This may be an example of one of those clashes of civilizations we’ve been hearing about — I mean the clash between the camera and the facelessness. As Jauhara said, “And the point of this being what, exactly?”
Or maybe it’s a joke; I didn’t check Snopes.
On the other hand…
Sorry, Paul Krugman. According to the World Bank’s report there is a global rising middle class:
…growth in developing countries will reach a near record 7 percent this year. In 2007 and 2008, growth will probably slow, but still likely exceed 6 percent, more than twice the rate in high-income countries, which is expected to be 2.6 percent.
On how globalization will shape the global economy over the next 25 years, the report’s ‘central scenario’ predicts that the global economy could expand from $35 trillion in 2005 to $72 trillion in 2030. “While this outcome represents only a slight acceleration of global growth compared to the past 25 years, it is driven more than ever before by strong performance in developing countries,” said Richard Newfarmer, the report’s lead author and Economic Advisor in the Trade Department. “And while exact numbers will undoubtedly turn out to be different, the underlying trends are relatively impervious to all but the most severe or disruptive shocks.”
Unfortunately, I can think of some doomsday scenarios that would provide those disruptive shocks: the unnatural disasters provided by the death-dealing Islamists come to mind. Were they ever to coordinate their murderous intentions, the reverberations could spread to include the world’s economy. However, it’s not likely they have the organizational structure in place — at the moment — to bring off a major catastrophe, at least major enough to have a deep effect on a global level.
Meanwhile, apocalyptic dreams of the Ummah coming to pass are much more 7th century airy-fairy bloody tales than are the plans the Chinese have for the rest of us. In a recent essay Rowan Callick suggests that we “excise” the Middle East and look at what China is doing:
This might seem a very odd exercise if you live in the USA or the Middle East. But for those of us in the rest of the world, it’s pretty natural. Simply excise the Middle East, and look at what’s happening in most other places. One word will do: China. That’s what’s happening.
While the USA is preoccupied with the Middle East, it is “losing” the rest of the world. The entire developing world, as well as the industrial powerhouses of East Asia, are already starting to view China as not a mere potential rival to the US but as a new super-power already.
The forced resignation of John Bolton as America’s United Nations ambassador reinforces the perception that Washington will be hors de combat for a couple of years, with a lame duck president competing for domestic influence with an isolationist Congress.
This is helping stimulate Beijing’s voracious engagement in trade deals of every kind. Its diplomacy is focused and relentless. And its “non conditional friendship” approach is loved by Third World leaders irritated by the attempts of Western countries, international agencies and non government organizations to bring them to account.
[…]
From a Washington perspective, this might appear darned unfair, as the US is almost alone leading the war on Islamist terror in the thankless heat of the day, on behalf of most of the rest of the world.
It is indeed unfair. But for many complex reasons, the crucial need for the war on terror is little understood elsewhere, and most European opinion leaders — including those from Britain — that remain influential internationally are exulting in the USA’s being humbled.
Meanwhile, most of the problems, the vanities, the cruelties of the rulers of China are conveniently sidelined as it is vaunted as not merely the Next Big Thing — a sort of globalization-meets-internet-age super new wave — but as the Now Big Thing. Call this ungrateful, naïve, greedy, unintelligent, amoral, short-sighted, disloyal, opportunistic — and you’d be right. But it’s next to impossible to turn it off.
China Central TV has just finished broadcasting a lavish 12 part historical series on “The Rise of the Great Nations.” The message is clear, in a country whose diplomatic catchphrase is its “peaceful rise” — we’re next.
The most interesting aspect of China’s inroads does not lie in its economic tsunami. Have you heard of the Confucius Institute? If not, you will soon. Forget the local mosque. The coming attraction is much older than anything extant in the West or Middle East:
– – – – – – – – – –
Confucius Institute is a non-profit public institute which aims at promoting Chinese language and culture and supporting local Chinese teaching internationally through affiliated Confucius Institutes. Its headquarters is in Beijing and is under the China National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. After establishing a pilot institute in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in June 2004, the first Confucius Institute opened on November 21, 2004 in Seoul, Korea and many more have been established in other countries, such as the U.S., Germany and Sweden, where Chinese enjoys an increasing popularity. The first Confucius Institute in South Eastern Europe was opened in August 2006 in Belgrade, Serbia. The Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China estimates that, by the year 2010, there will be approximately 100 million people worldwide learning Chinese as a foreign language, and it plans to set up 100 Confucius Institutes worldwide.
In case there is one near you, here’s the U.S. list:
There are listings in the same Wikipedia link for Germany, Hungary, Japan, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Thailand, Sweden, New Zealand, and the UK.
Mr. Callick references Daniel Bell, a Canadian philosopher teaching in China:
The earlier rise of authoritarian, Confucianesque “Asian values” promoted by south east Asian leaders bit the dust, rightly so, when the region’s economies hit the wall in 1997.
But the concept is now returning with a vengeance, far more powerfully fuelled this time — by the leaders of China who are investing millions of dollars in a global chain of Confucian Institutes.
The view that this is already China’s cultural, political and strategic hour as well as its economic hour, decades before many observers had expected, is being echoed in new books such as “Beyond Liberal Democracy,” by the young Canadian Philosophy Professor at Beijing’s elite Qinghua University, Daniel Bell.
He champions as an alternative to liberal democracy, re-emergent Confucianism, that he sees embodied in the new Chinese leadership of Asia, encapsulated in Hu Jintao’s relentless slogan about building a “harmonious socialist society.”
However, despite Professor Bell’s encomium, all is not well on the Eastern Front:
Willy Wo-lap Lam, a renowned China analyst, says the Chinese regime’s treatment of the defenders of marginalised people — like blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, his four year sentence for conspiring to disrupt traffic recently upheld — hardly promotes “community life.”
“Internationally, ‘harmony’ is supposed to mean the opposite of Bush-style unilateralism,” he says. “But it is just rhetoric. Beijing is aggressively trying to subjugate Burma, Laos and other client states, and its behaviour in Sudan is certainly not Confucianist, only creating ‘harmony’ for the murderous dictators there.”
Finally, just to make things interesting, Larry Kudlow has a link to a news article that says China is getting ready to attack North Korea. And it seems that China wants us to know about it, since the attack plan was leaked to those in a position to tattle to Western intelligence sources.
You’d think even the North Koreans were smart enough not to dis the Chinese. But, then again, maybe not.
We need to ask James Higham about this.
If you’re a Free Republic regular, and have enough time, would you please drop me an email? We need some advice and/or help from folks who really know what they’re doing.
TIA.
I’ve been nominated for a number of things in my life: “La Boca Grande” by a few people, “Ms. Ditz” by others. But never before has anyone suggested I had the makings of a diva. Not until now, anyway.
Here’s the process, from one of their previous posts, that Gay Patriot(s) used to select the nominees:
As December 15 approaches, you still have time to nominate — or second — your favorite conservative, libertarian (or otherwise iconoclastic) blogress for the coveted title of Grande Conservative Blogress Diva 2007.
We define a diva as a strong, confident woman who commands the respect of men. And given how much (most) gay men respect such women, we believe it appropriate that our blog conduct this competition.
