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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; John Esposito</title>
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		<title>Centers for Islamic Studies: a Cold-War-Style Influence Operation?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/oleg-atbashian/centers-for-islamic-studies-a-cold-war-style-influence-operation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=centers-for-islamic-studies-a-cold-war-style-influence-operation</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2014 04:18:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Oleg Atbashian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[active measures]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic studies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Esposito]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[KGB]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=242453</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new generation of Islamic supremacists employs the KGB's "active measures."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/hj.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-242457" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/hj.jpg" alt="hj" width="298" height="255" /></a>The launch of a new Center for Global Islamic Studies at the extremely leftist University of Florida in Gainesville may have been planned as a purely academic affair, but the announcements in the local and national media, including <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/09/01/university-florida-to-launch-islamic-study-center/">AP and Fox News</a>, exhibited more than a purely academic interest in this event. To compare, one doesn&#8217;t often see national media announcements about, let&#8217;s say, a local center for the study of viruses &#8212; unless the virus is Ebola. And just like with any news about Ebola studies, any news about studies of Islam attracts attention from the general public, who want to know if there&#8217;s a hope for the cure, containment, and safety from danger.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, these may not be the kind of Islamic Studies that answer those hopes. The Center opened on September 18th with a <a href="http://www.bobgrahamcenter.ufl.edu/event/global-islam-and-quest-public-space-john-l-esposito">conference</a> on &#8220;Global Islam and the Quest for Public Space,&#8221; headlined by none other than Georgetown professor John Esposito, a known <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/09/john_esposito_takes_islam_out_of_isis.html">apologist for radical Islam</a> and founding director of the Saudi-sponsored Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in the Walsh School of Foreign Service.</p>
<p>A small group of protesters picketed the event outside the Pugh Hall on the university campus, with a dozen creative posters and a vinyl banner pointing out that John Esposito and the leader of ISIS both hold PhDs in Islamic Studies: &#8220;Same goal, different tactics.&#8221; The <a href="http://youtu.be/F9YQwTfROW0">video of the protest</a> can be seen online.</p>
<p>The protest organizer, Randy McDaniels of <a href="http://www.actforamerica.org/">ACT for America</a> and the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CTAG.USA">Counter-Terrorism Advisory Group</a>, stated that our students certainly need to study Islam, as long as such studies are based on scientific objectivity and critical analysis. But the presence of John Esposito as the keynote speaker indicated that the new Global Islamic Studies Center was likely to <a href="http://counterjihadreport.com/tag/esposito/">go the way of many other universities</a>, opening their doors and exposing our children to political Islam under the guise of education, with programs funded by Saudi Arabia, <a href="http://www.stopqatarnow.com/">Qatar</a>, and other state sponsors of Islamic fundamentalism.</p>
<p>While many among the leftist faculty and the students were visibly upset with the protest, complete with occasional angry obscenities, a few others were interested in the message and asked for a flyer. Some of them asked, &#8220;What&#8217;s wrong with having an Islamic Studies Center, even if it&#8217;s financed by foreign money?&#8221;</p>
<p>The short answer would have been to compare such a project to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures"><em>active measures </em></a>undertaken in America by the KGB during the Cold War &#8212; except that, unfortunately, most American students aren&#8217;t familiar with this term. Their knowledge of the Cold War has been thoroughly sanitized by the leftist faculty, especially if the professors are Marxists who used to root for the other side. The resulting perceived absence of the Soviet subversion, propaganda, disinformation, and other influence operations inside the U.S. and around the world creates the impression of an ideologically neutral world, in which America&#8217;s response to protect liberty can very easily be misconstrued as imperialist aggression against the innocent.</p>
<p>Ignorance about the enemy leads to confusion about one&#8217;s own nation&#8217;s role in the world, regardless of the historical era or the current adversary. Whether we admit it or not, we are now in a new global conflict that has many parallels with the Cold War; it is often fought by similar means and sometimes even by the same actors.</p>
<p>Now, just as it was then, we&#8217;re up against a supremacist collectivist ideology whose goal is to establish a totalitarian utopian society on a global scale. The two deadly pipe dreams &#8212; global communism and the global caliphate &#8212; may have their differences, but in practical terms they both view the United States as the main obstacle in their quest of world domination. There is no reason why one can&#8217;t learn from the other&#8217;s vast experience in subverting this country.</p>
<p>Both foes have made claims that they stand for peace. The problem is that Marxists understand peace as the absence of opposition to socialism, just as the Islamist supremacists understand peace as the absence of opposition to Islam. Eventual peace will theoretically ensue once they subjugate the rest of the world to their totalitarian rule.</p>
<p>In both cases, tolerance is a one-way street: everyone must be tolerant of <em>their</em> &#8220;superior&#8221; views, while they retain the right to self-righteous intolerance of the &#8220;inferiors.&#8221; Both ideologies generate a variety of wild-eyed conspiracy theories as a means to retain loyalty, boost morale, recruit new members, and demoralize their opponents.</p>
<p>The Soviets didn&#8217;t necessarily hate Americans or wanted to kill them off; they only wanted to &#8220;convert&#8221; our economic and political system for our own good. Likewise, the Islamists feel morally justified: they don&#8217;t view terrorism as the murder of innocents, but rather as a collective punishment for being foolish in resisting Islam. This makes mass murder a moral virtue, absolving them of all sins and encouraging them to keep punishing us, &#8220;the inferior fools,&#8221; until we see the light and either convert or accept their supremacy. They&#8217;d rather convert than kill, so if we force their hand, it&#8217;s &#8220;our own fault.&#8221;</p>
<p>Now, just as it was then, the U.S. is being drawn into fighting regional proxy wars while maintaining a semblance of dialogue with the main instigator, who remains visibly uninvolved but is pulling the strings of a vast network of loosely affiliated non-governmental groups, from registered non-profits to armed gangs of cutthroats. The seeming lack of affiliations, in both cases, is usually a cover for a centralized, coordinated effort.</p>
