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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; radicalism</title>
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		<title>A Radical Muslim in the Navy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joe-kaufman/a-radical-muslim-in-the-navy-1/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-radical-muslim-in-the-navy-1</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Dec 2014 05:04:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joe Kaufman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAIR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Navy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[radicalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246496</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The high military offices that CAIR's reach may extend to -- thanks to one individual. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/282005_198389416888171_294440_n.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246478" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/282005_198389416888171_294440_n-450x340.jpg" alt="282005_198389416888171_294440_n" width="352" height="266" /></a>Those who serve in the United States military and take an oath to protect our nation are lauded for their service, and rightfully so. Yet, it is highly immoral, if not outright evil and traitorous, for someone who has served in the U.S. military to exploit their military connections whilst taking leadership roles within groups associated with terror. It appears that that is what Muslim convert Wilfredo Amr Ruiz has done and is doing with his work for Islamist groups CAIR and AMANA, and his actions deserve scrutiny, reprimand and repudiation.</p>
<p>Wilfredo Ruiz has served in the U.S. Navy in two capacities, once as a lawyer under the Navy’s Judge Advocate General (JAG), from the years 1993 through 1997, and once as a chaplain under the Navy’s Chaplain Candidate Officer’s Program, which he took on after he had begun religious studies, in 2005, at a seminary in Hartford, Connecticut.</p>
<p>Sometime in 2003, during the time between his two Naval exercises, he made the decision to convert to Islam. He came to the States via Puerto Rico, where he grew up practicing Catholicism.</p>
<p>Not only did he embrace his new religion, but right away he embraced the extremist ideology that is a part of it, leading him to actively pursue a course that is causing death and destruction worldwide. According to corporate filings, in September 2003, Ruiz was the Director of the Puerto Rico office for AMANA.</p>
<p>AMANA is the brainchild of Palestinian activist Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout. Zakkout is the former Vice President of the now defunct Health Resource Center for Palestine (HRCP), a group associated with Hamas that operated out of Deerfield Beach, Florida.</p>
<p>This past July, as <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/08/13/Palestinian-Leader-in-Miami-Boasts-about-Conquering-American-Jews"><span style="color: #0433ff;">reported in Breitbart</span></a>, Zakkout posted on his Facebook page the following in Arabic: “Praise be to God, each day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel. Your brother, Sofian”</p>
<p>While Zakkout is the main driving force behind AMANA, Ruiz is not a minor player. Ruiz plays a major role in promoting the group’s Islamist agenda.</p>
<p>Not only did he run the AMANA office in Puerto Rico, but he also opened another AMANA office in Hartford, Connecticut. In fact, the web address attached to the Hartford office was the same one used by the national office, al-amana.org.</p>
<p>In the time Ruiz has been involved with AMANA, the group’s website has included various material vilifying Jews, Christians and homosexuals; the website linked to al-Qaeda financing and recruitment sites; and the website prominently featured an anti-Semitic video of David Duke on it, which brought on a condemnation of AMANA by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).</p>
<p>In one article <a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/ICBR_and_AMANA_Articles_About_Jews.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">previously found on Ruiz’s AMANA website</span></a>, it is stated, “Every believer [Muslim] should firmly believe that the Jews and Christians are kuffaar [infidels] and enemies of Allaah, His deen, the Prophet Muhammad, and the Believers… The efforts to gain the friendship of the Jews and Christians are useless, as they will never be pleased with the Muslims until the Muslims follow their religion.”</p>
<p>Ruiz additionally is the Executive Director of AMANA’s sister organization, American Muslims for Emergency and Relief (AMER). AMER uses the same Miami physical and mailing addresses as AMANA.</p>
<p>From 2005 till 2007, Ruiz attended the Hartford Seminary, where he worked on his Masters in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations. The entire time Ruiz was there, the professor of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations was a fellow Islamist convert named Ingrid Mattson.</p>
<p>When Ruiz started at the seminary, Mattson was the Vice President of the largest Muslim Brotherhood-related group in the United States, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). In the following year, 2006, she became President of ISNA.</p>
<p>Mattson founded the Islamic Chaplaincy program at Hartford Seminary. As mentioned, after beginning his education at the seminary, Ruiz worked to become a chaplain for the Navy, specifically a Muslim Chaplain.</p>
<p>According to Ruiz’s bio, he worked as a chaplain at the Immigration Service Processing Centers in Puerto Rico and in Miami. Question: Did Wifredo Amr Ruiz go to seminary and take up chaplaincy specifically to better serve the radical Islamic goals of his bigoted group AMANA.</p>
<p>Today, Ruiz acts as AMANA’s legal advisor. However, he also does legal work for another Islamist organization, CAIR. He is CAIR-Florida’s legal counsel.</p>
<p>CAIR was established as being part of the American Palestine Committee, an umbrella organization acting as a terrorist enterprise run by then-global Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, who was based in the U.S. at the time and who now operates out of Egypt as a spokesman for Hamas. In 2007 and 2008, amidst two federal trials, the U.S. government named CAIR a co-conspirator in the raising of millions of dollars for Hamas.</p>
<p>No doubt, having Ruiz represent both CAIR and AMANA serves to bring the two groups together, helping them to exert more influence. Indeed, in 2012, 2013 and 2014, the groups joined to co-sponsor rallies to speak out about violence in Syria, Egypt and Gaza. The latter event took place in Downtown Miami on July 20, 2014.</p>
<p>The rally was supposed to be in support of Gaza, but it quickly turned into one that was instead pro-Hamas. A smiling Sofian Zakkout is seen on video, as coordinated chants of “Let’s go Hamas” and “We are Hamas” are shouted from the crowd. A reporter was also assaulted by rally goers, targeted for being Jewish (“Zionist”).</p>
<p>CAIR issued a statement saying that it had nothing to do with the rally, but a flyer for the event clearly shows the CAIR-Florida logo next to its AMANA logo counterpart. AMANA’s Zakkout organized the rally, and numerous pictures of the flyer are <a href="http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee431/kaufmanforcongress/AMANA_CAIR_Hamas_Rally_July_2014.jpg"><span style="color: #0433ff;">still found on his Facebook site</span></a>. These flyers are not unlike the flyers that were made up for the other rallies involving CAIR and AMANA, containing CAIR and AMANA logos.</p>
<p>On November 15, Ruiz participated in the CAIR-South Florida annual banquet held at a hotel in Fort Lauderdale. He stood up on stage with the other CAIR-Florida leaders, including CAIR-South Florida Executive Director Nezar Hamze and CAIR-Tampa Executive Director Hassan Shibly, who has stated that he believes Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization.</p>
<p>Earlier in the day – the same day as the banquet – the government of United Arab Emirates (UAE) named CAIR a terrorist organization, along with violent groups such as al-Qaeda, Boco Haraam and ISIS.</p>
<p>Ruiz brought his family, including his wife and two underage kids, with him to the banquet. Given the radical Islamic nature of the groups sponsoring the event, one can argue that this was child abuse.</p>
<p>Outside the banquet was a peaceful protest, which this author attended and delivered a speech at. Ruiz came outside to intimidate and take photos of all the protesters.</p>
<p>Ruiz was <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/11/20/CAIR-Attorneys-Harass-Protesters"><span style="color: #0433ff;">caught on video having words with the protest organizer</span></a>. He asked the organizer if he had “ever served” [in the military]. He asked the organizer if he knew “who is a patriot,” and then stated emphatically “I’m a Naval officer, brother.”</p>
<p>Question: Can Ruiz operate under the guise of a patriot having served or currently serving in the U.S. military, while at the same time aiding and abetting organizations involved with Islamic terrorism?</p>
<p>In Ruiz’s case, the answer is clear. His involvement with CAIR and AMANA negates any pretense of patriotism, and instead open the door for questions about subversion.</p>
<p><i>Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.</i></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><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"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>The FBI&#8217;s Islamic Terrorism Denial</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/the-fbis-islamic-terrorism-denial/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-fbis-islamic-terrorism-denial</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Sep 2014 04:40:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boston Marathon bombing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[domestic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FBI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240053</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[But it’s on alert against…Puerto Rican nationalists.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #404040;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/fbi-sfSpan.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240056" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/fbi-sfSpan.jpg" alt="fbi-sfSpan" width="325" height="247" /></a>The <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/fbi-national-domestic-threat-assessment-omits-islamist-terrorism/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Washington Free Beacon</span></a> revealed Friday that “the FBI’s most recent national threat assessment for domestic terrorism makes no reference to Islamist terror threats, despite last year’s Boston Marathon bombing and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting—both carried out by radical Muslim Americans.” Instead, the threat assessment focused on eight types of groups: “anti-government militia groups and white supremacy extremists, along with ‘sovereign citizen’ nationalists, and anarchists,” along with “violent animal rights and environmentalist extremists, black separatists, anti- and pro-abortion activists, and Puerto Rican nationalists.”</p>
<p>The FBI focus on “anti-government militia groups and white supremacy extremists, along with ‘sovereign citizen’ nationalists, and anarchists” is ominous, for while there are indeed such people, the Obama Administration has already shown a disturbing tendency to lump all of its opponents into such categories, with scant concern for accuracy, and to be willing to use the IRS and the courts effectively to criminalize opposition to its agenda. Some such groups may indeed be violent and dangerous, but they’re nothing compared to the global character of jihad terrorism – and yet jihad terrorism didn’t even make the FBI list.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, it is comforting to know that the FBI is on watch against Puerto Rican nationalists: tonight at the Blair House, President Truman can rest easy. But in this, the FBI&#8217;s latest national threat assessment shows that the Obama Administration’s fog of denial and willful ignorance about the jihad threat is thicker than ever. To be warning about Puerto Rican nationalists while Islamic jihadists are increasingly aggressive, assertive and violent around the world is tantamount to warning about slow waiters on the Titanic.</p>
