Silence of the Sheep
Brigitte Gabriel at
American Congress for Truth presents a great piece by
Yashiko Sagamori, a writer whom I hadn't heard of previously.
Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.
Manuel II Palaiologos (1350-1425),
the Byzantine emperor
What should have been the appropriate response to Pope Benedict XIV after he recklessly quoted a dead Byzantine emperor?
[ . . . ]
The appropriate response should have been very simple. It should have listed all those things that are unique to Islam; things that set it apart from Judaism and Christianity, but are neither evil, nor inhumane. And if Islam really is just another religion, then the list of those things, accumulated since the inception of that Abrahamic faith 14 centuries ago, must be long and widely known to both Muslims and us, the infidels.
We would all look through the list of all good things that only Islam could have brought into the world, and rejoice at the marvelous achievements of our turbaned brothers and hermetically veiled sisters. Catholics all over the world would cry in shame for their pontiff and begin mass conversions to Islam. Benedict XVI would, for the last time in the history of the Vatican, appear on his balcony in order to tearfully, a la Jimmy Swaggart, admit urbi et orbi the ridiculous errors of his ways, abdicate St. Peter's throne and live the rest of his life as a humble dervish somewhere in Turkey, formerly known as Byzantium.
That's what should've had happened had Manuel II been wrong in his assessment of Islam. Technically speaking, it would be sufficient to cite just a single example of what Mohammad brought that was new and, at the same time, good and humane. No such example has been brought up.
[ . . . ]
The burning question must be answered: Why hasn't anyone — I mean literally any one — come up with a list of at least some good things Islamic? Why has none of the 1.4 billion Muslims and none of the uncounted millions of their learned appeasers in the West offered us at least a tiny sample of something good and humane brought into the world by Mohammad and his followers in the course of the 14 centuries of incessant genocide that have elapsed since the inception of Islam?
There can be only one answer: Because no such thing exists. During all the centuries of its existence, Islam has miserably failed to produce anything of value to humanity.
[ . . . ]
Will we see a political leader of Einstein's proportions who will emerge in time to remind us that there would have been no victory over Nazism if we had classified the Nazis into a minority of bad, extremist Nazis who had hijacked the perfectly benign political philosophy from the benevolent, but totally undetectable majority of real, moderate Nazis? Why do we need a genius to explain to us that there would have been no victory over Nazism had we allowed Nazis to come to our shores by the millions, settle in our cities, and change the way our children learn history of the world?
These are the highlights. Now go and read the
whole thing. It's important.
Labels: Brigitte Gabriel, islam, Pope Benedict XIV, Yashiko Sagamori
Battling the Islamic Fascists and Jew Haters on Campus
The Michigan Daily, campus newspaper at the University of Michigan, ran this
pro-Israel editorial. Israel advocates are off to an early start. They aren't waiting for the Islamic hate-monkeys to spew their anti-semitic vitriol all over U of M. The best defense is a good offense and all that jazz. The entire editorial is reproduced below.
If on July 12, 2006 Hezbollah militants had not crossed the Israeli border, murdering and kidnapping Israeli soldiers, would there have been war? The answer is no. Unfortunately, Hezbollah, a terrorist organization funded and armed by Iran, initiated a war that nobody wanted.
Some suggest that diplomacy was an option for Israel. However, Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, leaves no doubt as to his feelings. Nasrallah said in an interview in 2000: "I am against any reconciliation with Israel. I do not even recognize the presence of a state that is called Israel … That is why if Lebanon concludes a peace agreement with Israel … (Hezbollah) deputies will reject it." How can Israel sit down at the negotiating table with those sworn to its destruction?
Had Hezbollah not fired about 4,000 rockets into Israel, would the Israeli Defense Forces have had to enter Lebanon? Israel was forced to do what any other sovereign state would and should do - defend its people, Jews and Arabs alike.
If Hezbollah had not launched rockets from schools, hospitals and neighborhoods, how many innocent lives would have been spared? Hezbollah fighters used Lebanese children as human shields while deliberately targeting densely populated civilian centers. Jan Egeland, UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, summed it up best in July when he said: "Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending in among women and children."
If Israel had not sent soldiers door-to-door to seek out Hezbollah terrorists, how many more lives would have been lost? Israel could have shown disregard for civilian life through an intensified aerial campaign, but out of respect for innocent life, it sacrificed its own troops. More than 100 Israeli soldiers died in order to prevent unnecessary harm to Lebanese civilians.
There is no question: Hezbollah started this war, and Israel was forced to protect itself from a terrorist entity avowed to its destruction.
