Cultural Differences

 
Shrinkwrapped has a post up this week regarding “the connection between ADHD, the poor showing of boys (relative to girls) in academia, and over-stimulation.”

As we know, boys are more likely to be diagnosed as ADHD, that is, as having a disordered ability to attend to any given situation and a tendency to hyperactivity which the child cannot seem to control.

Shrinkwrapped makes the very good point that over-stimulation of a child can be a defining cause of ADHD. If this is something you’ve not thought about, I’ll illustrate the point with a few situations which result in over-stimulation of children, beginning with my favorite demon, TV — that ubiquitous companion with its fast-tempoed cutting of images and sounds. Think of the synapses forming in a growing child’s brain and then consider the effect this process has on all of that chemistry. And I don’t mean the content of what the child sees — though that certainly can be a problem, too — so much as the process by which the child is turned from being this: a person who can attend for a set amount of time to something novel in its environment, to this: a whirling dervish whose mind changes channels as frequently as his father changes them while channel-surfing whatever cable offerings are available. The neural pathways in his brain have been re-routed.

That’s one way to create ADHD. It’s simply a matter of making sure nothing settles down to a level which can be contained, processed and metabolized by the child. That is the essence of over-stimulation.

Here are a few more: Chuck E. Cheese’s. The perfect ADHD environment. If you were designing a way to ensure ADHD, you couldn’t do better than that whole body experience. Theme parks, where children run from fantasy to fantasy, always chasing more and more and more. TV ads geared to kids do the same thing; they create the desire for more and more which results in the frenzy of “having.”

And then, the most serious one: child sexual abuse by a trusted caretaker. In this country, sexual exploitation of our children is becoming more serious and more pervasive each year. It’s one of the reasons that ADHD is being increasingly diagnosed. As families break up and re-form into blended families, or as single young girls have babies and follow that with serial relationships with men who are not their children’s father, children are left at the mercy of parental substitutes who are not related to them by blood kinship — and often not even in legal kinship arrangements. The risk of sexual and physical abuse for these children is extremely high.

At a childcare conference I attended about twelve years ago, the speaker — a man who was at the time in charge of investigating all the reported SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)deaths in New York City — claimed that one hundred percent of the pre-verbal children in large daycare centers in the City had been sexually or physically abused. I have never been able to trace that statistic (and unfortunately, the speaker rushed from the conference to the airport to stay ahead of a snowstorm).

But…

If you think it’s bad here (and it is) just consider the case in Muslim countries. Who knows if it’s specifically Muslim “cultures” or not? Whatever the cause, children in Palestine, in Pakistan, in Indonesia,in Afghanistan, are simply objects to be used by adults. Remember Mukhtar Mai and the gang rape she endured in her village — a gang rape inflicted by the village council in order to “restore honor” to a powerful family who had originally gang-raped her little brother? Mukhtar Mai was an exception — she fought the situation all the way to world-wide fame. Unfortunately, millions of others are ground under by a cultural system which considers women and children as easily disposed of, as less than fully human — which by sharia law is granted only to adult males.

[Before I am assailed by Muslims who want to argue with my assertions, let me say that American culture is pernicious in a different way. We hurt our boys in a manner opposite, by showing girls preference, by creating Orwellian laws like the Title IX monstrosity that dictates “equal” intramural college sports, thereby killing them off, by loading all the child-oriented bureaucracies (schools and social work) with women, by demanding that little boys act like girls, by feminizing masculinity into a caricature of what it ought to be, and by having men absent in the raising of children. We are driving the dignity of manhood out of our culture and we are paying a terrible price. The percentage of men in college is now lower than that of women and that is just the beginning of a long slide down the hill to a skewed culture]

Sharia law is probably closely connected to terrorism. Even more than that, one of the unintended consequences of sharia law is the risk it sets up for women and children to be abused. One form this abuse takes is over-stimulation through sexual contact. Girls may not be physically intruded upon since their worth depends on their “honor.” Thus, the use of boys. And one possible channel for boy children’s shame is to grow to adulthood in islamic culture and in turn use their status as “full” human beings to project fear and terror and random mayhem onto others who cannot fight back. Having lived it in their formative years, it is a scenario they understand intimately.

For an extreme and well-documented example, think of Palestine. Not only is the family system dysfunctional (to put it mildly) but the pedagogical culture functions to create little terror monsters who crave the acceptance of the bigger monsters in their midst. Schools teach hatred of others and inculcate meaningfulness in the idea of being willing to die for one’s beliefs, especially to die and take others with them. It is an extreme, calculated and distorted chauvinism whose highest ideal is martyrdom. Toddlers are dressed as mujahideen, complete with armament. In our culture, on the other hand, children are taught just the opposite: they are told repeatedly that understanding American history means exposing how cruel and unusual our history was and how badly our ancestors behaved toward others. Our little ones are expected to internalize atonement for the sins of their forebears and to act on this belief of sinfulness, whether it be in the form of constant apology or that of recompense for our victims. Celebration? Of what??

Family life in the Middle East is not pretty:

     Throughout the Islamic Middle East, men and women are taught to be vehemently opposed to pleasure, especially of the sexual variety. Men are raised not only forbidden to touch women, but to even look at them. Sex before marriage is not just a sin — but a criminal offence. It is punishable by a severe beating at best, and an execution at worst.
The sexual privileges that are allowed in Islamic cultures are permitted to men. Women’s sexuality and social independence represent major threats to male supremacy and are tightly controlled. Thus, as the Moroccan feminist Fitna Sabbah reveals in her book Woman in the Muslim Unconscious, there is a disturbing conflict in the Middle East between sexual libido and repression. A deep-seated fear of, and hostility to, individuality prevails, and its main expression exists in misogyny.
Socially segregated from women, Arab men succumb to homosexual behavior. But, interestingly enough, there is no word for “homosexual” in their culture in the modern Western sense. That is because having sex with boys, or with effeminate men, is seen as a social norm. Males serve as available substitutes for unavailable women. The male who does the penetrating, meanwhile, is not emasculated any more than if he had sex with a wife. The male who is penetrated is emasculated. The boy, however, is not, since it is rationalized that he is not yet a man.

Think of the repercussions of such experiences of over-stimulation on young male children where they understand that their turn will come as they grow into adulthood in a culture which encourages them to pass on their experience (for that, after all, is the essence of “culture”).

In our American world, such sexually used boys will be the hyperactive, disorganized drop-outs who understand intuitively that they do not fit in; there is no place for them except prison or institutions. In the Islamic world, they will be the bombers, the passers-on of violence directed at others.

Our boy victims are more fortunate than their muslim counterparts. While shame may result in repressed memories and acting-out behaviors, they are considered victims, not objects. The humiliation of the American Catholic Church is the result of its well-deserved contempt by those who know that the Church did little or nothing to protect its boy children from predator priests. Can you imagine a similar public response in a Muslim country? I can’t either.

In a September visit to the US, here’s what Pakistan’s President Musharraf said about the “problem” of rape in his country:

     The “easiest way” for Pakistani women to make money is to get raped, he said, so they’re lining up to be raped and thus making him look bad… “You must understand the environment in Pakistan… This has become a moneymaking concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped…It is the easiest way of doing it. Every second person now wants to.”

Of course he was referring to Mukhtar Mai’s campaign to have the crimes against her redressed. And having said it, he denied doing so — except that the Washington Post has him on tape (see the previous link).