<p>Just look at some recent events: Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas <a href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/texas/article/Fort-Bliss-amps-up-security-over-holiday-weekend-5725352.php"><span style="color: #0433ff;">beefed up security</span></a> for the Labor Day weekend in response to credible threats from Puerto Rican nationalists to enter the country from Mexico and stage a terror attack here. <a href="http://voices.suntimes.com/news/breaking-news/man-threatens-police-with-bomb-during-sw-side-traffic-stop/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">In Chicago</span></a>, a man who had a Puerto Rican flag on his car threatened police with a bomb. Puerto Rican nationalists <a href="http://wgntv.com/2014/08/21/photo-implies-isis-threat-to-chicago/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">tweeted</span></a>: “we are in your state/ we are in your cities / we are in your streets.  You are our goals anywhere,” and “we are here #america near our #target sooooooooooooon.” Just before beheading an American journalist, Puerto Rican nationalists sent a message to his family <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/140821/text-last-email-islamic-state-sent-foley-family"><span style="color: #0433ff;">containing more threats</span></a>: “Government and citizens alike!…We will not stop untill [sic] we quench our thirst for your blood.”</p>
<p>None of that, of course, was actually done by Puerto Rican nationalists. The attempt to assassinate Truman in 1950 and their shooting of five congressmen at the House of Representatives in 1954 were the Puerto Rican nationalists’ high-water marks as far as terrorism is concerned. These threats all really came from the Islamic State – the foremost present exponent of the threat that the FBI doesn’t deem to be important enough to include in its national threat assessment for domestic terrorism.</p>
<p>As I detail in my book<i> </i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1621572048"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About the War We’re In</i></span></a>, this willful ignorance at the highest levels has endangered Americans more than once, making for murderous attacks that could have and should have been prevented. The most notorious of these are the Boston Marathon bombing and the Fort Hood massacre.</p>
<p>Two years before the Boston bombing, Russian intelligence agents told the FBI that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a “follower of radical Islam” and a “strong believer” who had tried to join “underground groups” in Dagestan. That is tantamount to saying that Tsarnaev was an Islamic jihadist, which should have been enough for the FBI to keep him under constant or at least regular surveillance. It did not – and not coincidentally, right around the time the Russians gave the feds this information, the Obama administration (under pressure from Muslim groups with links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood) mandated the scrubbing of counter-terror training materials of all mention of Islam and jihad (and the dismissal of FBI trainers who spoke about the motives and goals of jihad terrorists, including me).</p>
<p>Agents who still knew how to evaluate the Russian intel were probably afraid that to do so, in the prevailing politically correct climate, would have been career suicide. In any case, after a cursory investigation, Tamerlan Tsarnarev slipped off the FBI radar screen, and didn’t even catch their attention when <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/boston-marathon-suspect-tamerlan-tsarnaev-2011-killings-98721.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">three Jews who were close acquaintances of his were found with their throats slit</span></a>.  It would have been “Islamophobic” for the FBI to note the Qur’an’s virulent anti-Semitism (amid much vituperation, it designates Jews as the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82)) and to consider the possibility that the devout Tsarnaev could be worth questioning about the murders.</p>
<p>Those murders could have been prevented, and the Boston Marathon jihad massacre could have been headed off as well, if the FBI had taken seriously the information it received from the Russians. But to have done so would have required acknowledging that there was indeed a threat from a “strong believer” in “radical Islam,” and as the FBI’s new national threat assessment for domestic terrorism shows, the agency was not disposed to admit that – and still isn’t.</p>
<p>And so while Barack Obama and James Comey keep their eyes peeled for the spiritual children of Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo, Islamic State jihadists plot ways to murder as many Americans as they possibly can. But not to worry: maybe the Islamic State will convert a few Puerto Rican nationalists to Islam, and set them up to mount the next large-scale jihad terror attack in the U.S. – and we’ll all catch a break.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><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"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Who Lost Iraq?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/who-lost-iraq/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=who-lost-iraq</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 13 Jun 2014 04:58:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[radicalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[status of forces]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[take over]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[troops]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233950</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why Obama and the Democratic Party own the crisis in Iraq. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/alalam_635196205117842236_25f_4x3.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-233980 " src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/alalam_635196205117842236_25f_4x3-450x328.jpg" alt="The evolution of al-Qaeda from Iraq to Syria" width="274" height="200" /></a>Iraq’s disintegration may be imminent, as the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appears incapable of stopping the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). The terrorist offshoot of al Qaeda now has its sights set on the capital city of Baghdad. Adding to the chaos, the city of Kirkuk was overtaken by Kurdish soldiers absent any resistance by government forces. After having ignored the prescient warnings of Iraq&#8217;s fragility post-U.S. abandonment, the Obama administration and Democratic Party&#8217;s determination to end America’s involvement in Iraq irrespective of events on the ground is rapidly approaching its inevitable—and disastrous—conclusion.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Those events on the ground are changing dramatically and quickly. On Tuesday, after only five days of resistance, the city of Mosul fell into terrorist hands as ISIS seized government buildings, the airport, and large quantities of U.S.-supplied weaponry, when Iraqi security forces and police <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/insurgents-seize-iraqi-city-of-mosul-as-troops-flee/2014/06/10/21061e87-8fcd-4ed3-bc94-0e309af0a674_story.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reportedly</span></a> abandoned their posts and joined the 500,000 refugees fleeing the city of 1.8 million residents. ISIS fighters also <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/06/thousands-iraqis-flee-after-mosul-seized-201461023449883723.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">freed</span></a> up to 2,400 prisoners from jails in the northern Nineveh province, <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/07/iraq-al-qaeda-prison-raid-abu-ghraib.html#"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reprising</span></a> the successful raids they conducted against the Abu Ghraib and Taji prisons last July. On Wednesday the Turkish consulate was also taken and its diplomatic staff was <a href="http://www.dw.de/militants-take-over-turkish-consulate-in-mosul/a-17700106"><span style="color: #1255cc;">kidnapped</span></a>, precipitating an emergency gathering of Turkish officials by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss their options.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Yet by far the most daunting aspect of Mosul’s seizure are <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/12/isis-just-stole-425-million-and-became-the-worlds-richest-terrorist-group/?hpid=z2"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reports</span></a> that the terrorist organization gained access to $500 billion Iraqi dinars, or $425 million, making it one of the richest, if not <i>the</i> richest, terrorist organization in the world. Gunmen initially looted Mosul’s central bank, and <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mosul-seized-jihadis-loot-429m-citys-central-bank-make-isis-worlds-richest-terror-force-1452190"><span style="color: #1255cc;">according</span></a> to Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of the Nineveh province, they garnered additional funds from numerous banks across the city as well as a “large quantity of gold bullion.” Regional analyst Brown Moses <a href="https://twitter.com/Brown_Moses"><span style="color: #1255cc;">tweeted</span></a> that such a windfall will “buy a whole lot of Jihad,” further noting that &#8220;with $425 million, ISIS could pay 60,000 fighters around $600 a month for a year.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In Kirkuk, Kurdish security forces known as the &#8220;Peshmerga&#8221; took control Tuesday of the oil-rich city that has been the focus of a long-running dispute between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurds. The Kurds have autonomous control of their own region in the northern part of the nation, and while Kirkuk sits just outside of that area, the Kurds have long <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/iraq/article19132990/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">considered</span></a> it to be their historical capital. And once again, government security forces fled without a fight. “The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga,” said Secretary-General of the Ministry of Peshmerga Jabbar Yawar. “No Iraqi army remains in Kirkuk now.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Maliki, who in an earlier televised conference called a national emergency while urging the public and government to unite &#8220;to confront this vicious attack, which will spare no Iraqi,” alluded to the fact that military was disloyal. He also called for a 10 PM curfew in Baghdad and the surrounding towns, while Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/11/366508/we-should-defend-iraq-holy-sites/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">called</span></a> for the formation of &#8220;peace units to defend the holy sites of both Muslims and Christians in Iraq, in cooperation with the government.” Other Shi’ite leaders reported that four brigades known as the Kataibe Brigade, the Assaib Brigade, the Imam al-Sadr Brigade and the armed wing of the Badr Organization had been hastily assembled to protect Baghdad and the government. Each group contains 2500-3000 fighters.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Wednesday also saw the <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/sunni-insurgents-close-iraqs-biggest-oil-refinery-111013537.html;_ylt=AwrBEiHQoJhTXWcAFWHQtDMD"><span style="color: #1255cc;">capture</span></a> of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s former hometown, by ISIS forces, but by yesterday, state-run Iraqiya TV <a href="http://www.kcra.com/national/Militants-threaten-to-seize-more-Iraqi-cities/26450828#!XXbN0"><span style="color: #1255cc;">claimed</span></a> the city had been re-captured by government forces. Yet a later report by Al-Sumaria television <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-12/iraq-seeks-to-check-advance-of-islamists-near-saddam-s-hometown.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">indicated</span></a> the battle for control of the city was ongoing.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">By late Wednesday, ISIS was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/iraq.html?hp&amp;_r=1"><span style="color: #1255cc;">joined</span></a> by Sunni militants alienated from Maliki&#8217;s Shi’ite-dominated government, and together they were battling government forces at the northern entrance of Samarra, a city only 70 miles north of Baghdad. Samarra is home to the Askariya Shrine, one of the Shi’ites’ most treasured religious symbols. Its golden dome was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/world/23iraq.html?pagewanted=all"><span style="color: #1255cc;">shattered</span></a> by a bomb in 2006 in an effort to ignite a sectarian civil war, and ISIS commanders once again threatened to destroy it if those defending it refused to lay down their arms.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It was initially reported that government soldiers offered little resistance, leading to speculation that they have been ordered to surrender. In an interview, a local commander in the Salahuddin Province that contains the city of Tikrit, confirmed that assessment. “We received phone calls from high-ranking commanders asking us to give up,” he claimed. &#8220;I questioned them on this, and they said, ‘This is an order.’ ” Residents of Tikrit also reported that government soldiers willingly gave up their weapons and uniforms to the militants, a notable deviation from the expectation that they would be killed on the spot.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">By Thursday, the battle for Samarra had reportedly tilted in the government’s favor. The Long War Journal <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/06/isiss_southward_adva.php"><span style="color: #1255cc;">noted</span></a> attempts by ISIS to enter the city had been blunted by government forces that stopped an armed convoy from entering the city. Aircraft deployed by the government were part of the equation, as were the aforementioned Shi’ite brigades organized for the battle.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The battle for Tikrit had reportedly turned as well—courtesy of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Two battalions of the Quds Forces have been sent to aid Maliki, and combined Iraqi-Iranian forces have <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/iran-deploys-forces-to-fight-al-qaeda-inspired-militants-in-iraq-iranian-security-sources-1402592470"><span style="color: #1255cc;">retaken</span></a> 85 percent of that city, according to security forces from both nations. The combined forces were also helping the government retain control of Baghdad and Najaf and Kabala. While Iran is helping a fellow Shi’ite ally, keeping ISIS out of Najaf and Kabala, which are sacred sites on a par with Mecca and Medina.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Unfortunately, Thursday also saw Iraq’s Sunni and Kurdish factions <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/12/us-iraq-security-parliament-idUSKBN0EN11U20140612"><span style="color: #1255cc;">boycott</span></a> a meeting of the Iraqi parliament preventing a quorum from being attained for a vote on declaring the national state of emergency requested by Maliki, two days earlier. The factions, already alienated by Maliki’s preferential treatment of the nation’s Shi’ite majority, were adamantly opposed to giving extraordinary powers to the Shi&#8217;ite Prime Minister.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">That reality was also reflected by reports that a number of former Ba’athist military commanders from the Hussein era had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/iraq.html?hp&amp;_r=1"><span style="color: #1255cc;">joined</span></a> forced with ISIS in the effort to overthrow the Maliki regime. “These groups were unified by the same goal, which is getting rid of this sectarian government, ending this corrupt army and negotiating to form the Sunni Region,” said Abu Karam, a senior Baathist leader and a former high-ranking army officer, who said planning for the offensive had begun two years ago. “The decisive battle will be in northern Baghdad. These groups will not stop in Tikrit and will keep moving toward Baghdad.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In other words, the ultimate stability of the government—and Iraq itself— remains very much in question.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In the meantime, reports indicate that Maliki <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/iraq-asked-us-for-airstrikes-on-militants-officials-say.html?_r=0"><span style="color: #1255cc;">secretly</span></a> asked the Obama administration to consider providing air support to his government, in the form of drones, airmen and drone pilots. “What we really need right now are drone strikes and air strikes,” said a senior Iraqi official Wednesday. Such appeals have so far been rebuffed. Bernadette Meehan, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, declined to comment on the requests. “We are not going to get into details of our diplomatic discussions,” she said in a statement. “The current focus of our discussions with the government of Iraq and our policy considerations is to build the capacity of the Iraqis to successfully confront” ISIS. However, on Thursday afternoon, President Obama hinted at some <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/12/obama-considers-more-aid-iraq-fight-against-jihadi/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">flexibility</span></a>. “I don’t rule out anything,” he said in response to a question about possible air strikes. “We do have a stake in making sure these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Such a statement strains credulity. For the last three years the president and his administration have done nothing to mitigate the rise of ISIS, which has transformed itself from a terrorist group into a <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/11/iraq-s-terrorists-are-becoming-a-full-blown-army.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">full blown army</span></a> that controls a cross-border swath of territory from Mosul up through the Anbar province, and west to the Syrian town of Al Bab on the outskirts of Aleppo. “This organization has grown into a military organization that is no longer conducting terrorist activities exclusively but is conducting conventional military operations,” said retired four-star Army Gen. Jack Keane, who was a key advisor to Gen. David Petraeus during the war in Iraq. “They are attacking Iraqi military positions with company-and battalion-size formations. And in the face of that the Iraqi security forces have not been able to stand up to it.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">That inability is a direct consequence of Obama’s determination to completely withdraw from Iraq in December of 2011, irrespective of events on the ground and advice of military commanders. Withdrawal was precipitated by the president’s failure to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement that would have allowed some U.S. troops to remain in country. And while the media prefer to blame Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the fault lies <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203554104577003931424188806"><span style="color: #1255cc;">squarely</span></a> with a president who demonstrated a calculated indifference towards negotiating a deal in 2011 similar to the one George W. Bush procured in 2008 under far more difficult circumstances.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The result was President Obama&#8217;s commitment of only 3000-5000 troops to Iraq following the 2011 withdrawal. That number seriously undercut the recommendations of his military commanders who had asked for 20,000 troops to carry out such missions as counterterrorist operations, diplomat support &#8212; and the training and support for Iraqi security forces. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen would have been satisfied with 10,000 troops, but Obama rejected this. The Maliki government, already risking a domestic backlash for keeping any troops in the nation, concluded that the political risks involved weren’t worth it when Obama was so transparently unserious.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">His fellow Democrats are no better. Ever since the 2004 presidential campaign, when anti-war activist Howard Dean temporarily vaulted to the head of the Democratic pack of presidential contenders, many of the same Democrats who initially supported the war began their long and ultimately successful campaign to undermine it in order to gain political advantage.  This includes current Secretary of State John Kerry, who had said there was &#8220;no question in my mind that Saddam Hussein has to be toppled one way or another,&#8221; Vice President Joe Biden, who said that &#8220;Saddam either has to be separated from his weapons or taken out of power,&#8221; and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who cast her vote for war authorization &#8220;with conviction.&#8221; By the 2004 election, however &#8212; after unanimously voting to demolish the country&#8217;s existing political infrastructure &#8212; these Democrats spoke of little else but abandoning Iraq and allowing it to degenerate into the sectarian chaos on display today.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">After ten years, the Left&#8217;s wish for Iraq has finally been realized. Democrats are now in a lurch justifying the descent of the country. <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-iraq-dreadful-deteriorating-situation-n129761"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Speaking</span></a> before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Thursday, Clinton hypocritically bemoaned the “dreadful, deteriorating situation,” which she herself played a role in engineering, and claimed she “could not have predicted the extent to which ISIS could be effective in seizing cities in Iraq and trying to erase boundaries to create a new state.” However, the rise of ISIS, due to the dramatic withdrawal of U.S. forces, has been predicted for quite some time. Just last February, a threat assessment by the Pentagon&#8217;s Defense Intelligence Agency asserted that the ISIS &#8220;probably will attempt to take territory in Iraq and Syria . . . as demonstrated recently in Ramadi and Fallujah,” due to the weak security environment &#8220;since the departure of U.S. forces at the end of 2011.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Obama, Clinton and the rest of the Democratic Party received ample warning about where their sabotage of Iraq would lead. And despite the clear disaster unfolding in the country, Obama and his party will reprise the same inadequate troop level/scheduled departure strategy in Afghanistan. Does a similar fiasco await us there? Americans should expect nothing less from a party at the helm that conflates abandoning wars with winning them.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">*</p>
<p><strong>Don&#8217;t miss Daniel Greenfield on this week&#8217;s <em>Glazov Gang</em> discussing &#8220;<em>How Obama Surrendered Iraq&#8221;</em>:</strong></p>
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		<title>How Modernity ‘Radicalizes’ Western Muslims</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/how-modernity-radicalizes-western-muslims/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-modernity-radicalizes-western-muslims</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Apr 2014 04:25:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why second generation Muslims are more susceptible to jihad than their parents. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sharia.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-223533" alt="sharia" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sharia-450x277.jpg" width="315" height="194" /></a>A new </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/04/denmark-muslims-218-percent-more-criminal-in-2nd-generation-than-first">Danish statistical study</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> finds that “Muslims [are] 218 percent more criminal in second generation than first.”  While some of these crimes are clearly related to Islam—such as </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/04/denmark-muslim-attacks-apostate-from-islam-at-asylum-center">attacks</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> on Muslim apostates to Christianity—others, such as </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/04/copenhagen-police-muslim-youth-rob-still-more-their-preferred-victims-are-non-muslims">rampant theft of non-Muslims</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, would appear banal, until one realizes that even robbery and plunder is </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/coptic-abductions-and-the-jizya-rationale/">justified by</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/milking-egypts-christian-copts-dry/">Islamic doctrine</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">—as one UK Muslim cleric once </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://enzaferreri.blogspot.com/2013/02/jihad-seekers-allowance-new-form-of.html">clearly said</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The interesting question here is why are second generation Muslims, who are presumably more Westernized than their Muslim parents, also more “radical”?  Lest one dismiss this phenomenon as a product of economics or some other “grievance” against European host nations, the fact is, even in America, where Muslims are much better assimilated than in Europe, they too are turning to “radicalism.” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">For example, some time back, Attorney General Eric Holder </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/attorney-general-eric-holders-blunt-warning-terror-attacks/story?id=12444727">said</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that “the threat [of terrorism] has changed … to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens—raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Around the same time, Sue Myrick, then a member of Congress, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8225586/US-home-grown-terrorists-a-global-threat-warns-congresswoman.html">wrote</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> a particularly candid letter on “radicalization” to President Obama:</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">For many years we lulled ourselves with the idea that radicalization was not happening inside the United Sates. We believed American Muslims were immune to radicalization because, unlike the European counterparts, they are socially and economically well-integrated into society. There had been warnings that these assumptions were false but we paid them no mind. Today there is no doubt that radicalization is taking place inside America. The strikingly accelerated rate of American Muslims arrested for involvement in terrorist activities since May 2009 makes this fact self-evident.</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Myrick named several American Muslims as examples of those who, while “embodying the American dream, at least socio-economically,” were still “radicalized,” astutely adding, “The truth is that if grievances were the sole cause of terrorism, we would see daily acts by Americans who have lost their jobs and homes in this economic downturn.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Quite so. Yet, though Myrick’s observations were limited to the domestic scene, they beg the following, more cosmic, question: If American Muslims, who enjoy Western benefits—including democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression—are </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">still</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> being radicalized, why then do we insist that the importation of these same Western benefits to the Muslim world will eliminate its even more indigenous or authentic form of “radicalization”?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">After all, the mainstream position evoked by most politicians maintains that all U.S. sacrifices in the Muslim world (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) will pay off once Muslims discover how wonderful Western ways are, and happily slough off their “Islamist” veneer, which, as the theory goes, is a product of—you guessed it—a lack of democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Yet here are American and European Muslims, immersed in the bounties of the West, and </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">still</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> do they turn to violent jihad. Why think their counterparts, who are born and raised in the Muslim world, where Islam permeates every aspect of life, will respond differently?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In fact, far from eliminating “radicalization,” Western values can actually exacerbate Islamic tendencies—hence why second generation, “Westernized” Muslims are also becoming more “radicalized” than their parents.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Some already known that Western concessions to Islam—in the guise of multiculturalism, “cultural sensitivity,” political correctness, and self-censorship—only bring out the worst of Islam’s “</span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/the-islamic-schoolyard-bully-and-obamas-america/">schoolyard bully</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.” Yet even some of the most prized aspects of Western civilization—personal freedom, rule of law, human dignity—when articulated through an Islamic framework, have the capacity to “radicalize” Muslims.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Consider: the West’s commitment to the law as supreme arbitrator, for the Westernized Muslim becomes a commitment to establish and enforce Islamic law, Sharia; the West’s commitment to democracy, for the Westernized Muslim becomes a commitment to theocracy, including an anxious impulse to resurrect the caliphate; Western notions of human dignity and pride, when articulated through an Islamic paradigm (which sees only fellow Muslims as equals) </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/how-dare-you-the-supremacist-nature-of-muslim-grievances/">induces rage</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> when Muslims—Palestinians, Afghanis, Iraqis, etc.—are seen under Western, infidel dominion; Western notions of autonomy and personal freedom have even helped “Westernize” the notion of jihad into an individual duty, though it has traditionally been held by Sharia as a communal duty.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In short, a set of noble principles articulated through a foreign paradigm can lead to abominations. In this case, the better principles of Western civilization are being devoured, absorbed, and regurgitated into something equally potent, though from the other end of the spectrum.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Put differently, just as a stress on human freedom, human dignity, and universal justice produces good humans, rearticulating these same concepts through an Islamic framework that qualifies them with the word “Muslim”—</span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Muslim</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> freedom, </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Muslim</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> dignity, and </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Muslim</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> justice—leads to what is being called “radicalization.” </span></p>
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		<title>Mother of London Beheader Tricked into Converting Him to Islam Under the Guise of Deradicalization</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/mother-of-london-bomber-tricked-into-converting-him-to-islam-under-the-guise-of-deradicalization/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mother-of-london-bomber-tricked-into-converting-him-to-islam-under-the-guise-of-deradicalization</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 26 May 2013 02:45:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[When he returned, however, he was even more "radicalised" and his mother could no longer "get through to him"]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/slaughter.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-190740" alt="slaughter" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/slaughter-450x322.jpg" width="450" height="322" /></a></p>
<p>We&#8217;re still filling in some of the blanks on the backstory of Mujahid, aka Michael Adebowale, the son of Christian Nigerian parents who became a Muslim terrorist, but <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/uk-jihad-murder-given-weeks-of-islamic-training-by-woolwich-mosque.html">it would appear that his mother fell victim</a> to a de-radicalization scheme.</p>
<p>Politicians insist that there is an &#8220;extremist Islam&#8221; and that the best way to counter it is with &#8220;moderate&#8221; mainstream Islam. This lie was put out there by the Saudis who claim that Muslim terrorists are ignorant of Islam and need to be cleared of their misunderstanding by legitimate Muslim authorities. The problem with that is the Saudis and the mosques around the world that they and the Muslim Brotherhood are the farthest possible thing from moderate.</p>
<p>Their de-radicalization programs are a case of going from the frying pan into the fire.</p>
<blockquote><p>His mother Juliet Obasuyi, a 43-year-old probation officer, went to her friend and neighbour, a 62-year-old security officer, for help about nine months ago after her son dropped out of university.</p>
<p>She told him: “Michael is not listening any more. His older sister is a good Christian with a degree but Michael is rebelling as he has no father figure, dropping out of university and handing out leaflets in Woolwich town centre.</p>
<p>“He is from a strong Christian family but he is turning to Islam and turning against the family. He is preaching in the streets. He needs spiritual guidance before he radicalises himself.”</p>
<p>Another friend, Steve Adebiyi, who started a company with Mrs Obasuyi, said she was often left in tears after speaking to him on the phone. “The boy was giving the mother problems,” he said. “She said he was in with some bad group and causing a lot of trouble. They brainwashed him.”</p>
<p>He and Michael Adebolajo, the other suspected terrorist, are thought to have met at Greenwich University.</p>
<p>His mother was advised by a neighbour to take him to the head of the Woolwich mosque for spiritual guidance. He was converted to Islam by the head Imam, and taken for weeks of &#8220;further training&#8221; at a centre near Cambridge.</p>
<p>When he returned, however, he was even more &#8220;radicalised&#8221; and his mother could no longer &#8220;get through to him&#8221;. A spokesman for the mosque said they did not know if he attended or been converted there.</p></blockquote>
<p>We&#8217;ve gone through this plenty of times before. The moment he&#8217;s caught, the mosque disavows responsibility, Mission Impossible style. That&#8217;s what happened with the Boston bomber. Suddenly they&#8217;re just crazy people who wandered in and had nothing to do with the mosque at all and never understood the real true Islam.</p>
<p>And politicians fall for it again and again. Rinse and repeat.</p>
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		<title>American Foreign Policy and the Tyranny of Old Ideas</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-thornton/american-foreign-policy-and-the-tyranny-of-old-ideas/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=american-foreign-policy-and-the-tyranny-of-old-ideas</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-thornton/american-foreign-policy-and-the-tyranny-of-old-ideas/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Mar 2013 04:50:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Thornton]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[foreign policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear Weapons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[radicalism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=180426</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What cataclysm must befall us before we stop repeating the same mistakes? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-thornton/american-foreign-policy-and-the-tyranny-of-old-ideas/aap_3281_mar04_egyptker2_800x600/" rel="attachment wp-att-180433"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-180433" title="aap_3281_MAR04_egyptker2_800x600" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/aap_3281_MAR04_egyptker2_800x600-450x337.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="202" /></a>The French call it “professional deformation,”  the way institutions filter and shape information and events to fit institutional orthodoxy, interests, and ideology. Professional knowledge then becomes a stencil applied to reality, hiding information that doesn’t fit the institution’s received wisdom, and leaving a neat pattern that is then taken for the whole of reality. In foreign policy, this bad habit abets the failure of imagination that leads to disaster.</p>
<p>Our decades-long bungling in the Middle East is a good example of this phenomenon. For years our foreign-policy establishment has looked on disorder and conflict in this region through a Western paradigm that has downplayed or ignored other motives and beliefs, and failed to imagine worldviews radically alien from our own. Thus this paradigm is based on questionable assumptions, such as economic development, anti-colonialism, and nationalist self-determination as the prime movers of social and political unrest. Western colonial empires and then post-colonial interference, so the story goes, had brutally suppressed nationalist aspirations for autonomy and freedom. Economic development had likewise been thwarted to serve the colonizers’ own interests, leading to poverty and lack of opportunity that feed despair and drive the oppressed to violence. Get the neo-imperialists out, create democratic institutions, aid economic development, and all will be well. Peace, prosperity, international cooperation, and global order will follow.</p>
<p>The failure to properly understand the 1979 Iranian revolution reflected this institutional bias through which events were filtered. For many in the foreign policy establishment, hatred of the Shah was the consequence of his brutal repression of the people’s liberal aspirations. The Shah was a neo-imperialist, neo-colonialist puppet who subordinated the good of the people to his own power and privilege, and to the geopolitical and economic interests of the United States. The revolution thus was an understandable attempt at liberation from an alien oppressor and its stooge, and the establishment of a consensual government that recognized nationalist self-determination promoted a more just economic development and protected human rights.</p>
