9/11 hijackers and the London bombers made martyrdom videos. In their last testaments, they recite the Quran while talking of their "love of death" and "sacrificing life for Allah." Seven martyrdom videotapes also were recovered by British authorities in the foiled transatlantic sky terror plot.
Before the 9/11 attacks, the hijackers shaved and doused themselves with flower water in preparation for their weddings with the beautiful virgins in Paradise. "Know that the women of Paradise are waiting, calling out 'Come hither, friend of Allah,'" according to a four-page letter circulated among them titled "THE LAST NIGHT." "They have dressed in their most beautiful clothing."
But are the virgins scriptural or apocryphal? French documentarian Pierre Rehov, who interviewed the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it, says it's not a myth or fantasy of heretics.
He says there's no doubt the Quran "promises virgins" to Muslim men who die while fighting infidels in jihad, and it's a key motivating factor behind suicide terrorism.
"It's obviously connected to religion," said Rehov, who features his interviews with Muslims in a recently released film, "Suicide Killers." "They really believe they are going to get the virgins."
He says would-be Muslim suicide bombers he's interviewed have shown him passages in the Quran "in which it's absolutely written that they're going to get the girls in the afterlife."
Muslim clerics do not disavow the virgins-for-martyrs reward as a perverted interpretation of the Quran.
And even Muslim leaders in the West condone suicide bombings. British scholar Azzam Tamimi recently told 8,000 Muslims in Manchester, England, that dying while fighting "George Bush and Tony Blair" is "just" and "the greatest act of martyrdom." Earlier, he said it's "the straight way to pleasing Allah."
And the founder of an allegedly mainstream Muslim group in Washington – the Council on American-Islamic Relations – also has given his blessing to suicide bombings.
Addressing a youth session at the 1999 Islamic Association for Palestine's annual convention in Chicago, CAIR founder Omar Ahmad praised suicide bombers who "kill themselves for Islam," according to a transcript provided by terror expert Steve Emerson's Investigative Project.
"Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam, that is not suicide," Ahmad asserted. "They kill themselves for Islam."
Osama bin Laden has encouraged "Muslims brothers" to defeat the U.S. and U.K. with suicide attacks.
"I tell you to act upon the orders of Allah," he said in 2003,
"be united against Bush and Blair and defeat them through suicide
attacks so that you may be successful before Allah."
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Where's the Muslim apology?
Many have been asking for my thoughts on the comments made by Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg, Germany, Sept. 12. Never let it be said that from time to time "you ask for it, you get it."
I think the Islamic actions immediately following and since show the depth of depravity and the breadth of evil in a way that far supersedes the words of 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus – a man, by the way, who viewed firsthand the savagery of the Ottoman Turk (i.e., Muslim) barbarism.
A synopsis of the textbook "The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe" by Daniel Goffman of Indiana's Ball State University reads:
The Ottoman Empire … its militarism, its barbarism, its tyranny, the sexual appetites of its rulers and its pervasive exoticism has led historians to measure the Ottoman world against a Western standard and find it lacking.
I would insert "find it woefully and demonstrably lacking."
(Column continues below)
Here's my point. Muslim apologists and modern-day appeasers (like Russ Feingold, D-Wis.) are perfectly within their right in attempting to spin a genteel, pastoral image of the practitioners of this group – but this group's actions make that image more akin to a sanious discharge than they do a Degas or Monet.
Keep in mind that Paleologus was quoting from an experiential point of view when he wrote, "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." My question is: To what ends today have those, who now cry foul, gone to diminish said factual 14th century point of view?
Members of this group intentionally flew planes into buildings for the express purpose of murder and mayhem. Provocation for same rested only in their diseased minds. Was there an outcry or denouncement from those living and practicing Islam's tenets here? There was not – but there was rejoicing in the streets in New Jersey, Washington state and on certain college campuses. How did that attack, and the one in 1993, make a positive statement about Islam?
Paleologus was correct in saying: "Violence is indeed incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul." How can any person of a reasonable mind not question the validity of a religion that practices ritualistic beheadings and disembowelment in the 21st century? Cultists who practice ritualistic killings of animals are arrested here. But murderers from this group are applauded and deified by their own.
For the sake of discussion, it would be one thing if all of the atrocities were carried out several centuries ago – but such is not the case. Bodies found in mass graves are unearthed mutilated and beheaded. Women are gang raped while their fathers look on, as punishment for getting college educations. Women are partially buried in the ground and stoned to death. However, they are only permitted to be stoned with certain-sized stones so as to prolong their agony. If the stones are too large, death would be too quick. Fathers and family members kill their daughters and sisters for marrying a Christian or for daring to leave their religion.
I am still waiting for all of those pastoral worshippers to lift a united voice in opposition to such practices. Instead, we witness calls for the pontiff to be killed. We hear them say his apology is not enough. Have they apologized for 9-11? We hear them compare the pontiff to Hitler. What should we compare them to? Have they expressed any remorse for the kidnappings and beheadings of innocent people? I submit their outrage is indicative of their duplicitous, evil double standards.
People in civilized religions don't attack and burn churches. And in America, when they have in the past, they have been arrested and punished. People in civilized religions don't murder the choir director because they disagree with the pastor. But with these people – be it cartoon or intellectual discourse – threats, murder and mayhem are the only way they know how to resolve issues. They are loath to debate and/or reform from within. Their idea of reformation is murdering people in Manila.
Thousands upon thousands are murdered every year by practitioners of Islam. There is no organized outrage, only the installation of another religious leader, worse than the one before.
These people will go to whatever lengths necessary to obfuscate the truth of their history and secure their Magdalenian ambitions. There are only so many things that can be said of a group that uses strong-arm tactics, weapons and threats of death – not only as evangelistic tools, but to retain membership. Tragically, they are the only ones who fail to see it.
Any religion that believes itself above debate and/or above criticism, and adheres to dark oppressive dictatorial governance, is not one of faith – it is an assemblage borne out of constraint and constriction based on fear.
This is something that obviously escapes James Zogby and Russ Feingold, both of whom have castigated the pontiff while completely ignoring the truth of his words – which categorically proves that neither Democrats nor Muslims can handle debate if it means exposing the truth about them.
FAITH UNDER FIRE
'Religion of peace' followers torch Christian churches
Hundreds seek refuge as mobs riot over alleged 'insult' to Muhammad
Nearly a dozen Christian churches have been burned and hundreds of people forced to seek refuge in a police station by Muslims who rioted through the Nigerian city of Dutse, and they blamed their actions on a "comment" made by a Christian woman.
According to a Reuters report, authorities in the city imposed a night curfew this week to try to quell the violence allegedly triggered by a statement by a woman that Muslims said was a blasphemy to Mohammad.
Scores of houses and shops owned by Christians also were burned in the Jigawa state capital city, police spokesman Haz Iwendi reported. There also were some injuries, but no fatalities, he said.
"Eleven churches and so many houses and shops were burned," he told Reuters. "The house of the Anglican bishop also was ransacked."
(Story continues below)
Another report from Africa News quoted police spokesman Kieran Dudari as saying the situation was "unfortunate."
The Christian aid organization Barnabas Fund said the conflagration destroyed two-thirds of all Christian churches in the area, including St. Peter's Anglican Cathedral, and there were reports that the state's governor himself was attacked when he tried to calm the mob.
Hundreds of heavily armed police officers were called in to patrol the city, eventually providing some calm amidst the ashes, the organization said.
The Barnabas Fund noted Muslims already were in an uproar worldwide because of a recent comment from the pope where he cited a historic document that describes Islam as violent.
"There have been attacks against Christians in the Palestinian territories, Somalia and Iraq," the group said.
"There have also been many verbal protests. The Islamic cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a so-called moderate who had justified violence in the past, called for 22nd September to be a 'day of rational anger' across the world and warned Muslims not to attack churches," the Fund said. "Sadly his warning against violence does not seem to have been heeded."
Al-Qaida in Iraq has publicly threatened Christians, saying, "We will destroy the cross … then all that will be accepted will be conversion or the sword. May God enable us to slit their throats, and make their money and descendants the bounty of the mujahideen," according to the Fund.
"Muslims are always saying that Islam is a religion of peace," said Fund International Director Patrick Sookhdeo. "But many Christians in the Muslim world know differently. For them, Islam has been and remains a religion which metes out violence."
The organization said it is launching an online drive to raise funds for the victims of the violence, as well as the eventual reconstruction of the burned church facilities.
Joseph Hayab, of the Christian Association of Nigeria, told Reuters that the woman's comment was a tit-for-tat remark after a derogatory comment was made about Christianity.
"Her comment was in retaliation to uncomplimentary remarks made by her colleague about Jesus," he told the news service. The woman was detained briefly by police, then released, and that's what triggered the rioting, he said.
According to a report, more than 1,000 Dutse residents remained camped in an open field at state police headquarters a day later, too terrified to return to their homes.
The comments from the pope that have left the Muslim world calling either for his death or his conversion to Islam came as he quoted 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus.
"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached," the pope quoted, according to a CNN report.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference said that statement shows a "deep ignorance" of Islam.
The pope apologized that people were offended by his quotation, but he stopped short of denying its truthfulness.
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FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
'Green flag of Allah will fly over Vatican'
Sheik rejects pope's gestures to Muslims,
calls for holy war against 'this little racist'
JERUSALEM – Pope Benedict XVI's apologies for worldwide reaction to his remarks about Islam and his invitation today for Muslim leaders to meet with him next week are "mere diplomatic acts" and prove the pontiff does not really regret his words, a prominent Gaza Strip preacher told WorldNetDaily.
Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement, which seeks to make secular Muslims more religious, called for holy war against the pope.
He said Christian leaders such as Benedict are "afraid" because they realize Islam is Allah's favorite religion and they are going to hell unless they convert. The Gaza preacher declared the "green flag of Muhammad" would soon be raised over the Vatican.
"We did not need the words of the pope in order to understand that this is a Crusader war against Islam and it is our holy duty to fight all those who support the pope, who follow him and who did not condemn what this small racist had to say," said Abu Saqer, speaking to WND from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.
"The day will soon come when the green flag of La Illah Illah Allah (There is no god but Allah) and Muhammad Rasul Allah (Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah) will be raised upon the Vatican and all around the world and on the fortresses of those who want to destroy Islam, because they know that this religion obliges them to face the truth that Islam is Allah's favorite religion. And until they join Islam, hell is their last station," Abu Saqer said.
(Story continues below)
The Gaza imam was responding to a speech last week in which the 79-year-old pope quoted Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, who wrote, "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The pontiff last Sunday said he was "deeply sorry" for the reaction to his comments and said Wednesday the emperor's words did not reflect how he himself felt. He said the intent of his remarks were to call for a dialogue on the role of religions in modern life.
The Vatican this morning reportedly invited ambassadors from Muslim nations to meet the pope Monday in a bid to calm anger that has spilled over into international Muslim protests.
Last weekend, Palestinians wielding guns and firebombs attacked five churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches in the north Samaria city of Nablus and a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City. A group calling itself the "Lions of Monotheism" claimed responsibility for the church attacks, saying they were carried out to protest the pope's remarks.
Abu Saqer said he rejected the pope's stated apologies.
"He did not apologize. He said everything but an apology, which proves these are diplomatic acts and not a feeling of being sorry."
Abu Saqer claimed he did not condone violence. He blamed the pope for recent anti-Christian attacks in the Palestinian territories.
"We are deeply sorry for these acts that we condemn," he said. "But I am sorry that this little racist did not think of the consequences upon the Christians in the Arab world when he insulted our prophet. It is an open war – the Muslims against all the others."