Sometime tomorrow, Bruce and I will review the comments to this post, the initial posts (here and here) [these links can be found on their post — D.] on the competition and our e-mail to determine the final list of nominees. Unlike last year, we expect to do this in two parts, with the first round of balloting taking place from Sunday, December 17 until December 24, then holding a run-off the following week, announcing the new year’s Diva just as the old year draws to a close.
I was tickled when Dan, aka Gay Patriot West, emailed me yesterday that I’d made the initial list. I went over to look and knew there was no way I’d make the cut-off for the actual voting list. I mean, look at the nominees:
– – – – – – – – – –
Ann Althouse
The Anchoress
Little Miss Attila
Tammy Bruce
Wizbang’s Lorie Byrd
Dympha of Gates of Vienna
e-Claire
Jane Galt of Asymmetrical Information
Townhall’s Mary Katharine Ham
Bridget Johnson of GOP Vixen
Reigning Grande Conservative Blogress Diva Sondra K of Knowledge is Power
Carol Platt Liebau
National Review Online’s K-Lo (Kathryn Jean Lopez)
Kate MacMillan of small dead animals
Michelle Malkin
neo-neo con
Betsy Newmark of Betsy’s Page
Juliette of Baldilocks (and Pajamas)
Pamela of Atlas Shrugs
Pat Santy
Debbie Schlussel
Cathy Seipp
Kathy Shaidle of Relapsed Catholic
Alexandra von Maltzan of All Things Beautiful
Cathy Young
Quite an array, huh? As I looked through the choices I realized that I read all of these women. In fact, when talking to Tammy Bruce one time, I defended my position that there are lots of good women bloggers out there. And now that Gay Patriot has instituted “blogress” I’ll use that term from now on. Maybe I’ll put it on my tax return where they ask for your occupation. “Blogress” has a certain je ne sais quoi, non? A nice thumb in the eye to the strident feminists who would reduce us all to the same alleged non-sexists titles.
Well, lo and behold, I made the cut. What a compliment!
So be sure to go to the post and vote till your fingers are sore…actually, I’m sure they have some sort of filter that only permits you to vote once…which means you should visit the library on your lunch hour and use their computer, and email all your friends to go over and vote.
Perhaps we should ask a Democrat precinct chairman for some other ideas on ballot-box-stuffing techniques?
Given the powerhouse talent I’m up against, there’s no way I’ll win. But, wow! I made the list! Wooo-wheeee!
Now I’m going to go out and buy me a feather boa to wear while sitting in front of this screen. Maybe it should be an iridescent, rainbow-colored one — that way it will match whatever pair of pajamas I’m wearing at the moment. Oh, and maybe a good pair of sunglasses so I can be out and about in public without being mobbed for autographs…
A few days ago, reader Kepiblanc notified us in the comments about a November 29th article in Die Welt called “The Protestant Church in Germany sets up guidelines for dialogue with Muslims”. Kepiblanc gave us this summary:
In short: Europeans must demand Muslims to respect certain values. Schoolteachers wearing head scarves are unfit to teach. Jewish and Christian symbols can be displayed in schools, because they don’t conflict with the values in Germany’s constitution. Nuns who teach can wear their order’s dress if they so prefer. Oppression of women, honor killings, female genital mutilation, and forced marriages are unacceptable and cannot be tolerated in a democratic society. No person can claim cultural identity as an excuse for violating human rights. And so on and so forth…
The Muslims in Germany aren’t happy.
The Protestant Church in Germany (Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland) is a federation of the three main German denominations, with the Lutherans leading the way. It is, in effect, the state church of Germany.
The EKD has produced a 124-page document, entitled (my translation) “Clarity and Neighborliness: Christians and Muslims in Germany,” which advises members in their relations with Muslims in Germany.
– – – – – – – – – –
I asked Kepiblanc for more information, and he sent me the entire document in pdf format. I have no idea where the original is, so I posted a copy here for those whose German is up to the task.
Kepiblanc also sent along his summary and some translations of snips from the full document:
The whole document is trying to be very polite, and the title is “a handshake” to Muslims. The meaning, however, is very clear: to set up guidelines in dealing with Muslims. Almost every aspect of public life is covered, as you can see from the index on the first pages.
The overall picture is that enough is enough. Muslims must subordinate their faith to the principles of a democracy, obey the law and adjust their thinking and mores to the dominant culture of Germany — the so-called “leitkultur” (leading culture).
p 42 :
It is of the utmost importance to be aware of the Islamic concept of honor and family rights in Germany. In the case of forced marriages of German-born female Muslims and in the cases of violence or threats of death — founded on archaic conceptions of honor — the state and the society at large have an obligation to interfere. Nobody must doubt that. The discussion of these practices among Muslims themselves has a role of utmost importance in order to change old-fashioned concepts. Women who fall victim to maltreatment and mutilation must be given comfort, encouragement and practical help. Christians and their churches must encourage them to go to the police in order to obtain protection and help and to improve their situation. The courts must expose the perpetrators responsible to severe punishment.
p. 62 :
4. Furthermore, civil servants must at all times adhere to liberal democratic and constitutional structures and concomitantly to the equality of men and women. If a Muslim applicant for a training activity wants to wear a head cloth at public schools with reference to freedom of religion in the service, this behavior justifies doubts about her suitability — in view of the meaning of the head cloth in Islam — as a teacher in a national school.
Many Americans have already written off Europe as doomed, soon to be an outlying Sanjak in the revived Caliphate.
But consider the above samples, or the recent elections in the Netherlands, or the ongoing developments in Denmark: some Europeans are way ahead of us in their stance towards creeping Islamicization.
No mainline American denomination would dare issue a document such as the EKD guidelines. Official U.S. government policy would designate such guidelines as “racist”. We’ve got a long way to go before a liberal mainstream newspaper is willing to publish an interview with a Muslim woman who speaks out against the hijab.
It’s a matter of how close you are to the front lines. The attitudes of Europeans have been conditioned by the PC media cage enclosing them, but the bars of that cage are beginning to loosen as the Great Jihad looms ever closer to the average dhimmi of Eurabia citizen of Europe.
The bars of our American multicultural cage are still tightly set, but the same forces will eventually arrive here to loosen them.
This must be seen to be believed: James Woolsey, former head of the CIA, rocks out with Jeff “Skunk” Baxter (formerly of the Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, and the Ultimate Spinach) on PJ Media’s You Tube video.
Yes, yes, I know all of you have your varied opinions about the talents of the Doobie Brothers, but that’s not the point of the story. The story is James Woolsey, in black tie, rocking out. Kind of.
You will notice he has a white man’s rhythm… actually, it’s a talent I appreciate since I have the same feature — as in “No, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”
(Note: this post is complete on this page)
This article is from today’s Information (aka “the paper for left-wing Danish intellectuals”). I can’t really explain (very well anyway) why I think it’s an important article, but something tells me it is.
And the article itself:
The Veil is Islamism’s Symbol
… and therefore comparable to Nazism’s swastika, claims Chahdorrt Djavann. There is a big job ahead to teach Muslim women to realize this, says the author of the book Toss the Veil.