Phyllis Chesler has written extensively about the problem of sexual perversion — for surely that is what this is — in Islamic countries. But she adds another ingredient to an already overflowing pot:

     Widespread child sexual abuse leads to paranoid, highly traumatized, and revenge-seeking adults. Based on my own experience in Afghanistan (a non-Arab, Muslim culture), a polygamous, patriarchal culture also leads to an infernal, fraternal competition for paternal favor and inheritance. It is brother against brother, full brothers against half-brothers, full and half brothers against first cousins–and thus, can entire families and clans remain locked in revenge-fueled mortal combat for generations.

In other words, in addition to the vengeful after-effects there is the additional burden of scarcity of affection and opportunity. In America, you can move away and attempt to start a new life. You can sue for civil damages (as the Church has learned). You can take advantage of the possibilities that exist to heal and transcend your fated childhood. No, you cannot be the person you might have been had you not endured that over-stimulation, pain, and humiliation. But you may be fortunate to process and transform those memories so they can no longer hurt you. You can metabolize your experiences so that you are able to think, to contain thought, and to have enough inner space to contemplate decisions. No longer fated to repeat your history, you are freed from it.

In Muslim countries, you can turn to warfare and terrorism and physical triumph to expunge your devils. But that’s all there is. No redemption, no hope of transformation. However, you can choose a glorious death — that is definitely one opportunity open to you.

Who’d have thought Liberty could appear in so many guises?

Sheikh It Up

 
Sheikh GilaniBack in early 2002, Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani had his fifteen minutes of media fame as the “reclusive sheikh” of Pakistan, whom Daniel Pearl was attempting to interview about an alleged connection with Richard Reid, aka the “Shoe Bomber”. When Mr. Pearl was abducted and murdered, Sheikh Gilani immediately became a suspect, and various media organizations began their own investigation of him.

CBS News sent a “60 Minutes II” team to Lahore, and somehow — better-paid bodyguards? a higher media profile? not being Jewish? — they managed to survive and interview the sheikh. According to a web version of the report:

     Gilani is a mysterious figure in the Islamic world. He is said to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. But for Pearl two other things set him apart. First, Gilani along with his followers have appeared on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. Second, and even more provocative, the sheik has thousands of disciples who live right here in the United States. Dan Rather reports.
Pearl was following a lead. He thought that Richard Reid, the alleged shoe bomber, may have been a part of Gilani’s network of disciples. When 60 Minutes II Reporter George Crile arrived in Pakistan on Feb. 11, 19 days after Pearl had been taken captive, Pearl’s fate was still unknown. But Gilani was now behind bars, a principal suspect in Pearl’s kidnapping.
[…]
In the [State Department] report, Gilani’s organization was described as an “Islamic sect that seeks to purify Islam through violence.” His followers, who call themselves The Muslims of America,” are based in the United States, thousands operating in 19 states across the country.
Most of them are African-American Muslims, who live in self-contained Islamic communities, like one they named Islamville in South Carolina, with its own mosque, its own school and more than 100 residents. All of them accept Gilani as their ultimate authority.
[…]
The sheik welcomed them into his home. Was this man at the heart of a terror network that threatened the U.S.? Was he behind Richard Reid? Crile had the opportunity to ask those questions, to a man who does not operate in public and does not give interviews.
Gilani said that he had nothing to do with Pearl’s kidnapping. He also said he did not know anything about Richard Reid, and that Reid was not part of his group.
[…]
Gilani also said he was not part of al-Qaeda. “Why should I be part of it? I don’t, I just – I’m a reformer, educationist. And I am not part of anybody.” He also said he didn’t know bin Laden, and has never met him.

That’s it? That’s the extent of the investigation? I guess we’re just supposed to take the sheikh’s word for it. Isn’t CBS even going to forge a few documents to support their contentions?

As it happens, there is ample evidence of Sheikh Gilani’s association with the Great Islamic Jihad. As Mira L. Boland reported in the Weekly Standard:

     Sheikh Gilani has rubbed shoulders at international terrorist confabs with gunslingers from Hamas and Hezbollah, their mullah backers, and Osama bin Laden. And he has trained fighters for the battlefields of Kashmir, Chechnya, and Bosnia.
[…]
Over the years, at least a dozen Fuqra members have been convicted of crimes including conspiracy to commit murder, firebombing, gun smuggling, and workers’ compensation fraud in the United States or Canada…
Sheikh Gilani found his first American recruits by raiding the ranks of an existing American Muslim organization, the Dar ul Islam. At a Brooklyn mosque, Gilani, sporting ammunition belts, preached Islam as the path to a better life and called for fighters to join the holy war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Couldn’t CBS have looked at Ms. Boland’s sources and checked the man’s record out thoroughly? Spend a few minutes on the web googling him, and you’ll find plenty of information about the sheikh’s proclivities.

But CBS News does offer a glimpse into other aspects of Sheikh Gilani’s worldview:

     He wanted to talk about what he sees as the most serious threat to the world, why bad things happen in America, including acts of terrorism. These bad things, he says, are caused by invisible forces.
“There are beings who are not visible to you,” he says. “But they inhabit this earth. And they are damaging, causing psychotic diseases, fits, epilepsies. And controlling the agents, controlling the human beings.”
Gilani says he can control those evil forces. He says that he is not a threat to the U.S., but could be its salvation.
To understand why, he points to an American television show “The X-Files.” He says the mind control and evil influence that aliens wield over human beings in the program is much like the power of the invisible forces he believes in.
“What is an X-file? Most of things – could have happened or will happen,” Gilani said. “Human beings can be made to do things against their will. They can be made to commit crimes. They can made to go and kill people. You know? And all your missiles, all your rockets, space ships go up. And electronics, they can be damaged, influenced, and misdirected through the agencies of gin [sic – should be jinn or djinn] beings.”
Muslims all over the world also believe in these invisible evil forces that are described in the Koran. The sheik feels that these forces are a much bigger threat to the U.S. than terrorism. He says the United States should thank him for passing on his message about the invisible world instead of accusing him of terrorism.

So it seems that Sheikh Gilani is quite an interesting fellow, with much more intellectual depth than the average “Kill the Jews and Crusaders” mujahid.

Beyond 60 Minutes II
But the sheikh had second thoughts about CBS after the interview. Evidently the evil djinni had possessed “60 Minutes,” and Sheikh Gilani felt compelled to set the record straight.

On his merchandising website, the sheikh is now selling a video called Beyond 60 Minutes II. According to its product description:

     Discover the conspiracy to abduct and character assassinate, Sultan Syed ubarik Jilani Qadri by falsely connecting him with the Daniel Pearl and Richard Reid cases.

 

     Imam Jilani was a victim of Zionist media terrorism which was unleashed worldwide against him, the Int’l Quranic Open University of NY, and 22 Islamic villages in the USA. They alleged that R. Reid, so called shoe bomber was a student of our University and a follower of Imam Jilani.
El Sheikh Jilani, Sajjadah Nasheen of the Holy Shrine of Hazrat Mian Mir Qadri of Lahore, has hundreds and thousands of American Muslim followers spread out in 22 towns in the USA and other countries in the world, was a victim of character assassination.
On the 13th of Sept., CNN News broadcastedthat Richard Reid admitted to acting independently alone without any outside help.
In Part 1, all of the false propaganda is revealed and irrefutable evidence about 9/11 is shown, unveiling the conspiracy against the American people and the world at large.
Also, the most important point is the factthat thousands of people have witnessedhundreds of miracles as well as many miraculous healings in hospitals since the arrival of El Sheikh Jilani in the 1980’s, proving that our Imam and his Jamaat are saviors to the people.