While hundreds of thousands of Israelis huddled in bomb shelters and fled their homes in the north, Israel was forced to defend itself on yet another border. Hamas simultaneously kidnapped an Israeli soldier and launched more than a thousand Qassam rockets into southern Israeli towns.
Let's simplify the issue. Imagine if Hezbollah and Hamas laid down their arms and recognized Israel's right to exist. Whereas Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmet openly supports the establishment of a Palestinian state, Ismail Haniyah, the democratically elected Palestinian prime minister, reiterated Friday that his government will not recognize Israel. There is no prospect for peace when only one side wants it.
For years, Israel's enemies used its presence in the Gaza Strip as an excuse for terrorism. In a unilateral step toward peace, Israel uprooted 10,000 of its own citizens (many of whom are still homeless) and ceded control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority. Instead of using this opportunity to build a civil society, the Palestinian Authority used this land as a launching pad for further terrorism, violence and indoctrination to hate. This has become an all too familiar theme - Israel makes unprecedented sacrifices, and in turn Israel is thanked with rockets and suicide bombings.
Israel wants a real and lasting peace. Unfortunately, this sentiment is not being reciprocated. A 2006 report by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies on fifth-grade Palestinian Authority textbooks shows that Palestinian children are being taught the importance of dying as a martyr. In addition, the maps in these textbooks fail to recognize Israel's existence, calling the entire region Palestine. Furthermore, in both Palestinian Authority and Hezbollah media, Jews are portrayed as evil people who drink the blood of Arab children. This hateful propaganda may cause even more damage to the peace process than any rocket or bullet. While buildings can be repaired in a few weeks, it takes a lifetime to repair the mind of young child.
As long as children are taught to hate, there will not be peace in the Middle East. Along the same lines, as long as some at the University continue to inaccurately attack Israel while failing to understand, respect and listen to each other, we will not be able to make a positive difference on this campus.
It's time to be blunt. With thousands of Jews and Arabs on this campus, we have two options. Either we contribute to a deteriorating peace process through irresponsibly inaccurate and disrespectful propaganda, or we set a tone for future dialogue by providing an exemplary model of coexistence and respect. As a campus community, the decision is ours - where on the road map will we stand?
Follow the link and support the writers of this great piece.
Labels: Hezbollah, islam, Israel advocacy
The Current Insult to Islam Is . . . A Great Cartoon by Deering
I keep wondering when we in the West will end this stupid pandering to every compliant about every "insult to Islam." Personally, I find much more insulting that our leaders and journalists don't just tell the Islamo-whiners to shut up and start learning to work and play well with others.
Remember boys and girls appeasement doesn't work. They want to enslave and murder us in the name of jihad.
Labels: cartoons, islam
What is Courage?
Last week the Detroit News ran another piece of Jew-hating idiocy from
Imam Elahi of the Islamic House of "Wisdom".
(Yes, I added the scare quotes. H) If the Israelis want to live in that neighborhood in peace and security, they better humble themselves and make some courageous changes in the Zionist political culture
When it comes to Jews being courageous, Imam Elahi is referring to the self-loathing variety, the deluded ones who think they can be "one of the guys" if they attack Israel viciously enough, the appeasers who are willing to give up their freedom and return to dhimmitude in return for their pitiful lives. To Elahi, a courageous Jew is one that the rest of us would refer to as a useful idiot.
Would Imam Elahi consider
Wafa Sultan courageous? She stood up to Islamic fascism in public, on TV yet! You don't get much braver than that, unless you are
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who lives under a death threat for what she's said against Islamic fascism. They speak in the name of freedom, unlike Imam Elahi who speaks in the name of Islamic supremacism. And like the rest of his ilk, he will lie while swearing to be telling the truth, especially if he can make Israel and the Jews look bad by doing so.
Finally, for exceptional bravery while living under Islam, I would like to present
Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. A Muslim, living in Bangadesh, Mr. Choudhury dares to suggest that there should be peace with Israel and the Jewish people. As reported by Debbie Schussel quoting from the Jeruselem Post,
A Bangladeshi Muslim journalist arrested in the past for advocating ties with Israel now faces charges of sedition, a crime punishable by death in Bangladesh, and will likely be put on trial by the end of the month, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
choudhury.jpg
Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury: Courageous Muslim Under Repeated Attack
In a court session on Tuesday in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, a state-appointed judge ruled that the government's case against Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury could proceed to trial and that the hearings would commence within 15 days.
As editor of The Weekly Blitz, an English-language newspaper published in Dhaka, Choudhury aroused the ire of Bangladeshi authorities after he printed articles favorable to Israel and critical of Muslim extremism.