Among the critics of the use of veils on Muslim women, there are not many as eloquent as Chahdorrt Djavann. From the ages of 13 to 23, Chahdorrt, from a Turkish-Azerbaijani family, was herself forced to wear the veil. In 1993, she came to France and is today a French citizen. She became an anthropologist and earlier this year published the novel How Can One Be French? [reference to a Danish source deleted]. Information met up with this controversial author, who is presently visiting Denmark.
Information: How did the veil come to be and why?
Djavann: The veiling of women is older than Islam. It was known to exist among Jews and Christians and is spoken of by Paul much more than in the Koran. However, while Christian and Jewish societies liberated themselves over time from religious dogmas, Islam has retained its own. And one of the primary dogmas of Islamic Sharia Law is that the value of a woman is only half that of a man. A woman is forever a de facto minor, unable to control her own body, her life, or her future. And, in this context, the veil has an extremely important psycho-sexual and social meaning. In addition, we have followed a development from the 80s in which Islam has been affected by the ideologies and politics of Saudi Arabia and Iran who both finance the Islamist movements around the world — movements that gain more and more influence. So, the emblem for these movements and their political system, the “sharia state” is the woman’s veil. In the same way that the swastika was the symbol of the Nazis.
– – – – – – – – – –
I: But what about all the ordinary immigrant women who wear the veil? They don’t know this, do they?
D: What I am analyzing is an ideology, a fascist system, that has agents of influence from Saudi Arabia and Iran who are spread around the world even though they don’t openly agitate. Some of the women who wear the veil are themselves Islamists. In Pakistan, for example, we have seen that a new law to protect rape victims is rejected as “un-Islamic” by female members of parliament who are completely covered in black cloth. So, yes, some women who wear the veil know what they are doing. Others perhaps don’t but are in a sense “trapped” in their environment. Some wear it just to be like other Muslim women. Some to be provocative, others wear it to hide. But regardless of the underlying motives, the Islamist ideology is the one that benefits.
I: But can’t we in democratic and free countries require that when women wear the veil that it is because they have chosen so, of their own free will?
D: Sure, for those Islamist women have chosen to do so. Women as well as men can fall for fascist ideologies. Others have also chosen to wear the veil, but do not understand the meaning of their choice and still others, probably the majority, simply give in to the pressure from their family, especially their fathers and brothers — well, the whole immigrant ghetto. I have spoken with many Muslim women from the immigrant communities who tell me that they simply have no choice. They can’t go out on the street in these areas without wearing a veil. The social pressure is massive.
I: Isn’t there some sort of religious police?
D: No, it’s more subtle and less obvious to those are not part of the milieu. Let me give an example: in France there has been much debate about reserved periods of time for Muslim women at public swimming pools. In all the places in which these reserved periods have been introduced, Muslim women will no longer swim during the open (for all) periods. This is because, the men from their neighborhood say to them that now that a special time has been set aside for them, they need not expose themselves to “those infidel men”. This is how it works, but to truly understand the “hidden codes” one has to live inside the system. Just as soon as Muslims achieve some sort of “minority right”, this right must be exercised, a demand internal to the group that all must follow.
I: But how do you explain that Islamism can grow in the European democracies in which freedom must be more appealing than totalitarianism of Islamism?
D: For the first, among those who sympathize with Islamism are many who are prominent Muslim intellectuals in Europe — even though they might hide their sympathies by speaking of things like multiculturalism, diversity, and tolerance. Enormous sums of petro-dollars have been poured into this project and it is systematically “marketed” on the internet. Secondly, the general public in the West has not woken up to recognize the Islamist threat. What should ordinary Danish schoolteachers do when confronted by veiled girls? They have no idea how to confront or argue against the veil, but these girls know everything about Islamism’s arguments about the rights of minorities. A large number of Western intellectuals also aid the Islamist cause because of their defense of the rights of minorities as a misunderstood fight against racism.
I: Well, what about the crisis of identity and the feeling of “rootlessness” among immigrants and their children? They don’t feel at home in their new country.
D: True, but personal identity problems are not the sole domain of immigrants: it’s part of growing up. What is the meaning of life? All teenagers ask this. Of course, a crisis of identity can grow if one’s parents come from another culture but this problem occurs in both teenage boys and girls. I have never heard of one case in the entire world in which a Muslim boy with personal identity issue who took to wearing a veil. There is no doubt that Islamists manipulate these crises of identity.
I: I have read about Muslim women, some of them Danish converts who deny that their motive to wear the veil has anything to do with submission to the sexual control of men. They also deny that they are Islamists. For them, the veil is a way to explore their spirituality and a guide to Allah. These women are unhappy about being stigmatized as Nazi-like from that hard criticism by you and others. They are also unhappy about being accosted on the street by Danes who hate immigrants because they are wearing a veil.
D: But the Muslim veil is not a religious agent as such. Look at the Catholic nuns. For them, their form of the veil has a religious meaning. It signals that they have retreated from life to offer themselves to their religion. Nuns also wear the habit inside their convent, when they are alone or with other nuns. They don’t wear it to hide from view of men. But the Muslim women wear their veil to hide their hair from men and why? Let me ask a simple question: if a women cuts all her hair off, does she still have to wear a veil? To the veil-wearing Danish converts who buy Islamism’s rhetoric I would ask, “When you are alone in your bathroom does not God see you — do you cover yourself for God?”. It is far more likely that the veil is the most obvious way to refuse Western values, in this case, the equality of the sexes.
I: But the veil-wearing converts respond that they feel more free now than before. Now they can avoid men’s hungry, sexist stares — now they are no longer forced into the role of sex objects.
D: Really now, in Western lands, men don’t stare particularly hungrily at women and those that do are the exceptions, because they are surrounded by women. On the other hand, in the gender segregated Muslim countries, many men come with whistles and dirty stares regardless of whether one wears a veil or not — something many Western women have experienced. And in spite of the chador [veil], the problems of prostitution in Iran are enormous. The veil does not protect chastity. For me, the veil is pornographic. When a women is veiled, the relationship between the man and woman is reduced to a bestial sexuality of the same obscene types of the worst pornography.
I: If you are correct that veiling is an Islamist plot, what can we do? In Iran under the Shah, it was forbidden to wear the veil, which was part of the reason for the Islamist revolution. To match force against force, forced “unveiling” against forced veiling, this can’t be the way to go?
D: With regards to Iran, it is very difficult in a single generation to change the mentality of a country that, for thousands of years has lived under a feudal system. I do not believe that force should be a starting point. First and foremost, it is necessary to create a giant pedagogical and persuasive effort to counter over twenty years of Islamist propaganda. It can be decisive, I believe, in the democratic countries to recognize that forcing minors to wear the veil is akin to child abuse — something that must be forbidden.
I: Which brings us back to force. If this ban is to be enforced… these children will be ostracized from their own families?
D: But forced child removal is already being done in cases of sexual or violent physical assaults. Isn’t forcing the child to wear a veil a similar offense?