<p>Cold War spy thrillers may show some exciting action, but the fact is that espionage wasn&#8217;t even the main focus of the KGB operations in the U.S. According to retired KGB Maj. Gen. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Kalugin">Oleg Kalugin</a>, the heart and soul of Soviet intelligence was &#8220;not intelligence collection, but subversion: active measures to weaken the West.&#8221;</p>
<p>The KGB maintained an extensive, sophisticated network of agents in the media, academia, government, and the cultural establishment. Acting on strategies designed in Moscow, they led a relentless, coordinated attack on this country&#8217;s institutions, often quite effectively demoralizing the population, undermining people&#8217;s confidence in America&#8217;s political and economic systems, spreading rumors, falsehoods, and conspiracy theories, influencing politicians, swaying public opinion, promoting some public figures and discrediting others, creating a positive image of the USSR, and so on.</p>
<p>Fast forward to the fall of the USSR. What happened to these strategies, this system, its networks, and its methods? Did they just disappear? Not really. The KGB was never dismantled; it was renamed into FSB and one of its former lieutenant colonels, Vladimir Putin, is now running the country, using the old KGB network just as effectively to spread disinformation and to promote his imperial agenda.</p>
<p>Even more disturbingly, this system has now replicated itself, producing an even more dangerous and aggressive clone.</p>
<p>In 1960, the Soviet government had set up the so-called Patrice Lumumba People&#8217;s Friendship University in Moscow, offering free higher education to students from the Third World, many of them from Muslim countries. In addition to regular student curriculum, the goal was to train and recruit agents who would then spread the ideas of Marxism in their home countries, and if possible, conduct <em>active measures</em> designed by their Moscow handlers.</p>
<p>To be exact, the university received its African name in 1961. <a href="http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/lumumba.htm">Patrice Lumumba</a> was a pro-Soviet Congolese prime minister who earlier that year was removed from power in a coup d&#8217;état and shot by a firing squad. The international Left quickly made Lumumba into a martyr of anti-imperialist struggle; what they won&#8217;t mention is that the coup and the execution were a drastic response to Lumumba&#8217;s plans of bringing the Soviet troops to the Congo and potentially staging a major military conflict in Africa, similar to the wars that the USSR fought in Korea, Vietnam, and later in Afghanistan. In this regard, the school&#8217;s name was rather symbolic.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Was-Going-Our/dp/B0017HSXXQ">KGB Major Vasili Mitrokhin</a>, who defected to the West, &#8220;The University&#8217;s first vice-rector and a number of its staff were KGB officers who used the student body as a recruiting ground for Third World agents.&#8221; The students were trained in the art of propaganda, infiltration, and influence operations. More specialized training, such as terrorist activities, was provided at locations in Baku, Odessa, Simferopol, and Tashkent.</p>
<p>Carlos the Jackal, the notorious Marxist terrorist from Venezuela, who joined Palestinian terrorists and later converted to Islam, was one of the graduates, even though the school insists that he was expelled. A BBC News article titled <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/42244.stm">Carlos the Jackal &#8212; three decades of crime</a> puts it this way:</p>
<blockquote><p>He began acting in the name of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine after leaving Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, a notorious hotbed for recruiting foreign communists to the Soviet Union.</p></blockquote>
<p>Grand Ayatollah and the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, is listed among <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples'_Friendship_University_of_Russia#Notable_graduates">notable graduates</a> on the University&#8217;s Wikipedia page, although he <a href="http://www.aim.org/aim-column/cnns-iranian-propaganda-campaign/">vehemently denies it</a>. Another graduate is Timoleón Jiménez, the leader of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FARC">FARC</a> &#8212; a communist guerrilla army in Colombia, which is funded by drugs, kidnappings and extortion.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples'_Friendship_University_of_Russia#Notable_graduates">Other notables</a> include the President of Honduras, the President of Namibia, the President of the Central African Republic, a former President of Guyana, a former Jamaican MP, a leader of the Sudanese Socialist Democratic Union, and &#8212; of all people &#8212; Anna Chapman, a Russian intelligence officer.</p>
<p>Most importantly, the list of graduates includes today&#8217;s Palestinian leader <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=29207">Mahmoud Abbas</a>, Chairman of the PLO and President of the Palestinian National Authority, who received his Ph.D. in Moscow in 1982 after completing a thesis partly based on Holocaust denial.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=13975">2004 interview with FrontPage Magazine</a>, Ion Mihai Pacepa, former acting chief of Communist Romania&#8217;s espionage service, described the KGB role in setting up terrorist networks around the world and particularly in the Middle East, as well as persuading Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi to join the terrorist war against the US, with the added benefit of using Iraq&#8217;s and Libya&#8217;s huge intelligence services that were being run by the KGB advisers and extended their tentacles to every corner of the earth.</p>
<p>Says Pacepa:</p>
<blockquote><p>The PLO was dreamt up by the KGB, which had a penchant for &#8220;liberation&#8221; organizations. There was the National Liberation Army of Bolivia, created by the KGB in 1964 with help from Ernesto &#8220;Che&#8221; Guevara. Then there was the National Liberation Army of Colombia, created by the KGB in 1965 with help from Fidel Castro, which was soon deeply involved in kidnappings, hijackings, bombings and guerrilla warfare. In later years the KGB also created the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which carried out numerous bombing attacks on the &#8220;Palestinian territories&#8221; occupied by Israel.</p></blockquote>
<p>&#8220;In 1964 the first PLO Council, consisting of 422 Palestinian representatives handpicked by the KGB, approved the Palestinian National Charter &#8212; a document that had been drafted in Moscow,&#8221; Pacepa continues.</p>
<blockquote><p>The Palestinian National Covenant and the Palestinian Constitution were also born in Moscow, with the help of Ahmed Shuqairy, a KGB influence agent who became the first PLO chairman.</p></blockquote>
<p>The entire story of the Palestinian &#8220;liberation,&#8221; which has provoked a tidal wave of global Islamic extremism, has recognizable marks of a manufactured influence operation. That includes media coverage in the Western press, which regurgitates regularly produced and coordinated disinformation. A lot of this dirty work was done initially by the Middle Eastern graduates of Patrice Lumumba People&#8217;s Friendship University in Moscow, many of whom are still active in the field.</p>
<p>The school still functions today, having dropped Lumumba from its name and calling itself <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples'_Friendship_University_of_Russia#Notable_graduates">The Peoples&#8217; Friendship University of Russia</a>. Its page claims that as of now, more than 97,000 of its graduates work in approximately 170 countries around the world.</p>