Notice that the sheikh acknowledges twenty-two Muslims of America communities. Can you identify them all? Red House and Meherrin are the two nearest Gates of Vienna, but there may be one just down the street from you.

In a book for sale on his site, Sheikh Gilani expands on the history of Islam in America (modestly including his own role in it):

     This book covers the history of Islam in America, from its early roots among the Native Americans who had been interacting with Arab traders hundreds of years before Columbus “discovered” America, and its long period of dormancy until the 20th century when Islam suddenly began to come under the spotlight, although it was propounded mainly by many false and misguided people. Islam was at first misrepresented as a “black mans religion” and Holy Quran was mistranslated into the English language in accord with the wishes of those proponents of the New World Order, whose intention was to feed the American people a “watered down” and distorted Islam because they knew that if people were to become true Muslims they would never stand for the injustice and oppression which is the very backbone of their plan for world domination.
Consequently, through their agents the Wahabis, the Mazais and others, a vicious and many faceted plan was set into motion to keep those people who became Muslims ignorant of the real teachings of Islam, and to create an atmosphere of fear and mistrust towards Islam among the general population of America. However, as “Allah is the best of Planners.” The tables were turned and all their plans backfired when in the 1970s American Muslims began to realize they were being duped, and a desire for true Islam was awakened in their hearts.
In answer to that earnest desire, Allah, the Most Merciful sent a rightly guided Murshid in the person of his eminence El Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Jilani, who was immediately recognized and followed by thousands of American Muslims, who by his blessed guidance formed Muslims of the Americas, and began a great Hijra, leaving the decadent cities to establish their own Muslim towns and villages throughout the land where true Islam would be fully implemented and practiced. This book tells the story of their long journey from ignorance to enlightenment, their “tragedy and triumph” from the beginning to the present day.

Boy, that explains a lot. Now we know why the Indians took scalps, massacred settlers, and murdered innocent women and children — they were Muslims! And it was the evil infidel Crusaders’ firewater that brought about their downfall, as we all know.

Leaving aside history, Sheikh Gilani takes up medicine, specifically Quranic Psychiatry,

     Book 1, Ultimate Fraud of Freudists contains results of a research and demonstration project done at the Psychiatric Research Institute, Saudi Arabia – and U.S.A Research Centers since 1977. In front of researchers from eight countries, El Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Jilani, Vice Chancellor of International Quranic Open University, demonstrated the affects of chapters and lines from Holy Quran in healing some “incurable” mental and physical diseases. Since a large number of patients have been healed by the qualified practitioner of Quranic Psychiatry (QOU), this book gives theoretical and practical explanations of causes and remedies of many “incurable” diseases.
El Sheikh Jilani was declared Imam of Quranic Sciences in a meeting of physicians and researchers in Taif. Afterwards, Dr. Rushdee Mahmood was inspired to write a long poem in Arabic extolling the extraordinary title and honor bestowed upon his eminence El Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Jilani, Hashmi, Wal Husseini.

Wouldn’t you rather be under the care of a Quranic practitioner rather than some (probably Jewish) “psychiatrist”? I know I would.

In another video, the renowned polymath expounds on the same topic he covered in the CBS interview, namely the influence of evil spirits. Look at the blurb for The Science of Interpreting Events Seen During Sleep and Awakened States and the Method of Directing and Averting the Ill Affects:

The Science of Interpreting Events Seen During Sleep The International Quranic Open University Inc. is pleased to produce this most valuable and informative documentary which concerns every person. No one can afford to remain ignorant of the least basic knowledge of understanding and knowing the interpretation of events seen during sleep and awakened state. Allah taught this to Hazrat Yoosuf (as) and the purpose was not only to teach him, but to also give him knowledge of averting and directing the harmful affects of things seen. We see that Pharaoh, the then ruler of Egypt, saw in his sleep state 7 lean cows devouring 7 fat cows. Similarly, there is a lot in Surah Yoosuf for us to learn. Hazrat Yoosuf interpreted not only what it meant, but also adapted various methods to combat the ill affects of the 7 years of famine by which this beholding meant.
     Therefore, in this short documentary, a basic understanding has been developed with a focus to rid people of superstition and unknown fear, which arises out of ignorance when interpreting events seen during a sleep state.
This documentary is one in the series of the Revival of Islamic Sciences.

Mind you, this effort to get rid of superstition is a revival of Islamic Science. Just think what the world would be like if we could rid ourselves of the pernicious influence of such infidel sciences as Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, and return to the golden age of Islamic learning! Remember, everything that we could ever need or want to know is already present in the Quran.

Sheikh Gilani has many more important items for sale on the VCTech Productions site, and they’re all worth a look. I was curious about vctechpro.com, and wanted to know more about them, but their “Information”, “About Us”, and “FAQs” pages are all blank. If you go to “Contact Us”, you get a web form which will take your message and carry it away — presumably by affrit — to… Well, to somewhere.

As a matter of interest, in its domain information, vctechpro.com lists as its contact one Razzaq Clark, in Johnson City, NY. I’ll bet you’re not surprised that Johnson City is just a short hop down the highway from Hancock, NY, the headquarters of Jamaat ul-Fuqra.

The Council Roars

Watcher's CouncilRightwing Nuthouse takes it away. In “Guns, Germs and Moonbats,” Mr. Moran makes an impassioned plea for an intelligent response to our history and to our national celebration of Thanksgiving.

To this effect, he takes to task a professor of “journalism” (my scare quotes), Robert Jensen, for his “execrable screed” on the subject of our nation’s history, which Mr. Moran correctly thinks —

     should probably be dismissed as the ravings of an escapee from some lunatic asylum or perhaps the latest statement issued from the Democratic National Committee (some would argue the differences there are insignificant). Nevertheless, a cursory Technorati search revealed the fact that no one has taken the time or effort to contradict this moonbat’s flawed historical interpretation not to mention the outright falsehoods contained in his not-ready-for-high-school
essay.

Thus, Mr. Moran decides that though it is a dirty job, someone has to do it. And for his thorough fisking of a most unscholarly work, he won first place in the Watcher’s Council. Just one more indication that we are sick of having our national mythology and ethos desecrated by moral morons with, as he says, “the historical knowledge and cognitive abilities of a high school sophomore”:

     Every single holiday in which we seek to celebrate what is good and decent about this country and contemplate all that we should treasure and be thankful for, some lickspittle lefty feels an obligation to point out that we should take the ceremonial sword and open up our midsection to atone for all of the past sins committed by our ancestors.

Amen, Brother Moran.

The Glittering Eye placed second for a most intriguing essay, “Discussing Withdrawal From Iraq.” This post deserves your careful attention. He points out that he attempted to open up this conversation before but it quickly degenerated into name-calling. Now, riffing on a post from the Winds of War, GE attempts another round.

While I respectfully disagree on a number of points raised by this post, it is thoughtful and has generated much response from other bloggers. Here seems to be the main issue:

     The most pernicious of the many errors we’ve made over the last several years is the notion that we can achieve good things in Iraq or in the War on Terror without substantial costs. That just isn’t going to happen. Come what may there will be major political, social, economic, and human costs.
I think that every project of any substantial scope should have a useable subset i.e. deliverables that are available at some fraction of the total cost of the project that has value in and of itself. Bringing democracy to Iraq doesn’t. Now we’ll either cut our losses and bear the costs we’ve already borne without any of the benefits either for ourselves or the Iraqis possibly creating big new hazards in the process or we’ll invest more in what may well be a forlorn hope to try and make good our losses.
Rather than ending on that note I want to repeat my plea to engage in a constructive discussion of changing the dynamics in Iraq. Neither staying the course nor declaring defeat and going home is a worthwhile strategy.