Asked to respond directly to Paleologus' observations about Muhammad and Islam, Abu Saqer replied, "About your stupid question about our contribution to civilization, did not you read about who were the pioneers in medicine, in mathematics, in astronomy? Did not you hear about Averroes and others?
"I am not reading poetry, I am saying the truth. Islam, it is not the source of violence. Who is occupying by force and violence Iraq and Afghanistan? Who is occupying Palestine? Who occupied for years the black people and turned them into slaves while one of the first leaders of Islam was the black Bilal Ibn Rabah?"
Continued Abu Saqer: "Violence is a result of lack of faith. See the Western society and culture. See what free sex brings to your Western world and then see the family cell in Islam. Even our problems in Islam come when some parts of the Islamic population want to imitate your way of life."
The Gaza preacher said the pope and the Christian world are "panicking" because they realize "who is winning."
"See how Islam is progressing and gaining more and more members and see the moral crisis in the West. See today the support of Islam in the Arab and Muslim world and how Islam is gaining more and more adherents in Europe and even in the United States and you understand that Islam is the future and that this dwarf pope was wrong. But I can sympathize with him. He is frustrated because he understands where things are heading."
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GLOBAL INSECURITY Al-Qaida warning: Muslims leave U.S. Afghan terror commander hints at big attack on N.Y., Washington |
e new al-Qaida field commander in Afghanistan is calling for Muslims to leave the U.S. – particularly Washington and New York – in anticipation of a major terror attack to rival Sept. 11, according to an interview by a Pakistani journalist.
Abu Dawood told Hamid Mir, a reporter who has covered al-Qaida and met with Osama bin Laden, the attack is being coordinated by Adnan el-Shukrijumah and suggests it may involve some form of weapon of mass destruction smuggled across the Mexican border.
(Story continues below)
"Our brothers are ready to attack inside America. We will breach their security again," he is quoted as saying. "There is no timeframe for our attack inside America; we can do it any time."
As WND has previously reported, el-Shukrijumah is a trained nuclear technician and accomplished pilot who has been singled out by bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to serve as the field commander for the next terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
The terrorist was last seen in Mexico, where, on Nov. 1, 2004, he allegedly hijacked a Piper PA Pawnee cropduster from Ejido Queretaro near Mexicali to transport a nuclear weapon and nuclear equipment into the U.S., according to Paul Williams, a former FBI consultant and author of "The Dunces of Doomsday."
"He is an American and a friend of Muhammad Atta, who led 9/11 attacks five years ago," said Dawood. "We call him 'Jaffer al Tayyar' (Jafer the Pilot); he is very brave and intelligent. (President) Bush is aware that brother Adnan has smuggled deadly materials inside America from the Mexican border. Bush is silent about him, because he doesn’t want to panic his people. Sheikh Osama bin Laden has completed his cycle of warnings. You know, he is man of his words, he is not a politician; he always does what he says. If he said it many times that Americans will see new attacks, they will definitely see new attacks. He is a real mujahid. Americans will not win this war, which they have started against Muslims. Americans are the biggest supporters of the biggest terrorist in the world, which is Israel."
Dawood said he was currently conducting operations in Afghanistan under the leadership of the Taliban. He warned of a series of upcoming suicide bombings there directed against government and coalition forces during Ramadan.
He is also quoted as saying the next attack in America will not be conducted by people like Atta.
"We have a different plan for the next attack," he told Mir. "You will see. Americans will hardly find out any Muslim names, after the next attack. Most of our brothers are living in Western countries, with Jewish and Christian names, with passports of Western countries. This time, someone with the name of Mohamed Atta will not attack inside America, it would be some David, Richard or Peter."
He said there will be another audio message from bin Laden aired within the next two weeks.
Mir reportedly interviewed Dawood Sept. 12 at the tomb of Sultan Mehmud Ghaznawi on the outskirts of Kabul. Dawood and the al-Qaida leaders who accompanied him were clean-shaven and dressed as Western reporters. The al-Qaida commander had contacted Mir by cell phone to arrange the meeting.
"You have witnessed the brutality of the Israelis in the recent 34-day war against Lebanese civilians," said Dawood. "9/11 was a revenge of Palestinian children, killed by the U.S.-made weapons, supplied to Israel. The next attack on America would be a revenge of Lebanese children killed by U.S.-made cluster bombs. Bush and (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair are the Crusaders, and Muslim leaders, like (Pakistani President Pervez) Musharraf and (Afghani President Hamid) Karzai are their collaborators. We will teach a lesson to all of them."
El-Shukrijumah was born in Guyana Aug. 4, 1975 – the firstborn of Gulshair el-Shukrijumah, a 44-year-old radical Muslim cleric, and his 16-year-old wife. In 1985, Gulshair migrated to the United States, where he assumed duties as the imam of the Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn.
The mosque, located at 554 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, has served as a hive for terrorist activities. It has raised millions for the jihad and has served as a recruiting station for al-Qaida. Many of the planners of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, including blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, were prominent members of this notorious "house of worship."
In 1995, the Shukrijumah family relocated to Miramar, Fla., where Gulshair became the spiritual leader of the radical Masjid al-Hijah Mosque, and where Adnan became friends with Jose Padilla, who planned to detonate a radiological bomb in midtown Manhattan; Mandhai Jokhan, who was convicted of attempting to blow up nuclear power plants in southern Florida; and a group of other home-grown terrorists.
Adnan Shukrijumah attended flight schools in Florida and Norman, Oklahoma, along with Mohammad Atta and the other 9/11 operatives, and he became a highly skilled commercial jet pilot, although he, like Atta and the other terrorists, never applied for a license with the Federal Aviation Commission.
In April 2001, Shukrijumah spent 10 days in Panama, where he reportedly met with al-Qaida officials to assist in the planning of 9/11. He also traveled to Trinidad and Guyana, where virulent al-Qaida cells have been established. The following month, he obtained an associate's degree in computer engineering from Broward Community College.
During this time, he managed to get passports from Guyana, Trinidad, Saudi Arabia, Canada and the United States, according to Williams. He also began to adopt a number of aliases, including Abu Arifi, Jafar al-Tayyar, Jaafar At Yayyar, Ja'far al-Tayar, and Mohammed Sher Mohammed Khan (the name that appeared on his official FBI file). He traveled to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, where he met with Ramzi Binalshibh, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and other members of the al-Qaida high command. He also spent considerable time within al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan, where he received training in explosives and special operations.
Following 9/11, el-Shukrijumah was reportedly singled out by bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to spearhead the next great attack on America. One plan was for a nuclear attack that would take place simultaneously in seven U.S. cities, leaving millions dead and the richest and most powerful nation on earth in ashes.
"Muslims should leave America," said Dawood. "We cannot stop our attack just because of the American Muslims; they must realize that American forces are killing innocent Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq; we have the right to respond back, in the same manner, in the enemy's homeland. The American Muslims are like a human shield for our enemy; they must leave New York and Washington."
"I am saying that Muslims must leave America, but we can attack America anytime," he said. "Our cycle of warnings has been completed, now we have fresh edicts from some prominent Muslim scholars to destroy our enemy, this is our defending of Jihad; the enemy has entered in our homes and we have the right to enter in their homes, they are killing us, we will kill them."
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FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU 'Hezbollah youth scouts' train in terrorism Thousands of children, teens prepare for apocalyptic battle against 'evil' |
TEL AVIV – Hezbollah leads a youth movement that instructs
tens of thousands of children and teenagers in military tactics and
indoctrinates them with radical Shia Islam beliefs – including the
waging of a final, apocalyptic world battle against "evil," according
to materials found by Israel during last month's war in Lebanon.
"Hezbollah established its Imam Mahdi Scouts to attract Shiite children and adolescents, to influence their hearts and minds and to prepare new generations of youth indoctrinated with radical Shiite Islam, which propounds the idea of the return of the Mahdi (messiah) as one of Hezbollah's central principles," states a report by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at Israel's Center for Special Studies.
"Hezbollah wants to create a new generation of operatives for its own ranks who will take part in its violent campaign against Israel," the report states.
(Story continues below)
The Center for Special Studies, a think tank here specializing in terrorism information, analyzed scores of documents and material captured last month by the Israeli Defense Forces during military confrontation's with Hezbollah. The documents relating to Hezbollah's Mahdi Scouts evidence the recruitment of youth to fight eventually alongside Hezbollah, the center stated.
Hezbollah's Mahdi Scouts was established by the terror group in 1982 and operates under the jurisdiction of the Lebanese Ministry of Education. According to the Center for Special Studies, the Scouts have about 42,000 Lebanese males and females between the ages of 8-16 organized into 499 groups.
The scouts' namesake comes from a decedent of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Shia Muslims believe Muhammad's immediate decedents – a series of 12 imams, or Muslim leaders – are the most trusted carriers of Islamic tradition.
Most Shia Muslims believe the 12th Imam, Mahdi, is still alive but cannot be seen until Allah determines it is time to prepare the faithful for Judgment Day. They believe Mahdi will eventually reveal himself and lead the forces of righteousness against the forces of evil in a final, apocalyptic world battle.
Hezbollah's Mahdi Scouts reportedly undergo military training at summer camps in Shiite communities in Beirut, the Beqaa Valley and south Lebanon.
The Center for Special Studies stated major activities at Mahdi Scouts summer camps, including sports and social programs, aim to inculcate Hezbollah and Islamic revolutionary principles into scout members.
The center's report said there are camps in which youth learn the basic use of arms along with physical training and march exercises while dressed in scout uniforms or camouflage suits. The center reviewed dozens of captured pictures of Mahdi Scouts in military uniforms holding plastic assault rifles.
An investigative report published in August by the Egyptian daily Ruz al-Yusuf claimed the scout movement trains “armed militias” in south Lebanon made up of children aged 10-15.
Lesson one: Destroy Israel
The first lesson Hezbollah teaches scouts, stated the Egyptian article, is the destruction of Israel.
“(This lesson) is always an important part of the curriculum and is always aimed at children and adolescents who are new to the program. (The objective is to train a) high-caliber Islamic generation of children who would be willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of Allah in the campaign against Israel."
The Center for Special Studies noted evidence of Iranian involvement in the scouting program. The center's report states Iranian Revolutionary Guard units played a central role in establishing the Mahdi Scouts and its regular programs and summer camps
The report says a large volume of materials collected in Lebanon by the IDF "illustrates how members of Hezbollah's youth movement had been indoctrinated with the principles of the Iranian Islamic revolution and the personality cult of (Supreme Iranian leader) Ali Khamenei."
Among the scouting literature discovered were books and magazines glorifying Khamenei as a hero worthy of emulation.
The center also found a Mahdi Scouts calendar in which dates considered important to Hezbollah were highlighted. Dates marked for celebration in September, for example, include Imam Mahdi's birthday and the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States.
According to the center report, when male Mahdi scouts turn 17 they make their way into Hezbollah's fighting ranks.
Several previous scouts reportedly died during confrontations with Israel in July and August. Hezbollah member Hassan Qassem Hamid, head of the scout branch in the south Lebanese Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbail, was killed after he attempted to attack Israeli troops.
The Mahdi Scouts calendar boasts more than 120 of the movement's members died during Hezbollah actions, including suicide bombings against Israeli targets.
Many Western analysts fear the Shia belief in Mahdi's return is a driving force behind Iran's suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iran is the primary sponsor of Hezbollah.
Some contend Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be pursuing nuclear weapons in part to precipitate the final, Mahdi-led battle.
In a speech in Tehran in November, Ahmadinejad reportedly said his main mission is to "pave the path for the glorious reappearance of Imam Mahdi, may Allah hasten his reappearance."
Ahmadinejad's cabinet reportedly has given $17 million to the Jamkaran mosque, site of a well at which Shia Muslims believe Mahdi disappeared over 1,000 years ago.