<p>Granted, not all of the graduating engineers, doctors, or agricultural experts have become KGB agents or even Marxists, but how many of them have? Even a small percentage of the total 97,000 means that thousands of agents with the knowledge of propaganda, infiltration and influence operations are currently active in the world today, particularly in the Middle East. If in the past some Muslim students may have embraced Marxism, they no longer do now. Even Carlos the Jackal has now <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/26/world/americas/carlos-the-jackal-fast-facts/index.html">converted to Islam</a>. Today&#8217;s Next Big Thing is the Muslim Brotherhood, and that&#8217;s where all the action is.</p>
<p>The astounding sophistication and effectiveness of the Muslim Brotherhood in setting up networks of various front groups, infiltrating the Western establishment, spreading disinformation, swaying public opinion, promoting some public figures and discrediting others, creating a positive image of their ideology, and other influence operations are the evidence that the thousands of trained experts in these fields didn&#8217;t just disappear. Even if they aren&#8217;t being run from Moscow today (some may still be), they are still using their knowledge and skills, as well as teaching a new generation of Islamic supremacists the intricacies of <em>active measures</em>. If the methods and techniques are effective, they don&#8217;t get abandoned.</p>
<p>Given the history, what are the chances that the new Center for Global Islamic Studies at the Florida University, &#8220;christened&#8221; by a Saudi-financed, PLO-loving Georgetown professor, won&#8217;t be turned into yet another center for the Muslim Brotherhood&#8217;s influence operations on American soil?</p>
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		<title>Islamic State Atrocities the Product of ‘Grievances’?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/islamic-state-atrocities-the-product-of-grievances/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islamic-state-atrocities-the-product-of-grievances</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 04:33:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[grievances]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic state]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Esposito]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saudi Arabia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[West]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=241157</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The president suggests ISIS's beheadings, massacres and enslavements are our fault. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/BC-US-Obama-Islamic-State-ref2-1000x7272.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-241183" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/BC-US-Obama-Islamic-State-ref2-1000x7272-450x327.jpg" alt="Barack Obama" width="319" height="232" /></a>While many have rightfully criticized U.S. President Obama’s recent assertion that the Islamic State “<a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2014/09/isis-is-not-islamic"><span style="color: #0433ff;">is not Islamic</span></a>,” some of his other equally curious but more subtle comments pronounced in the same speech have been largely ignored.</p>
<p>Consider the president’s invocation of the “grievances” meme to explain the Islamic State’s success: “At this moment the greatest threats come from the Middle East and North Africa, where radical groups exploit grievances for their own gain. And one of those groups is ISIL—which calls itself the Islamic State.”</p>
<p>Obama’s logic, of course, is fortified by an entire apparatus of professional apologists who make the same claim.  Thus Georgetown professor John Esposito—whose <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/islamic-jizya-protection-from-whom/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">apologetics sometimes morph into boldfaced lies</span></a>—also recently <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/13958"><span style="color: #0433ff;">declared</span></a><span style="color: #323333;"> </span>that “The “primary drivers [for the Islamic State’s violence] are to be found elsewhere,” that is, not in Islam but in a “long list of grievances.”</p>
<p>In other words and once again, it’s apparently somehow “our fault” that Islamic State Muslims are behaving savagely—crucifying, beheading, enslaving, and massacring people <i>only on the basis that they are “infidels”</i>:<i> </i> thus when IS <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/graphic-video-islamic-terrorists-executing-civilians/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">herds and slaughters</span></a> “infidel” men (<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/beheading-infidels-how-allah-heals-the-hearts-of-believers/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">citing the example of the prophet</span></a>)—that’s because they’re angry at something America did; when IS captures “infidel” women and children, and <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/syria-captive-women-herded-and-sold-in-slave-markets/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">sells them on the sex-slave market</span></a> (citing Islamic teachings)—that’s because they’re angry at something America did; when IS bombs churches, breaks their crosses, and tells Christians to convert or die (<a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/western-ignorance-of-the-conditions-of-omar/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">citing Islamic scriptures</span></a>)—that’s because they’re angry at something America did.</p>
<p>Although the “grievance” meme flies in the face of logic, it became especially popular after the 9/11 al-Qaeda strikes on America. The mainstream media, following the Islamist propaganda network Al Jazeera’s lead, uncritically picked up and disseminated Osama bin Laden’s videotapes to the West where he claimed that al-Qaeda’s terror campaign was motivated by grievances against the West—grievances that ranged from U.S. support for Israel to failure for the U.S. to sign the Kyoto Agreement concerning climate change.</p>
<p>Of course, that was all rubbish, and I <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/an-open-question-to-osama-bin-laden-or-any-other-islamist/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">have</span></a> <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/offensive-jihad/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">written</span></a> <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/an-analysis-of-al-qaidas-worldview/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">more</span></a> <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/debate-with-michael-scheuer/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">times</span></a> <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/peace-to-whoever-follows-guidance/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">than </span></a>I care to remember about how in their internal Arabic-language communiques to fellow Muslims that never get translated to English, Osama, al-Qaeda, and virtually every Islamist organization make it a point to insist that jihad is an <i>Islamic</i> obligation that has nothing to do with grievances.</p>
<p>Consider Osama’s own words in an internal letter to fellow Saudis:</p>
<blockquote><p>Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue — one that demands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice — and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually?</p>