Bangladesh does not recognize Israel's existence and refuses to establish diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.
There is, of course, more. As much as Imam Elahi pretends to want peace with the Jews, I'm sure he'd look at Choudhury as a traitor to Islam. He wouldn't admit it in English though.
Courage in Elahi's mind is Jews surrendering to the Ummah. Real courage in battling the scourge of the expanding Ummah is ignored.
Labels: anti-semitism, Imam Elahi, islam, Jews, Muslims who speak out
More Cartoon Riots? I doubt It
According to
this article the Iranian Holocaust Cartoon Contest has finally arrived. Have Jews around the world started rioting and murdering yet? Have they issued death threats?
Of course not. Only one religion is base enough and unsure of its tenets enough to do that. Only one religion still demands that all the world live by its rules. And they are still in a tizzy over a perceived slight from the Vatican from over a week ago.
I find it interesting that the article's focus is on those Iranians who are appalled by the display.
Spoofing the Holocaust was something that Armin Salami, a German visiting his native Iran, couldn't quite imagine. So he made his way, with a young cousin who never had traveled outside Iran, to a downtown gallery to decide whether art had been used for a political low.
The hallways at the Holocaust International Cartoon Contest, an exhibit of anger, art and revisionist history, were a revelation for Salami, an artist and social worker who moved to Germany 20 years ago. Salami was astounded that anyone in his native land would call the work clever. He was chagrined to hear his college-educated cousin, Laaia, express enthusiasm for what Salami saw as propaganda.
Salami was quick to point out that the history of the Holocaust is not taught in Iranian schools. The slurs sketched out in some of the brightly colored caricatures -- the depiction of gun-toting Israelis with thin, Pinocchio-length noses, hiding behind a barbed-wire fence that spelled the word "Holocaust," or an etching of a man with a Star of David and vampire teeth, slurping blood -- seemed to mystify his cousin.
Not Salami, who lives in the country that spawned the Holocaust and whose leaders are dedicated to admitting how a Nazi government orchestrated mass killing. But his recent tour of the more than 200 cartoons displayed at the private Museum of Palestinian Contemporary Art informed him in a way he hadn't expected: It was another sign to him of how determined Iran is to remain isolated from Western thought.
And we must be reminded that Kofi Anon who regularly
supports the Palestinians in their attempted genocide against the Israeli people protested the exhibit. Frankly, I'm not impressed.
Labels: cartoons, Iran
Bosnia and the Blogosphere
After reading a post from
Julia Gorin called "A Twist to the Pope's Lapse into Candor", I began to wonder, would we have supported the Muslims in the former Yugoslavia as strongly or at all, had the political blogosphere been active? In those days, we were forced to rely on the MSM for all of our information. The other side was never reported, and Bosnian Christian Serbs are still suffering for it today. Since I couldn't get the link to work, here is Ms. Gorin's entire post:
Most everyone by now has heard that last week Pope Benedict XVI quoted the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Paleologos II as saying, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
The interesting twist is that this man was married to the daughter of a Serbian prince. Their son Constantine, who went by his mother’s Serbian last name — Dragas, died fighting the Muslim Ottoman Turks in the first Siege of Constantinople in 1453.
Indeed, the Serbs have historically been on the front lines in halting the advance of barbarism into Europe — first against the Ottomans, then against the Third Reich (the Serbian nation lost proportionally more lives fighting the Nazis than any other), and then in the 1990s against the Muslim and Croatian heirs of the Nazis. But in our modernity and shallow historic understanding, we stopped them then — and have been paying for it ever since.
In March, BBC interviewed Bosnian Serbs 10 years after the Siege of Sarajevo. Among them was 52-year-old Slavko Jovicic, who lost a kidney and more than 40 kilograms “during four years of torture and mistreatment at wartime prison camps run by Bosnian Muslims” — just one of the many crimes against Serbs that the UN’s Hague tribunal has no interest in prosecuting, as its main occupation is prosecuting Serbs.
At a bar in Pale, Bosnia-Herzegovina, a man named Miki explained, “‘We were defenders, not aggressors. But the other side managed to convince everyone it was the victim.’” He lamented that his people are excluded from a united Europe.
Nearby, a man sipping a beer added, “‘Europe should not fear the Serbs. We will always be your buffer against Islam.’”
And because they have been that buffer, the Serbs have always suffered. For the past 700 or so years, they've taken it from Muslims and from an ungrateful Christian Europe. But you don't have to take my word for it. Go and read Rebecca West's
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.