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FAITH UNDER FIRE Christian beaten for drinking water Man suffers broken collarbone, dislocated shoulder |
A Christian man is recovering from a beating that left him with a broken collarbone and dislocated shoulder after he drank water from a glass reserved for the poor at a construction site in Pakistan.
The report comes from Voice of the Martyrs, the Christian aid organization with a vision for working around the world to help those who are facing persecution for their Christian faith.
The report said Nasir Ashraf, a Christian stonemason, was working on the construction of a room at a school near Manga Mandi outside of Lahore when he got thirsty and took a break.
"He drew water and drank from a glass chained to a cemented public water tank next to a mosque, which was reserved for 'all' poor people," the VOM report said. "Returning to the construction site, a Muslim man asked him, 'Why did you drink water from this glass since you are a Christian?'"
The man then accused Nasir of polluting the glass, yanked the glass off the iron chain, broke it and threw it in a garbage can.
He also summoned other militant Muslims nearby.
"This man polluted our glass," he told them.
The result was an incensed mob that beat Nasir, yelling that a "Christian dog" drank from their glass.
Bystanders encouraged the beating, because it would be a "good" deed that would help them in heaven, the report said.
"The attackers pushed Nasir off a ledge onto the ground, and the fall dislocated his shoulder and broke his collarbone in two places," the VOM report said.
He was unconscious until he was taken to a clinic, the report said, and the physician who said some people had brought him in also told him never to make that mistake again.
Nasir's father took him home and a VOM representative was alerted so that VOMedical could help with his medical treatment and recovery, officials said.
VOM was launched by Rev. Richard Wurmbrand, who wrote
"Tortured for Christ" about his experiences representing Christ in
war-torn Europe. His testimony, and ministry's work, has spread around
the globe.
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LAW OF THE LAND
'China-level' Christian persecution coming
Pastors say court's ruling in Houston Bible case 'breath-taking'
A few more court decisions like this week's over a display of a Bible in Houston and the United States will be approaching the "China-level" for Christian persecution, according to a leader in the midst of that battle.
The ruling from the Fifth Court of Appeals said the display of a Bible on public ground in Houston to honor the founder of a mission has to go, not because it was unconstitutional itself, but because it became unconstitutional when a Christian group rallied around it.
The pastor's group said that means any monument, building, or even feature of nature is an illegal "establishment of religion" if a church ceremony is held there.
"Connecting the dots between the eminent domain case, which says all of your churches are up for grabs if a town wants a mall, secondly you now have been told you do not have constitutional rights in the public square," Dave Welch, executive director of the Houston Area Pastors Conference, told WorldNetDaily.
"Any kind of an event is okay, as long as you didn't express any religious faith. What is that telling you?
"We're not persecuted yet, we know that. But we're on our way there. Add that to the surprising acceptance of militant Islam, the fear of speaking against that from a Christian standpoint and then we're dangerously approaching the point where we have literally given away and yielded our freedoms that were earned," Welch said.
"We have history, law and the founding fathers who adopted the Constitution collectively affirming the truth expressed by revered Justice Joseph Story in 1840 that, 'We are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity,'" said a statement issued by the pastor's group.
Welch told WND that the court's conclusion was "ludicrous" and if followed logically, could mean that a religious rally at any public building would therefore make the building unconstitutional so it would have to be removed.
The Bible was installed on county property about five decades ago in honor of William Mosher, the founder of Star of Hope Mission, and was replaced in 1996 with donated funds. However, an atheist challenged the monument, and on an appeal from the District Court decision that the Bible was unconstitutional, the appeals court carried the argument further.
Its ruling said that the monument became an unconstitutional "establishment" after a 2003 rally was held by Christians to defend the display. That rally involved prayers and clergy, the court noted.
"The ramifications of this tortured decision are breath-taking and without any historic or legitimate Constitutional rationale," said the pastors' organization. "For the court to state that if a private citizen exercises his or her First Amendment rights of religious expression and assembly on public property, that any monument, building or fixed item of any kind that contains religious references becomes 'establishment of religion' is simply irrational."
The conclusion, if applied nationwide, would result in the sandblasting of hundreds of monuments and buildings "including the capstone on the Washington Monument, which reads, 'Laus Deo,' or 'Praise be to God,'" the pastors group continued.
"For this panel majority of two justices to claim that words and actions by private citizens or elected officials with religious content, expressed about a building or monument, convert it from 'secular' and constitutional to 'sacred' and unconstitutional amounts to an act of blatant judicial activism against the freedoms and Constitution," the HAPC said.
The group Battle For The Bible also is working on the case, and Welch said there are experts on constitutional law who have been and plan to continue assisting the county in its fight over the representation of the Bible.
"They are of the opinion this needs to be appealed directly to the Supreme Court, and we're working on that right now," Welch told WND.
He called the logic "twisted" that could conclude the monument once was constitutional, but since "some action by a private citizen" it now becomes unconstitutional.
Because the atheist's lawsuit was against the county over the monument on county land, the pastors and their advisors have been assisting County Attorney Michael Stafford in the fight.
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ON THE HOME FRONT
Muslims team up with Marxists for D.C. protest
Massive 'emergency' rally on 'predicament' of Islamic people abroad and at home'
A radical anti-war coalition is joining forces with a U.S. Islamic lobby organization to stage a demonstration in front of the White House to protest "the current predicament of Muslims abroad and at home."
A.N.S.W.E.R., a coalition led by socialist and communist activists, and Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation are co-sponsoring the "National Emergency March" Aug. 12 at Lafayette Park at 12 noon.
A third co-sponsor is the National Council of Arab Americans.
A number of leaders for A.N.S.W.E.R. – Act Now to Stop War and End Racism – were members of the Workers World Party and now belong to the Party for Socialism and Liberation , a Marxist-Leninist organization founded in 2004
Along with the "plight of the Palestinian people and the recent atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon," the Muslim group says it will focus on the war in Iraq and "the continuous violation of civil rights and civil liberties within the American Muslim community."
The Muslim American Society, or MAS, says it's sponsoring buses to transport people from outside the Washington area.
In Detroit, which has one of the country's largest Muslim communities, 25 buses already have been arranged for the event.
The Freedom Foundation is the public affairs arm of the Muslim American Society, which calls itself the largest grassroots Muslim organization in the country, with more than 50 chapters nationwide.
As WorldNetDaily reported, the Muslim American Society held a rally last month during which a Jewish activist was physically assaulted and threatened.
The event at Boston's City Hall Plaza was the group's "Justice for Palestine and Lebanon Protest." Signs brought by participants included some including some calling for "victory" for the terrorist group Hezbollah and the "Palestinian Resistance."
In a WND interview, the group's executive director, Mahdi Bray, blamed the United States and President Bush for the war between Hezbollah and Israel.
Bray said that while there are "no clean hands" in the escalating violence, the United States has failed completely.
"We have the … capability of doing something," he said. "Our position is not defensible that we have not used our leverage to obtain a cease-fire."
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
House-church leader
gets 7-1/2 years in prison
Family members concerned over prominent
Chinese pastor's health
A prominent Chinese house movement leader, Pastor Zhang Rongliang, has been sentenced to seven-and-a- half years in prison.
According to China Aid Association, the July 4 verdict was issued by Zhongmu County People's Court, though CAA reported that neither Zhang's wife nor other members of his immediate family received a formal notification. Zhang was arrested Dec. 1, 2004.
The China Aid Association was told by one of its sources that Zhang, 55, was arrested at Xuzhai village, Zhengzhou city, Henan province in a rented apartment. The apartment was searched and all of Zhang's Christian DVDs, materials and photos revealing relationships with foreigners and foreign agencies were confiscated.
Zhang's wife and their two sons have been deeply concerned for his welfare and safety, especially as he has suffered from serious diabetes for seven years. His disease was so serious that he was admitted to the Xinmi City People's Hospital while at his detention center from Dec. 19, 2005, until Jan. 23, 2006, for emergency treatment. He was seen handcuffed and chained to his hospital bed while there.
The popular Christian pastor was charged with "attaining a passport through cheating" and with "illegal border crossing" for his international traveling including to the U.S., Australia, Egypt and Singapore for world mission conferences.
Zhang is the leader of the Fangcheng Mother Church, Henan, and the leader of the China for Christ Church, which is one of the largest house-church networks estimated to have more than 10 million members. He has been well known by the international community, CAA stated, as one of the house-church patriarchs.
He is a co-author of the book "House Churches of China's Confession of Faith and Declaration" in 1999. He has been featured in a number of international articles and books, including "Jesus in Beijing" (2003) by former Time magazine writer David Aikman, Newsweek (May 12, 2004), Charisma and Christianity Today. Last year, the European Parliament passed a resolution demanding Zhang's release.
Zhang has been wanted for many years since his last imprisonment in August 1999. He has already spent 12 years in prison for his faith since his secret baptism in 1969 during five separate detentions. CAA reported that he has experienced extreme torture, including electric shocks, during his prison terms.
Bob Fu, who is the president of China Aid and personally knows Zhang and his family, said in a news release: "We are deeply disappointed for this extraordinary harsh verdict given the fact that the Chinese authorities often deny passports and other travel documents to well-known religious leaders like Pastor Zhang."
He added, "This is yet another case showing the Chinese government's new tactic of religious persecution in the name of criminal charges."
Editor's note: Those wanting to assist Pastor
Zhang can contact: Embassy of the People's Republic of China, 2300
Connecticut Ave NW., Washington, D.C. 20008. Tel: (202) 328-2500, Fax:
(202) 588-0032, or the director of religious affairs: (202) 328-2512.
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Does anyone own property any more?
It's getting to the point in America when it just doesn't pay to own property any more.
The latest eminent-domain nightmare in New Jersey illustrates that no matter how long an American lives and works and pays taxes on his real estate, it can be taken away by the government for many reasons or no good reason at all.
Larry and Clara Halper first learned of the town's interest in their 75-acre farm about seven years ago, when officials held a press conference across the street from their property, announcing to the whole world that they were buying it to maintain open space in the increasingly developed area.
Imagine what that does to property values!
No one had consulted with the Halpers on a price or even asked if they were interested in selling – which they were not.
That began a series of court battles – all of which were lost by the property owners. Finally, the New Jersey Supreme Court refused to overturn lower court rulings demanding the Halpers hand over their property. Now they are just awaiting the arrival of the sheriff with eviction orders.
"The whole system has disappointed us," said Clara Halper. "These people have really overturned our government. I'm sorry, this is not the American government the way I was brought up. People call it the politics of corruption. Call it whatever you want to – it's stealing."
The whole ordeal is like a sick joke. The Halpers, preferring the simple life they have known all their lives, living and working on the small farm, have no interest in moving. They have no interest in starting over. They like the life they have built for themselves on a property first purchased by Larry Halper's grandfather in 1922.
If the town of Piscataway truly wants to ensure that it has some open space, what better way than to leave the Halpers alone. The Halpers have no plans to do anything with their farmland but raise pumpkins for sale each fall and fresh vegetables for local residents who prefer homegrown produce.
But owning land doesn't mean what it once meant in America.
So, to permit the massive development of other parcels of open land in the town, officials are seizing the Halpers' land. But there are no guarantees they will keep the land open. The agreement the town forced upon the Halpers clearly states that officials can do whatever they choose to do with the land in the future.
Imagine seizing the home and business of law-abiding Americans even when there are no clear plans for the property. That's what is happening in Piscataway.
And where can this American couple turn now? Can they fight this all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, knowing the court has already ruled that governments have an absolute right to seize property from homeowners even if it is solely to squeeze more tax revenue out of the real estate?