I: That can be debated…
D: Is it not an assault to say to a little girl that your body is a source of shame, that is shameful to be a woman, and that you must therefore wear this veil of shame everywhere you go? That, to me, is a psychologically debilitating assault and infinitely worse than a slap in the face. In Muslim countries, minors have little or no legal protections. According to Sharia Law, a father has the power of life and death over his child. In a democratic country, on the other hand, a child is not a thing that belongs to the parents but an individual with given rights and who can demand society’s moral considerations.
I: Your positions must seem quite controversial to the Islamists in France. Have you been threatened?
D: I am fortunately under the protection of the French state and the police. This was promised to me personally by Chirac himself.
I: The French law that forbids wearing of obvious religious symbols in state schools has been in place for three years. How has it worked out?
D: It has gone wonderfully. The Islamists have threatened: if you pass this law, you will have war. The war has not happened and locally, the conflicts have been very limited. And actually, many Muslims agree with the law. Sometimes it is necessary to be hard when it is just.
Many thanks to JDM for supplying us with this translation.
I promised myself that I wasn’t going to post anymore about the necessity of working with “moderate” Muslims. With the amount of heat I’ve been taking, who needs the grief? After all, it’s not like I’m going to change anybody’s mind.
But I must have a masochistic streak. At the risk of starting another knock-down drag-out fight, here goes.
After my “Changing the Venue” post a reader sent me the following email:
Dear Baron,
If we are the leaders of this movement — the anti-Jihad movement — the first thing we must realize is that NOBODY follows a leader who’s pessimistic about his mission. At least not willingly. It’s more accurate to say that there isn’t any obvious sign that the anti-Jihad message is catching on, not that there’s no prospect for a decade or more. Soon after the election you began to display the most desultory attitude on your site — I sympathize with your frustration — but truth be told — the message will NEVER go out to a broader audience if the messengers succumb to despair. We can’t afford to despair — no matter how insurmountable the odds may seem. To do so is GUARANTEED catastrophe for all.
Buck up. Don’t give in to despair. That’s not gossamer castles in the sky. It’s strategy for war.
Sincerely,
A Fellow Anti Jihadist.
Unfortunately, my fellow anti-jihadist has confused my jaundiced view of the federal government with pessimism. Just because I think government is less helpful than a pitcherful of warm phlegm doesn’t mean that I’m not optimistic.
Last month’s election freed me up from any attachment whatsoever to the government as an active force against the Great Jihad. Here’s the way I see it:
But that’s just the government that I’m talking about, and the government is not where the action is now. The synchronicity of the election and my involvement with the 910 Group has opened a view into a whole new way of doing things. If we wait for the government to do things, we are doomed. If we expect the government to follow the prudent course and prosecute the Counterjihad with the appropriate zeal, we are living in a fantasy world.
The government is constrained by political reality, and political reality is conditioned (if not generated) by the MSM, so we are stuck with a useless government. Eventually the new media will supplant the old, and our viewpoints will become more like the norm. At that point elections might start to reflect what the majority of people really feel about Islam, multiculturalism, and illegal immigrants (a.k.a. “undocumented Democrats”). But we’ve got at least another ten years before that happens.
In the meantime, our Western governments — with the possible exception of Denmark and Australia — are going to be more of a hindrance than a help in fighting the information war against the Jihad. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, we’re on our own.
– – – – – – – – – –
But that’s our big advantage. Getting the government to react to an info-attack from the terrorists (via their media or CAIR surrogates) is like trying to turn a battleship to avoid a torpedo. As we form our networks we create new response mechanisms which can assess and counter the enemy’s offensives at the same speed at which the enemy operates.
Watching the U.S. government’s response (or non-response) to all the fake stories and doctored photos coming out of the different theaters of this battle shows how useless the government is in the information war. A top-down command structure. Time-servers and CYA experts making the decisions. The utter intimidation of our leaders by Big Media. Entrenched and antiquated ways of thinking about the war… How can we expect bureaucrats and members of Congress to tackle this struggle effectively?
The best and the brightest don’t wind up in the civil service, nor are they elected to office, nor are they found in academia or the media. Those places are reserved for brown-nosers, organization men, sinecure-seekers, and leftist ideologues. To get into politics it helps to be greedy and ambitious, but brains are not required.
The most intelligent people are in business and the military. Not surprisingly, these two groups are over-represented within the new networks that comprise the Citizens’ Counterjihad.
I’ve had a lot of trouble making my point heard. This idea — using privately-based fourth-generation warfare to fight this war, in lieu of the government — seems to be so far out of the box that many people have trouble keeping it in mind.
Consider this comment from PD111 on the “Uncle Joe Redux“ thread:
Any alliance with Muslims, will of necessity require us to make some political concessions to moderate Muslims. What are these likely to be? Any concessions that further Islam will just be another success for the overall Jihad.
[…]
Placing the future of Western civilisation in the hands of Muslims by making alliances with Muslims, moderate or otherwise, will be a great mistake, as future peace will be dependent on the good will of the moderate Muslims. In other words, we would have taken the first steps to dhimmification by making such an alliance.
We have to do this on our own, otherwise we will lose.
Your idea of an alliance would be fine if the enemy was outside the city walls, as Stalin was, and not within the Gates as it is now.
We have to do this on our own.
That’s what I’ve been saying. But when I say we, I mean “We, the People”. When I say “on our own”, I mean “without the help of the government.”
The government will not do it for us. We have to do it ourselves; the problem is to figure out how.
Now back to the “moderate” Muslims.
Up until a couple of months ago I was just another blogger shouting from the sidelines. My job was to bring information and opinion to this forum, package it for distribution, and hope that it might do some good. Cast your bread upon the waters…
I’m still doing the same job here, but I’ve got another one as well. Ordinary people are now networking their resources in order to pursue a common goal: fighting an information war against the Jihad at the grassroots level. I’m part of that effort now — not just talking, but doing.
Being involved with the 910 Group has given me a crash course in what it takes to actually get something done. A “pure” blogger has the luxury of sticking by his principles no matter what, never compromising on an issue, and always taking the moral high road. But when you work with a large number of people to try to reach a common objective, you don’t always have those options.
If your thinking leads you to the point where you say, “All Muslim immigration should be stopped,” then you’ve run up against that wall. What you say is true — it should be — but it ain’t gonna happen. That’s a government function, and we have no control over immigration policy. We will have to fight without that weapon in our armory.
Similarly, if you say, “We need to deal forcefully with Iran,” you’re right; we certainly do. But “we” — i.e. our elected representatives — are not going to deal forcefully with Iran. They’re not going to deal with it at all, if they can avoid it. Our leaders are going to waffle and procrastinate and prevaricate and pretend their way down the road to Armageddon. We have to deal with that fact.
So what can we do?
Obviously, I’m not advocating revolution. The 910 Group is predicated upon non-violence and lawful behavior in the pursuit of worldwide liberty.
What we’re doing is forming conduits of information and methods of organizing to combat the propaganda initiatives that the enemy is mounting among us every day. As I’ve often said, “the enemy within” is our biggest problem.