<p>What the foreign policy stencil missed was the potent role of Islamic religious belief in toppling the Shah. The faithful hated the Shah not because he stifled liberal and nationalist aspirations, but because his modernization and secularization policies threatened Islam. The issue wasn’t that brutality and autocracy were wrong on principle, but that they were in the hands of the wrong person. After all, the mullahs killed more in one year than the Shah had in 25. This discontent of the religious class hungry for power, however, was rationalized or ignored by many in the West in favor of the presumed interests of Westernized intellectuals, secularists, and technical elites. The sermons and books of the real prime mover of the revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeini, were brushed aside, his calls for jihad and shari’a ignored. Instead, Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski counseled that relations with Muslim countries should be based on “shared interests,” and that “our support for a world of diversity, and our commitment to social justice” would “deepen our dialogue” with Muslims. But Western shibboleths like “social justice” and “diversity” were meaningless to an Islamic worldview in which Muslims are the “best of nations,” infidels are to be converted or destroyed rather than tolerated, and “social justice” means an illiberal and intolerant shari’a law. Nor did economics or nationalism cut any ice with Khomeini, who explicitly said the revolution was not about lowering “the price of melons,” and that he was willing to “let Iran burn” in order to “export our revolution to the whole world.”</p>
<p>Fast-forward 35 years later, and the same paradigm is determining our response to the upheavals in the Middle East. Iran has murdered our citizens for decades and is progressing towards developing nuclear weapons, and we still think economic sanctions and “engagement” alone will stop them. Thus even more negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program are conducted, most recently in Kazakhstan, with little or nothing to show except more incendiary rhetoric from “supreme leader” Khamenei. Meanwhile the centrifuges keep spinning as Iranian negotiators play for time. Just as with Carter’s solicitous “outreach” during the 1979 embassy hostage crisis, concessions and outreach to Iran lead nowhere, for the simple reason that the Iranian leadership has goals and beliefs alien to our own.</p>
<p>Yet despite that object lesson in the dangers of delusional paradigms, we are repeating the same mistake in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood is advancing towards an Islamist regime inherently anti-American, anti-Semitic, illiberal, and thus contrary to all our national interests and those of our most important regional ally, Israel. Yet the Secretary of State has just promised $250 million in aid, with $1 billion more to come once Egypt accepts a $4.8 billion loan from the IMF. And don’t forget the $213 million worth of F-16 fighter jets the Muslim Brotherhood is slated to receive.</p>
<p>This largesse is being bestowed on a regime founded on Islamic supremacism and hatred of the infidel West, one that incorporates illiberal shari’a law in its constitution. It is a regime that persecutes Egyptian Copts, supports the genocidal terrorist outfit Hamas, denies us access to a suspect in the murder of our ambassador in Benghazi, and indulges Koranic anti-Semitism and eliminationist rhetoric. So why do we do it? Because of the old delusion that such “engagement” will help Egypt “strengthen its economy and build political unity and justice,” as Kerry said on his trip, and that in turn will make the Muslim Brotherhood like us and serve our interests. After all, the revolution was <em>really</em> about removing a brutal dictator, eliminating corruption, creating opportunity, and improving the economy. The Islamist and jihadist aims and principles that have defined the Muslim Brotherhood for 8 decades are just rhetoric. Odd, though, that the minority of true liberals in Egypt didn’t get that memo, which is why they <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/egyptian-protesters-accuse-kerry-of-muslim-brotherhood-membership/">protested</a> Kerry’s visit and the promised aid, and plan to boycott the April elections.</p>
<p>Such is the power of received ideas and unexamined assumptions when they become institutionalized. The point is not that there aren’t throughout the world millions of Muslims who want to accommodate their faith to the modern world or reconcile Islam with liberalism. But no one can provide evidence that they are the majority of Muslims, while evidence abounds that the jihadists and Islamic supremacists are better organized and more passionately motivated than all those alleged liberals and moderates who are, with some few brave exceptions, conspicuous by their absence.</p>
<p>Until our foreign policy establishment is liberated from the tyranny of old ideas and the deformations of institutional orthodoxy, we will continue to repeat the same mistakes until some game-changing development––a nuclear-armed Iran that sparks proliferation throughout the region––reveals the dangerous wages of our failure of imagination.</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>Putting Obama&#8217;s Radicalism on the Ballot</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/walter-williams/putting-obamas-radicalism-on-the-ballot/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=putting-obamas-radicalism-on-the-ballot</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/walter-williams/putting-obamas-radicalism-on-the-ballot/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:20:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[2012 election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bill Ayers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[radicalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reverend Jeremiah Wright]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=121040</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[America cannot afford to make the same mistake twice -- but the obstacles are daunting.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Barack-Obama-001.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-121044" title="Barack-Obama-001" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Barack-Obama-001.gif" alt="" width="375" height="259" /></a></p>
<p>There&#8217;s been a heap of criticism placed upon President Barack Obama&#8217;s domestic policies that have promoted government intrusion and prolonged our fiscal crisis and his foreign policies that have emboldened our enemies. Any criticism of Obama pales in comparison with what might be said about the American people who voted him in to the nation&#8217;s highest office.</p>
<p>Obama&#8217;s presidency represents the first time in our history that a person could have been elected to that office who had long-standing close associations with people who hate our nation. I&#8217;m speaking of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama&#8217;s pastor for 20 years, who preached that blacks should sing not &#8220;God Bless America,&#8221; but &#8220;God damn America.&#8221; Then there&#8217;s William Ayers, now professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago but formerly a member of the Weather Underground, an anti-U.S. group that bombed the Pentagon, U.S. Capitol and other government buildings. Although Ayers was never convicted of any crime, he told a New York Times reporter, in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attack, &#8220;I don&#8217;t regret setting bombs. &#8230; I feel we didn&#8217;t do enough.&#8221; Obama has served on a foundation board, appeared on panels, and even held campaign events in Ayers&#8217; home, joined by Ayers&#8217; former-fugitive wife, Bernardine Dohrn. Bill Ayers&#8217; close association with Obama is reflected by his admission that he helped write Obama&#8217;s memoirs, &#8220;Dreams from My Father.&#8221;</p>
<p>Many Americans thought that with Obama&#8217;s presidency, we were moving to a &#8220;post-racial society.&#8221; Little can be further from the truth. Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, in a National Review (1/18/2012) article titled &#8220;Obama&#8217;s Racial Politics,&#8221; says that Obama&#8217;s message about race and his charges of racial bigotry are &#8220;usually coded and subtle.&#8221; Criticizing Republicans, before a Mexican-American audience, Obama said that he ran for office because &#8220;America should be a place where you can always make it if you try — a place where every child, no matter what they look like (or) where they come from, should have a chance to succeed.&#8221; If you don&#8217;t get it, &#8220;no matter what they look like&#8221; is code for nonwhite.</p>
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		<title>What About Moderate Muslims?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frontpagemag-com/what-about-moderate-muslims-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=what-about-moderate-muslims-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frontpagemag-com/what-about-moderate-muslims-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 Dec 2011 04:40:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[moderate islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[radicalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[robert spencer]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=115050</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A panel at David Horowitz's Restoration Weekend discusses the hope for a de-radicalized Islam. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/armed-militants-from-Islamic-Jihad-celebrate.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-115053" title="armed-militants-from-Islamic-Jihad-celebrate" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/armed-militants-from-Islamic-Jihad-celebrate.gif" alt="" width="375" height="248" /></a></p>
<p><em>The panel discussion below recently took place at </em><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/02/arab-spring-muslim-winter-2/#"><em>David Horowitz</em></a><em>’s Restoration Weekend in West Palm Beach, Florida (Nov. 17-20, 2011). The transcript follows. To view the question and answer session, click<a href="http://blip.tv/davidhorowitztv/what-about-moderate-muslims-q-a-5772699"> here</a>. </em></p>
<p><iframe src="http://blip.tv/play/AYLgq2oC.html" frameborder="0" width="500" height="340"></iframe><object style="display: none;" width="320" height="240" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="src" value="http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#AYLgq2oC" /><embed style="display: none;" width="320" height="240" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#AYLgq2oC" /></object></p>
<p><strong>Karen Lugo:</strong> I thought this panel was of critical importance because so many of us are out there trying to talk about Islam.  And there is always the question &#8212; what about moderate Muslims?  And there&#8217;s always the question &#8212; how do we identify Muslims who would be supportive of patriotic American Constitutional values?</p>
<p>So over the last six months, I&#8217;ve been fairly involved in this kind of a public discussion, where I&#8217;ve done over 50 radio interviews in the last three, four months.  I&#8217;ve been before five city councils, county board of supervisors, city planning commissions on mosque permits, and learning with a core group of people in my area how to have this conversation with public entities, elected officials.</p>
<p>We have also visited mosques on Open Mosque Day.  We went, and to show &#8212; rather than just kind of cursing the darkness, which &#8212; at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, we are very good about identifying what is the challenge to our Western traditions.  But in our case, we&#8217;ve decided to go into the mosques and ask the questions, record the answers, engage in a very local community fashion; so that we know who in our community is participating with us and supporting the Constitutional values and liberties that we support in America.</p>
<p>So in doing this, of course, it has been a matter of how we have this conversation.  And there are no better qualified people to do this than the four panelists that will be discussing it today.</p>
<p>You may have already been somewhat involved in tracking the debate &#8212; the discussion, conversation &#8212; that Andrew McCarthy and Robert Spencer have been having on National Review Online.  I&#8217;m going to introduce the panelists in series.  They will speak in series for about 10 minutes each.  And then we&#8217;ll have some time for questions.  Those of you that are just coming in, there are additional chairs on the way.  So they should be arriving soon.  I will check on those in just a minute.</p>