Is this what our founders fought off a colonial power to leave us?
Is this what our sons, brothers, fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers sacrificed and died in foreign wars to bring us?
Is this what the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence mean in 2006?
Where are we to turn for relief?
Are we truly the freest people in the world any more when we are all subject to this kind of tyranny?
And make no mistake about it. If this can happen to the Halpers, it can happen to any of us. Americans are no longer a self-governing sovereign people who shape their own destiny. We are all subjects. We are all serfs. We are not safe and secure in our homes and businesses. We are all simply awaiting that knock on the door.
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Let the executions begin
On June 29, the United States Supreme Court, in its usual weird wisdom, cleared the way for the execution of 14 detainees that were to be brought before a tribunal for their links to terrorists and terrorist acts. In the 5-3 decision and a stroke of the pen, the justices found, in essence, that the detainees have the rights afforded normal signatories to the Geneva Conventions, and that is just fine with me. May the executions begin today? Before you think I have lost my mind, let me explain.
The court ruled that the plan to use tribunals, in the case of Salim Hamdan, is a violation of the U.S. Military Code of Justice and the Geneva Conventions in dealing with detainees. Hamdan, currently detained at Gitmo, is accused of delivering weapons to al-Qaida and being a guard for Osama bin Laden. Now that the court sees Hamdan and apparently the other detainees as "prisoners of war" under the Geneva Conventions, they should be afforded all the conditions of the Geneva Conventions – not just the current provisions such as clean rooms, special dietary meals and free religious practices.
If you've never read the Geneva Conventions, I suggest you do so. It is a fascinating document. Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross, inspired the Conventions in 1864. It went through additions in 1929 and 1949. In 1949, the Geneva Conventions extended protections to those shipwrecked at sea and civilians. It is the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 that are most referred to when dealing with modern day conflicts.
There is an article in Geneva Conventions IV that should be applied immediately given the Supreme Court ruling. I see it only fair now that the detainees have all the provisions of the Conventions afforded them that we not fall into the trap of picking and choosing which ones apply. All or none.
Here is the article direct from the Conventions that needs immediate attention:
Article 68. Protected persons who commit an offense which is solely intended to harm the Occupying Power, but which does not constitute an attempt on the life or limb of members of the occupying forces or administration, nor a grave collective danger, nor seriously damage the property of the occupying forces or administration or the installations used by them, shall be liable to internment or simple imprisonment, provided the duration of such internment or imprisonment is proportionate to the offense committed. Furthermore, internment or imprisonment shall, for such offenses, be the only measure adopted for depriving protected persons of liberty. The courts provided for under Article 66 of the present Convention may at their discretion convert a sentence of imprisonment to one of internment for the same period.The penal provisions promulgated by the Occupying Power in accordance with Articles 64 and 65 may impose the death penalty against a protected person only in cases where the person is guilty of espionage, of serious acts of sabotage against the military installations of the Occupying Power or of intentional offenses which have caused the death of one or more persons, provided that such offenses were punishable by death under the law of the occupied territory in force before the occupation began.
The death penalty may not be pronounced against a protected person unless the attention of the court has been particularly called to the fact that since the accused is not a national of the Occupying Power, he is not bound to it by any duty of allegiance. In any case, the death penalty may not be pronounced on a protected person who was under 18 years of age at the time of the offense.
So, what is the issue? It is clear as a bell from what I read. The penalty for any "protected person" (i.e., Salim Hamdan), according to the Supreme Court, that is guilty of espionage or sabotage against military installations of the occupying forces (that is U.S. and Coalition forces for my Berkeley readers) is death. Not a clean room, fresh clothing and lamb and rice three times a week. They should receive a date with the hangman's noose.
This holds true for the 14 other detainees the Bush administration wished to place before a tribunal. I'm not a lawyer but I do have a bit of common sense. The way I read the ruling and the Geneva Conventions, the justices of the Supreme Court just signed these guys' death warrants. Hallelujah! There may have been great wisdom on behalf of the administration to agree to this insane ruling. It clears the way for this human garbage to get a one-way ticket to Allah tonight. That is if the administration has the stomach to put up with the whining that will come from the left. Man, do they hate this president.
I would encourage our president to abide by the ruling and announce he will sign the order to proceed with the executions. This will allow the legal scholars at the New York Times and CNBC to debate, attack and attempt to find all the loopholes so that one of their heroes (Hamdan) won't face the executioner. No, that would appear too much like justice.
I can hear the spirit of Tookie screaming from the flames as I write. Hamdan and Tookie. Now that makes a great pair of modern-day deities for the libs to worship. Why, to make a person like Tookie or Hamdan pay for the crimes they committed would not be fair. After all, we Americans brought it on ourselves. It is our fault that Islamic terrorists are killing thousands of innocent people daily and attacking the "occupiers" with car bombs and 747s into tall buildings. All they are doing is fighting the imperialists. I'm so sick of hearing that line of reasoning I could scream. John Kerry and Cindy Sheehan believe we are the terrorists, not al-Qaida. They claim George Bush is a far greater threat then Osama. Heck, Cindy believes Bush is a "bigger" terrorist than OBL. He killed her son after all. The son she didn't even raise.
Fact is we are at war. We have an enemy and the time has long passed for us to coddle and offer "rights" to bloodthirsty animals that kill and maim innocent people as a way of life and religious calling. We need to listen to the Geneva Conventions and apply them immediately. The writers knew that those who would use sabotage and espionage would stop at nothing to achieve their goals and must be eliminated in any "humane" war. So let the executions begin, and I promise not to rejoice the way the Arab world did the day 3,000 innocent Americans were slaughtered at the hands of these animals. Time to appease and negotiate? No. Time to execute? YES! It is the law.
GLOBAL JIHAD
Al-Qaida: Destroy Denmark, France
Escaped member issues video urging
vengeance for Muhammad cartoons
Responding to the publishing of cartoons depicting Islam's prophet Muhammad, a video posted on the Internet by an al-Qaida member calls on Muslims to attack Denmark, France and Norway.
"Muslims avenge your prophet," said Libyan Muhammad Hassan, who escaped from U.S. custody in Afghanistan last July.
"We deeply desire that the small state of Denmark, Norway and France ... are struck hard and destroyed," he declared, according to Agence France-Presse.
Earlier this year, 12 cartoons depicting Muhammad published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper became an international controversy, prompting the torching of embassies, slaughter of Christians and fatwas issued against those responsible.
In the 35-minute video, Hassan, dressed in military fatigues, is holding an assault rifle.
"Destroy their buildings, make their ground shake and transform them into a sea of blood," said Hassan, also known as Sheikh Abu Yahia al-Libi.
Hassan was one of four Arab terror suspects who broke out of the U.S.'s high-security detention facility at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, in his most recent audio communiqué, aired on Al-Jazeera late last month, called for a global Muslim boycott of American goods similar to the recent boycott of Danish products. He also said the artists who drew the offending cartoons should be handed over to him for trial and punishment.
As Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin reported, a dozen young terrorists have departed Afghanistan, bound first for Iran and then Europe, where their mission will be to hunt down the Danish cartoonists.
The report was passed on by Hamid Mir, the Pakistani journalist who has interviewed bin Laden and assistant Ayman al-Zawahiri and who just visited the no-man's land along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
While there, he was told by Taliban sources in south Waziristan that 12 young men – nine Afghans and three Pakistanis – are on their way to Europe to kill the Danish cartoonists. While some carry Afghan passports and others carry Iranian passports, all will travel through Iran on their way to Europe, he reports.
Days
before that television broadcast, Mir predicted an imminent
communiqué
from bin Laden to be released on the Arab television network.
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Exposing
the Muslim lobby
Paul Sperry's
shoe-leather investigative journalism is showcased to its fullest in "Infiltration:
How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington,"
in which he sets out to prove that, for the past 30 years, the
burgeoning Muslim community's representatives in the United States
have been working clandestinely to undermine America's constitutional government and the Judeo-Christian ethics on which it was built ... Their goal, quite simply, is to replace the U.S. Constitution with the Quran, the Muslim sacred book, and turn America into an Islamic state.
Given the gravity of the claim, the prospective reader may rightly ask: Is this book just another conspiracy theory, akin to those who bang on about "Illuminati Jews From the Center of the Earth" and their manipulation of world affairs? Or has Sperry met his evidentiary obligations?
You bet he has. In fact, the mass of evidence Sperry provides is staggering. His findings are based on interviews with some two dozen law enforcement and intelligence officials from the FBI, the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, as well as local law enforcement – including the Fairfax County Police Department in Virginia, the heart of the Wahhabi corridor in America. Some of these sources are cited in the book, while others have requested anonymity for fear of reprisals from headquarters for speaking out on classified cases.
In addition to these sources, Sperry cites more than 50 sensitive internal government documents, some classified, and many posted on the book's companion website (sperryfiles.com). If the strength of ideas rests on their relationship to reality, then Sperry has struck a chord with the men in the trenches. Both the NYPD and the DOD have ordered copies of "Infiltration" for training field investigators charged with protecting U.S. military installations across the country. And after reading "Infiltration," one senior member of the federal National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Va., who had investigated many of the key Saudi-connected cases along the Wahhabi corridor in the Washington suburbs, said: "Sperry has catalogued the last three years of our lives."
Sperry's most controversial claim is that the radical Islamist assault on the West is based not on some perverse interpretation of Islam, but is rooted in Islam itself. I happen to agree with him, while realizing that this point is subject to considerable debate. However, Sperry's unmasking of radical Islamist subversion in America does not hinge on whether the militants constitute Islam's fringe or its mainstream: Either way, the threat they pose is ominous enough.
The book begins by exposing the countless U.S. Muslim leaders who masquerade as moderates, forswear terrorism, but then do what the Quran commands: "instill terror in the hearts of unbelievers" (Surah 8:12). Embraced by American presidents, the likes of Sami Al-Arian, Abdurahman M. Alamoudi, and Muzammil H. Siddiqi – to name but a few – represent the creme de la creme of "moderate" Islam in America. Sperry traces the career trajectories of these (and other) faux moderates as they've gone from "the White House to the Big House": The first was tried for heading the U.S branch of Islamic Jihad; the second "pleaded guilty of plotting terrorist acts with Libya"; the third, president of the Fiqh Council of North America and the flower of the flock, has confined himself mercifully to merely cussing the United States.
Consider the "moderate" Council on American-Islamic Relations – the media-savvy mouthpiece for militant Islam in America. One CAIR leader, Omar M. Ahmad, is quoted as saying that "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran ... should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." Says Ibrahim Hooper, another low-key chap from CAIR: "I want to see the U.S. become an Islamic nation." This "mainstream" Islamic group has seen three of its top leaders – Ghassan Elashi, Bassem K. Khafagi, and Randall Todd "Ismail" Royer – convicted on terrorism-related charges.
Even more dispiriting, we learn that there is nothing extraordinary about the characters whose unpleasant acquaintance we make. When addressing gullible Americans and their votes-vying leaders, too many of America's imams are "the picture of piety," observes Sperry. They talk a good game about Islam's devotion to peace and co-existence and they've offered (sham) sympathies for 9-11. However, while whispering sweet nothings in naïve American ears, in private and from their pulpits, revered religious pillars of the Muslim community have been caught advocating violence, advising their followers to work to impose the strict Islamic code of sharia in the U.S., and swearing allegiances to al-Qaida's capo di tutti capi.