This a well-reasoned look at the situation in Iraq; read it and decide for yourself. Dialogue on this subject is essential for our nation as a whole.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

And note, if you will, the complementarity of these two winning posts. Though they are quite different, there is a meta-theme uniting them: the civil discourse and dialouge that must be restored in our public life. Would that our public servants were as thoughtful. [From this post to God’s eyes, anyway]

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

The non-council winner is an amazing and meticulous post from American Future. It is a through examination of the changes in the editorial position of the New York Times re the war in Iraq. The whole thing will cover the twelve years from 1993 to 2005. This post, the first part of his exploration, concludes with the end of Clinton’s administration in 2000. The second, and future post, will bring us from 2001 to the present.

This essay is a tour-de-force, examining in detail how the “paper of record,” or perhaps one should now say “the late paper of record,” or perhaps “the former paper of record.” Whatever. Here at Gates we call this newspaper The Old Grey Whore in order to denote its bias, mendacious lying, and the myriad glory-hounding positions in which it has lain all the way back to the Duranty and Stalin love affair in the 1930’s. That amounts to decades of prostituting prevarication. In the Ukraine Famine, the Times, via Walter Duranty, lied and people died. And they died, and died, and died. Would that Duranty were her only freak; unfortunately, the whore with the heart of iron has also an iron constitution. Onward she totters still.

But, as American Future so totally nails,

     …war can be lost because public opinion turns against its continued prosecution. The New York Times – the self-described “newspaper of record” – is among the world’s most influential opinion leaders. As shown by the cited quotations, the newspaper’s stance on Iraq underwent a complete transformation during the decade separating 1993 and 2003. While its editors never lost their fear of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their prescription for countering the threat posed by the weapons was altered beyond recognition. In 1993, by arguing that cease-fire violations nullified U.N. protection, the Times affirmed the right of a victorious party to resume hostilities at its sole discretion if the party it defeated did not abide by the terms of the agreement to which it affixed its signature. Ten years later, the Times reversed its stance, asserting that the United States should not go to war without the approval of the United Nations. In so doing, the Times implicitly argued that going to war with the approval of a multilateral institution took precedence over the use of military force to expeditiously eliminate the threat posed by Iraq’s WMD.
[…]
When the editors criticized the Clinton administration, it was for being too dovish, not too hawkish. They leveled similar criticisms at the U.N. Security Council. China, Russia and especially France were taken to task for giving priority to their commercial interests over coming to grips with the threat posed by Iraq’s WMD.

The post follows the trail of the editorials as they assume one position, now another. Some editorials take the Clinton administration to task for the lack of a coherent plan, others ask for clarification on Clinton’s Iraq policy, and yet others argue against a regime change, but demand a commitment from the administration. The sum seems to be that the Old Grey One didn’t like Clinton’s foreign policy when it came to Iraq.

The next installment will examine the changes She undergoes in her editorial attitudes when George W. Bush takes over in 2001. That future fisking should be every bit as interesting as this first one was. I can’t wait!

(For what it’s worth, I noticed that the dateline for the post was the anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination. Nothing signficant there, just an interesting conjunction. Sometimes, I find myself wondering what Kennedy would have made of some of the politics which followed after him. While you may not have agreed with his policies, you never doubted he had some)

Varifrank, that superb essayist, won second place for his post on Ramsey Clark. What is the opposite of paean? Denunciation, perhaps? If so, that’s what we have in “ From the Law Offices of Dewey, Cheatam and Howe,” Varifrank’s skillful dissection, disemboweling and pinning to the board of this former Attorney General.

     Well, well, look what we got here. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark has joined the legal team of Saddam Hussein. For some reason, the left thinks the title of “ex-attorney general” lends some sort of panache to having this man on Saddam’s side, but I think seeing Ramsey Clark on your legal team is like looking up and seeing a vulture circling overhead. It just does not bode well for your future, its like O.J. saying you were framed.

After introducing the speckled toad, Varifrank proceeds to let you see him up close and awful, the terrible detail of his working innards. Eeeyewww…this is not a post for the less-than-stalwart, though Clark’s utter incompetence makes one glad to know he is on Saddam’s team. With professional help of this caliber, Saddam will end up more than happy to accept execution if it means being rid of ol’ Ramsey.

It is hard to pick a particular favorite from among the particulars of the extensive laundry list of Clark’s incompetencies, misdemeanors, and felonious assaults upon the American commonweal. Because we are now involved in a conflict in Iraq that some would liken to Vietnam, I suppose my favorite seditious moment in a long history of ghastly behavior is this item:

     Clark also cant miss any opportunity to be his own Secretary of State for the “Republic of Whackdonia”.
For example:
At the height of the Vietnam War ( 1972!), he flew to Hanoi and denounced the U.S. war effort.
(ed: no better evidence of our “national restraint” can be found outside of the fact that wasnt summarily executed upon his return.)

Yep, he’s a doozy. From Lyndon LaRouche to the Iran tribunal in which he participated and agreed with its conclusion that the US had “colluded” in the Shah’s crimes, Ramsey Clark is a piece of work, a living contradiction to the notion that cream rises to the top. Certainly, when Clark’s name floats up, the association is definitely not to cream.

Read the whole thing. Then ask yourself: whatever in the world has happened to prosecuting fools for treason? Clark should have been swinging a long, long time ago. Why, even Jimmy Carter doesn’t like him. I keep wondering, what would Benjamin Franklin have had to say to this professional toad?

The rest of us are all to be seen over at the Watcher’s house. Drop by, give us a read…have one of the Watcher’s beers while you’re at it.



NB: We have a new council member: Shrinkwrapped. Or, as I am more likely to say on my Lucy-Goosey days, “Shrink warped.” In the interests of disclosure, I should say that Shrinkwrapped reads The New York Times so I don’t have to. Isn’t he nice? So far, though, I’ve not found anyone willing to listen to NPR for me. I guess there are limits. I don’t refuse to follow these two pieces of media merely out of contempt, but also out of solidarity with the thousands of soldiers who have died on our behalf and whose death these two organs of leftist propaganda demean at every opportunity. They are but Cindy Sheehans with cosmetics and an expensive haircut so that the hysteria and personality disorder are harder to discern.

But you know what having Shrinkwrapped aboard means, don’t you? We now have two psychiatrists on the rolls. Of course, they couldn’t be more different in temperament, but nonetheless, we’d better watch it.

Everybody, quick! Put on your sane face.

Warning to Danes: Forget Pakistan for the Holidays

 
Do you remember the contretemps in Denmark this past October regarding the cartoon drawings of Mohammed? Well, it certainly has gotten interesting in the weeks since the first story went to press.

The whole thing started when a Danish author complained that he couldn’t find anyone to render a cartoon illustration of Mohammed for his book about the prophet. A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, concerned about the resounding silence to the writer’s request for an illustrator, decided to ask twelve artists to render their cartoon versions of Mohammed.

     Carsten Juste, the paper’s editor, said the cartoons were a test of whether the threat of Islamic terrorism had limited the freedom of expression in Denmark.

MohammedAs it turns out, Islamic terrorism has certainly made its fury felt; it looks as though freedom of expression is a thing of the past in Denmark. Or rather, what has passed is the likelihood of living to tell about it if you are ever foolish enough to consider yourself to have freedom of speech where Islam is concerned. The newspaper is now under guard and several of the twelve cartoonists have gone into hiding since the publication of their work. Here’s a sample from one of them: and it has brought down the wrath of Islam’s fundamentalists, not just on the newspaper but upon all of Denmark.