Labels: Bosnia, islam, Rebecca West, Serbs
Who is Responsible for Lebanon's Destruction?
There is a great op-ed piece in the Detroit News by
Jeannie Weiner. After the insane Hezbollah-terror supporting propaganda by the MSM this past summer, it's refreshing to read an editorial that doesn't regurgitate the latest 2000 year old variation of "blame the Jews".
Lebanon has been a tragic story for decades, but until recently, only Israel, its southern neighbor, and policy makers in the United States have shown concern about the stability of the Lebanese government. When Lebanese Christians were persecuted by Muslims, changing the system of government in Lebanon, the world was quiet. Israel raised concerns, but the response was silence.
When the Palestine Liberation Organization, not welcome in Lebanon, established a terrorist state within a state, again it was the Israelis who sounded the alarm. Now the United Nations and European nations are indignant about the loss of life in Lebanon because Israel can be blamed and the focus of Lebanon's problems is placed at Israel's feet.
[ . . ]
Where has the international community been these past 30 years? Where were shouts of disapproval during the Lebanese civil war -- a war that began with fighting between the Palestinians and Phalangists? Where were the Arab nations and Arab outrage when Syria "occupied" Lebanon?
Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University once said the Arab world has the "condition of a culture yet to take full responsibility for its self-inflicted wounds." To maintain and govern, a society needs to take responsibility for its actions and care for the safety and welfare of its citizens.
I was severely tempted to reprint the whole thing, but I didn't. You should immediately go and
read the whole thing.
Labels: Lebanon, P.L.O.
Take That Mel Gibson!
Go
here for a fine - uh - "tribute" to Mel Gibson and his "Jewish problem."
Labels: Mel Gibson
The Spoiled Child of Religions?
There seems to be no pleasing Islam. The more we give, the more Islam wants. If we dare say the wrong thing, Islam flies immediately into a vicious temper tantrum. You can claim "the Religion of Peace" all you want, but like the saying goes: People may doubt what you say, but they will always believe what you do.
Last year it was madness of the
Mohammed cartoons that had Islam in an uproar. The folks that should have disciplined the out-of-control Islam, the MSM and western "leaders" immediately went into full pander mode and condemned free speech while giving a pass to murderous Islamic riots. People have been
harrassed and have lost their jobs for pointing out that Islam is violent. The MSM doesn't care. We are supposed to engage in dialogue. We are supposed to reach out with our hand while being answered with bullets and bombs.
Now Islam is upset over a speech by the Pope. And what's the first thing Islam does? Threatens, murders a nun, burns churches, because they contend that the Pope called Islam violent. And again, the MSM and Western leaders, with the notable exception of
Australia's John Howard blame the Pope for inflaming Islam. There is mild reference to murder and mayhem by Islam, but the dhimmi-like bowing and scraping by the MSM continues. As this report in the
Detroit Free Press shows, Islamic violence is never the fault of Islam.
Reese said the incident makes clear "the Vatican now lacks some of the smart political instincts that John Paul II always had. Last week, there wasn't anybody going over the pope's talk -- before he gave it -- who could go running into his office and say, 'Your Holiness, you just can't say these words!' "
Excuse me, Mr. Reese, but shouldn't someone speak out against the violence rather than the words? Does Islam never have to take responsibility for its actions? Jews do. Christians do. Jews didn't riot over
Mel Gibson's recent infamous remarks. There were some mighty strong op-eds and letters, but security did not have to be increased anywhere in Hollywood in expectation of violence.
Does the rest of the world have to watch its language, tip toe around those delicate Islamic sensibilities, never point out the truth that Islam is and has been intolerant and violent toward non-Muslims, that it thinks itself superior even though if not for the fact that it sits squarely upon much of the world's oil supply, we would gladly squash it like a bug for all of the pain it's unleashed on the world over the past 1300 years?
If you believe the MSM and spineless Western leaders, yes we do. It's a good thing many of us reject them.
Labels: islam, Pope Benedict XIV
A Love Supreme
I, like so many others who recognize the danger of the jihad of Islamic totalitarianism, mourn the recent death of Oriana Fallaci. Unlike many of our leaders and intellectuals in the West, she was fearless in the face of Islamists and their dhimmi allies. She actually went beyond fearless and threw their own hatred back in their keffiyah-clad faces. She knew that appeasement is a dead end that only leads down the path of dhimmitude, and that was a path she rejected. In her books,
The Rage and the Pride and
The Force of Reason she took a bare-knuckle approach toward our jihadist enemies and the useful idiots in the West who either support them or excuse their evil, enslaving, genocidal tactics. She spared nobody who is guilty of trying to bring down Western civilization in favor of seventh century fanaticism and excused no one for not recognizing the fact that we are in the midst of a war that we never asked for but that we'd better win for the sake of our children and their descendents. And for that I love her.