Take imams Siraj Wahhaj and Muzammil H. Siddiqi as examples. In 1992, a year after Wahhaj gave the invocation to Congress, no less, he "suggested to a Muslim audience in New Jersey that Muslims had the numbers to take control of the United States in a political coup." For his part, Siddiqi was given the "solemn honor of representing the Muslim faith during the prayer service for [9-11] victims at the national Cathedral in Washington." This, apparently, did nothing to detract from his desire to consolidate a caliphate. In a 2003 fatwa, he reminded the faithful that "Allah's rules have to be established in all lands, and all our efforts lead to that direction." According to Sperry, such duplicity is in keeping with Taqiyya – the seldom-discussed Islamic practice of lying to non-Muslims in order to win political battles and protect Islam.
Thanks to multiculturalist efforts to appease the Islamist lobby, it has infiltrated deep into American society. A Muslim chaplain corps has been created in the U.S. military and a Saudi-based front for al-Qaida employed to minister to the approximately 20,000 Muslim soldiers. The same religious recruiters are active in penitentiaries, where there are 200,000 Muslim inmates. In fact, U.S. prisons are now the top recruiting ground for al-Qaida in the United States.
Then there are radical Islam's apologists in academia. Leading the pack is Professor John Esposito, director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, who "argues American heritage can be more accurately defined as 'Judeo-Christian-Islamic.'" Esposito's well-funded, academically credentialed "interfaith phoniness," as Sperry puts it, has gone a long way toward mainstreaming Islam. By sheer fluke, of course, Esposito also "lionizes Palestinian terrorists as leaders of a political movement and the late PLO chief Yasir [sic] Arafat as a statesman. And he urges Washington to distance itself from Israel." Sperry traced Esposito's backers through IRS tax records, and – wouldn't you have guessed it? – Esposito is in the pay of a wealthy Palestinian who hates Israel.
Readers who don't have a dog in the interfaith rivalry will suppress a yawn as our deeply religious author attempts to show that Muslims do not worship the same God as Christians and Jews do – they do not believe Jesus is the son of God. I realize Sperry doesn't write to please the unfaithful. Still, he might have placed a greater emphasis on philosophical rather than theological one-upmanship and juxtaposed the significant ethical and philosophical differences between the Judeo-Christian and the Islamic traditions. For example: universal concepts of justice vs. ruthless particularism; the sanctity and rights of all human beings vs. dominance for some and dhimmitude for others, etc.
Courtesy of an administration that has anesthetized Americans to the essential Islam (and thus continued its predecessor's multicultural mission), Muslims with ominous beliefs and agendas have managed to infiltrate every security agency, from the FBI to the Pentagon. Sperry warns that the FBI, freighted by anti-discrimination laws and pathological political correctness, now harbors Muslim translators with ties to "various foreign military and intelligence agencies in Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey." (Could this help explain why urgent intercepts are often left untranslated or are mistranslated?) Easily the most scandalous anecdote in the book is that of FBI agent Sibel Edmonds walking into the Washington field office after 9-11, to find the Middle Eastern linguists making merry – passing around date-stuffed cookies to celebrate the occasion on which America got its just deserts. Were they fired? Stripped of their top-secret security clearances? Au contraire! More of their ilk were hired. Meanwhile, Arabic-speaking Sephardic Jews have been rejected for the job. There were "loyalty concerns," or so the bureau said.
Subversive Muslims and Arabs have also received top-secret clearances at the Homeland Security Department and even the White House, where, according to Sperry, they've "successfully run influence operations against our political system with the help of both Democrats and Republicans, not least in order to badger corporate boards into Islamizing the work place."
So to the big question: What role does Islam itself play in this subversive effort? Sperry has read the CAIR-approved translation of the Quran, as well as the hadiths ("sacred supplements to the Quran"), and concludes – as have scholars such as Robert Spencer (author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" (and the Crusades)) and Serge Trifkovic (of "The Sword of the Prophet" fame) – that "sadly, much of Western terrorism is simply Islam in practice, the text of the Quran in action." Judging by the Quran, Islam is "an inherently violent and intolerant faith," around which a politically correct mythology has been molded.
Osama has heeded, not hijacked, Islam.
In the event that doubts linger, "Infiltration's," "Top 10 Myths Of Islam" blows an even bigger hole in the heart of the Religion-of-Peace fable. Terrorism is an excrescence of Islam, Sperry argues, because while the murder of "innocents" might be prohibited, "orthodox Muslims do not consider Jews and Christians [much less Israeli civilians] necessarily innocent." In other words, "What the public recognizes as murder, these Muslims recognize as justice." The Quran, after all, doesn't teach tolerance toward other faiths, but inveighs against the Jewish "apes and swine" and the Christian blasphemers. Sperry backs his debunking by quoting copiously from the Quran. Here a word about Quranic literalism might have been instructive. Unlike the Jewish and Christian holy texts, which have been reinterpreted by the sages over the centuries, Islam has changed little in 1,400 years – its decrees are not debatable and are taken very literally.
Well, then, what of moderate Muslim leaders and interpreters? Hasn't Sperry given short shrift to the many who promote a more benign version of Islam? The Muslim community, he observes, is divided into Shiites, Sunnis, and more moderate Sufis. The reformers and the moderates come from the ranks of the Shiite and Sufi, but are
not considered part of the established Muslim leadership in America, and have only minor voices in the national debate. Why? Mainly because the vast majority of mosques in America practice Sunnism, Islam's main sect, and as many as eight out of 10 are under Saudi Wahhabi control.
The extent to which the community's Wahhabi-dominated organizations coordinate their schemes is revealed in a chapter titled "The Muslim Mafia." Practically all Muslim groups in America are united under the umbrella of the American Muslim Political Coordinated Council, whose goal, in Sperry's words, is "rolling back U.S. support for Israel and weakening U.S. anti-terrorism laws." A CIA internal report that Sperry references reveals that "at least one-third of the fifty Islamic nongovernmental organizations in existence 'support terrorist groups or employ individuals who are suspected of having terrorist connections.'"
Further FBI investigations have unveiled organizations with "interlocking boards of directors," and an elaborate maze of shell companies and fronts – religious charities and think tanks included – set up to launder terrorist-bound funds. The Holy Land Foundation, a facade for Hamas (recently catapulted into government power by the Palestinians) has since become a synonym for terrorism. Many of these groups' leaders are under indictment, having pled guilty to ties to terrorists. Again, Sperry emphasizes that these leaders and their syndicates are not fringe elements, skulking on the outskirts of the American Islamic community, but are among "the best the Muslim community has to offer."
So what is to be done? The book's Afterword offers pragmatic recommendations that Sperry – a bare-knuckled but beguiling writer – prefaces with a call for us to better understand the nature of the threat:
America is a beautiful, fun, and vibrant place. Its people are friendly and hospitable. Why didn't any of the hijackers have second thoughts? Why didn't they say, 'You know, this place isn't so bad after all. Osama can go pound sand up his nightgown; we're gonna chill here for a while'?
The short answer is a toxic yet intoxicating trinity: Allah, the Quran, and the Pearly Gates that beckon. Yet Washington refuses to grapple with the enemy's inspirations and motives. Our ostensible protectors have not even read, let along understood, the founding document that fuels jihad. Coming to terms with the true Islam and with what drives its foot soldiers is imperative, insists Sperry.
Other more concrete recommendations include investing in mastering Arabic and cracking down on terrorism-supporting charities. The least promising of Sperry's recommendations is the enforcement of the oath of allegiance. Given what our author has told us about deception vis-a-vis Taqiyya, it's naive to hope that prohibiting dual citizenship and enforcing an oath will dissolve the pledge of allegiance to Islam and the greater Ummah.
Then there's the issue of "profiling." Next time you shake in your socks on an American airplane as Middle Eastern men on a suspected dry run strut up and down the isles unhindered, duck into toilets with cell phones and cameras, flout flight rules, and intimidate terrified travelers with menacing gestures, thank the Muslim lobby groups for the experience. (This incident actually occurred last year on a Northwest Airlines flight.) However, you owe deeper gratitude to our elected representatives for legally prohibiting commonsense profiling and other "minimally observant" screening safeguards.
After all, Muslim identity groups are not paid to protect Americans – the government is. Yet it appears stone deaf to our fate, while all ears to the bellyaching of resentful Muslim advocacy groups. Sperry, our epistolary Jack Bauer, exposes many former and present government officials, such as the FBI's Robert Mueller, the CIA's George Tenet, and Transportation's Norman Mineta – all of whom opted for multicultural outreach and sensitivity training to the detriment of counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Considering the severity of their transgressions – and the stakes – the words "gullible" and "politically correct" do not begin to describe their dereliction.
In
the final analysis, Sperry's book constitutes a withering indictment of
an administration that has not only failed in its constitutional duty
to uproot America's enemies on the home front, but has done its best to
accommodate and appease them.
FROM WND'S
JERUSALEM BUREAU
'We're on the eve of World War III'
Ex-Mossad chief urges West to unite,
warns of Muslims imposing ideology
JERUSALEM � Global civilization is on the verge of "World War III," a massive conflict in which the Islamic world will attempt to impose its ideology on Western nations, according to Meir Amit, a former director of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.
Amit, one of the most esteemed figures in the international defense establishment, warned Islamic nations and global Islamist groups will continue launching "all kinds of attacks" against Western states. He urged the international community to immediately unite and coordinate a strategy to fight against the "Islamic war."
"We are on the eve of war with the Islamic world, which will wage a war and all kinds of actions and attacks against the Western world. We already noticed the terrorists in the world hit Spain, England, France. I call it World War III. You must look at it from this angle and treat it wider, not as a problem of terrorism here and there," said Amit, speaking during an exclusive interview with WND's Aaron Klein and ABC Radio's John Batchelor broadcast on Batchelor's national program, for which Klein serves as a co-host. (Listen to the Amit interview.)
Amit served as Mossad chief from 1963 to 1968. He directed some of the most notorious Mossad operations during that time and pioneered many of the tactics currently used by intelligence agencies worldwide. The subject of multiple books and movies, Amit is routinely described as a "living legend." Now in his mid-80s, Amit serves as chairman of Israel's Center for Special Studies.
The former intelligence chief referenced recent terror attacks against Israel, Europe and the United States; Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions; the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan; and worldwide Muslim riots.
"It looks to me like it is a kind of coordinated or contemplated problem to somehow impose the Islamic idea all over the world," Amit said.
Israel is routinely attacked by Palestinian terror groups. Since December 2000, 993 Israelis have been killed. Spain in March 2004 was struck by a series of coordinated bombings on its commuter train system, killing 192 people. London was rocked last July by bombings on its transportation system. France has been the scene of violent Muslim riots and attacks. And on Sept. 11, 2001, 2,986 people were killed when the U.S. was hit with coordinated terror attacks.
Violent Muslim riots erupted last month in the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon after cartoon images of Muhammad were printed in a Danish newspaper. The riots spread across the Middle East and throughout Europe.
At least 40 people were killed yesterday in a blast north of Mosul in Iraq. Iran and Syria have been accused of aiding the insurgency there and in Afghanistan against U.S. and European troops.
Amit urged Western nations to "unite and work together. Unfortunately, the world is not uniting. China and Russia are problems. This should be taken into consideration."
Both China and Russia have been aiding Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran claims is intended for peaceful purposes only. Russia last month received a delegation of Hamas leaders, and pledged to maintain diplomatic relations with the terror group in spite of efforts by the U.S. and Israel to isolate the newly elected Hamas-led Palestinian government.
Amit said Iran currently poses the most serious threat to the international community.
"The Iranians [are] financing terrorists in Israel and sending money," Amit said. "This is [my country's] immediate problem. But I think the most serious problem is Iran developing nuclear power."
Amit said Israel should not lead a military attack against Iran's suspected nuclear facilities, instead urging support for the course of diplomacy and sanctions.