Intelligent and skilled people are even now building the infrastructure to respond to CAIR and similar organizations, to fight for our First Amendment rights under the coming onslaught against them, and to monitor and report on the activities of the mujahideen in our midst whilst the media ignore them. The tactics we use can be as simple as a targeted mass letter-writing campaign to a newspaper or a congressman, or they can be immensely complex.
The point isn’t any particular action, but the structure of the network. The network needs to circulate information smoothly and quickly, and react like lightning when a crisis hits. It needs to be robust and effective, able to withstand the inevitable lawsuits and threats that will come from the Jihad groups.
It will be some months before we reach this ability, but it is definitely coming.
Part of this network formation involves reaching out to Muslims who show by their words and actions that they share the same objectives. Take, for example, the case of Bassam Tibi, a German Muslim who was brought to our attention by a reader, who says this:
This is the man who challenged me to understand what was going on with Islam when I met him in June and July 2001. We were staying in the same hotel. He is shifting shortly to the States. As is Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
I note, too, in their latest newsletter, that the NZ Director of the Barnabas Fund is moving to Washington in January. Given that Patrick Sookhdeo (Director of the Fund) was dropping broad hints earlier this year about shifting to the States, it could be things are even worse in Europe than we realize.
The effect of existing and pending EU and national laws limiting free and frank expression on political and religious issues must surely be a factor here. Not to mention actual threats and physical danger to those who speak out.
So it seems that the opposition to Eurabia is gradually draining into this country. That’s good; we will need those people here.
Our reader pointed us to a Jihad Watch article about Bassam Tibi, which in turn points to a Globe and Mail article. The latter requires not just a subscription, but actual payment to be able to view the article. I’m a cheapskate, so you’ll have to make do with some of the Jihad Watch excerpts:
Dr. Tibi, a Muslim born in Syria, is persona non grata there.
He’s not too popular in Germany either, where he has been accused of inciting Islamophobia. “It is most disturbing to see how writers who try to warn about the totalitarian character of Islamism are defamed as racists,” he says. “This wrong-headed political correctness prevents any honest discussion about the subject.”
This is not the message you will hear from any Muslim leader. The standard line is that extremism has been exaggerated, the media are to blame, and that the real problem is that Muslims have been unfairly targeted. But long before 9/11, Dr. Tibi began warning Europe had become dangerously vulnerable to radical Islamists. Today, many of these movements have their logistics, as well as their support systems, in Western Europe. In the name of multiculturalism, Muslims were encouraged to build parallel societies. Now, many have no intention of integrating into the mainstream.
[…]
Dr. Tibi is impatient with the endlessly repeated nostrum that Islam is “a religion of peace.” “When you study religion, you do not study texts, you study social facts. A Muslim boy is torching cars and he is thinking he is waging jihad. Religion has nothing to do with terrorism. But you can use it to legitimate terrorism. There is a conflict — it is social and economic, but it is articulated in religious language.” And the quest of converting the entire world to Islam, he insists, is an immutable fixture of the Muslim worldview.
[…]
I asked Dr. Tibi how many of Germany’s 3.2 million Muslims share his progressive, secular views. “Maybe a few thousand,” he said.
A few thousand. You know, it would be good to have a few thousand Muslims on the ground in Germany, or any other Western country, networked into the Citizens’ Counterjihad and ready to contribute to it.
Recapitulating what PD111 said: Your idea of an alliance would be fine if the enemy was outside the city walls, as Stalin was, and not within the Gates as it is now.
But the gates open both ways. They are inside ours; why can’t we be inside theirs?
Yes, we have watch out for practitioners of taqiyyah, to beware of the double agent and the provocateur. But that’s already part of the job we’re doing.
And it’s a good thing that the government isn’t doing this job, because the first thing it would do in the face of provocation would be to compromise, appease, and submit. That’s the way to creeping shari’ah.
But we don’t have to do that. A citizens’ network can insist that its affiliates and individual members adhere to its principles. If they don’t, they’re removed from the network.
The core principles include:
None of these is negotiable. None can be compromised for the sake of “respect for Islam” or to avoid “hate speech”.
If you demonstrably adhere to these principles, the network invites you in.
If you abandon any of them, you’re out in a flash.
The uncomfortable fact is that we are unlikely to find a huge number of Muslims who are willing to accept these principles and aid us in what we do. There just aren’t that many of them; the vast majority seem to be passive, or in tacit support of the Jihad.
But we need all the help we can get. It doesn’t matter whether any Muslim is sincere or is practicing taqiyyah, any more than it matters whether a murder is also a “hate” crime.
By their fruits ye shall know them. If their fruits are good, they belong with us.
This doesn’t mean that taqiyyah isn’t an issue; internal security is always going to be an issue in a network like this. It’s fortunate that we have people on board who are experts in the field. They’ll make sure the job gets done right.
After all, the government is incapable of doing it.
Richard A. Viguerie attended a benefit dinner recently at which Karl Rove was the speaker. Mr. Rove took questions from the audience, but not from Mr. Viguerie. As the latter says:
“… it was understandable for Rove to pass me by. He is well aware of my unhappiness with President Bush and the GOP congressional leadership—it’s all spelled out in my latest book, “Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause“ (Bonus Books, 2006). The last thing he needed that night was to give me, an outspoken conservative with no desires for White House invitations, the opportunity, with the nation as audience via C-SPAN, to lob one at the President.”
Boy, who wouldn’t like a chance to grill question Karl Rove? Since Rove laughingly passed him over (chicken), Mr. Viguerie has posed the question rhetorically, after the fact:
Karl, you’ve made a number of references tonight about how the Republican Party has lost its way. Well, the conservatives here tonight [the event was at Hillsdale College] — plus millions around the country—would like to have some comfort level that we will feel better about the next two years than we have the last few years. Because quite frankly, the conservatives are getting highly nervous about the early signals we’re getting from President Bush and his team: 1) The President said he is looking forward to working with the Democrats on amnesty for illegal aliens, 2) Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson has suggested that nothing is off the table regarding Social Security, which conservatives interpret as opening the door to tax increases and benefit cuts, and 3) the President and congressional Republicans decided to throw in the towel and not fight for one of the few conservatives in his administration, UN Ambassador John Bolton. So, Karl, in light of developments such as these, what assurances can you give us that the White House and the GOP will indeed return to basic conservative principles?
– – – – – – – – – –
What assurances indeed? And who would believe them?
The next two years are going to be even more disastrous than we dare to think about. What I can’t figure out is whether President Bush changed, or he was always like this and we just couldn’t see it, given the glaring radioactivity given off by his Democrat presidential opponents.
Is Bush a better choice than those two? “Yes,” she said reluctantly. And if he’d run with his true colors flying, I’d have voted for him by default. But like many others, like Mr. Viguerie, I feel betrayed.
At least Gore and Kerry let it all hang out for everyone to see…or, rather, Kerry tried to hide some of the more shameful parts but they kept showing up anyway.
2008 will be a race to see who can distance himself further from the White House. The dust clouds you’ll see will resemble the ones stirred up by those herds of buffalo that once covered the western plains. Only these dust clouds will be covering the tracks of the fleeing politicians.