First Danish Muslims took to the streets in protest and it deteriorated from there:

     The publication led to outrage among the Muslim immigrants living in Denmark. Five thousand of them took to the streets to protest. Muslim organisations have demanded an apology, but Juste rejects this idea: “We live in a democracy. That’s why we can use all the journalistic methods we want to. Satire is accepted in this country, and you can make caricatures,” he said. The Danish imam Raed Hlayhel reacted with the statement: “This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims. Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation. The article has insulted every Muslim in the world.”
Flemming Rose, the cultural editor at the newspaper, denied that the purpose had been to provoke Muslims. It was simply a reaction to the rising number of situations where artists and writers censored themselves out of fear of radical Islamists, he said. “Religious feelings cannot demand special treatment in a secular society,” he added. “In a democracy one must from time to time accept criticism or becoming a laughingstock.”

Right. Notice the key phrase there: “In a democracy…” But Islamist fundamentalists don’t live in democracies. They live in parallel to the rest of the world, in utopian fantasies of a mythological glorious past, and based on paranoid beliefs about the sins of the infidels.
Thus, within a matter of days, the Muslim world was making an international incident out of cartoons:

     Eleven Muslim ambassadors to Copenhagen, who had protested to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen demanding apologies from the newspaper, decided to take the matter to international Muslim organisations, such as the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
One of the eleven ambassadors is the ambassador of Turkey. She has received full support of the Turkish Foreign Ministry in asking Rasmussen to call Jyllands-Posten to account for “abusing Islam in the name of democracy, human rights and freedom of expression.” According to Muslims it is blasphemy to depict the Prophet Muhammad.
Last week [in mid-October], the ambassadors sent a protest letter to Rasmussen, but the Danish Prime Minister, stressing that Denmark recognized freedom of expression, refused to discuss the matter. On Tuesday the Egyptian ambassador said on Danish television that the group of ambassadors planned to meet Danish politicians to put pressure on the PM, but after a meeting of the group yesterday it was announced that the Organisation of the Islamic Conference would take the matter into its hands. The Organisation, representing 56 member states, has already sent a letter of protest to the Danish government. “Now it is moving up to the international level. Therefore, we will not try to contact Denmark’s political leaders,” the Egyptian ambassador said. She added that also “the Arab League will weigh in soon.”

How about those Danes, hmm? None of them caved. Consider what might have happened in, say, Britain, had there been such an incident. Prince Charles would have been on bended knee in front of any imam willing to take his apology.

Now, two months later, the Danish government has issued warnings to its citizens regarding travel to Pakistan:

     A bounty of DKK 50,000 had been put on the head the cartoonist responsible for the drawings, daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende reported on Friday. The Pakistani group offering the reward mistakenly believes that the 12 cartoons were created by just one person.
Danish Ambassador to Pakistan Bent Wigotski said the bounty had been promised by religious party Jamaat-e-Islami and its youth organisation, which had also demanded Danish representatives expelled from the country.
Danish authorities immediately informed the Pakistani government about the death threats and bounty promised by the party, which is described as nationalistic and fundamentalist.
Ever since the demonstrators marched through the streets of Islamabad, the party has been spreading its message through the media and flyers.
Wigotski said he had no plans to leave Pakistan, despite hundreds of angry protest letters from Muslims around the world.
‘But the situation is of course serious,’ he said. ‘They might want to get to the Danish illustrators, but if they can’t reach them, they could make do with a scapegoat.’
That scapegoat could be anybody, the embassy warned, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a new travel advisory for Pakistan warning Danes not to visit the country, given that the Jyllands-Posten cartoons were ‘seen by many Muslims as derogatory and blasphemous’.

Good idea. All those Danes look alike anyway. Doesn’t matter which one you kill, really. They’re all infidels anyway.

A tiny Muslim voice of reason was heard in Denmark, however, emanating from the Pakistani Ambassador, Javed Qureshi:

     ‘No Pakistani government would ever support such a thing, I’m sure that the current government will take action in the case. I can’t imagine that a bounty like that doesn’t violate Pakistani legislation,’ said Qureshi

Now that gives you hope, doesn’t it? Except this guy was also one of the eleven Muslim ambassadors in Denmark who signed the haughty letter to the Danish Prime Minister.

Oh, by the way, in case you wondered if this pathological sensitivity is reciprocal, it’s not:

     Meanwhile in Brussels a young Muslim immigrant published a poster depicting the Virgin Mary with naked breasts. Though the picture has drawn some protest from Catholics (though not from Western embassies, nor from the bishops), this artist need not fear being murdered in the street. On the contrary, he is being subsidised by the Ministry for Culture.

Our Lady of Cultural DifferencesThe illustrator of this lovely Madonnna is being paid to present his ideas to school children in Belgium.

     Chokri Ben Chikha is a young Tunisian author, actor and singer. Ben Chikha was born and raised in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking north of Belgium. He has written a play and dance act about cultural differences to draw attention to the difficulties of young immigrants who are discriminated against by the natives.

Mr. Chikha feels that Belgians need to know that anti-Semitism is not only common among his fellow Belgian-Tunisians, any anti-Semitic feeling is proper and deserved. Why even his Polish step-mother hates them.

I hope there are some Knights of Columbus in Ohio or some such place scraping the rust off their swords and sharpening the edges. Looks like we’re in for a long siege, folks.

Either hide your rosary or get it out of mothballs, depending on your temperament. Those Danes are probably hauling them out and putting them on their rearview mirrors.



Hat tip: Paul Belien at Brussels Journal has provided the meat for this story. I highly recommend Brussels Journal.

Our Man in Islamabad

 
WTC and PakistanMy earlier posts about Jamaat ul-Fuqra discussed the founder and leader of the organization, Sheikh Gilani, who happens to be a Pakistani.

Tablighi Jamaat, the huge umbrella organization whose fingers seem to reach into every terrorist group, was founded by a Pakistani and is based in Pakistan.

Pakistan is home to hundreds of extremist madrassas, those “schools” of indoctrination that have unleashed thousands of would-be terrorists to all corners of the globe.

The Taliban regime in Afghanistan was primarily a creature of the Pakistani military and Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI.

Osama bin Laden was a protégé of Pakistan’s General Musharraf, resided in Pakistan for a period, and was supported and maintained by Pakistan in his Afghan operations.

The leadership and rank-and-file of Al Qaeda contain numerous Pakistanis. Almost every time a major Al Qaeda operative is captured or killed, it turns out that he is either a Pakistani or is residing in Pakistan.

Just look at this rogues’ gallery:
 
 

John Walker Lindh

John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban”, trained in Pakistan

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Pakistani 9/11 planner

Richard Reid

Richard Reid, the “Shoe Bomber”, trained in Pakistan

Ramzi Youssef

Ramzi Youssef, 1993 WTC bomber, traced to Pakistan

Now look at this article in the Bharat Rakshak Monitor from the fall of 2002.

     The other person who is widely perceived to be knowledgeable about the [9/11] conspiracy is Pakistan dictator Pervez Musharraf. He has recently commented [Hilton020808] that the sophistication of the 9/11 plot was far beyond the capabilities of Osama bin Laden as he knew him. Freudian slip or not, this agrees with several media reports regarding the involvement of Pakistani entities in most plots, attempts and actual terrorist attacks upon the United States in the last decade.

The highest levels of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services are deeply intertwined with Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Notorious terrorists reside and operate with seeming impunity in Pakistan, only to be “captured” or killed suddenly at politically expedient moments. The latest example is Hamza Rabia.