The day before she died, September 14th, was the anniversary of the recording of
John Coltrane's
A Love Supreme. When I listen to it, part of me will always associate it with Oriana Fallaci.
Victor Davis Hanson writes a brillint obituary for Ms. Fallaci
here.
Labels: books, John Coltrane, Oriana Fallaci
CAIR Doesn't Like Christians Who Support Jews - What a Surprise!
Here's
an article from the Detroit Free Press about Reverend Glenn Plummer.
One day in late July, as Hizballah rockets exploded nearby, a Redford Township pastor was in a van hurtling north to an Israeli town under siege where some Ethiopian Jews were stranded in their homes.
It was an act of solidarity between African Americans and Israel, the Rev. Glenn Plummer said. And the relationship between blacks and Jews is one the Christian minister hopes to expand with a group he cofounded this year called FIBA -- Fellowship of Israel and Black America. The Plymouth-based organization will hold a conference starting today, with a series of events in Detroit and West Bloomfield, that is expected to draw more than 2,000 African Americans and Jews from across the country.
The conference is an effort to build bridges between the two groups, which have a long history of working together on civil rights issues.
"When we needed a friend, the Jews were there," Plummer said Tuesday. "And Israel needs a friend today; the Jewish people need a friend."
At a July rally for Israel in a Southfield synagogue, the loudest cheers were not for any of the Jewish speakers, but for Plummer, who exhorted the audience to stand by Israel for moral and religious reasons.
I was at the Southfield rally mentioned in the article. Besides welcoming what Rev. Plummer said, we cheered for the way he said it. He's a very dynamic speaker. Besides talking the talk, the man obviously walks the walk.
There is one group, however, who speaks against Rev. Plummer. And you know who that is.
Some Muslims in Michigan are concerned about the conference, saying that it will be divisive.
Dawud Walid, who is African American and the executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, accuses Plummer of being anti-Muslim.
So according to the terror supporters at CAIR, if you associate with Jews, you are anti-Islamic. Once again, CAIR shows their true divisive colors. Much like Muslims around the world who are rioting because the Pope accused them of being
violent. (More links for that one than you can shake a burning effigy at).
By the way, for those of you who still aren't sure about their true colors, CAIR has once again demonstrated their Jew-hatred.
Labels: CAIR, islam, Jews
Jimmy Loves Bob, but Does Bob Love Jimmy?
Julie Gorin wrote a fascinating piece today on the Jimmy Carter's unrequited love (well, maybe only admiration) for Bob Dylan. But, as Ms. Gorin writes:
I know of Carter’s repeated efforts to get Dylan to perform or at least show up at Carter events and campaign stops and major political bashes. Every time, Dylan was either too busy or traveling, or made sure that he was. Diss!
Some interviewer should ask Carter whether he’s aware that Bob Dylan is a Jew. Even worse, he’s a Jew who doesn’t hate Israel. In fact, he’s the Jew who wrote the song “Neighborhood Bully” in 1983:
Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man,
His enemies say he’s on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive.
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin,
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He’s always on trial for just being born.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
‘Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
…
Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Julie Gorin left out one verse. You can find it
here Just scroll down. It's the eighth verse.
As a youngun' growing up in the 60s and 70s I wasn't much of a Dylan fan. He wasn't loud enough. He didn't scream. I hadn't yet learned to appreciate musical niceties like melody, harmony, and intelligent lyrics. I've got a bunch of his stuff on vinyl and CD. Jimmy Carter, friend to terrorists, Jew-hater, I've got no sympathy for. I'd like to invite him over to my house and play one Dylan song for him though.
Labels: Bob Dylan, Jimmy Carter
Muslims Under Suspicion
The headline to the
Detroit Free Press article reads, "Stares, whispers take toll on metro Muslims". My first thought was, guns and SUVs take a bigger toll on American infidels. Saturday it was the Detroit News opening up their pages to the Muslims of Dearborn who held daily rallys this summer in support of Hezbollah. Today, on the fifth anniversary of the most deadly attack on Americans and on American soil form Muslims, we are supposed to worry about the feelings of Muslims.
"You have two options -- hide or come forward," Hassanain Rajabali declared at the Islamic Center of America on a recent Friday night. "Step up to the plate. ... Islam is under attack."
WRONG! The world is under attack from Islam! And it has been for the past 1300 years.