"The problem of [Iranian] nuclear armaments is not an Israeli problem; it is a worldwide problem. Your question refers to what Israel can do. It shouldn't do anything by itself. It should maybe throw the idea that this is a world problem and all the Western world should unite, join hands and work together," said Amit.
"I am not sure whether a military operation would be the best solution. At least not the first solution. But you can put sanctions on Iran."
With regard to his warnings of a new world war, Amit clarified he was not advocating the international community take measures against all Arab countries:
"I know very well the Arab world. I have many friends in Arab world leaders. Not all of them think the same. They are also split in different groups. ... Although I think they will wage an Islamic war against the Western world, we must take into account they are not one piece. Somehow we must learn the differences between different sections and parts of the Arab world."
FAITH UNDER FIRE
Man
faces death penalty
for becoming Christian
Despite ouster of Taliban by U.S., court
still prosecutes ex-Muslim
Despite the fact the hardline Taliban regime is no longer in power, an Afghan man faces possible execution for allegedly abandoning his Islamic roots and becoming a Christian.
"Yes that's true, a man has converted to Christianity. He's being tried in one of our courts," Supreme Court judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada told the Middle East Times.
The case centers on Abdul Rahman, believed to be 41, who converted from Islam to Christianity some 16 years ago. His relatives reportedly notified authorities about the conversion.
The constitution in Afghanistan is based on Shariah law, which states any Muslim who rejects his or her religion should be sentenced to death.
"We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law," the judge told the Associated Press. "It is an attack on Islam. ... The prosecutor is asking for the death penalty."
If he indeed is sentenced, Rahman would be the first person punished for leaving Islam since the Taliban was ousted by American-led forces in late 2001, in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the U.S.
Prosecutor Abdul Wasi says he offered to drop the charges if Rahman made the switch back to Islam, but the defendant is maintaining his Christian beliefs. The judge is expected to rule within two months.
About
99 percent of Afghanistan's 28 million people are Muslims, with the
rest mostly Hindus.
Other
related articles from other sources:
Orthodox
priest was kidnapped and beheaded
MOSUL, Iraq Relatives
of an Orthodox priest who was kidnapped and found beheaded three days
later said Thursday that his captors had demanded his church condemn
the pope's recent comments about Islam and pay a US$350,000 (€280,000)
ransom.
More than 500 people attended a memorial service Thursday for father
Amer Iskender in the northern city of Mosul after his decapitated body
was found Wednesday evening in an industrial area of the city.
Iskender was a priest at the St. Ephrem Orthodox church in Mosul.
"He was a good man and we all shed tears for him," said Eman Saaur, a
45-year-old schoolteacher who said she attended Iskender's church
regularly. "He was a man of peace."
Relatives, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal,
said the unidentified group that seized Iskender on Sunday had demanded
a ransom and that his church condemn a statement made by Pope Benedict
XVI last month that ignited a wave anger throughout the Muslim world.
In a speech at a German university the pope quoted a medieval text that
characterized some of the Prophet Muhammad's teachings as "evil and
inhuman," declaring Islam was a religion spread by the sword.
Before Iskender was kidnapped, his relatives said, the church already
had put up signs condemning the statement and calling for good
relations between Christians and Muslims. The message was posted again,
they said, after the priest's kidnappers made their demand.
"It was a tragedy," said Hazim Shaaiya, 60, who had come to the
memorial service to pay respects. "Father Amer Iskender was a peaceful,
kind religious man."
Relatives said the priest's oldest son had been in contact with the
kidnappers on mobile telephones. He negotiated the ransom payment down
to US$40,000 (€32,000) and had agreed to pay, but contact abruptly
ceased Tuesday night.
|
|
The violence by Muslims responding to comments by the pope fit a pattern that has been building and accelerating since 1989. Six times since then, Westerners did or said something that triggered death threats and violence in the Muslim world. Looking at them in the aggregate offers useful insights.
-
1989 – Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses prompted Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a death edict against him and his publishers, on the grounds that the book "is against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran." Subsequent rioting led to over 20 deaths, mostly in India.
-
1997 – The U.S. Supreme Court refused to remove a 1930s frieze showing Muhammad as lawgiver that decorates the main court chamber; the Council on American-Islamic Relations made an issue of this, leading to riots and injuries in India.
-
2002 – The American evangelical leader Jerry Falwell calls Muhammad a "terrorist," leading to church burnings and at least 10 deaths in India.
-
2005 – An incorrect story in Newsweek, reporting that American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, "in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet," is picked up by the famous Pakistani cricketer, Imran Khan, and prompts protests around the Muslim world, leading to at least 15 deaths..
-
February 2006 – The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten publishes twelve cartoons of Muhammad, spurring a Palestinian Arab imam in Copenhagen, Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, to excite Muslim opinion against the Danish government. He succeeds so well, hundreds die, mostly in Nigeria.
-
September 2006 – Pope Benedict XVI quotes a Byzantine emperor's views that what is new in Islam is "evil and inhuman," prompting the firebombing of churches and the murder of several Christians.
These six rounds show a near-doubling in frequency: 8 years between the first and second rounds, then 5, then 3, 1, and ½.
The first instance – Ayatollah Khomeini's edict against Mr. Rushdie – came as a complete shock, for no one had hitherto imagined that a Muslim dictator could tell a British citizen living in London what he could not write about. Seventeen years later, calls for the execution of the pope (including one at the Westminster Cathedral in London) had acquired a too-familiar quality. The outrageous had become routine, almost predictable. As Muslim sensibilities grew more excited, Western ones became more phlegmatic.
The Muhammad frieze in the U.S. Supreme Court. |
|
Islamists ignore subtleties. Mr. Rushdie's magical realism, the positive intent of the Supreme Court frieze, the falsehood of the Koran-flushing story (ever tried putting a book down the toilet?), the benign nature of the Danish cartoons, or the subtleties of Benedict's speech – none of these mattered.
What rouses Muslim crowds and what does not is somewhat unpredictable. The Satanic Verses was not nearly as offensive to Muslim sensibilities as a host of other writings, medieval, modern, and contemporary. Other American Evangelists said worse things about Muhammad than Rev. Falwell did; the southern preacher Jerry Vines called the Muslim prophet "a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives," without violence ensuing. Why did Norwegian preacher Runar Søgaard's deeming Muhammad "a confused pedophile" remain a local dispute while the Danish cartoons went global?
One answer is that Islamists with an international reach (Ayatollah Khomeini, CAIR, Mr. Khan, Abu Laban) usually play a key role in transforming a general sense of displeasure into an operational fury. If no Islamist agitates, the issue stays relatively quiet.
The extent of the violence is even more unpredictable – one could not anticipate the cartoons causing the most fatalities and the pope's quote the fewest. And why so much violence in India?
These incidents also spotlight a total lack of reciprocity by Muslims. The Saudi government bans Bibles, crosses, and Stars of David, while Muslims routinely publish disgusting cartoons of Jews.
No conspiracy lies behind these six rounds of inflammation and aggression, but examined in retrospect, they coalesce and form a single, prolonged campaign of intimidation, with surely more to come. The basic message – "You Westerners no longer have the privilege to say what you will about Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur'an, Islamic law rules you too" – will return again and again until Westerners either do submit or Muslims realize their effort has failed.
|
|
Monitor the mosques!
On June 2 and 3, Canadian law enforcement in Toronto arrested 17 Muslim men for planning terrorist attacks on Canadian targets. The leader of the group, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, recruited young Muslim males by speaking at Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education, a storefront mosque in Mississauga. Law enforcement officials across the globe are searching for suspects connected to the Toronto 17; American law enforcement has already discovered at least two terrorism suspects who spoke with members of the Canadian terrorist cell.
In May 2004, London authorities arrested hook-handed, one-eyed imam Abu Hamza al-Masri. The United States immediately filed charges against al-Masri and asked that Britain expedite him for trial. Among other terrorist acts, the indictment charged al-Masri with attempting to set up a terrorist cell in Oregon. Al-Masri was also linked to terrorists Zacarias Moussaoui, who was involved in the Sept. 11 plot, and Richard Reid (a.k.a. Tariq Raja and Abdul Rahim), the shoebomber. Al-Masri was the imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque in London, where he used his pulpit to recruit terrorists and preach hate.
In September 2002, American law enforcement arrested six members of a larger terrorist cell in Buffalo, N.Y. All six were young Muslim men, and all six had attended terrorist training in Afghanistan. The leader of the group, Kamal Derwish, had recruited all the arrested members by speaking at his local mosque in Lackawanna. All six men pled guilty to terrorism charges.
Mohamed Atta, one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, used a mosque in Hamburg, Germany, to network with potential recruits, including Ramzi Binalshibh, who would act as a coordinator for the attacks. Two of the potential Sept. 11 terrorists, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, hooked up with an imam at Rabat Mosque, Anwar Aulaqi; Aulaqi would later aid al-Hazmi and Mihdhar's replacement, Hani Hanjour, in relocating east as Sept. 11 approached.
Mosques across the globe have provided material aid to terrorist groups ranging from al-Qaida to Islamic Jihad to Hezbollah to Hamas. Muslim terrorists use mosques as networking sites and often as recruitment centers for future terrorist comrades. There is no doubt that law enforcement should be heavily scrutinizing the membership and administration of mosques. Doing so before Sept. 11 could have prevented that catastrophe, just as scrutiny of a small, seemingly insignificant storefront mosque may have prevented major terrorist attacks in Canada. Muslim terrorists are, above all, religious. They will attend mosques, even if only to pray. Forget racial profiling – monitoring mosques is simple common sense.
Leaders in the Muslim community don't seem to get it. "People are suspicious and there's anger," complains Aly Hindy, imam at the Toronto-based Salaheddin Islamic Center in Scarborough. "We are being targeted not because of what we've done, but because of who we are and what we believe in."
No
doubt this is true to some extent. But that is the difference between
prevention of crime and after-the-fact investigation of crime. For
attempts to remain attempts, suspects must be stopped in the inchoate
processes leading up to attacks. Prevention is undoubtedly the only
option if civilized nations wish to preserve their citizenries from the
sadistic barbarism of our enemies. Monitoring mosques is the simplest
and most effective way of preventing terrorist attacks. Many imams are
trustworthy; many mosques are clean. Nonetheless, law enforcement must
pursue a strategy of "trust, but verify." Lives depend on it.
June
2006 Creators Syndicate Inc.
A Defeat for Islamism in America
Rubinstein: Thanks, Jamie. It is a real
pleasure to be here.
FP: First, tell us briefly what this
libel suit was about.
Rubinstein:
CAIR filed suit against Andrew Whitehead, claiming Mr. Whitehead’s
statements on the Anti-CAIR website (www.anti-cair-net.org) were false
and defamatory. The main statements were that CAIR is a terrorist
supporting front organization, that CAIR was founded by Hamas
supporters seeking to overthrow Constitutional government in the
FP: CAIR clearly had something to hide
by not wanting to open up its records right?
Rubinstein:
Well, I think that this is one conclusion that could be fairly drawn.
It would be logical to assume CAIR did not want to expose its finances,
its connections to foreign interests, and possibly the beliefs and
intentions of its key leadership to legal process. My guess, based on
the information we obtained during this case from a variety of sources,
is that CAIR may have been most concerned about protecting its funding
sources and its foreign backers. In truth, its leadership has been
pretty open about ideology and goals.
FP: Tell us some people that have been
found to be connected to CAIR.
Rubinstein:
As stated in papers filed with the court, CAIR has been connected to
the Islamic Association of Palestine (which has been held civilly
liable for the Hamas murder of an American teenager), convicted Hamas
financier Ghashan Elashi, Saudi interests, and radical groups, among
others. The court papers state:
*CAIR is connected to Musa Abu Marzook ("Marzook"), a key
Hamas operative. Marzook was named a terrorist and deported from the
*CAIR is connected to Ghassan Elashi, a founder both of
CAIR’s
*CAIR
is connected to a variety of foreign funding sources, primarily Saudis.