<p>But we wanted to leave as much time as possible.  We do only have an hour.  So we wanted to leave as much time as we could for question-and-answer.</p>
<p>So I will be cutting the biographies fairly short.  You&#8217;ll see most of these panelists again this weekend.  And we all are friends, I think, with most of the people that we see up here.</p>
<p>So, first of all, Andrew McCarthy.  With all of the work that I do, I either hear, &#8220;But Andrew McCarthy said,&#8221; or &#8220;Robert Spencer said,&#8221; as I&#8217;m working with all of the citizen activists in my area.  So both Andrew and Robert are very, very well known.</p>
<p>But we know and love Andy for the fact that in 1995, he successfully prosecuted the Blind Sheikh.  He is also author of &#8220;Willful Blindness,&#8221; which is the story of that prosecution, and very interesting for learning what our criminal courts can and cannot do, and the possible hazards of having these trials in criminal courts.  He&#8217;s also written &#8220;The Grand Jihad,&#8221; and he&#8217;s up on National Review Online.  And so, definitely make sure you are following him there.</p>
<p>Robert Spencer has written many books on Islam and helping us understand what is at the core and the heart of Islam.  Robert also famously &#8212; at least, in my opinion &#8212; is a consultant for many military as well as some civilian enterprises. And I was delighted to be reading &#8212; I&#8217;m a big fan of Brad Thor novels.  And the last one that I read, which was &#8220;The Last Patriot&#8221; &#8212; at the end of the book, Robert Spencer is credited as having advised Brad Thor.  So I was greatly excited to know that.</p>
<p>But in addition, I was just as the Federalist Society convention, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey gave a seminal speech on Islam, starting with the history and going right to where we are in this nation today.  Was very courageous, very declarative.  And in that speech, he quoted our own Robert Spencer.  So we are very proud and pleased to have Robert on this panel as well.</p>
<p>And then, a new face to some of us &#8212; Bosch Fawstin, who is a cartoonist and has been nominated for several awards, including one that&#8217;s the equivalent of an Emmy.  He is working on a graphic novel which will be called &#8220;The Infidel.&#8221;  And his lead character/superhero is called Pigman.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>And as the Europeans have learned, there is a very, very interesting and, I think, proper role in a society like ours for wit and for ridicule in a smart fashion.  I&#8217;m one who&#8217;s very emphatic about reasonable speech.  But provoking the discussion, I think, in a smart and clever way can sometimes be a very productive thing.  So we&#8217;re very interested to hear from Bosch today.</p>
<p>And then finally, we will hear from the Baroness Caroline Cox, who was recommended for her peerage by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  She&#8217;s a cross-bench member of the House of Lords and was Deputy Speaker from 1986 to 2006.  She&#8217;s very involved now in African and Armenian human rights issues and supporting the Christian communities against the Muslim oppression.  And she also was involved in a lot of other human rights concerns.</p>
<p>She&#8217;s known as a Euro-skeptic.  Here in the US, we call people phobic when they&#8217;re against something.  But in Great Britain, she&#8217;s a skeptic, a Euro-skeptic.  And importantly, she has introduced over this last summer an initiative called One Law for All, which would bring the Sharia tribunals back under the British courts.</p>
<p>So, we&#8217;ll start with Andrew McCarthy.</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p><strong>Andrew McCarthy:</strong> Thank you, Karen.</p>
<p>Karen was good enough to mention the Blind Sheikh case.  And it&#8217;s worth going back to it because this is sort of how I not only come into this challenge, but to try to reflect the debt I owe to Robert Spencer.  I think that when I got involved in trying to confront this &#8212; really, civilizational threat is the right way to put it &#8212; I knew nothing more about Islam than somebody&#8217;s who&#8217;s got a reasonably good education in the United States, which is to say not much.</p>
<p>And I wanted to believe what we were saying as a Justice Department, which was essentially that there was a fringe group &#8212; very, very small; almost unnoticeable, except that they were involved in committing such heinous acts &#8212; but they were totally unrepresentative of Islam, and that if we could just shave off this fringe, everything would be fine.  Because Islam itself was peaceful and wonderful, and one of the great religious traditions of the world.  And I wanted to believe that.  And I think almost everybody in the government, when we first started to say those sorts of things, really did believe that.</p>
<p>What ended up happening was &#8212; in almost every trial, whether the lead defendant testifies or not, you have to get ready for him as if he were going to testify &#8212; and so it was with the Blind Sheikh.  And he didn&#8217;t end up testifying.  But I actually had to go to school on everything that we had that he had either written or said.  And he was a very prolific speaker and writer.</p>
<p>And the problem that emerged over time, as I got immersed in his work product, was that every place that he said that the scripture said X or Y, he was not lying.  He was not perverting Islam.  It turned out that every place that he purported to quote scripture he was correct.</p>
<p>And you know, I wasn&#8217;t going to try to get into a theological debate with a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence from Al-Azhar University.  But I did think, if we were right, that we ought to be able to nail him in one or two or three places.  And there was no place you could do that.</p>
<p>Then, it started to dawn on me slowly that &#8212; well, you know, there&#8217;s not a whole lot that he could do for a terrorist organization.  He can&#8217;t build a bomb, can&#8217;t conduct an attack.  There&#8217;s nothing really that you would think of that a terrorist organization does that this guy would be particularly useful for them on, except that he was a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence, graduated from Al-Azhar University.  And that singularly was the source of his ability to influence this movement and, actually, in fact, made him the most important person in the cell and in the cells that were being constructed.  Because without his green light, things would not go forward, which I think underscores how powerful the ideology is that we&#8217;re talking about.</p>
<p>And then there was the final thing that really pushed me over the edge, which was we had a very extensive defense case, because we had such a long trial.  The trial was nine months long.  I think the defense case took about two and a half months.  And during the course of the defense case, we had people who were actually moderate Muslim people who would come in to testify.  And they really were moderate people &#8212; they wouldn&#8217;t commit a terrorist act or even think about committing a terrorist act, no matter what.</p>
<p>But every now and then while they were on the stand, some question about Islam would come up &#8212; you know, what does jihad mean, what is Sharia, what is Zakat? And three or four times, these perfectly nice, moderate people would say &#8212; well, I wouldn&#8217;t be qualified to render an opinion on that.  You&#8217;d have to ask someone like him.  And they would always point to the homicidal maniac &#8211;</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>&#8211; in the corner of my courtroom.  And I thought it was &#8212; in real-life terms, it was a very powerful lesson &#8212; that you had these people who were ordinary, peaceful people who would not become terrorists under any circumstances.  And yet, with respect to principal parts of their belief system, they were willing to take their guidance from somebody who was a five-alarm terrorist.  So I thought &#8212; I came away thinking, from that experience, that man, we have this just totally backwards.</p>
<p>The good thing about a trial, particularly a trial of that nature, is that no matter what politically correct thing the government happens to be saying on the courthouse steps or down in Washington, in the four corners of the trial, you actually have to prove to people what happened, what the people did and why they did it.  So we didn&#8217;t have politically correct Islam in our courtroom; we actually had, you know, what I now call Islamist ideology.  And the question is &#8212; is it Islamist ideology, or is it Islam?</p>
<p>There&#8217;s the other side of this.  We could not have done that case without patriotic American Muslims who helped us at every step of the way, either by infiltrating the cells, by helping us whip the evidence into shape, by helping us present it, by giving us intelligence.  It was a very interesting dynamic.  There were many people who were in the Muslim community, rank-and-file Muslims, who wanted to help the government, knowing exactly what it was that we were doing.  Their condition to me usually was &#8212; I can only help you if no one will ever find out that I spoke to you.</p>
<p>And it became very obvious to us that there was a big divide between rank-and-file Muslim people in the community, who &#8212; at least among the older generations of them &#8212; tended to be pro-American and pro-Western, and the leadership of the mosques and the Islamic communities, who tended to be very heavily influenced by overseas elements, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood.  So you had this divide.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s the problem.  The guys from overseas, whether it&#8217;s the Muslim Brotherhood or the other groups that give the guidance to both the mosques and the community centers &#8212; when they quote scripture, it&#8217;s not like they&#8217;re &#8212; when they tell you what they think, and they root it in Islam, it&#8217;s not like they&#8217;re dancing on the head of a pin.  When they say it&#8217;s in there, it&#8217;s in there.  And when they rely on it, they are not relying on something that&#8217;s an aberration.</p>
<p>And this goes to, as I said, the debt I owe to Robert.  I think singularly in the country, if there&#8217;s anybody who has given us a coherent, deep read on what this ideology really is &#8212; and the fact that it is not just coherent, but it is mainstream, and it is what basically is the mainstream ideology of Sunni Islam &#8212; it&#8217;s Robert Spencer.</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p>And I continue to learn every day, reading what Robert writes.</p>
<p>The issue we have &#8212; and whether it&#8217;s debate-worthy or discussion-worthy, or what worthy &#8212; I&#8217;ll leave it to you to decide &#8212; is &#8212; what do we do about the non-Islamist Muslims?  And I&#8217;ve assumed a fact that&#8217;s not in evidence, which is that &#8220;Islamist&#8221; is even a valid term, but engage me for a moment.  I think it&#8217;s absolutely clear that the marriage of the political elements and what are the spiritual elements of Islam are one.  And in mainstream Islamic scripture, mainstream Islamic doctrine, there&#8217;s no question that there&#8217;s no division between the sacred authority and the political authority &#8212; they&#8217;re one.</p>
<p>The reality of the world, however, is that we have many, many Muslims, millions and millions of Muslims, who don&#8217;t want to live that way, who embrace the West, who don&#8217;t want to live in Sharia societies.  Some of them are trying to interpret their religion in a way that, as they say, contextualizes the troublesome elements of it, so that they can create an Islam that&#8217;s congenial to Western ideas about separating church and state, separating the religious elements from the political.</p>
<p>I confess, when I read what they write, I don&#8217;t find it particularly compelling.  For the most part, I think it&#8217;s a work in progress.  I think, you know, compared to what I like to call Islamist ideology, it&#8217;s not particularly coherent, it&#8217;s not well-rooted in scripture the way that Islamic &#8212; what I call Islamist ideology is.  But I think we have to give them the space to try to evolve their belief systems.</p>
<p>And the reason I use the term &#8220;Islamist,&#8221; the reason I think it&#8217;s a valuable term to use &#8212; a means of separating one camp from the other &#8212; is I just don&#8217;t think that if you&#8217;re taking people who we want to have on our side in this struggle &#8212; and the people who we have to hope at some point will be able to reform if not the entirety of their religion, at least the way that it exists in the West &#8212; that we have to have some space where they can do that.  And I think the distinction between Islam and Islamist allows us to identify the people who actually want to impose Sharia on the West versus the people who are Muslims &#8212; whether they&#8217;re just culturally Muslim or they have a different way of interpreting their religion &#8212; but who want to live here and live among us as Americans, as Westerners; and not be identified as Sharia Muslims.</p>