<p>Yes. There are only three choices in Islam: [1] either willing submission [conversion]; [2] or payment of the jizya, through physical, though not spiritual, submission to the authority of Islam; [3] or the sword — for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live. The matter is summed up for every person alive: Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die. (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Qaeda-Reader-Raymond-Ibrahim/dp/B005ZOIL2K"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>The Al Qaeda Reader</i></span></a>, p. 42)</p></blockquote>
<p><span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/western-ignorance-of-the-conditions-of-omar/">Conversion, submission, or the sword</a></span> is, of course, the mission of the Islamic State—not alleviating “grievances.”  Yet it’s worse than that; for unlike al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, from day one of its existence, has made it very clear—in Osama’s words, “with power and determination, with one voice”—that its massacres, enslavements, crucifixions, and beheadings of “infidels” are all based on Islamic law or Sharia—not silly “grievances” against the West. Unlike al-Qaeda, the Islamic State is confident enough to avoid the <a href="http://www.meforum.org/2538/taqiyya-islam-rules-of-war"><span style="color: #0433ff;">grievances/taqiyya</span></a> game and forthrightly asserts its hostility for humans based on their religious identity.</p>
<p>Yet by slipping the word “grievances” to explain the Islamic State’s Sharia-based savageries, Obama apparently hopes America has been thoroughly conditioned like Pavlov’s dog to automatically associate Islamic world violence with “grievances.&#8221;</p>
<p>What Obama fails to understand—or fails to mention—is that, yes, the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and countless angry Muslims around the world are indeed often prompted to acts of violence by “grievances.”  But as <a href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/how-dare-you-the-supremacist-nature-of-muslim-grievances/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">fully explained here</span></a>, these “grievances” are not predicated on any universal standards of equality or justice, only a supremacist worldview.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Raymond Ibrahim</strong> on <strong>The Glazov Gang</strong> discussing</em><span id="eow-title" class="watch-title long-title " dir="ltr" title="The Glazov Gang-Raymond Ibrahim on ISIS's Islamic Inspirations."><em><strong> ISIS&#8217;s Islamic Inspirations</strong>:</em> </span></p>
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		<title>The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-thornton/the-legacy-of-islamic-totalitarianism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-legacy-of-islamic-totalitarianism</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 02 Nov 2012 04:45:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Thornton]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Andrew G. Bostom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[book]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[infidel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[koran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muhammad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Peace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sharia Versus Freedom: The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=163391</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Andrew G. Bostom masterfully unveils the true story of the "religion of peace" and its war on human freedom. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-thornton/the-legacy-of-islamic-totalitarianism/picture-1-50/" rel="attachment wp-att-163416"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-163416" title="Picture-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Picture-1-415x350.gif" alt="" width="291" height="245" /></a>The murder of four Americans in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11, and the subsequent attempts by the Obama administration to blame the attacks on a YouTube video critical of Islam, exposed the delusional assumptions of Obama’s foreign policy. This notion that Western bad behavior––whether colonialism, support for Israel, or insults to Islam and Muhammad––is responsible for jihadist violence, however, has vitiated our approach to Islamist terrorism for over a decade now. Our main mistake has been the belief that al Qaeda and other jihadist groups are outliers among Muslims, a tiny minority of fanatics who have “hijacked” the faith that under both Republican and Democratic administrations has been called the “religion of peace,” and so we must reach out to that majority of moderate Muslims and convince them how much we admire and respect their religion. But this desperate search for these moderates has lead to dangerous policies, such as considering the Muslim Brotherhood “moderate Islamists,” an oxymoron that blinds us to the Brotherhood’s long-term goal to recover the global dominance that is Islam’s divinely sanctioned birthright.</p>
<p>Andrew Bostom, a professor of medicine at Brown University, has for a decade relentlessly exposed the distortions of history and Islamic theology that have accompanied these policies. In <em>The Legacy of Islamic Jihad</em>, he exposed the lie that jihad is merely a spiritual struggle to be a good Muslim, amassing evidence from Islamic theology, scripture, and jurisprudence to show that jihad has in fact predominantly denoted the use of violence to subject unbelievers to Muslim hegemony. In <em>The Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism</em>, he swept away the rationalizations for widespread Jew-hatred among Muslims that blamed it on imported Western anti-Semitism, once more letting Islamic texts speak for themselves to show that since the 7<sup>th</sup> century, Jews have been hated, despised, massacred, and subjugated in both Islamic theology and practice. Now Bostom, in the 43 essays collected in his new book, <em>Sharia Versus Freedom: The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism</em>, has turned to the totalitarian foundations of Islam codified in shari’a law, the totalizing system that controls every dimension of human life––political, economic, civic, familial, and personal.</p>
<p>The great virtue of Dr. Bostom’s work is the collection of primary documents and secondary commentary that taken together provide a more accurate picture of Islam than the fantasies concocted from ignorance or political expediency, or the postmodern propaganda manufactured by Edward Said and his followers. The notion of jihad, for example, has been distorted by apologists like Georgetown professor John Esposito, who wrote in the <em>Washington Post</em> that in the Koran jihad “means ‘to strive or struggle’ to realize God’s will, to lead a virtuous life, to create a just society and to defend Islam and the Muslim community.” Under the Bush administration, the National Counterterrorism Center similarly advised its employees never to use the term “jihadist,” since “jihad means ‘striving in the path of God’ and is used in many contexts beyond warfare.” But these assertions cannot stand next to the abundant evidence Bostom collects, such as Al-Tabari’s 10<sup>th</sup> century “Book of Jihad,” which shows that for 14 centuries jihad refers to war waged against the unbelievers, the “harbis” (denizens of Dar al Harb, the “House of War”) whom it is legal to kill, enslave, and plunder.</p>