A reader sent a link to this story on a British site today about a nun run amok in the streets of London.
Read it, and then let’s read between the lines. I have cut and pasted the whole thing, which is rather tacky, but the story is so bizarre and the bureaucracy so mindless, you need to see it in all its Orwellian glory to make your own assessment:
A nun was convicted of religious harassment after ranting against ‘terrorist’ Muslims in the middle of London’s busy Oxford Street.
Sister Ruth Augustus, 66, was fined £200 after she shouted at two women in full robes and veils “you’re probably terrorists, get back to your own country”.
Later she told cops who arrested her they should go back to Iraq and have their heads chopped off.
City of Westminster Magistrates Court heard how trouble flared when Augustus, a missionary who has worked with prostitutes in the developing world, was handing out prayer leaflets outside Debenhams department store on Easter Tuesday.
When people of Muslim appearance passed she called out “Jesus loves Muslims,” but two ladies in traditional dress took offence.
Fellow leafleter, Tony Rollins, told the court: “The ladies answered back and told her shut her stupid mouth.
“Sister Ruth said to them ‘you’re probably terrorists, get back to your own country’. They gave her a long, hard stare before walking away.
“I was cringing at what she said. It made me feel very uneasy.”
WPC Natasha Walker said she heard a ‘commotion’ outside the shop and went to investigate.
The officer said: “I heard someone shouting ‘terrorists, terrorists’ more than once. It’s busy on Oxford Street, so she must have been shouting really loud.
“I turned round and noticed there were a group of people standing outside Debenhams. Sister Augustus was shouting ‘terrorists’ repeatedly and other things about Muslims.
“I asked her to stop, but she refused. She said ‘I will not stop, I’m a nun’.
“Because she refused to stop I arrested her. She said ‘You’re not arresting me, I’m a nun. It’s a waste of tax payers’ money. You’re arresting me because you’re a Muslim.’”
WPC Walker called for for colleagues to help bundle the ‘agitated and aggressive’ into the back of the police van.
WPC Keeley Pemberton said when she arrived she heard Augustus shouting at PC Walker “Take your dirty hands off me, you’re a Muslim.”
After a night in police cells Augustus was bailed to return to Marylebone Police Station in June, but when her solicitor didn’t show, she launched into another tirade, it was said.
She called the two officers morons, referred to one as ‘WPC Muslim Walker’, and shouted in the public waiting area “This is a Muslim country full of terrorists,” the court heard.
WPC Pemberton said Augustus became increasingly ‘agitated and abusive’.
She said: “I asked her to be quiet and she shouted ‘Go back to Iraq’ and was pointing at WPC Walker. She said it very aggressively.
“Then she looked at me and said ‘You should go with her and both of you will get your heads chopped off’.”
WPC Walker said: “She said to me ‘you should go back to Iraq where you belong, where all the terrorists are. You are likely to be beheaded. You deserve it’.”
– – – – – – – – – –
When she was arrested again she ranted at officers “You’re all morons, especially that Muslim — she’s a chimpanzee and she needs to go back to the zoo with the other chimpanzees,” WPC Pemberton said.
Augustus, who represented herself after sacking her lawyer early in the proceedings, was frequently told to be quiet as she heckled the witnesses.
While giving evidence, she insisted on wearing a large placard with a picture of Jesus on it round her neck.
She claimed she had in fact suggested to the officers that they should stop wasting time on her and instead go out and catch paedophiles and rapists, or go out to Iraq to help our troops fight terrorists.
Augustus accused police of “religious bigotry and hatred” and claimed she was handled roughly, locked in a cell when she was ill, and strip-searched in the street.
She said: “I was responding to extreme provocation. The police were abusing me and were acting in a most satanic, brutal and unprofessional manner. I felt entitled to call them chimpanzees because that is how they were behaving.”
The reference to beheading she said was in reference to the catholic missionary Margaret Hassan, who was kidnapped and murdered by insurgents.
Augustus, of Kensington, was found guilty of two charges of religiously aggravated harassment.
District Judge Emma Arbuthnot told her: “I have no doubt at all that Sister Augustus’s behaviour amounted to religiously aggravated harassment.
“This was extremely upsetting and rude behaviour which harassed and alarmed not just the officers but others who were around at the time.
“It is clear from her behaviour today that she was an extremely difficult defendant to deal with. The officers I’m sure dealt with her as best they could and cannot be criticised.”
She was fined a total of £200 plus £40 court costs. The judge told the pensioner: “By rights you should pay compensation but I’m not going to make you as you are not in a position to pay any more.”
Augustus replied: “It’s a disgrace. If this is British justice, I’m going back to Africa. They are more civilised there.” She vowed to appeal against her conviction in the highest court.
The first thing that struck me was the charge filed against her: “religiously aggravated harassment.” It sounds like a CAIR dream, this kind of law. I wonder how long before we’ll be facing further erosion of our First Amendment rights here in the U.S. Some think it won’t be long at all before this kind of law is on the books.
The second thing — and really most glaring fact, if I weren’t so busy looking at why this woman was taken in – is that Sister Ruth Augustus has a few beads missing from her rosary. Her “crime” is surely more serious than the charge: she is obviously in need of some kind of treatment. Jail time for merely being bonkers and inappropriate seems strange from way over here.
The third thing, and perhaps the most telling part of the nun’s rant, comes at the end, when she says “It’s a disgrace. If this is British justice, I’m going back to Africa. They are more civilised there.”
I had heard that Christian missionaries from Africa consider the “developed” world missionary territory and are sending their people to preach in Europe. Godless Europe. Of course, as C. S. Lewis said, most people have been innoculated with such a mild version of Christiany that they’re immune to the real thing. So the notion of missionaries in post-Christian Europe seems a large waste of time and resources.
But if this is British justice, it certainly is thick-headed. Even from here, you can tell this woman “has problems” and she no more understands the charges against her than she understands that the police arresting her are not Muslims. Someone that agitated and off the wall needs quiet time and medication, not lectures from a judge who proclaims:
“I have no doubt at all that Sister Augustus’s behaviour amounted to religiously aggravated harassment….”
Well, duh. But in the 21st century I thought we looked at least glancingly at the possible sources of disruptive, crazy behavior.
Sister Augustus definitely needs a little time with Theodore Dalrymple. Of course, he’s moved away from the UK to get away from the craziness.
What do you all think?
Did you know that Finland has an annual quota for refugees?
No, I don’t mean a limit. It’s not a ceiling on the number of refugees that can be admitted to the country. It’s a target that the Finnish government is supposed to meet. According to the English-language edition of Helsingin Sanomat:
Finland has taken in fewer refugees than its quota calls for almost every year in the present decade. The annual quota of 750 refugees has fallen short by 50-100 individuals in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005.
The impending shortfall this year aroused considerable public debate earlier this month, with officials of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Labour blaming each other.
State officials have been somewhat vague about the situation in previous years. The Ministry of Labour claimed on Monday last week that “Finland has accepted 750 refugees each year at the recommendation of the UNHCR”.