Why is it, then, that Pakistan is repeatedly identified as our “ally in the War on Terror”?

According to the Bharat Rakshak Monitor,

     …it is worthwhile to note that many of the 9/11 hijackers are reported to have attended or signed up for flight schools in the US and elsewhere — but none are reported to have actually demonstrated proficiency as pilots of large aircraft. In fact, most are pooh-poohed for incompetence. One hijacker is indeed reported to have had a Saudi commercial pilot license — but had gone around failing basic flying courses in the US!
It is useful to ask whether an organization known for “meticulous planning” would depend on such hit-or-miss training of their spearheads. Atta and his PAF classmate are reported to have won top honors at the technical school in Hamburg. During the 9/11 hijackings, the terrorist pilots showed high levels of proficiency in avoiding Air Traffic Control, finding targets accurately, and zeroing in on the WTC Tower using a high-G turn. In the Pentagon attack, the plane came in at 400 knots near-ground level. These skills went far beyond those implied by their scattered piloting lessons, and they worked in four teams with all the ruthless assurance of military squads. The flight school stories appear to be ways of establishing false identities and hiding the true piloting credentials of the terrorists and their military backgrounds.

So all of that training in American flight schools, all of the “I don’t need to learn how to take off or land, I only need to learn how to fly the plane once it’s up” folderol, was just a smokescreen to mislead the inevitable investigators who would come sniffing down the pilots’ trail after 9/11. All of it was designed to protect the air forces of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, but the planning, direction, training, logistics, and financing were largely undertaken by Pakistan and Pakistani surrogates.

So what does Pakistan get out of all this dangerous behavior?

First of all, the Pakistani zealots — the true-believer Islamists — get to attack the Great Satan and the hated infidels.

The rest of the oligarchy that rules Pakistan — the cynics, power-brokers, rich playboys, and time-servers — get to raise vast quantities of money via the jihad process, utilizing the Islamic “charities” and the time-honored practices of extortion and hostage-taking. Lacking the oil resources of Saudi Arabia and Iran, the leaders of Pakistan, by milking the terrorist enterprise, are able to maintain themselves in power.

And why is all of this not widely known? Why do the media concentrate on Iraq and Afghanistan, and ignore Pakistan?

Even Michael Ledeen means Iran when he says, “Faster, please.”

Why does Pakistan get a free pass? Is it because of the nukes?

The danger that Pakistan poses for the United States has been downplayed, ignored, or dismissed out of hand for at least fifteen years, throughout the current and three previous administrations. The breadth and depth of aid that America provides to a country which so obviously works toward our destruction is perverse. This is a malign enterprise.

Now look at the official web page for the capital of Pakistan, whose title is “Islamabad, The Capital of Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”

My emphasis.



Update: commenter Hank_F_M points out that the Islamabad site is not, in fact, an official web page. I stand corrected.

Jamaat ul-Fuqra in Virginia, Part 3

 
A reader in Charlotte County — one who has more guts than I have, plus a better camera — sent some photos of Red House and the entrance to the Jamaat ul-Fuqra compound, supplying us with much better images than the ones I produced back in October.

First we have a panoramic view of the bustling metropolis of Red House:

Red House, Va.

Here is the big sign at the entrance to the compound on Route 615:

The Muslims of America

Sometimes the group appears as “Muslims of the Americas,” but here it is “The Muslims of America.” Knowlegeable readers are invited to supply a translation of the Arabic script. (Update: Commenter shoshanna has translated the Arabic on the sign as “in the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.”)

And this is the signpost for the road that leads into the compound:

Sheikh Gilani Lane

Just to remind our readers: Sheikh Gilani is not necessarily a peaceful and beloved religious figure who happens to lead a group of devoted followers. He heads a violent terrorist organization. In a 2002 Weekly Standard article, Mira L. Boland wrote:

     Fuqra’s founder and chief, the man Pearl sought to interview, is a rotund Kashmiri of Sufi background with long-standing ties to Pakistan’s Interservice Intelligence Agency (ISI), Sheikh Mubarik Ali Hasmi Shah Gilani. At least until President Musharraf’s decision last fall to support the American war on terrorism, the ISI sponsored terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Sheikh Gilani has rubbed shoulders at international terrorist confabs with gunslingers from Hamas and Hezbollah, their mullah backers, and Osama bin Laden. And he has trained fighters for the battlefields of Kashmir, Chechnya, and Bosnia.
Gilani launched his U.S. operations in 1980. Within ten years, Fuqra’s communes were billing themselves as havens where Muslim converts–many of them inner-city blacks, sometimes recruited in prison–could build new lives. At least seven such communities are active today, in Hancock, N.Y.; Red House, Va.; Tulare County, Calif.; Commerce, Ga.; York, S.C.; Dover, Tenn.; and Combermere, Canada. While some of these enclaves contain only rudimentary buildings and trailers, the California compound has 300 residents on a 440-acre spread, according to a recent report by a local ABC station. Residents deny any involvement with terror, but Fuqra has a history of getting into trouble with the law.
Over the years, at least a dozen Fuqra members have been convicted of crimes including conspiracy to commit murder, firebombing, gun smuggling, and workers’ compensation fraud in the United States or Canada. And Fuqra members are suspects in at least 10 unsolved assassinations and 17 firebombings between 1979 and 1990. Nor is Fuqra’s criminal activity all in the past. In the last year alone, a resident of the California compound was charged with first degree murder in the shooting of a sheriff’s deputy; another was charged with gun smuggling; the state of California launched an investigation into the fate of more than a million dollars in public funds given to a charter school run by Fuqra leaders; and two residents of the Red House community were convicted of firearms violations, while a third awaits trial.

We’d all like to believe that here, in the land tolerance and freedom, Jamaat ul-Fuqra is just another group of devout believers who want to live in peace with their neighbors. But the evidence argues against that interpretation.

We’ll have to be alert, maintain an open mind, and keep our powder dry.

Tablighi Jamaat, Part 1

 
In the November 22nd news story about the indictment of Jose Padilla, the following excerpt caught my eye:

     “The defendants, along with other individuals, operated and participated in a North American support cell that sent money, physical assets and mujahedeen recruits to overseas conflicts for the purpose of fighting violent jihad.”

This description of Padilla’s modus operandi bears a striking resemblance to that of Jamaat ul-Fuqra. Could there be a connection?

I did a web search on “Jose Padilla”+“Jamaat ul-Fuqra” and found the following material in the Bharat Rakshak Monitor:

     Stern also describes how Al Qaeda-affiliated groups may have sprung up in the US prison system, where converts to Islam offer a promising pool of recruits… The Pakistan-based Jamaat-ul-Fuqra, a “terrorist group committed to purifying Islam through violence”, is said to be active in US prisons. Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was abducted and killed while attempting to interview Jamaat leader Sheikh Gilani about his links to the alleged “shoe bomber” Richard Reid. Perhaps more disturbingly for Indians, Stern describes the strengthening connections between violent radicals and the Tablighi Jamaat. The Tablighi Jamaat, started out as a social revivalist organization like the Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Some of the better known Western jihadis such as Jose Padilla, Richard Reid and John Walker Lindh were indoctrinated by the Tablighi Jamaat before they moved on to military training organized by other groups in Afghanistan. The Jamaat is influential in Pakistan, and army officers affiliated with it were arrested in 1995 for plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. As many Indians know, the Tablighi Jamaat has also been involved in competitive mobilization with its Hindu counterparts in communally sensitive areas of India (such as Gujarat) which makes its apparent radicalization particularly worrisome for Indian social stability. [emphasis added]

Adding this to my earlier research, we now have Richard Reid, Jose Padilla, John Walker Lindh, and John Allen Mohammad all swimming together in the same murky pond: Tablighi Jamaat.