<p>Even those, like the influential scholar Bernard Lewis, who accept the martial meaning of jihad sometimes assert that such wars are conducted under limitations similar to the Western laws of war, limitations so-called Islamist extremists ignore. Yet Islamic jurists such as the 8<sup>th</sup> century founder of the Hanifi school of Islamic jurisprudence, Abu Hanifa, Bostom writes, affirm “the impunity with which non-combatant ‘harbis’––women, children, the elderly, the mentally and physically disabled––may be killed.” According to Hanifa, there is nothing wrong with using catapults against “the polytheists’ fortresses . . . even if there are among them a woman, child, elder, idiot” or anyone suffering from a physical disability.</p>
<p>Illustrating the continuity of modern Islamist ideology with traditional Islamic theology and jurisprudence, Bostom quotes Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the “spiritual” leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Jazeera television star whose program reaches 60 million people: “It has been determined by Islamic law that the blood and property of people of Dar Al-Harb . . . is not protected . . . in modern war, all of society, with all its classes and ethnic groups, is mobilized to participate in war.” Hence even those not actually fighting are fair game, an argument similar to the one bin Laden made after 9/11 when he justified attacking civilians. These traditions give the lie to the “religion of peace” claim made by apologists, and also explain why, as Bostom quotes Samuel Huntington, “Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbors.” Moreover, jihadist raids and attacks across those borders were, Bostom writes, “designed to sow terror” in order to make future conquests easier by breaking the spirit of the enemy, as recorded by the 17<sup>th</sup> century historian al-Maqqari when discussing such attacks: “Allah thus instilled such fear among the infidels that they did not dare to go and fight the conquerors; they only approached them as suppliants, to beg for peace.” Such passages suggest how the Islamists interpreted Obama’s 2009 groveling Cairo speech: as the supplications of the infidel begging for peace.</p>
<p>Bostom provides a similar correction to the oft-repeated claims that anti-Semitism is not inherent in Islam. On the contrary, Bostom writes, “There is voluminous evidence from Islam’s foundational texts of theological Jew hatred: virulently Antisemitic Koranic verses whose virulence is only amplified by the greatest classical and Muslim Koranic commentaries . . . the six canonical hadiths collections, and the most respected sira,” biographies of Muhammad. In this tradition Jews are minions of Satan, cursed because they resisted Islam, killed prophets, and transgressed the will of Allah. They are destined to be transformed into apes and swine, and to be humiliated, abased, and eternally damned for their deceit and treachery.</p>
<p>Again demonstrating the continuity of this 14-century-long tradition with the anti-Semitic calumny of modern Islamists, Bostom quotes from a sermon given by an Egyptian-government appointed cleric delivered at a mosque at Al Azhar, the most prestigious and venerable institution of Sunni learning: “Muslim brothers, God has inflicted the Muslim nation with a people whom God has become angry at [Koran 1:7] and whom he cursed [Koran 5:78] so he made monkeys and pigs [Koran 5:60] out of them. They killed prophets and messengers [Koran 2:61/3:112] and sowed corruption on Earth [Koran 5:33/5:64]. They are the most evil on Earth [5:62/63].” And Bostom reminds us that Muhammad’s jihadist career began with the conquest and massacres inflicted on the Banu Qurayza, Banu Khaybar, and Banu Nadir Jews. As Bostom summarizes, “Muhammad’s brutal conquest and subjugation of the Medinan and Khaybar Jews and their subsequent expulsion” by the “Rightly Guided” Caliph Umar “epitomize permanent, archetypal behavior patterns Islamic Law deemed appropriate to Muslim interactions with Jews.”</p>
<p>Given this theological sanction, we should not be surprised to find the grimly consistent record of Muslim pogroms and massacres of Jews that Bostom documents from the Middle Ages to the 20<sup>th</sup> century. Nor should we be surprised that Jew-hatred continues to dominate the modern Middle East, and is foundational to the Arab hatred of Israel. Hence the quotation of the apes and swine Koranic verse in the charter of the terrorist Hamas organization, or the quotation of Koran 5:64, which calls Jews the sowers of corruption, by “moderate” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007 during a speech urging Muslims to “aim their rifles at Israel.”</p>
<p>The exposure of these “Islamophilic” distortions of Islam provides the necessary backdrop for the discussions of Islamic shari’a law that follows. Our misunderstanding and downplaying of the threat to liberal democracy represented by a legal code that subjects every facet of human life to its strictures have been facilitated by the same political and ideological prejudices. Meanwhile, the imposition of shari’a is the highest goal of the various Islamist organizations, whether actively violent or not, roiling the Middle East and North Africa today. Bostom’s essays remind us what history also teaches: that totalitarian threats to our freedom and way of life will not be neutralized by the refusal to see clearly the illiberal ideology driving the Islamist agenda.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Profs. on Mideast Turmoil: Blame America, Israel, and Free Speech</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/cinnamon-stillwell/profs-on-mideast-turmoil-blame-america-israel-and-free-speech/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=profs-on-mideast-turmoil-blame-america-israel-and-free-speech</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Oct 2012 04:38:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Academia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blasphemy]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=146872</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Free speech? Not according to these professors.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/John-Esposito.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-146982" title="John Esposito" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/John-Esposito.jpg" alt="" width="420" height="280" /></a>In the wake of the al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, the seizure of the American embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and the ensuing anti-American protests and riots throughout the Middle East—the latter ostensibly over an anti-Islam YouTube <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAiOEV0v2RM">film trailer</a> that originated in the U.S. months earlier—what do Middle East scholars have to say about the turmoil in the region?</p>
<p>As self-styled supporters of “academic freedom,” are they rushing to defend First Amendment rights instead of kowtowing to Muslim religious sensibilities? Are they denouncing the prospect of self-censorship rather than pushing YouTube to pull the “offending” video by claiming that it constitutes “hate speech?” Are they standing up for religious freedom instead of encouraging Americans to adhere to Sharia law-driven prohibitions on blasphemy? Are they putting aside their anti-Western biases and laying blame where it belongs instead of on America and Israel?</p>
<p>If the following quotes from Middle East studies academics are any indication, the answer to all those questions would be a resounding <em>No!</em></p>
<p>Let’s take a look at what these “experts” have to say.</p>
<p><strong>On First Amendment rights:</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/6417/rage_or_courage%3A_youtube_terrorism_take_two">Bruce Lawrence</a>, professor emeritus of religion and member of the Islamic Studies Center’s advisory board, Duke University:</p>