For example, a press release from the Saudi Arabian embassy in
*CAIR is connected to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth
(WAMY). In December 1999, WAMY announced at a press conference in
*CAIR
is connected to the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT),
which gave CAIR $14,000 in 2003. IIIT is part of an interwoven group of
terror-financing conduits that sent money to, among others, Islamic
Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian.
*CAIR
is connected to the IAP, a radical Islamic organization that preached
the inevitability of conflict between “divinely inspired” Islamic
civilization and the materialistic, God-less West. Its website stated
there “is a civilizational conflict waged between, on the one land
(sic) Islamic civilization with its divinely inspired laws and mission
to create on this earth the society of justice and freedom which has
been ordained by God; and on the other hand, Western civilization with
its materialistic culture, worship of ethnicity and the state, and
denial of God’s supremacy."
*CAIR Founder and Executive Director Awad was IAP’s
public relations director. He complained to the
*CAIR
Founder and Board Chairman Ahmad, also a former IAP official, was heard
on FBI surveillance tapes of Hamas meetings in the
*Mohammed
Nimer, a CAIR official, was on the board of the United Association for
Studies and Research, a Hamas front founded by Marzook.
*Doug
AKA “Ibrahim” Hooper (“Hooper”), CAIR’s director of Communications,
also worked for the IAP before joining CAIR. He has said, “I wouldn’t
want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of
the
*Ihsan
Bagby, a CAIR board member, has written Moslems “can never be full
citizens” of the United States “because there is no way we can be fully
committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country” as the
United States is not a Moslem country.
*Randall
(“Ismail”) Royer, CAIR’s communications specialist and civil rights
coordinator, is serving a 20-year prison term, having pled guilty after
being charged with conspiring to help Al Qaida and the Taliban kill
Americans in
*Bassem
Khafagi, CAIR’s community relations director, pled guilty in September
2003 to lying on his visa application and passing bad checks, and was
deported. Khafagi was also a founding member and president of the
Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA), a radical organization under
federal investigation for terror-related activities.
*Rabih Haddad, a CAIR fundraiser, was arrested on
terror-related charges and deported from the
*Siraj
Wahaj, a CAIR advisory board member, is a former member of the Nation
of Islam (NOI) who supports polygamy and full implementation of Islamic
law in the
FP:
Let's talk about the importance of this libel suit to free speech. CAIR
has used the courts as a tactic to stifle criticism of the Islamist
threat to
Rubinstein: The Whitehead case has
counteracted the tactic of using
FP: What are some lessons learned from
this case?
Rubinstein: Lessons learned include:
1)
As Justice Brandeis once said, the sunlight of public disclosure is the
best disinfectant. For example, in its responses to our discovery
requests, CAIR refused to admit Hamas murders innocent civilians. Now,
we uncovered evidence – all of it in the public record, by the way –
showing CAIR’s relationship with Hamas and its supporting entities. But
if anyone still had questions regarding CAIR’s true views on this
matter, this answer should put all doubts to rest.
2)
CAIR avoids critical scrutiny, and its leaders are especially
thin-skinned. To me, these traits suggest CAIR is vulnerable. It’s
important to remember that parties who resort to using lawsuits as a
substitute for open debate generally do so for two reasons: First, they
have the money to do so, and second, they recognize they can’t win a
fair exchange of ideas. CAIR apparently had the economic resources
available to support its litigation campaign. But I can only speculate
why CAIR tried to silence Mr. Whitehead. My sense is that every time a
CAIR official appears on television, more of the truth seeps out, and
CAIR alienates more and more Americans. In fact, I believe that if the
mainstream media subjected CAIR to a fraction of the scrutiny given to
the Duke Lacrosse team case, CAIR would be totally discredited.
3)
More needs to be done to expose and make public CAIR’s funding sources
and financial practices. There are stories in the Arab press on CAIR’s
foreign donors. Why these articles have not been printed in the
4) Don’t back down. Ever. CAIR’s only hope of success is if
Americans fail to stand up for what makes this country great.
FP:
The record clearly shows that CAIR does have extensive and significant
ties to Saudi funding sources, that it does promote fundamentalist
Islam, and that it does promote and advocate the termination of the
State of Israel. Now the worry is: does CAIR genuinely reflect the
views of Muslims in the
Rubinstein:
I believe CAIR most assuredly does not speak for all Muslims, for I
know there are American Muslims who oppose the policies of CAIR’s
current leadership. Nevertheless, I have come to the conclusion that
the world view of CAIR’s current leaders – at least the one I found
reflected in over a decade’s worth of public statements and activities
– has traction among key Muslim elites (e.g. clerics and community
activists) who have come to this country from the Mid-East, Pakistan,
Malaysia, and India, and among certain Muslim converts. As I went
through CAIR’s paper and Internet trail back to approximately 1994, it
seemed to me CAIR’s world view, its “meta-message” as it were, can be
broken down into three key themes. The first is terrible fear. It seems
from reading their material that Islam is under intense assault. The
second is triumphalist confidence. It seemed to me that the authors of
CAIR’s e-mail alerts and website texts and written reports believe that
Mohamed said that Islam is the only true faith, so Muslim control and
domination are eventually assured. The third is that Jews and Zionists
are apparently a source of and explanation for Muslim problems and
failures. The conclusion seems to be Muslims will reap the benefits if
Jewish “power” is reduced.
The
reason I think this world view has traction among many Mid-Eastern and
South Asian Muslim elites, is that I saw these same themes reappear
over and over again on a variety of Muslim websites, that I explored,
and in many mosque sermons and Islamic publications that I read. In the
course of defending Mr. Whitehead, we engaged in a great deal of
wide-ranging research, and I must tell you that I found entering the
Islamic Internet world was like walking through a sewer. The contempt
and intolerance for difference and dissent (even by other Muslims) is
shocking. Anti-Americanism and disdain for Western civilization is a
given. The oppression of women seems to be a basic cultural norm. And,
of course, raw, eliminationist anti-Semitism is ubiquitous. Frankly,
the obsessive fixation on Jews, Jewish control of the
FP: Reed
Rubinstein, thank you for joining us today.
Rubinstein: Thank you, Jamie. FrontPage's work is
critically important, and most appreciated.
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In the e-mail, Wichman gave his opinion of a protest led by the MSA. The e-mail read, in part:
Dear Moslem Association:
As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intened to protest your protest. I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey!), burnings of Christian chirches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavain girls and women (called "whores" in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris France.
Professor Wichman later explained: "I used strong language in a private communication that I would certainly not have used if this communication would have gone public."
But this failed to satisfy the leaders of the MSA. They wanted blood in the form of a letter of reprimand; diversity training for faculty; and a mandatory freshman seminar on hate and discrimination.
The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations had to get its shot at Wichman in as well. Executive director, Dawud Walid, had this to say: "It was upsetting, yet sad…it's scary when you think about the power that this gentleman has." Walid then added that the university should denounce the e-mail, conduct a formal investigation, and, of course, conduct "sensitivity training" on how to deal with Muslims on campus.
However, before the MSA demands anything, let’s look at some of its history.
- In 2003, the MSA of Penn State invited the chairman of a racist and anti-Semitic organization, the Populist Party, to speak at events celebrating "Islam Awareness Week".
- In 2002, during a protest in front of the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles, former MSA president Ahmed Shama shouted, "Victory to Islam! Death to the Jews!..."
- Prior to the Islamic terrorist attacks of 9-11, the MSA formally assisted the Holy Land Foundation, Global Relief, and the Benevolence Foundation in fundraising. Following the attacks, all three so-called "charities" were ordered closed. The reaction of the MSA? "How three of the nation's largest Muslim charities could be made inoperable at the peak of the giving season of Ramadan seemed unbelievable." Never mind that these three groups were providing funds to Islamic terrorist groups.
Notwithstanding its self-serving claims, the MSA is not a "Muslim civil rights" organization. The MSA is here to promote the intolerant, bigoted, and hateful cult of Islam known as "Wahhabism". From inviting bigots to speak; calling for the death of Jews, and denouncing the closing of Islamic terrorist linked "charities", the MSA has clearly shown that they are on the wrong side in the battle against Islamist terror.
Were Professor Wichman’s words a little strong? In light of the facts about Wahhabi Islam, he is telling the truth. The Wahhabis are one of the most intolerant sects of Islam and have a very brutal history that includes neglect for basic human rights, misogyny toward their own women, the imposition of the most strict forms of Sharia Islamic law and a hatred for Western culture that borders on fanatical. In calling attention to this reality, the professor made the right choice.
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TAMPA -- A judge sentenced former professor Sami Al-Arian on Monday to
another year and a half in prison before he will be deported in his
terrorism conspiracy case.
Al-Arian,
48, was sentenced to four years and nine months, but he will get credit
for the three years and three months he already has served while being
held before and after his trial.
His lawyer, Linda Moreno, asked
the judge to release her client now, but the judge refused and called
Al-Arian "a master manipulator."
Al-Arian signed a plea
agreement April 14 in which he admitted providing support to members of
the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a State Department-designated terrorist
group responsible for hundreds of deaths in Israel and the Palestinian
territories.
The former University of South Florida computer
engineering professor took the plea deal despite a jury failing to
convict him of any of the 17 charges against him after a six-month
trial last year. His family said he took the deal to get out of jail
and end their suffering.
As part of the plea agreement, Al-Arian
admitted to being associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad from
the late 1980s and providing "services" for the group, which included
filing for immigration benefits for key members, hiding the identities
of those men and lying about his involvement.
It was not
immediately clear where Al-Arian will be sent once he is deported. Born
in Kuwait to Palestinian refugee parents, he was reared mostly in Egypt
before coming to the United States 30 years ago. He has been jailed
since his arrest in February 2003.
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Al-Arian deal: He admits ties to terror group
Details of Sami Al-Arian's plea agreement emerged Monday after a federal judge unsealed documents related to hearings held last week out of public view.
In it, the fired University of South Florida professor admits being a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and helping others associated with the terrorist group -- including his deported brother-in-law Mazen Al-Najjar -- in immigration matters and lying to conceal their ties.
Al-Arian pleaded guilty to one count of "conspiracy to make or receive contributions of funds, goods or services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad." In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors dropped eight outstanding terrorism-related charges on which jurors deadlocked during a six-month trial.
Prosecutors also agreed to recommend that immigration officials "expedite" Al-Arian's expulsion after his sentencing. His family has previously said their first stop may be Egypt before they try to begin anew in the Palestinian territories.
Department of Justice officials on Monday praised the guilty plea as vindication of their anti-terrorism policies, while Al-Arian's supporters sought to distance the professor from the more serious terrorism charges he once faced.
"We have a responsibility not to allow our nation to be a safe haven for those who provide assistance to the activity of terrorists," U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said.
Ahmed Bedier, a Tampa-based spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the "plea has nothing to do with violence, and it has nothing to do with financing terrorism."
Two other co-defendants, ex-USF graduate student Sameeh Hammoudeh and Chicago-area businessman Ghassan Ballut, were acquitted. Hammoudeh, a Palestinian, has been held at a Bradenton jail awaiting deportation after pleading guilty in an unrelated tax case.
A fourth defendant, U.S. citizen Hatem Fariz of Spring Hill, still faces a retrial after jurors deadlocked in his case, too. Federal Public Defender R. Fletcher Peacock, whose office represents Fariz, on Monday said plea negotiations are ongoing.