Nevertheless, figures put out by the Labour Ministry show that from 2000 to 2005 Finland has failed to accept more than 290 refugees recommended by the UNHCR and for whom Parliament had earmarked funding.
“Naturally it is unfortunate if the quota is not filled. However, I believe that everything possible has been done in Finland so that this might happen”, insists Markku Wallin, Chief of Staff at the Ministry of Labour.
– – – – – – – – – –
Parliament sets the annual refugee quota, and budgets funding for settling the new arrivals. A shortfall of refugees one year does not increase the quota for the next.
According to Labour Ministry official Meri-Sisko Eskola, the main reason why the quota has not been filled in some years is that some of the trips by officials to select refugees for Finland have been delayed until the end of the year.
Eskola says that if the Finnish officials do not have time to interview a sufficient number of refugees that meet the requirements set by Finland, it can result in a fairly large gap.
“If the quota is 750, and we are offered 750 people, not all of them meet the security and integration criteria”, Vuorio says.
The ministries select refugees who they feel would not endanger overall security in Finland, and whose possibilities of integrating into Finnish society are seen as good.
At the Finnish Red Cross, Leena-Kaisa Åberg, head of the refugee and immigration section, says that a slight shortfall in the refugee quota is not completely unheard of internationally.
“This has happened in other Nordic Countries as well”, she says.
Åberg and Eskola suggest as a solution the idea contained in the government’s immigration policy programme, to switch from an annual to a three-year refugee quota, which would make it possible to make up for a shortfall in the following year.
Åberg notes that this would also make it easier for the UNHCR to find the kinds of refugee groups that meet Finland’s fairly stringent criteria.
Does this look like mass insanity to you, or is it just me?
We all know how bureaucracies work — when the agencies involved can’t meet their quota, they’ll fudge the qualifications of some “refugees” to make sure they get their numbers up. It’s the Soviet style of governance: ignore reality, make up the numbers, meet your quota, and cover your fundament.
Finland is fortunate that its level of refugee inflow is so much lower than that of Sweden or Norway. But, as the pressure mounts, the immigrants are going to be more and more from a certain religion of peace.
If I were a Muslim Brotherhood operative, I’d be exploring the guidelines in Finland’s refugee entrance requirements, looking for the loopholes so I could get my people through the door.
Coupled with Iran’s repeated assertions that Israel should be wiped off the map – evidently as long as one Jew remains, the 12th Imam can’t come up for air – the highly publicized Holocaust Denial Conference in Tehran is evidence enough for charges of genocide against Iran.
So says John Bolton, late of the UN, and so does Alan Dershowitz. They are calling on The Hague to hear their charges against Iran.
Mr Bolton will be joined in tomorrow’s launch of the legal action against Mr Ahmadinejad by a Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz, and the former Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold, together with experts from the US, Canada and Israel. A suit will be lodged with the international court of justice at The Hague, which will decide whether to hear the action. The panel said the Iranian president was guilty of inciting genocide “by making numerous threats against the United States, calling for the destruction of Israel and instigating discrimination against Christians and Jews”. His words violate a 1948 UN genocide convention, to which Iran is a signatory, they said.
Does this have anything to do with Kofi Annan’s departure from the scene? Does his exit open the way to pull in the reins on Iran?
The best that Iran could pull off in the way of famous guests is David Duke. This would be a joke were it not part of a larger strategy by Iran to wear down world resistance by repeating its mantra that Israel must “be wiped off the map.” It is not enough to destroy Israel, it must be obliterated, as though it never existed to begin with.
– – – – – – – – – –
However, this “conference” seems to have awakened the sleeping heads of state. Tony Blair and Germany’s chancellor have both issued strong statements that Iran’s revisionist “history” will not be allowed to stand. Neither said what they were willing to do about it, however. Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad bloviates on, certain that his Chinese water torture repetition will erode support for Israel:
Thanks to people’s wishes and God’s will, the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards and this is what God has promised and what all nations want,” he said.
Israel is living proof that what does not kill me makes me stronger.
Iran is on the way to becoming another provocative Iraq, hoping to cause more global conflict, sucking in other players, and thereby bringing that much closer Ahmadinejad’s retro fantasy of a Judenrein world.
Mr. Bolton’s remarks will come tomorrow, according to the Guardian.
Barely a week after he announced his resignation from the UN post, Mr Bolton will appear tomorrow among a panel of diplomats and lawyers calling for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be prosecuted. The panel has been convened by a Jewish umbrella group in the US, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.
With what we know of Mr. Bolton’s penchant for blunt, direct talk, this should be quite a speech.
I look forward to tomorrow morning.
I’ve been in a surprising place for the last few days, taking a lot of flak from other branches of the Counterjihad. A reader wrote this morning in an email that he was “shocked to see how many people there are getting on your butt… for not being Islamophobic enough.”
It is hard to get used to, especially when I’ve been the Islamophobe-in-Chief for so long.
My heresy has been to point out the strategic utility of forging alliances with Muslim groups that are demonstrably non-violent and tolerant of other religions. This position violates the pure ideology of confrontation with Islam, which must be opposed in all its manifestations, radical or “moderate”, observant or secular.
Mind you, I’m not arguing the case that Islam is not evil. I’m not saying that innumerable passages in the Koran don’t command violence against all infidels.
Those issues are, for my purposes here, simply not useful to consider.
I am only arguing for the strategic necessity of working with truly dissident Muslim groups, in order to divide and conquer. Some of these groups may be repugnant in many ways, and some may be very temporary allies, but that does not argue against an alliance with them per se.
If you want a parallel, consider our nation’s alliance with Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, also known as Stalin, or — from 1941 to 1945 — “Uncle Joe”.
Stalin was as repugnant as a human being can get, and reigned as the supreme autocrat in what proved to be the most loathsome, tyrannical, brutal, and murderous regime in history. Yet the United States and Britain found it prudent to ally with him against Hitler, and chose to overlook the nature of his rule during the course of the war.
– – – – – – – – – –
After the war we had to deal with the Soviets, and spent another forty-five years coping with the aftermath of our alliance with Stalin. But in 1942 and 1943 Churchill and Roosevelt considered it absolutely necessary to maintain an alliance with the Soviet Union.
There were purists on the Right who argued against any kind of alliance with the communists, under any circumstances. But can you imagine what would have happened to Britain if there had been no Eastern Front? Would life under a Nazi occupation have been preferable to the abandonment of ideological purity? Some may have welcomed such an outcome, but the average Briton did not.
In a similar vein, the purists on the Left wanted no truck with any right-wing dictatorship whatsoever during the struggle against Communism in the Cold War. Pinochet and Franco were out of the question, and there were many on the Left who would have been content to see Communism triumph across the globe rather than abandon the righteousness of their position.
People who argue for these ideologically pure stances are refusing to take practical strategy into consideration. During the course of a long war, their purity of resolve can translate into hundreds of thousands of additional dead Americans, whether among the best and the brightest from our military, or ordinary civilians who happen to be downtown when the next Mohammed Atta gets past Homeland Security to do his dirty work against us.