<blockquote><p>But what about hate speech? Is hate speech not a category that impinges on, and limits, the practice of free speech?</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.religionnews.com/blogs/omid-safi/12-essential-points-about-the-offensive-film-on-the-prophet-muhammad-and-th">Omid Safi</a>, professor of Islamic studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:</p>
<blockquote><p>In reality, pieces like the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ [sic] so-called film are best classified as ‘hate speech,’ as they seem to be of the same genre as anti-Semitic films of the 1930’s or <em>Birth of the</em> [sic] <em>Nation</em> KKK movies.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/an-appeal-to-contemporary-muslim-conscience-1.1077670">Tariq Ramadan</a>, professor of contemporary Islamic studies, Oxford University:</p>
<blockquote><p>[B]ehind the celebration of freedom of speech hides the arrogance of ideologists and well-fed racists who feed off the multiform humiliation of Muslims and to demonstrate the clear ‘superiority’ of their civilisation or the validity of their resistance to the ‘cancer’ of retrograde Islam.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://blog.georgetownvoice.com/2012/09/25/professors-discuss-effects-of-anti-islam-video-the-innocence-of-muslims/">John Brown</a>, adjunct professor of liberal studies, Georgetown University:</p>
<blockquote><p>Every culture or group of cultures has its own red lines. They might be legal red lines, but they are cultural red lines. There are taboos there are things people cannot say in public. In my experience, you just don’t speak badly of the Prophet Muhammad. It just does not happen.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/09/13/161082308/understanding-muslim-anger-over-insulting-film">John Esposito</a>, director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University:</p>
<blockquote><p>Indeed, it’s important to remember that, for Muslims, Mohammed is the ideal Muslim, as it was. He’s the living Quran. You know, he’s the model, you know. And so to go after him, OK, is to be the ultimate form, you know, the ultimate form of disrespect. It would be the ultimate blasphemy. . . . I think there’s a recognition of the freedom of speech, but you know, you still get into freedom of speech and then what are the consequences of it? . . . And so what you really have is a situation where this belongs to the genre of Islam-aphobia, which is just like [sic] anti-Semitic.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2012/09/to-american-politicians-do-you-think.html">As&#8217;ad AbuKhalil</a>, professor of political science, California State University, Stanislaus:</p>
<blockquote><p>U.S. officials have been really insulting my intelligence all week with talk of the ‘freedom of speech’ that we have here in the U.S. that Muslims don’t understand. . . . They understand that the U.S. government has made it illegal for anyone to express support for Hamas and Hizbullah in the U.S.  Muslim[s] do understand that the U.S. has banned TV channels [Hezbollah’s Al-Manar and Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV] from the U.S. because they deemed them offensive to Israel. . . . We remember that the Bush administration asked all U.S. news media after Sept. 11 to refrain from airing any Bin Laden tapes.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/12/reaction-to-anti-islam-film-fuels-debate-on-free-speech-versus-hate-speech/">Omid Safi</a>, professor of Islamic studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:</p>
<blockquote><p>Freedom of speech falls alongside other freedoms to live and be free from bombs falling on people’s heads and to be free from occupations . . . I will take free speech comments seriously when others take people’s freedom of life and dignity and to be free from occupation just as seriously.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>On why YouTube should pull the video, “Innocence of Muslims”: </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.kqed.org/news/story/2012/09/14/107715/youtubes_video_decision_sparks_controversy?category=bay+area">Hatem Bazian</a>, Near Eastern studies senior lecturer, University of California, Berkeley:</p>
<blockquote><p>Take the ethical high ground and say, ‘yes, I understand that I have the legal right to do it. But ethically, I need to actually say no to it, because it does not represent the best of our values.’ I would say even to put it in the recycling bin would be an insult to the recycling bin.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://blog.georgetownvoice.com/2012/09/25/professors-discuss-effects-of-anti-islam-video-the-innocence-of-muslims/#more-41208">John Brown</a>, adjunct professor of liberal studies, Georgetown University:</p>
<blockquote><p>This movie reached new depths . . . I find it difficult that the most insulting thing ever made about the Prophet Muhammad in the history of Western civilization, as far as I know, doesn’t violate usage [Youtube usage] policy.<br />
<strong></strong></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>On blaming America, and Israel, and the West:<br />
</strong><br />
<a href="http://www.eurasiareview.com/19092012-embassy-protests-and-middle-east-unrest-in-context-oped/">Stephen Zunes</a>, professor of politics and international studies and director of the Middle East studies program, University of San Francisco:</p>
<blockquote><p>It is extremely unlikely that such vitriolic anti-American protests would have taken place were it not for decades of U.S. support, during both Republican and Democratic administrations, of allied dictatorships and the Israeli occupation, not to mention the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the ongoing military strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/201291510539957566.html">John Esposito</a>, director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University:</p>
<blockquote><p>The terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three embassy staff, and the Cairo riots seem similar but share in common the incitement and exploitation of popular outrage among many Muslims, as we have witnessed during the Salman Rushdie and Danish cartoons affairs. They exploit deep seated popular anti-American sentiment, based on decades of resentment over US and European foreign policies in the Middle East.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/muslims-are-no-different-or-why-bill-mahers-blood-libel-is-bigotry.html">Juan Cole</a>, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan:</p>
<blockquote><p>The touchiness of Muslims about assaults on the Prophet Muhammad is in part rooted in centuries of Western colonialism and neo-colonialism during which their religion was routinely denounced as barbaric by the people ruling and lording it over them.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/201291391347458863.html">Mark LeVine</a>, professor of history, University of California, Irvine:</p>
<blockquote><p>Muslims in Egypt, Libya and around the world equally look at American actions, from sanctions against and then an invasion of Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and sent the country back to the Stone Age, to unflinching support for Israel and all the Arab authoritarian regimes (secular and royal alike) and drone strikes that always seem to kill unintended civilians ‘by mistake,’ and wonder with equal bewilderment how ‘we’ can be so barbaric and uncivilized.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/201292063638169981.html">Hamid Dabashi</a>, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University:</p>