"I think that Dr. Al-Arian's resolution is showing that the government is doing a good-faith effort to resolve the case," Peacock said. "I think that will be reflected in the outcome for our client as well."
Signed Feb. 28, Al-Arian's plea recommends a prison sentence of 46 to 57 months. However, prosecutors have hinted that they will not oppose a lower term, or even a sentence of time served that considers Al-Arian's three years of incarceration.
Al-Arian and his associates were arrested in February 2003 in a case the government once hailed as an example of the controversial USA Patriot Act.
In a jail interview with the Sentinel on Feb. 22, Al-Arian said he would sign a plea deal if there was any way that could be "respectable."
His wife, Nahla Al-Arian, later spoke of her desire for a family reunion.
"Anywhere my husband goes, I will go with him," Nahla said. "I believe that the situation is so suffocating. . . . I don't feel free anymore. Yes, I want to leave. I love America. It breaks my heart to leave everyone here.
"What I want to see is see this suffering end -- for my husband, my kids and myself."
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The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has suffered another setback in its effort to gag all those who would criticize its cozy relationship with Hamas and radical Islam. The Canadian branch of CAIR was forced this week to back off its defamation suit against David Harris, Director of the International and Terrorist Intelligence Program (INSIGNIS), a strategic intelligence research corporation based in Ottawa. This retreat comes on the heels of a similar lawsuit that the US division of CAIR filed against Andrew Whitehead, the head of Anti-CAIR in the United States, and was forced recently to withdraw.
Harris had appeared on an Ottawa radio station, CFRA radio, and during an interview made some remarks about the need for Canadian authorities to take a hard look at CAIR-CAN and the fact that some 70% of the funds it raises goes to the American chapter of the organization. He was then hit by a SLAPP lawsuit launched by Dr. Sheema Kahn and Riad Saloojee, the Executive Director of CAIR-CAN. (Both CAIR-CAN leaders have since lost their jobs.)
According to Harris, CAIR-CAN "dropped the suit cold" with no damages, costs, and, as with its dismissed $1.35 million action against ACAIR in the U.S., with no apologies or detailed clarification. A lawyer involved in criminal and national security matters who has testified before the Congress and is a former chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and who appears frequently on radio, Harris said in a prepared press statement:
"As a commentator on national security affairs, my guiding principle throughout CAIR-CAN's lawsuit was never to compromise hard-won rights of media and media commentators to their exercise of responsible free expression under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I viewed this as a responsibility at a time when Canadians in Afghanistan and elsewhere are dying for such rights, and when civil liberties must be vigorously defended at home.”
He added, "It is unknown
whether this unease [on the part of the court] stemmed from concern
about the detailed review and disclosures that would derive from such
proceedings. Or
whether the collapse of its mother organization's
US$1.35 million libel case against the American Anti-CAIR organization
played a part. We do not know whether it was the unearthing of a
December 2003 court document in which Dr. Khan had sworn to CAIR-CAN's
subsidiary status in relation to the troubling US CAIR group.
Perhaps
it was a concern that, on the witness stand, CAIR-CAN officials would
be asked to answer the questions I had asked about that relationship on
CFRA radio."
Just as with the Anti-CAIR case, CAIR-CAN sought to spin its loss in a press release stating that Harris, who was a regular "security consultant" on CFRA -radio, would not be invited back as a guest. (He has in fact appeared several times on the channel as a guest since the instigation of the lawsuit.) CAIR-CAN has also suggested that it had silenced its Canadian critics by its legal action, just as it had silenced its critics in the U.S. But the Anti-CAIR group has become even more relentless in its pursuit of CAIR since the lawsuit was dropped.
This is actually the third round in the battle against CAIR and its effort to destabilize the domestic War on Terror that has been won by its opponents.
The first loss came when
CAIR-CAN dropped its suit against columnist David Frum of the National
Post.
Frum, a former White House speechwriter for the Bush administration who
is credited with the "axis of evil" phrase, was sued by CAIR-CAN
because of his suggestion in a (Canadian) National Post
article that CAIR-CAN had terrorist affiliations. Frum issued this
statement about his own case after the David Harris victory: "The
lawsuit against the National Post and myself was settled with
an editor's note that likewise offered no apology or retraction.
The
settlement of the Harris lawsuit should be of special interest to
Canadians. David Harris is one of Canada's leading experts on
terrorism: a former chief of strategic planning for CSIS and now
president of the IINSIGNIS consulting firm. His views are regularly
heard on television and radio. Now he has recovered his full freedom to
speak and to alert Canadians to the dangers in their midst.”
What
lessons will CAIR take from the reverses it has suffered in these three
court actions? Will the organization moderate its support of
Hamas and
other radical Islamist organizations? Will there be a shakeup in
CAIR's leadership, as there has been with CAIR-CAN? And most
importantly, will the "rank and file" membership of CAIR finally
recognize that this organization is not a “civil rights” group and
represents radical Islamists overseas and not ordinary Muslims here at
home?
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CAIR Backs Down from Anti-CAIR
In a stunning setback, the Council on American-Islamic Relations defamation suit against Andrew Whitehead of Anti-CAIR has been dismissed with prejudice. The Anti-CAIR website, www.anti-cair-net.org, reports a mutually agreeable settlement, the terms of which are confidential. However, Whitehead notes that he issued no public apology to CAIR, made no retractions or corrections, and left the Anti-CAIR website unchanged, so that it continues to post the statements that triggered CAIRs suit. Specifically, CAIR had complained about Whitehead calling it a terrorist supporting front organization founded by Hamas supporters that aims to make radical Islam the dominant religion in the United States. It also objected to being described as dedicated to the overthrow of the United States Constitution and the installation of an Islamic theocracy in
That clears the decks; no additional actions are pending between these two parties. In brief, Whitehead won a sweet victory, while CAIR suffered a humiliating defeat.
CAIR initially filed suit in a Virginia Circuit Court on
The original five statements as quoted in CAIRs complaint were:
Let their [sic] be no doubt that CAIR is a terrorist supporting front organization that is partially funded by terrorists, and that CAIR wishes nothing more than the implementation of Sharia law in America.
CAIR is an organization
founded by Hamas supporters which seeks to overthrow Constitutional
government in the
ACAIR reminds our readers that CAIR was started by Hamas members and is supported by terrorist supporting individuals, groups and countries.
Why oppose CAIR? CAIR has
proven links to, and was founded by, Islamic terrorists. CAIR is not in
the
CAIR
is a fundamentalist organization dedicated to the overthrow of the
United States Constitution and the installation of an Islamic theocracy
in
In January
2005, Whiteheads counsel, Reed D. Rubinstein of Greenberg Traurig LLPs
Signs of CAIRs problems came in June 2005, when perhaps realizing how much was available in the public record about its activities, perhaps wishing to curtail some of the discovery process it amended its complaint by dropping nearly all of its original claims. The amended complaint alleged only two brief statements to be false and defamatory:
Let their [sic] be no doubt that CAIR is a terrorist supporting front organization.
CAIR seeks to overthrow
constitutional government in the
(For
an analysis of this amended complaint, see Sharon Chadha and my
article, CAIR Founded by Islamic Terrorists?)
In anticipation of a court hearing regarding discovery, Rubinstein filed papers in the Virginia Circuit Court in October 2005 and December 2005 alleging extensive links between CAIRs organizers and control group with Hamas and other foreign and domestic Islamists. Among other things, these papers alleged:
CAIRs lineage goes back to a key Hamas leader (Musa Abu Marzook), and that CAIR has long been connected with, and exploited the 9/11 attacks to raise money for the Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas front group.
CAIR is heavily supported, financially and otherwise, by suspect Saudi and UAE-based individuals and groups.
CAIR states that the
CAIR refused to respond to Anti-CAIRs discovery requests in its November 2005 response to Rubinstein. For example, it did not admit that Hamas murders innocent civilians, it refused to disclose the identities of its Saudi donors, it declined to answer whether it aims to convert American Christians to Islam, and it avoided questions about the anti-Semitic and anti-American activities of its founder and executive director, Nihad Awad, including his communications with Hamas terrorists, speeches supporting suicide bombings, and advocacy of violence against Jews.
In March 2006, shortly before a scheduled court hearing to decide on several of Whiteheads requests (compelling CAIR to disclose its financial data, to answer questions about its relationship with Hamas and other Islamists, and to provide information regarding its leaders activities and intentions), the case was settled and then dismissed with prejudice by stipulation (meaning, the plaintiff has agreed to forever drop all of the claims that were in, or could have been in, the complaint).
Asked about these developments, CAIRs spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper, confirmed to the New York Sun that the libel case was dismissed at the request of both parties and added that It was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Asked if he implied that Whitehead had paid the organization to drop the case, Hooper replied, We filed the suit. Asked the same question again, Hooper repeated the same answer.
Comment:
(1) I had a role in this story, for it was my article, Why Is CAIR Suing Anti-CAIR? published only a week after CAIRs initial filing, that brought this case to Reed Rubinsteins attention and led to Greenberg Traurig LLPs serving as Whiteheads wonderfully capable, pro-bono legal counsel.
(2) In that initial article, I expressed puzzlement why CAIR would voluntarily expose itself to discovery. Did it file this case expecting to steamroll Whitehead, whom CAIR may have perceived as an easy target, and thereby intimidate its critics? What seemed early on to be a mistake by CAIR is now confirmed as such; it ran into a litigation buzz-saw, and it seems to have cut and run. CAIR preferred the ignominy of walking away from the case it initiated rather than open to public scrutiny its finances, its list of supporters, and the beliefs and intentions of its key leaders.
(3) CAIRs November 2005 brief to the court contains several statements of note:
CAIR has
established a status of enviable prestige within highest echelons [sic]
of the
CAIR stands up for
America and speaks out against terrorism in
pronouncements to the general public, thereby earning the enmity of the
very terrorists Whitehead claims CAIR supports (p. 6). Sounds good,
but CAIR did not
provide any evidence in its brief of such enmity.
CAIR
has communicated with various members of the United States Senate
concerning both the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief
Foundation. (pp. 27-8) This comes as news. One wonders what information
on these two terrorism-funding groups CAIR provided.
CAIR states that it advised Frontpagemag.com of possible legal action concerning a doctored photograph it employed to illustrate an article written by Whitehead (p. 28). Its amusing that CAIR, which itself famously doctored a photograph, accuses FPM of doing this; in fact, FPM merely posted a graphic, as it often does, one showing Hooper with Hamas figures in the background.
(4) Hooper stated the case settled for an undisclosed amount but did not disclose in which direction that amount went. The terms being confidential, one can only speculate. Perhaps CAIR desperately wanted out of the burdensome, embarrassing, and harmful case it foolishly had initiated? Rubenstein hinted as much when he observed that CAIR became more disposed to settle in late 2005, when a judge was considering what CAIR would have to divulge about its financing and its ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups. Rubenstein told the New York Sun that the lawsuit would have opened up CAIRs finances and their relationships and their principles, their ideological motivations in a way they did not want to be made public.
(5) According to CAIRs own analysis of Whiteheads initial statements, they impute the commission of a criminal offense by CAIR, in that these suggest CAIR actively supports terrorists, and advocates the overthrow of the U.S. Constitution in favor of Islamic law. It bears noting that none of these words were found to be false, they were not retracted, and they remain posted on Anti-CAIRs website.
(6) The collapse of this lawsuit, combined with the even more recent ending of two other CAIR legal actions (versus Cass Ballenger and David Harris), suggests that CAIR is no longer the plaintiff in any court cases; more broadly, what I in 2004 called its pattern of growing litigiousness seems finished.
(7) With CAIRs hopes of
defeating its opponents in the legal arena at least temporarily
defeated, the next step for those of us in
Frontpagemag.com
April, 2006