<p>Am I confident that that will happen, that those people will actually succeed, that they can actually reform their religion?  No, not particularly.  But I think we have to give them a chance.  I&#8217;m not completely convinced they can&#8217;t do it, either.  But I just don&#8217;t see what the sense is of taking your natural allies &#8212; the people that you want on your side, the people who have in their community actually contributed to our counterterrorism &#8212; and tell them that the problem is their religion, is their belief system; and that, you know &#8212; basically address them in a way that tells them that we think that their choice is basically to convert.  Because, you know, the problem that we face is Islam.</p>
<p>And I say that, I hope, with my eyes open.  I appreciate the fact that a lot of the people who use the term &#8220;Islamist&#8221; use it in a fraudulent way, to suggest that, you know, the Islamists are just &#8212; what I was talking about back in 1993, just a handful of terrorists; and everybody else is a moderate Muslim.  And I think if that&#8217;s going to be their interpretation of it, it is a useless term, and we should reject it.</p>
<p>But we do have people who are trying to reform this belief system.  And I think we have to give them what encouragement we have to give.  I&#8217;ll leave it at that.</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p><strong>Robert Spencer:</strong> Andy said we&#8217;d have to &#8212; what do we do about the non-Islamist Muslims?  And I&#8217;d like to amend the question just slightly, to say &#8212; what do we do about the non-Islamist Muslim?  And after we have expressed our support for Zuhdi Jasser, then where do we go?</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p>I&#8217;m, of course, exaggerating.  There are indeed the people who worked with the prosecution in the case of the Blind Sheikh, and there are many others who work.  But they work under the cover of darkness, they work not wanting to be recognized, precisely because the situation is what it is within Islam.</p>
<p>The question about giving people the space to reform the religion cannot really be answered until we understand how religions reform in the first place.  And do we reform the religion of Islam by pretending that it is other than what it is?  Or do we reform the religion of Islam by confronting the elements of it that are outrageous to universally accepted notions of human rights, and call upon Muslims who do want to live according to universally recognized notions of human rights to fight against those ideas?  There aren&#8217;t really very many historical precedents for reformation in religion.  But of course, the main one is the Reformation.</p>
<p>So let me put it to you this way.  Imagine, in 1517, that instead of nailing the 95 theses to the door of the church in Gutenberg that Martin Luther had said &#8212; how dare you suggest that the Catholic Church teaches the primacy of the Pope and the doctrines of transubstantiation and the perpetual virginity of Mary.  You must be a venomous Catholic-hater, a Catholophobe.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>And I stand for the true Catholicism, which has none of that in it &#8212; now, that would have been absurd.  Because obviously, the Church did teach all those things.  And those were the things, among others, that Martin Luther objected to.  And Martin Luther did not set out to reform the Church.  Whatever one may think of the necessity or the veracity of the charges, all that is beside the point.  But he did not set out to reform the Church by pretending it was otherwise than what it was.  He set out to reform the Church by confronting the doctrines he thought were false and calling upon people to discard them.  Now, that ended up creating a schism, of course, a number of schisms, such that there are Catholics and Protestants in the world today.  And maybe that&#8217;s what would happen in Islam.</p>
<p>But the problem is also compounded by the fact that Islam has a doctrine of religious deception.  It not only has doctrines of warfare and subjugation of unbelievers that are universal among the sects and schools of law in Islam, but it also has doctrines of deception.  And that makes it doubly difficult.</p>
<p>Because unfortunately, I think, with all the best intensions, Andy &#8212; by trying to separate out the supremacists and marshal elements of Islam from Islam &#8212; is enabling the deceivers.  Because the deceivers sound just like reformers.  Or almost just like reformers.  They come around &#8212; and actually, you can turn on the television any given moment and see them, and they&#8217;ll say &#8212; Islam doesn&#8217;t teach any of this, and we reject all this.  And we abhor terrorism. And really, the problem is Islamophobia and unjustified suspicion of the peaceful Muslim community.</p>
<p>And invariably, when you start to look into the people who are saying this, they&#8217;re connected to one or another Muslim Brotherhood group.  And the Muslim Brotherhood, of course &#8212; as you all, I&#8217;m certain, know &#8212; is dedicated, in its own words, to eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.  And what better way to do that but to render us complacent in the face of the reality of this threat, and make it such that we are afraid to speak about it in its full dimensions?  Because we think, on the one hand, that if we do that we will be charged with being bigoted, racist and hateful, and our professional prospects will be dim.  And you know, I certainly know that.  I&#8217;m 10 years an Islamophobe now, and I can&#8217;t get another job.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>But also, that we will be discouraging the few actual genuine Muslim reformers will be hurting Zuhdi.</p>
<p>And so, for those two reasons, we cannot speak about this problem honestly.  And so, the situation we are in now is one that I think was summed up very tellingly by a young man in a video store who ended up foiling the Fort Dix jihad plot.</p>
<p>We all know, of course, that in Fort Hood, Major Nidal Hasan murdered 13 Americans in a jihad attack.  And we know, of course, that the United States government in its report on that attack never mentioned jihad or Islam, even though the guy was handing out Korans that morning, and he was shouting Allahu Akbar, and had given off many signs of what he was all about for years before that.  And that is, of course, part of the fact &#8212; the reason why the government does that is because we don&#8217;t want to alienate the moderate Muslim community, which of course also Nidal Hasan lived and moved among, and they never did anything about him.</p>
<p>But also, there was a lesser-known attempted attack at Fort Dix.  And at Fort Dix, it was a number of Albanian Muslims who were enjoying watching the gory al-Qaeda videos of beheadings and things like that.  But they had them on VHS.  And technology marched on.  And so they went to the video store to get them transferred to DVD.</p>
<p>And &#8212; this is a true story.  I know it&#8217;s unbelievable.  And the young man working in the video store &#8212; he&#8217;s doing the job, and he&#8217;s seeing these horrible images unfold before his eyes.  And he goes to his manager.  And he says &#8212; you know, there&#8217;s some very disturbing things on this tape, and I&#8217;m thinking maybe we should go to the police.  But would that just be racist?</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>This is actually what he said.  And to his credit, the manager encouraged him.  They went to the police, they foiled the plot.</p>
<p>But the point is that in both cases, you have the entire United States government, and you have individuals who have been breathing the air of our politically correct culture.  And they are afraid to confront this monstrous evil because they think that it will cause some even greater evil if they do.  And so they dissimulate, and they pretend that things are other than the way they are.  And what exactly does it get us?</p>
<p>I can&#8217;t tell you how many times &#8212; and I expect if you thought that you would be in the same situation &#8212; how many times have you read an article since 9/11 that said &#8212; it&#8217;s time for the moderate Muslims in the United States to stand up and show that they oppose this?  And then, the next year &#8212; it&#8217;s time for &#8212; and every year, it&#8217;s time.  Well, when are they going to get on it?  When are we going to learn the lesson of the fact that they have not done so, and examine the implications of that?</p>
<p>The reality is that Islam does teach these things, as Andy acknowledges.  Islam does teach warfare and subjugation.  If there are Muslims &#8212; and there certainly are &#8212; who do not want to kill or subjugate us, then I applaud them.  But they can only succeed if they confront the problem honestly.</p>
<p>And we can only truly encourage them if we confront the problem honestly.  Anything else leads to bad policy.  We&#8217;ve been pretending they weren&#8217;t Islamists in Pakistan for a decade now, giving them billions every year to fight al-Qaeda.  And what&#8217;d they do?  They gave the money to al-Qaeda.  But we had our Islam/Islamist distinction, and they were on the good side.  And so that was as far as it went.  Well, the implications are obvious.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p><strong>Bosch Fawstin:</strong> Hello.  I&#8217;m honored to be here.  I was invited here with a short notice.  So if you don&#8217;t mind, I&#8217;m going to read some stuff that I prepared.</p>
<p>I come from a Muslim Albanian background, and born and raised in America.  We were non-devout.  But it was enough where it still had detrimental things in our lives growing up.</p>
<p>So, you know, one thing &#8212; the entire context here is the fact that we are at war.  We are at war.  This is not &#8212; we&#8217;re indulging things that are outside of that in order to try to create this Islam that doesn&#8217;t exist.  Because there are, you know, Muslims who are not terrorists; therefore, they&#8217;re practicing some other sort of Islam.  And they&#8217;re not.  You know, they&#8217;re practicing life in a free country, they&#8217;re practicing something other than Islam.</p>
<p>You know, as Jerome Brooks said &#8212; you know, even though I disagree with him in terminology, we agree on this &#8212; we need to identify the enemy and do whatever is necessary to eliminate the threat, with minimal loss of life and liberty on our side.</p>
<p>You know, Andrew McCarthy said &#8212; early this morning, he said we need to put American interests first.  I absolutely agree with that.  So we need to identify the right terms to use so we can defend our interests.  [I think] Islam &#8212; you know, not Islamism, militant Islam, radical Islam, totalitarian Islam, every other Islam that we hear about &#8212; Islam is the right term to name the ideology that we must criticize, reject, ultimately defeat, regardless of there are non-Muslim Muslims out there.  And the implication with all those terms is that Islam as such is fine.  It&#8217;s all the other, bad Islams that are the problem.</p>
<p>And you know, post-9/11, I read the Koran.  I read Robert&#8217;s books.  Everything I could get my hands on &#8212; jihad, Islam.  And I just &#8212; Islam is not fine, Islam as such.  Islam promotes anti-Semitism, misogyny.  And being raised again as a non-devout Muslim, there was still an admiration for Hitler in my household.  My cousins.  Because of the anti-Semitism.  And Hitler &#8212; there was a mutual admiration society between Nazism and Islam.  Hitler admired Islam as a &#8220;masculine religion.&#8221;</p>
<p>And you know, besides the explicit doctrines of jihad and Sharia, I know firsthand from being raised by non-devout Muslims &#8212; my mom, even &#8212; I come home one day, and she&#8217;s crying.  And I was worried about her.  I said &#8212; what happened, what happened?  My first niece was born.  And she was mourning the birth of a female, of a baby girl.  Because she had projected the idea that her life would be miserable.  It will have to be miserable, there&#8217;s no way out.  And in Islam, women, in a lot of ways, are necessary evils.  They can bring into the world male Muslim heirs.</p>
<p>Besides that &#8212; and while it&#8217;s true that only a small minority actually wage jihad &#8212; small minority of Muslims &#8212; it&#8217;s equally true that only a small minority criticize them.  How many Muslims celebrated 9/11?  Far too many.  We don&#8217;t even know.  In America, the Middle East, Europe.  You know.  And imagine in the past, if we referred to enemy ideologies such as radical Nazism.</p>