<blockquote><p>Sam Bacile [the pseudonym for the alleged filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula] is integral to a pattern, an Islamophobic streak of racism that runs deep into American culture.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/why-they-hate-us-romney-secretly-plots-to-screw-palestinians-over-again.html">Juan Cole</a>, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan:</p>
<blockquote><p>From the 9/11 attacks to the embassy burnings of this past week, the U.S. pays the price for supporting the subjection of the Palestinians in widespread hatred for it from the Muslim world.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>On downplaying the violent reaction of the Muslim world: </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/09/muslim-world.html">Dalia Mogahed</a>, Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, co-author, with Georgetown University’s John Esposito, of <em>Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think, </em>and nonresident senior public policy scholar at the American University of Beirut:</p>
<blockquote><p>So I think it would just be too much of a generalization to say Muslims react violently when they’re offended, whereas everyone else reacts peacefully. I think that riots and protests turn violent all over the world.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/09/21/161545499/a-look-at-islam-and-free-speech">Also</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The other thing to keep in mind is that, sometimes, when there are offensive materials here in this country, people do protest against them and I think that that’s also part of freedom of speech that we have to look at and respect.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/muslims-are-no-different-or-why-bill-mahers-blood-libel-is-bigotry.html">Juan Cole</a>, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan:</p>
<blockquote><p>[D]efending the Prophet and defending the post-colonial nation are for the most part indistinguishable, and being touchy over slights to national identity (and yes, Muslimness is a kind of national identity in today’s world) is hardly confined to Muslims.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/6417/rage_or_courage%3A_youtube_terrorism_take_two">Bruce Lawrence</a>, emeritus professor of religion and member of the Islamic Studies Center’s advisory board, Duke University:</p>
<blockquote><p>Should Muslim sensitivities be viewed any differently from their Jewish or Christian counterparts? Muslims do monitor their prophet. His legacy has been challenged within Islam at many levels, but his basic character has not been besmirched with the degree of ill will, bordering on savagery, that has been seen in the past 12 years.</p></blockquote>
<p>Whether it be John Esposito <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11697">toeing the line</a> of his Wahhabi funders; Omid Safi <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11861">engaging in</a> irresponsible, inflammatory rhetoric; Stephen Zunes <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/12069">blaming</a> the U.S. and Israel for all that’s wrong with the world; Dalia Mogahed <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8558">whitewashing</a> Islamism; As&#8217;ad AbuKhalil <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11925">justifying</a> violence; Mark LeVine <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8536">exhibiting</a> contempt for America; or Juan Cole displaying the same disregard for the First Amendment he showed when <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/2524">he called</a> for the U.S. government to shut down Fox News these are the ideologues to whom the Western media turns for insight into the Middle East. Anyone hoping to understand the turmoil in the region as the consequences of the “Arab Spring” continue to unfold should look elsewhere.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Rashad Hussain&#8217;s Troubling Ties</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ryan-mauro/rashad-hussains-troubling-ties/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rashad-hussains-troubling-ties</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:29:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Does Obama’s Islam envoy reject Islamic extremism?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/hussain_al-arian_doomsday_604x341.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-50837" title="hussain_al-arian_doomsday_604x341" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/hussain_al-arian_doomsday_604x341.jpg" alt="" width="604" height="341" /></a></p>
<p>President Obama has chosen Rashad Hussain to be his special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a post originally created by the Bush Administration in 2008. Hussain’s past association with Muslim Brotherhood-connected entities raises major questions about the type of outreach he envisions for the Muslim world.</p>
<p>The <em>Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report</em> <a href="http://globalmbreport.com/?p=2173">took a look</a> at Hussain’s official biography and found several concerning affiliations. The first is that in October 2000, Hussain spoke at a conference sponsored by the Association of Muslim Social Scientists, which was listed in an internal Muslim Brotherhood document as one of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends,” and the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding of Georgetown University, which receives Saudi funding and is directed by prominent Muslim Brotherhood <a href="http://familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.1737/pub_detail.asp">advocate,</a> John Esposito.</p>
<p>In September 2004, Hussain played a role in the Muslim Students Association’s annual conference, which was founded by Muslim Brotherhood in 1963 and is also listed as one the group’s fronts in its own <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/20.pdf">documents.</a> Since then, many of its nearly 600 college chapters have engaged in <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/84.pdf">extremism</a> and the group closely collaborates with the other Brotherhood fronts. For example, MSA was part of an umbrella organization called the American Muslim Taskforce that led a <a href="http://www.aina.org/news/20090402103323.jsp">campaign</a> against the FBI’s use of informants in mosques and accused the agency of “anti-Muslim activity.” Several Brotherhood affiliates are in this <a href="http://www.americanmuslimvoter.net/images/special/ABOUT%20US%20AMT2008.pdf">coalition</a> including the Muslim-American Society, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.</p>
<p>At this conference, Hussain spoke alongside the daughter of Professor Sami Al-Arian, who was convicted of being a key leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group and later admitted to being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hussain also defended Al-Arian and described his prosecution as being a “politically-motivated persecution.” The network of Brotherhood-affiliated groups have consistently been on his side throughout the entire ordeal and <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2008/09/cair-mpac-hail-release-of-jihadist-professor">celebrated</a> his release.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the story in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs that quoted Hussain’s defense of Al-Arian has been altered since its original publication. <em>CNSNews.com</em> <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/61324">reports</a> that the quote was removed “sometime after October 2007” and that the reporter who wrote the article “expressed surprise but said she no longer worked at WRMEA and could not explain the edit.”</p>