"How can you justify our existence in this country?" a Lebanese-American woman from Dearborn asked. She is concerned her tax dollars were funding Israeli weapons.
She is probably much less concerned that her charity dollars may be funding Hezbollah and Hamas, or as they refer to them in Dearborn, "the resistance". That would be the resistance to peace, the resistance to tolerance, the resistance to peaceful coexistance with non-Muslims, especially Jews. Resistance to progress, resistance to freedom, resistance to humanity, resistance to anything that is not blind obedience to a twisted theology that worships death.
In last week's edition of the Muslim Observer, a newspaper published in Farmington Hills, a front-page story claims that United Airlines Flight 93 -- the plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field after it was hijacked on Sept. 11 by Al Qaeda terrorists -- was actually shot down by U.S. F-16 fighter jets. And there have been complaints about the tone of some Muslim protesters in Dearborn at demonstrations this summer.
There, some of that famed "balance" that the MSM reveres.
Does the MSM really think we're that stupid? They're making me crabby!
Labels: islam, terrorism
No Thanks, I Have Enough Guilt
There are two kinds of religious guilt, Catholic and Jewish. Catholic guilt asks you to repent for things you've done against God. Jewish guilt is much worse. You must repent for things you've done against your mother. That is a task that can never be completed. Both forms of guilt have become universal. Just as you don't need to be Catholic to accept Catholic guilt, you don't have to be Jewish to accept Jewish guilt. In fact, Jewish guilt, even though there are many fewer Jews than Catholics, is the more prevalent of the two. After all, there are athiests who don't believe in God and have no guilt regarding sins against Him. But everyone has a mother.
Since 9/11, however, we've been commanded by certain groups to saddle ourselves with another kind of religious guilt. We are now required to indulge ourselves in Muslim guilt. This is a new kind of guilt, one that is tied to that mythical afliction; Islamophobia. We in the West must wallow in guilt for suspecting our Muslim neighbors of having terrorist sympathies, of perhaps having "dual loyalties", or of only being loyal to jihad. We are also guilty of assuming that they hate us if we are not a Muslim, especially if we are Jewish. According to
The Detroit News,
Local Muslims and Arab-Americans hoped that, by now, discrimination and harassment would have ebbed. Instead, they say, things have only gotten worse. Each new event involving extremist Muslims -- like the recent terrorism charges in Great Britain and the Israeli war against Hezbollah -- increases misgivings about local Muslims. From hassles at the airport, to delayed citizenship, to verbal taunts, local Muslims, including South Asians and Arabs, say they feel increasingly segregated.
and
There is a deep sense of uncertainty that faces the community," said Saaed Khan of Rochester Hills, an adjunct professor of Near East Asian studies at Henry Ford Community College. "Many Muslim Americans feel a double sense of siege, one by the terrorists and the other is the way the society views them."
There are statistics.
Evidence of intolerance abounds. A Quinnipiac University poll Aug. 29 revealed that American voters say, by 60 percent to 30 percent, that authorities should single out people who look "Middle Eastern" for security measures. Only 6 percent of Americans have a positive first impression of Muslims, according to a poll conducted last year for the Council on American Islamic Relations Research Center, and about 20 percent admit to being intolerant of Muslims.
And there are anecdotes.
Anecdotes also are plentiful. Taxi drivers of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent in Metro Detroit describe the scorn and derision of passengers, who sometimes holler epithets at them and refuse to pay fares.
They claim that they are being unfairly maligned and are really on our side.
"I think the media after 9/11 was obviously concentrating on the threat of terror," said Tarek Baydoun, president of the student government at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. "But a lot of our leaders did get exposure and were able to reiterate that Muslims and Arabs in America and around the world don't support terrorism.
"I just don't know if that can counteract the whole bias against the community. When there is a threat, people are more willing to stigmatize."
Alas, it is all so sad. Or is it?
During this past summer, when Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, blasted rockets filled with ball bearings at civilians in Northern Israel and used the civilian population of Lebanon as human shields against the IDF, there were
daily pro-Hezbollah rallies in Dearborn Michigan and other areas with large concentrations of Muslims.
This report from NPR covered some of the action and some of the cheerleading for terror and outright Jew-hatred.
Daily protests occur in Dearborn. At one recent demonstration, organized by the Congress of Arab-Americans, about 1,000 people attended. College-age men asked, in call and response fashion, "Who is your army?" Protestors responded: "Hezbollah." "Who is your leader?" they were asked. "Nasrallah," the chanters responded. Many carried placards of the Hezbollah leader. A few days earlier at an even larger demonstration, more than 15,000 turned out, about half of Dearborn's Arab community.