<p>(Laughter)</p>
<p>Militant communism.  You know, that kind of thinking leads us to try to find moderate Nazis.  You know.</p>
<p>(Applause)</p>
<p>In lieu of waging a proper war in our defense.  Because that&#8217;s the most important thing here &#8212; our defense.  Not their defense, not the Muslim world&#8217;s future &#8212; our future.  And you know, besides using the correct term, &#8220;Islam,&#8221; at times, in order to distinguish between individual Muslims and Islam as such, I use the term &#8220;organized Islam.&#8221;  That doesn&#8217;t connote anything besides the fact that [you have] Islam is bad as such.  And if it&#8217;s organized, it&#8217;s even worse.</p>
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		<title>Can Obama Triangulate?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dick-morris/can-obama-triangulate/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=can-obama-triangulate</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dick-morris/can-obama-triangulate/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:02:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[All the spin in the world won't save the President.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-47931" title="42-22959915" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/obamas.jpg" alt="42-22959915" width="450" height="300" /></p>
<p>Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?</p>
<p>A: One, but only if it really wants to change.</p>
<p>Any president, at any time, can choose to embody the consensus his nation has reached after it has engaged in a period of extended debate. That process, called triangulation, involves the embrace of the elements advanced by the right and by the left that Americans have found valid and the rejection of those from which they have turned away.</p>
<p>When our nation encounters a new problem, we welcome vigorous debate and encourage each side to articulate its views and elaborate its solutions. But, after a time, we have heard enough and want resolution, consensus and implementation. If Obama heeds that call, he can, indeed, turn his presidency around. But if he continues to pursue his leftist, socialist agenda and uses a feigned moderation as a guise for his radicalism, we will not be fooled again. We have been down that road with him before.</p>
<p>In <a style="border-bottom: 0.075em solid darkgreen ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; font-size: 100% ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important; padding-bottom: 1px ! important; color: darkgreen ! important; background-color: transparent ! important; background-image: none; padding-top: 0pt; padding-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt;" href="http://www.creators.com/opinion/dick-morris.html#" target="_blank">health care</a>, for example, the debate has left most of us in agreement that insurance companies need to be reined it. They should not be allowed to reject those with pre-existing conditions or to raise rates when their clients become sick. We mostly agree that lifetime caps on benefits are unfair. Since each of us could become sick and run afoul of those rules, we oppose them and ask for their reform.</p>
<p>On the other hand, we reject the total revamping of the health care industry, the reduction of doctor pay, the cuts in Medicare and the mandatory insurance embedded in the Obamacare legislation. Were Obama to embrace these solutions, he would quickly be able to pass his bill and would be hailed for it.</p>
<p>But will Obama do it? Will he emulate Bill Clinton and save his presidency by moving to the center? Certainly not before he has lost his control over Congress.</p>
<p>It was not the defeat of health care that impelled Clinton&#8217;s change of course, but his defeat in the elections of 1994. Even then, it took six months to turn the battleship around.</p>
<p>And after he loses Congress? Probably not even then. Clinton was a lifelong moderate who moved to the left when expediency dictated it. Obama is a lifelong liberal who pretends to move to the center when he has to.</p>
<p>A committed socialist, one doubts that Obama would sacrifice his cherished transformative goals for incremental policies.</p>
<p>But even if Obama did, it might not save him. There is a basic difference between the circumstances that surround the Obama and Clinton administrations. Clinton faced relatively minor problems, while Obama is neck deep in recession, deficit and stagnation. Clinton could reshape his presidency by positioning, posturing and passing moderate legislation. But Obama can only succeed by altering outcomes.</p>
<p>Americans want jobs, lower unemployment, economic growth, a reduced deficit and an end to the recession. They will not be assuaged or appeased by programs or proposals. They demand results.</p>
<p>The skills of the spin-doctor are wasted on his administration. All the photo ops in the world and all the populist-sounding rhetoric will not do the job. They may provide a short term bounce — as will probably follow tonight&#8217;s State of the Union speech, but they will become undone with the next week&#8217;s jobless numbers.</p>
<p>Just as George W. Bush could not recapture his popularity with new programs for Iraq — voters demanded a reduction in casualties and then withdrawal — Obama cannot save his by announcing new ideas. He has to produce.</p>
<p>All the spin in the world will not save Obama.</p>
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		<title>Getting to the Root of Understanding Islam &#8211; by David Swindle</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/david-swindle/getting-to-the-root-of-understanding-islam-by-david-swindle/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=getting-to-the-root-of-understanding-islam-by-david-swindle</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Dec 2009 05:09:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[In his newest book, Robert Spencer digs deeper than ever before.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Infidel_guide_Koran_Spencer1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-42984" title="Infidel_guide_Koran_Spencer1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Infidel_guide_Koran_Spencer1.jpg" alt="Infidel_guide_Koran_Spencer1" width="450" height="402" /></a></p>
<p>Few would consider Robert Spencer, author and prominent scholar of Islam, to be a radical.</p>
<p>Spencer’s politics fit snuggly within the mainstream of conservative thought. He appears regularly at both <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/search.php?author_name=Robert+Spencer" target="_blank"><em>Human Events</em></a> and <em><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/author/robert-spencer/" target="_blank">FrontPage</a> <a href="http://97.74.65.51/bioAuthor.aspx?AUTHID=934">Magazine</a></em>. His books are published by the stalwart conservative press Regnery.</p>
<p>His rhetoric and demeanor are hardly radical either. Read his books and you’ll find sly, witty humor to complement his often depressing subject matter. His talks are no different. He presents a friendly demeanor. Here&#8217;s an example from the recent Restoration Weekend:</p>
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<p>So in what manner is Spencer possessed of the Radical Spirit?</p>
<p>To understand this we need to understand what it means to be radical. The first definition of the term (coming from its etymology) sums it up: “Arising from or going to a root or source.”</p>
<p>Thus Spencer’s radicalism soon becomes clear to those familiar with his books and his essential blog, <a href="http://jihadwatch.org/"><em>JihadWatch</em></a>. His principle project is this: to go to the root of understanding Islam. To strip away the obfuscations of the Left and alleged “moderate” Islamist apologists and to really demonstrate just what this religion is all about.</p>
<p>And so his newest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Infidels-Guide-Koran/dp/1596981040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1261319617&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank"><em>The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran</em></a> is in a sense his most radical work yet. In the past Spencer has hit numerous Islam-related topics. Last year’s <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stealth-Jihad-Radical-Subverting-America/dp/1596985569/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1260550282&amp;sr=8-4">Stealth Jihad</a></em> looked at how many Islamists have shifted tactics from violence to quiet subversion. Previous books focused on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Muhammad-Intolerant-Religion/dp/1596985283/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1260550282&amp;sr=8-5">Muhammad</a> and the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Peace-Christianity-Islam-Isnt/dp/1596985151/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1260550282&amp;sr=8-6">differences between Islam and Christianity</a>.</p>
<p>Now he examines the Koran itself. In twelve accessible chapters – each interspersed with sidebars and quotes in Idiot’s Guide fashion – Spencer gives a crash course on the Koran’s origins, its interpretation and its contents. He explains how the book was assembled and why it’s so difficult to understand. (It’s not even written chronologically!) He also shows how pervasively anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, intolerant, and violent attitudes are embedded within this book revered by more than a billion people.</p>
<p>The experience of reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Infidels-Guide-Koran/dp/1596981040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1261330202&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank"><em>The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran</em></a> brought to mind two other “radical” texts, each exploring a different kind of faith.</p>
<p>The first is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Destructive-Generation-Second-Thoughts-Sixties/dp/1594030820/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1261330436&amp;sr=8-3" target="_blank"><em>Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the Sixties</em></a>, the classic critique of the New Left by Peter Collier and David Horowitz. <em>Destructive Generation</em> is a dense book that overwhelms with the sheer number, variety, and intensity of its facts and arguments. One completes it almost exhausted. Spencer’s <em>Infidel’s Guide</em> produces a similar effect. The author packs his text with so many quotes from the Koran, the Hadith, and prominent Muslim commentators that it’s profoundly difficult to argue with him. (Which perhaps explains why <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/11/libelblogger-charles-johnson-why-i-parted-ways-with-sanity-and-truth-telling.html">the usual anti-Spencer retort is to slur him as a bigot and not bother to even quote him.</a>)</p>
<p>The second is this year’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Interrupted-Revealing-Hidden-Contradictions/dp/0061173932/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1261330521&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank"><em>Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don&#8217;t Know About Them)</em></a> by agnostic New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman. The new book by the author of <em>Misquoting Jesus</em> and <em>God’s Problem</em> provided a more thoughtful alternative to critiquing religion than the Christopher Hitchens/Richard Dawkins militant atheism.</p>
<p>Spencer’s approach to the Koran is identical to Ehrman’s to the New Testament. He’s a nonbeliever who seeks to look at a holy text critically, examining how it was made and what the text itself actually says – not how it’s allegedly divine and infallible. Yet why is Spencer the “bigot” of the two? Why is it acceptable to look at Christianity critically but “racist” to do so for Islam? Why have we built an advantage to our enemies right into the fabric of our “politically correct” culture?</p>
<p>And it’s here where we return to understanding Spencer as a radical. Because Spencer is not just a radical intellectual – willing to take an idea to its root no matter how maligned the left-dominated intellectual culture might make him. He’s also a radical activist. Consider another of the American Heritage Dictionary’s definitions of radical: “One who advocates fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions.”</p>
<p>Possessed of the conservative’s understanding of human nature and loyalty to individual liberty he knows the only way one can both effectively and morally change society is to change people’s ideas. And so the “fundamental or revolutionary change” that he advocates is a revision in the way Americans understand Islam.</p>
<p>Let us support him as he pursues this intellectual revolution. Our very society is dependent upon its success.</p>
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