Tablighi Jamaat was in the news recently when the plans were announced for the new mosque to be associated with the London Olympics:

     An Islamic group is proposing to build Western Europe’s biggest mosque in East London in time for the 2012 Olympic Games…
Tablighi Jamaat – a worldwide Islamic missionary group – is proposing the mosque as its new UK headquarters.
The group envisions a futuristic design for the three-storey mosque, with wind turbines taking the place of minarets and an overall capacity of 70,000 when surrounding buildings are taken into account.

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Tablighi Jamaat isn’t a high-profile Islamist group like Al-Qaeda, Hamas, or the Muslim Brotherhood. What do we know about it?

Well, not a whole lot, and there’s a good reason why. According to the South Asia Analysis Group,

     Tablighi Jamaat

  • The TJ has been able to establish contacts and centres throughout the Muslim world. (Comment: By “Muslim world” he does not only mean Islamic countries, but all countries where there is a sizable Muslim community)
  • It has thousands of dedicated and disciplined workers who never question any order from the high-ups. What has helped the TJ to expand (without creating alarm in the security agencies) is its policy of a deliberate black-out of its activities. It does not interact with the media and does not issue any statements or communiques. It believes in human communication through word of mouth. (Comment: It does not bring out any journals or other propaganda organs to explain its policies and objectives. All explanations to its workers and potential recruits are given orally).
  • During its training classes, it claims to have frustrated the efforts of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to penetrate it and succeeded in converting the CIA agents to Islam.

This organization is a paranoid’s dream. You don’t know anything about it because They don’t want you to know! If you don’t see Them, that proves They’re there!

“Tablighi Jamaat” means “Proselytizing Group.” A more comprehensive translation might be “International Association for the Propagation of the Faith.” It was founded, depending on which source you use, either in the late 19th century or in the 1920s in Pakistan. Its goal is to purify and renew Islam throughout the world, without recognizing any borders to the Ummah.

Within the Islamic world TJ draws its greatest success from the marginally Muslim communities, those isolated and neglected corners of the Ummah such as the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Islam has languished there; its traditions have fallen into disuse, and the poor and ill-educated people there are often only nominally Muslim. They have proved fertile ground for TJ’s proselytizing, and the group has had an impressive rate of success there.

In the lands of the infidel, TJ seeks out the Western analogue of the same people: the underclass. In the United States their preferred strategy is to convert African-American felons in the prison system.

When the Tablighi Jamaat recruits emerge from the Big House, energized by their new-found faith, where do they go? And what do they do when they get there?

We will be examining Tablighi Jamaat in depth in future posts.

To be continued…

Jamaat ul-Everywhere

 
After my previous posts about Jamaat ul-Fuqra in Virginia (see parts one and two) I received a number of emails with tips and information about other Islamic locations in rural Virginia.

One of my correspondents was a man in Halifax County. He told me about a place in southern Charlotte County called “Muslim Teachers College,” just across the Staunton River from his home. He said that he had been traveling over that way a few years back and had seen the sign for it.

So, following his directions, I mounted an expedition and went looking for the place. I drove up and down Route 607 along the river a couple of times, and couldn’t see any sign for a Muslim college. So, as is my custom, I stopped in at a local country store near the hamlet of Formosa to ask about a nearby Muslim school.

“Oh, yeah, I know where it is,” said the man behind the counter. He gave me directions to it: back the way I had come.

But before I left he asked me what a “Muslim school” was. I told him it was a private religious school, like a Catholic school.

“Oh,” he said. “I always wondered what that was.”

Muslim Teachers College

I drove slowly back down Route 607 towards Randolph, keeping an eye out for the sign, but there didn’t seem to be one. Then, next to a driveway that led up a hill past an abandoned house, I saw what could have been a large metal sign lying face down in the weeds in front of three posts. I turned around and came back. When I put the sign upright against the posts to which it had once been nailed, here’s what I saw:

Muslim Teachers College

The Muslim Teachers College appears to have fallen on hard times. Here’s the sign in its surrounding context:

Muslim Teachers College

The little abandoned house up the hill beyond the sign looks like it has been unused for at least a decade. There are signs on all the trees and fence posts near the driveway that say “NO TRESSPASSING — Dairy Hill Hunt Club, Saxe, Virginia.” In fact, for half a mile on either side of the road, the Dairy Hill Hunt Club has the same signs posted.

I have no idea whether there is any connection between the College and the Jamaat ul-Fuqra compounds in Red House and Meherrin. But, if you look at the map below, you’ll notice that they’re all fairly close to each other, forming a rough equilateral triangle about 25 miles on a side.

Randolph, Va.

And, as a matter of interest, just across the river is the Dominion Virginia Power plant at Clover, a little less than a mile away as the crow flies. The plant is relatively new — it came online in 1995.

Dominion Virginia Power plant

After taking photos of the sign, I tipped it back into its original place and came home to start my research.

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A terraserver aerial photo shows that there’s a lot more to the Dairy Hill Hunt Club or the Muslim Teachers College than is visible from the road. Up at the top of the hill the road branches, and there are several buildings scattered around in the midst of the woods.

Muslim Teachers College

As for the Dairy Hill Hunt Club, a web search for it turned up absolutely nothing for Charlotte County or Saxe. New York State seems to have a “Dairy Hill Hunt Club,” but the one in Virginia does not maintain a web presence.

There’s also not much information available online about the Muslim Teachers College in Randolph, Virginia. There are no maps of the campus, no class photos, no lists of courses, and no student information pages. There’s no alumni association, nor any scheduled reunions. But I did find a few references to the place.

There was an announcement on an Arizona State University listserve:

     Muslim Teacher’s College announces the opening of its demonstration school — The Clara Muhammad Boarding School. This, the latest addition to the college’s educational complex, represents the culmination of several years of research. The curriculum taught in CMBS is strictly based on Qur’an. Qadir Abdus-Sabur, president of MTC said, “We frequently find Islamic schools in North American which teach Arabic and Islamic studies but subjects such as History and Social Studies reflect a Western educational paradigm. There is little regard for Qur’anic moral values.
“Every subject taught in CMBS will reflect a Qur’anic based philosophy of Education.There will be no verbal problems which encourage gambling when studying probabilities, no stories which support weak moral values in reading assignments and yes, there will be prayer in school!”
“Our goal,” said Imam Abdus-Sabur, “is to establish a model school and curriculum which could be duplicated throughout America.”
CMBS will admit a very few select boys in fifth through eighth grade (ages 10 -13) this year. Classes will be less than 15 students each and the academic program will be augmented by a program which introduces the students to a hands-on science program through agricultural projects.

Notice that only boys will be allowed to apply for entrance. And ages 10-13 — so young! They would be studying to be teachers before they even finished middle school. Or were they being selected as practice pupils for aspiring teachers?

The same page gives this contact information:

     Clara Muhammad Boarding School
c/o Muslim Teacher’s College
P.O. Box 71, Randolph, VA 23962
(804) 454-9536 (Voice);(804) 454-6059 (FAX)

Readers should note that the area code for the phone numbers is out of date; Virginia subdivided the 804 code in 2001, and that part of the state is now 434.

Clara Muhammad was the wife of Elijah Muhammad, the founder of the Nation of Islam, and there are a lot of other schools in the United States named after her. This particular one was founded in 1995 (or 1988, according to one source) by Imam Karim Abdel-Shakur, James H. Rasheed, and Qadir Abdus-Sabur. As far as I can tell the school is no longer operating. However, there are still some references to it using the same phone numbers, but with the more recent 434 area code.