To make the matter more compelling, our potential allies in this war are much more palatable than ol’ Uncle Joe. Daniel Pipes, who is no apologist for the Great Jihad, has this to say:
Of particular note are the American Muslims who reject CAIR’s claim to speak on their behalf. The late Seifeldin Ashmawy, publisher of the New Jersey-based Voice of Peace, called CAIR the champion of “extremists whose views do not represent Islam.”Jamal Hasan of the Council for Democracy and Tolerance explains that CAIR’s goal is to spread “Islamic hegemony the world over by hook or by crook.” Kamal Nawash, head of Free Muslims Against Terrorism, finds that CAIR and similar groups condemn terrorism on the surface while endorsing an ideology that helps foster extremism, adding that “almost all of their members are theocratic Muslims who reject secularism and want to establish Islamic states.”Tashbih Sayyed of the Council for Democracy and Tolerance calls CAIR “the most accomplished fifth column” in the United States. And Stephen Schwartz of the Center on Islamic Pluralism writes that “CAIR should be considered a foreign-based subversive organization, comparable in the Islamist field to the Soviet-controlled Communist Party, USA.”
You don’t hear about these people from the MSM — they don’t fit the preferred storyline — but they are going on the record against the violent radicals, and risking their lives by doing so.
And then there’s this one:
A collective statement by Muslim bloggers to the Iranian regime about its Holocaust denial conference
We the following Muslim bloggers hereby affirm that the Holocaust did happen because, not only are we quite capable of understanding overwhelming historical evidence, we also refuse to allow Muslim leaders to twist history for cruel, personal and selfish gains — thereby reflecting negatively upon us and the message of Islam — without confronting their actions with the hammer of righteous indignation. For religious, moral, and historical reasons, we repudiate and spit upon the Holocaust deniers conference now taking place in Iran, and stand in solidarity with student, and other, anti-fascists in that great nation, along with the victims of the Holocaust itself.
We further castigate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an egomaniacal sociopath and incompetent world leader who has embarrassed the reputation and spiritual world of Islam with his political falsifications and distortions. His attempts to infiltrate the realm of Holocaust studies in order to focus on changing the situations of foreign nations while many of his people go hungry and are unemployed, is obviously a deranged policy.
They’ve got a petition for people to sign.
It’s not for us to figure out how the Koran can be reconciled with non-violence and religious tolerance. If the Free Muslims can manage to square that particular circle, then more power to them.
These good people may be in a tiny minority among Muslims, and they may be doomed in any case. But it’s important for us to support them, because what they stand for is what we stand for.
Besides that, we need them.
They’re going to open up an Eastern Front.
Joshuapundit came in first for Genocide? What Genocide?, followed so closely by Rick Moran’s The Art and Artifice of War Reporting that his essay deserves a mention, too.
First, Joshua’s take on Darfur:
Remember when the UN’s Kofi Annan was preening himself a little while ago over a supposed agreement with Sudan’s jihadi government to accept a UN/ African Union force to protect Darfur’s civilians from genocide?
Well, it seems that’s Mr. Annan’s self-congratulation was a mite premature. Al-Reuters reports today that not only isn’t the President al-Bashir going to allow any UN or AU troops in, but now he denies there’s any problem!
Thank heavens Mr. Annan’s incompetent, corrupt, and demoralizing “leadership” is over. In fact, Annan and al-Bashir are a matched set of bookends.
Joshua adds:
Our own government calls it genocide…something the UN hasn’t quite gotten around to, though they do refer to `Human rights violations’ and “heinous crimes”. Not that they’re prepared to actually do anything meaningful about it, even if it violates the UN Charter.
And this foul, murderous little man has enough contempt for every norm of civilized humanity, enough smug confidence in the backing he’s receiving from Russia, China and the Muslim bloc in the UN to go before the cameras and say the jihad against Darfur is `no problem’.
Joshua has a great quote from al-Bashir about the Joos. It’s worth going over there just to see that.
Meanwhile, Right Wing Nut House has a thoughtful essay on The Art and Artifice of War Reporting. He prefaces his remarks about the reporting of the war in Iraq with a little history lesson about Churchill and the BBC. Then he says:
Once it became clear that Hitler was a threat to the existence of the nation, the BBC and other British news outlets started to view what the Nazis were saying with a much more critical eye. But couldn’t they have figured this out sooner? Why did they swallow enemy propaganda so willingly?
We asked similar questions during the Israeli-Hizbullah war when it became readily apparent that the AP (and thus hundreds of media outlets around the world) were using photos and stories from outright Hizbullah sympathizers whose job could only have been to give enemy propaganda to western reporters. And in Iraq, many critics have pointed to the almost total reliance by the mainstream press on Iraqi “stringers” for news of what’s happening around the country.
[…]
I have a few pointed questions that I’d like to ask the New York Times, the Washington Post, the news nets and others who use stringers in gathering the news.
Who are they? What are their backgrounds? Are they journalists? If so, what kind of experience have they had? Have then been vetted to make sure they aren’t out and out insurgent sympathizers? Or militia mouthpieces?
Do they have axes to grind against America? How does the reporter in Iraq or the editor back home establish their objectivity or accuracy? Does the reporter on site even try and confirm information from the stringers? If so, how many sources are used to confirm their stories? How do you gauge the reliability of those confirming sources?
This is the nuts and bolts of journalism. Raw information is not news. It has to be poked and prodded, examined and re-examined in a process that is supposed to reduce that information to its most basic and understandable parts and then massaged by the reporter and polished by the editor to appear as “news” in the newspaper or on the TV broadcast.
[…]
But there seem to be different rules for war reporting from the Middle East. It appears to this observer that there is too much trust between the parties involved in news gathering and not enough hard, slogging, verification of information that is reported on a day to day basis. I have no doubt that reporters trust the information they get from their stringers (and other sources as well). And the editors here at home feel they have to trust and support their reporters in the war zone who, after all, are still taking a tremendous personal risk despite them being largely confined to living and working in the green zone.
In this post, Mr. Moran defers to Flopping Aces for his work in “ferreting out a piece of disinformation…” and FA happens to be the winner on the non-Council side for December 1st for his post Getting the News from the Enemy.
Mr. Moran is indeed correct. This is a great job, detailed and full of links to other sites about the careless, cynical (my words) use of questionable sources by the increasingly lazy and corrupted MSM. In the end, Flopping Aces asks:
…The average American picks up a paper or watches 10 minutes of the evening news and believes they are well informed. The MSM prints stories that show all this chaos and mayhem and the average American swallows it all.
But as I’ve shown here, a lot of it is not to be trusted.
They are doing the insurgents job for them by printing this stuff from unverified sources. Hell, why don’t they go out and see it for themselves. That asking too much of our MSM?
I don’t think it’s asking too much. Bill Roggio and Michael Yon put their lives on the line to get the real story. The MSM has jumped the shark. No doubt it will hang in mid-air for quite sometime, bleating out its message of anti-American bilge, but the party is essentially over for the Big Boys. Bloggers aren’t big but they are numerous and they are distributed and they’re all over these specious stories like chocolate on New Orleans.
The rest of us are over at The Watcher’s Place, hanging out.