Those who regularly attend the demonstrations tend to be the most strident.
"Oh, Jews, remember Khaibar," the marchers chant. "The army of the Prophet will return."
The line is a reference to Khaibar, a Jewish town north of Medina that, according to Islamic tradition, was overtaken by the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. Once defeated, the surviving Jews of Khaibar were forced into serfdom. Two decades later, they were expelled from the Arabian peninsula.
Then there is the Jew-hatred demonstrated by local imam,
Mohammed Ali Elahi. As Imam Elahi tells us
here:
“We need to have another interview, of talking about Hezbollah,” Elahi said, “whether that is a terrorist organization or not. I know that--legally--in the U.S. now, Hezbollah is on that list. And whether we agree with the law, or disagree, we have to follow the law of the land.”
U.S. intelligence officials say Hezbollah receives up to $100 million per year from the Iranian government. But Elahi praises Hezbollah's role in fighting Israeli forces in Lebanon.
Elahi said, “They were resisting against occupation. I think that is something that is supported even by our government.”
[ . . . ]
Regarding Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent call to wipe Israel off the map, Elahi wrote:
--"It is very clear that Mr. Ahmadinejad was not making an anti-Semitic statement."
--"The Iranian president's quip can best be understood in the context of the Declaration of Independence."
--and, "Israel must stop instigating violent conflicts in the Muslim world."
Another Elahi column described Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin as a "Palestinian spiritual leader, (who) had a heart full of love for humanity." Yet another compared the Iranian constitution to that of the United States.
[ . . . ]
And what about 9/11? According to a 2001 upi article, Elahi suggested that the Israeli Mossad was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center. Elahi says he was misquoted. But he still is not convinced that al-Qaeda carried out the attacks alone.
“Honestly, in my heart? I don't have an answer for that,” Elahi said. “Maybe, and maybe not. They may have done it just by themselves, or they may have had some help from some others.”
But Elahi said he is still not sure whether Israel was involved in the attacks.
And Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News agrees.
Siblani said Elahi merely reflects the views of his constituents in Dearborn. Views like this, on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “It's a genocide against the Palestinians--I am telling you this,” Siblani asserted. “I am not Imam Elahi, and I am telling you that what the Israelis are doing against the Palestinians is genocide.”
Was it even worse than the Holocaust? Yes, Siblani affirms, “It is worse than the Holocaust, of course.”
When asked if Hezbollah is a terrorist group, Siblani replies, “No, They are not terrorists. Absolutely not. No. They are freedom fighters.”
And what about Hamas? “Freedom fighters as well,” Siblani said.
So, are we to understand that suspecting Muslims of anything less than the utmost loyalty to the United States is wrong, but that it's absolutely fine for Muslim leaders and spokesmen to spread the vilest Nazi-inspired anti-semitic canards? We are supposed to ignore their "clever" word plays as they try to portray Israelis who are defending themselves as genocidal nazis, while they refer to any group that is willing to kill Jews and attack Israel as "freedom fighters".
Our new Muslim guilt also demands that we forget
this,
this,
this,
this, and especially
this. There are more of course, various jihadis have been arrested throughout the world, fortunately before they could carry out their attacks. And after every incident, whether halted or carried to fruition, we are reminded that Islam is a religion of peace. It's been hijacked by a few misguided extremists. We are encouraged to look to the "root causes" of terrorism. When all else fails,
blame the Jews.
Muslims have been complaining since 9/11 that they are unfairly targeted. Muslim groups have spent countless hours and millions of dollars in attempts to improve the image of Islam; not to improve Islam, not to halt the teachings of jihad, the joys of martyrdom, and rabid Jew-hatred, but to improve its image. A lot of us infidels are looking past the lies and the whining from the Muslim community. We are not going to apologize for suspecting Muslims of the worst. We do realize that not all Muslims are terrorists and that not all Muslims support terror. But we have also seen the worst Islam has to offer and very few voices in the Muslim world object. The ones who do object, become targets. We don't feel guilty in the least. To Muslims in Dearborn and around the world, you've got more than just an image problem.
Labels: guilt, Imam Elahi, Muslims, terrorism
New Domestic Source of Oil Discovered
According to
this article A trio of oil companies led by Chevron Corp. has tapped a petroleum pool deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico that could boost the nation's reserves by more than 50 percent.
A test well indicates it could be the biggest new domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay a generation ago.
But before we get too excited, we are cautioned:
But the vast oil deposit roughly four miles beneath the ocean floor won't significantly reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil and it won't help lower prices at the pump anytime soon, analysts said.