The founders turn up at this site, along with two other faculty members:

     Qadir Abdus-Sabur, Ph.D. is president and co-founder of Muslim Teachers College and Adjunct Professor of Educational Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has been actively involved in the Islamic Schools movement in the United States for the past thirty years serving in positions such as Principal of Clara Muhammad School in Richmond, Virginia; Director of Clara Muhammad Boarding School in Randolph, Virginia; Chairman of the Council of Islamic Schools in North America (CISNA); member of the American Society of Muslim?Js (ASM) Board of Education; and Director of Islamic Studies Curriculum Project, International Curricula Organization in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
James H. Rasheed, Ph.D. is co-founder of Muslim Teachers College and a teaching sociologist and researcher. Among his achievements are his B. S. from Virginia Union University, a B. S. from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Ph. D. from the University of Virginia. Research interest includes The Development of Scientific Sociology, The Sociology of Ibn Khaldun, The Sociology of W.E.B. DuBois, and the Philosophy of Science.
Beverly Abdus-Sabur, MLIS–University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Professor)
Sunni-Ali Islam, M.Ed. University of Dayton (Associate Professor)
Khairi Abdul-Shakur, M.Ed. Antioch University (Associate Professor)

Karim Abdel-Shakur is listed here as Khairi Abdul-Shakur, and is not mentioned as a co-founder. So Khairi may be a different person entirely, but there is no other information about him to be found on the web.

The Council of Islamic Schools in North America is directly associated with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). ISNA was courted by no less than Karen Hughes in her capacity as advisor to President Bush. Despite the objection of many domestic terrorism experts, over the Labor Day weekend this year Ms. Hughes addressed the ISNA at its annual convention. According to ISNA,

     “Undersecretary Hughes’ participation in the ISNA Annual Convention signifies the important role Muslim Americans can play in improving the image of the United States in the Muslim world,” said Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed, Secretary General of ISNA.

But not everyone was happy with Ms. Hughes’ outreach effort, and not everyone considers the organization benign. Frank Gaffney, for one, declared this a first-order strategic error, since ISNA is nothing more than a front for Saudi Arabia’s infiltrration of American Muslim groups.

By her actions, Ms. Hughes gave the administration’s blessing to the further weakening of the national fabric by this Islamofascist group. As Mr. Gaffney noted,

     ISNA has for years sought to marginalize leaders of the Muslim faith who do not support the Wahhabists’ strain of Islamofascism, and, through sponsorship of propaganda and mosques, is pursuing a strategic goal of eventually dominating Islam in America.

Two years before 9-11, B. Raman of the South Asia Analysis Group wrote:

     Amongst the organisations in the USA with which the TJ [Tablighi Jamaat] is closely associated are the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA).The President of the ISNA is Sheikh Abdullah Idris Ali, an American immigrant of Sudanese origin, who is also the Pesh Imam and Khatib of a mosque in New York.
[…]
Addressing the convention, Dr. Israr Ahmed said: “…A final show-down between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world, which has been captured by the Jews, would soon take place. The Gulf war was just a rehearsal for the coming conflict.” He appealed to the Muslims of the world, including those in the USA, to prepare themselves for the coming conflict. [emphasis added]

Tracking down the other founders and faculty members of the Muslim Teachers College produces some interesting tidbits. Sunni-Ali Islam ran a workshop at the Six [sic] Annual Islam in America Conference back in July. His topics? “Islam In American Prisons” and “Educating the Muslim Inmate.”

At least I’m assuming it’s the same Sunni Ali-Islam, since he is in Ohio. He also appears in this news release from the Ohio governor’s office, issued on October 28, 2005:

     Governor Bob Taft today announced appointments to the Correctional Faith-Based Initiatives Task Force…
Sunni-Ali Islam, from Columbus, was appointed to the Correctional Faith-Based Initiatives Task Force for a term ending June 29, 2006. Imam Islam has an undergraduate degree in Criminal Justice from Ohio Dominican University; a graduate degree in Education from the University of Dayton and he is a certified Muslim Religious Service Provider III. Imam Islam is currently Founder and Director of the Muslim Alternative School, the Founder and Director of Native Sun and a Muslim Religious Service Provider for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Just a reminder to our readers: the conversion of African-Americans to Islam in prison is a prime recruiting tool for Jamaat ul-Fuqra and other violent and fanatical Islamic groups.

Finally, consider a connection between the Muslim Teachers College and another Sister Clara Muhammad School, this one in Philadelphia. According to an Oct. 21, 2004 article in the Philadelphia Daily News,

     Four FBI agents, including case agents Jesse Coleman and Kevin Lewis, were registered as students at the ABE classes at Sister Clara Muhammad School – the program they were investigating for no-show teachers.
Coleman and Lewis were leading the fraud investigation into $224,000 in public money from Community College of Philadelphia for the adult basic education program at the West Philadelphia school.
Yesterday, four agents’ names, including those using aliases, were identified as registered students during the federal fraud trial of Ali, 55, her daughter, Lakiha “KiKi” Spicer, 28, son Azheem “Osh” Spicer, 30 and Eugene Weaver III, 30.
[…]
All ABE teachers had to have a bachelor’s degree, according to CCP policy.
Beverly Abdus-Sabur testified that the Muslim Teachers College in Randolph, Va. never issued a marketing degree for Ali’s son, Azheem Spicer.
“We can only give a degree in Muslim education,” she said. The school has not been in operation since the 1998-1999 school year.

So some of the players in this fraudulent scheme claimed to have a bachelor’s degree from the little college in Randolph, Virginia, the one that only has 10-to-13-year-olds as students. Very strange.

In my first Jamaat ul-Fuqra post, Red House resident Shirley told of her discovery, back off the road in the middle of nowhere, of a “Training Camp for Young Muslim-American Men.” Based on the time frame involved, those little boys in Randolph could have graduated to the training camp just a few miles to the north — but, on the other hand, that could just be a paranoid thought.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *


Three isolated, reclusive rural African-American Islamic establishments in the hinterlands of Virginia. Two of them associated with Muslims of the Americas, and one with the Nation of Islam. Both connected to Islamic proselytizing in the prisons. Both groups involved, directly or indirectly, with the fraudulent acquisition of public funds. Both involved with the education and training of young people according to the tenets of the Koran.

I’ll leave the reader with a list of unanswered questions.

  • What is a Muslim Teachers College doing on a remote hilltop in Southside Virginia?
  • Did Dairy Hill Hunt Club acquire the property from the college, or are the members of the club a group of Muslim hunters?
  • Why was the college in operation for only four years?
  • Where are the alumni of the college? What did they go on to teach, and to whom?
  • Did the faculty or students of the college proselytize for Islam in the prison system?
  • Was there any interaction between the college and the MOA compounds in Red House and Meherrin?
  • What kind of “agricultural projects” did the faculty and students of the college undertake? Did these projects by any chance involve the acquisition of large quantities of ammonium nitrate?
  • Was the college administration aware that people working in other schools with the same name were fraudulently claiming to have a degree from the Muslim Teachers College?
  • Are we seeing here again the tentacles of the relentless and well-funded Saudi/Wahhabi proselytizing effort? (See Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe in the War on Terror?)

Readers are invited to suggest new questions for this list, and are also welcome to do the investigative work to answer them.



Note: The URL listed above for the cached Philadelphia Daily News article, which was active at the time of my research, is no longer good. For those interested, the entire article can now be found here.