<p>Last May, Hussain spoke at a conference sponsored by several Brotherhood affiliates, including the Muslim Public Affairs Council, an organization whose extremism has been catalogued in a <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/1785/mpac-pursues-islamist-ideology-in-guise-of-civil">series</a> by The Investigative Project on Terrorism, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The latter was listed by the federal government in 2007 as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the terrorism financing trial of The Holy Land Foundation, another Muslim Brotherhood front that was found to be financing Hamas. Its founders are former officials at the Islamic Association of Palestine, a Brotherhood front shut down for supporting Hamas and are said by the FBI to be members of the Brotherhood’s “Palestine Committee” in the United States.</p>
<p>Hussain’s view on the cause of terrorism is important to note as it will play a significant role in the Obama Administration’s outreach to the Muslim world. He <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2008/08_counterterrorism_hussain/08_counterterrorism_hussain.pdf">quoted</a> a study that concluded that “The primary cause of broad-based anger and anti-Americanism is not a clash of civilizations but the perceived effect of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world.” In this statement, it appears that he believes that terrorism is the product of opposition to foreign policy, rather than the product of a politico-religious totalitarian ideology, which explains his opposition to terms like “Islamic terrorism.”</p>
<p>On the other hand, Hussein does support the use of the term “Hamas terrorists,” so he cannot be said to be a supporter of Hamas, which grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood. He has an entire section in his paper titled, “Discrediting the Terrorist Ideology.” He opposes making democracy promotion a central part of that goal, saying that it can be interpreted as imperialism and an attempt to bring about freedom that enables immorality, but admits that it may be part of the solution. He instead suggests that the government use Muslim voices to argue that Islam forbids acts of terrorism and extremism.</p>
<p>One other important part of his paper is when he proposes that the U.S. build a Muslim coalition “not limited to those who advocate Western-style democracy, and avoid creating a dichotomy between freedom and Islamic society.” This would set the stage for a partnership with the Muslim Brotherhood. Rather than focusing on supporting elements that will genuinely argue that democracy is compatible with Islam, his standard for allies is that they just oppose terrorism and extremism. Apparently, those who pursue Sharia Law through other methods do not fit his version of “extremist.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Brotherhood apparatus is so vast and powerful that it will be difficult for any administration to find someone without some sort of affiliation with one of their fronts. Hussain should be given an opportunity to clear his name by condemning the Muslim Brotherhood by name and the undemocratic ideology they espouse.</p>
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		<title>United in Hate:  The Left&#8217;s Romance with Tyranny and Terror</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jonathan-schanzer/united-in-hate-the-lefts-romance-with-tyranny-and-terror/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=united-in-hate-the-lefts-romance-with-tyranny-and-terror</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jonathan-schanzer/united-in-hate-the-lefts-romance-with-tyranny-and-terror/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:10:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jonathan Schanzer]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=47399</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dr. Jamie Glazov exposes the hypocrisy of leftists and liberals who claim to champion the principles of liberalism and feminism.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-47403" title="nasrallah_chomsky" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/nasrallah_chomsky.jpg" alt="nasrallah_chomsky" width="450" height="313" /></p>
<p><strong>[This review is reprinted from <a href="http://www.meforum.org/meq/issues"><em>Middle East Quarterly</em></a>]</strong></p>
<p>Dr. Jamie Glazov, editor of<em> FrontPageMag.com</em>, exposes the hypocrisy of leftists and liberals who claim to champion the principles of freedom, democracy, liberalism, and feminism yet support both communist and Islamist dictatorships, which implement none of these principles.</p>
<p>David Horowitz, Glazov&#8217;s boss, also wrote a book in 2004, <em>Unholy Alliance, </em>on this subject, but Glazov digs deeper. The author, who fled the Soviet Union as a child and earned a PhD from York Univeristy in Toronto in Soviet studies, points in the first 100 pages of the book to a nucleus of American apologists in the 1930s who heaped praise on communist strongman Joseph Stalin, including Walter Duranty of <em>The New York Times</em> and author Upton Sinclair. In the generation that followed, intellectuals including novelist Normal Mailer and feminist activist Simone de Beauvoir continued to apologize for communist regimes in Cuba, China, Nicaragua, and Vietnam.</p>
<p>With the decline of communism, the Left began to support Islamism. Whereas journalists, novelists and activists led the charge in the first wave, Glazov explains in the second half of the book, the most vociferous defenders of Islamism now come from the Ivory Tower.</p>
<p>After the Iranian revolution in 1979, French philosopher Michel Foucalt, who enjoyed stints at the University of Buffalo and University of California Berkeley, lauded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as a &#8220;saint.&#8221; The late English professor Edward Said, famous for his anti-Western philosophy, Orientalism, became a popular apologist for Palestinian Islamist violence in the 1990s. In 2001, Rutgers University English professor, Barbara Foley, called the 9-11 attacks a legitimate response to the &#8220;fascism&#8221; of U.S. foreign policy. In 2006, Noam Chomsky, an M.I.T. linguistics professor, lauded Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, whose group calls for the destruction of America and Israel.</p>
<p>What Glazov does not explicitly note is that the foremost apologists for Islamism in the universities are the specialists in Middle Eastern Studies. From Columbia&#8217;s Rashid Khalidi to Georgetown&#8217;s John Esposito, the field has become overwrought with professor-activists who now rationalize Islamism to new generations of students.</p>
<p>But, Glazov provides ample proof that the professors are not alone. Filmmaker Michael Moore likened Iraqi terrorists to &#8220;minutemen.&#8221; Media mogul Ted Turner reported lauded the 9/11 hijackers as &#8220;brave.&#8221; And, of course, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter met Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, against the wishes of the U.S. State Department, and now seeks to engage in diplomacy with the group best known for suicide bombing.</p>
<p>Glazov&#8217;s lucid and compelling book would be strengthened by distinguishing more clearly between liberal-Left and far-Left. Indeed, not everyone who identifies with the former supports the ideals of the latter. Still, <em>United in Hate</em> highlights an important and disturbing trend that has made the battle of ideas against Islamists and despots that much harder to win.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><strong>To order United in Hate,<a href="http://www.amazon.com/United-Hate-Romance-Tyranny-Terror/dp/1935071602/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1264299706&amp;sr=8-1-catcorr"> click here</a>.</strong></p>
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