"It's a nice positive, but the U.S. still has a big difference between its consumption and indigenous production," said Art Smith, chief executive of energy consultant John S. Herold. "We'll still be importing more than 50 percent of our oil needs."
Apparently we're not supposed to see this for what it is; a small step toward energy independence and a small step away from our continued financing of the global jihad.
"This could not have happened in a better place," Devon CEO Larry Nichols said in a conference call with analysts.
The successful test well does not mean a huge supply of cheap oil will hit the market anytime soon.
Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit estimated that the first production for the Chevron-led partnership might not come on line until after 2010, depending on how many more test wells the companies drill. That said, many companies, including BP PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp., stand to benefit from their own projects in the so-called lower tertiary, a rock formation that is 24 million to 65 million years old.
"They may be the first ones to hit the jackpot, but if the current thinking is correct, this is only a beginning," Gheit said.
So I won't jump for joy, but I will look forward to oil companies discovering more new sources of domestic oil even though it will be years until they hit the market.
Eventually there may be other energy sources that are cleaner and better than oil, but as long as our economy depends upon oil now, we'd better let the oil companies keep drilling right here in the United States.
Labels: Oil
Breathing Smoke
Like so many other Americans, I took my family on a short vacation over the long Labor Day Weekend. And like so many others, we spent the weekend braving the outdoors. Yes, we went camping.
Now, when I say "braving the outdoors" what I really mean is that we got our kids far enough away from a TV that they had to actually spend time doing something besides staring at a shiny object . . . unless you count the nightly campfire. We all sat around at night staring at the campfire, but we talked to each other.
We go camping every year with a group of families from our synagogue. Some families have campers. We have a tent. It's a huge tent though. It could easily sleep ten. The camping itself is a bit more work than staying in a hotel, but there are certain amenities that you don't find in an actual wilderness; electrical outlets at every campsite, bathrooms, showers, a consession stand, deliveries of firewood and ice; it's a very civilized form of camping.
We have fun. The kids play, but as they have gotten older over the past five years that we've been camping, their games have changed. The adult games have stayed the same, except for the game of supervising the children. It may be a bit more intense now. Some of our boys met some girls from outside the group. Gasp!
We are able, (when not watching what our kids are doing) to play horseshoes, Mah Jong, Euchre, football, and have scavenger hunts. One kid brought his bass guitar. My son brought his acoustic guitar. Some bring their bikes. It was too cold this year, but usually we go to the camp beach. One teenager, who is now in college used to plan the Havdallah service for Saturday night. One parent, who is a woodworker, brings a project for the kids to do. This year, each family designed a miniature golf hole, and the kids made putters. I spent a lot of time reading. It was cool.
Unlike some families, we cook our meals over an open fire. And let me tell you. There is no salmon better than salmon that had been marinated in shoyu for a few days and then cooked over an open wood fire. Even the pancakes taste better. Of course, we used a griddle so the batter wouldn't drain through the grill. The coffee was percolated, not dripped, so even I enjoyed it. My wife did complain the first day though, as the coffee took way too long because a local shyster sold us wood that wasn't quite seasoned. Due to the moisture in the wood, it didn't burn well. My wife threatened to buy a Coleman stove and a drip coffee maker for next year. My wife appreciates her morning coffee very much. Next year, even though the rules forbid it, we are bringing our own wood. (Don't tell).
The campground is a lot like a suburban neighborhood. The campgrounds are laid out around a series of roads, and they are all clearly marked. Each one has an electrical outlet and a sturdy metal and concrete fire pit. Everybody makes a campfire every day. Whether or not they are used for cooking, there's a fire at every campsite. Breathing smoke is something we did from Thursday until Monday. It's still better than breathing stale air conditioned air though. And we were able to see the stars at night. Even with an almost full moon, the star count was way beyond what is visible here in suburban Detroit. In past years, I've brought my telescope. This year, we took a walk down to the beach one night and out onto the pier. We chatted and stargazed until a huge mass of clouds moved it. The clouds could have been a remnant of Hurricane Ernesto, but fortunately they weren't rain clouds. We walked back to the community fire anyway. One year it did rain on the last night. It wasn't much fun.
My daughter and I took a walk around the nature trail. She took some great photos in the forest and around the marsh.
Now we are home. I'm back at work. We are doing laundry to wash all of the smoke and sweat out of our clothes and towels. The kids start school tomorrow. Reality always returns.
Labels: camping, family
War's legitimate object is more perfect peace. Flavius Vegitius Renatus
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CHALLAH AKBAR
