Category Archives: USA

‘We must address Muslim malevolence with swift certainty’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Radical Muslims illogically promote the idea that the war against terrorism is a war against Islam. Many mosques seethe as hotbeds of anti-American hatred, yet we hear little opposition from the faithful – even the ‘home-grown’. The same is true in European counties where Islamic communities spawn violence. Certainly, not all Muslims follow this mantra, but where is the outcry in opposition to the militant fanatics in their midst?

“Islam cannot be discussed by non-Muslims without insult being inferred. Their standards regarding freedom of speech differ greatly from Westerners. Islamic law stipulates Muslims can peacefully co-exist with Christians and Jews only if the non-Muslims acknowledge their second-class status; agreeing to such harsh restrictions in numerous areas of society, as the inability to hold authority over Muslims, being subject to imposition of extra taxes, and not insulting Muhammad. A perceived slur, even unintentional, results in the revocation of the non-Muslim’s conditional co-existence.

“We are in the midst of a clash of civilizations, in which one side desires supreme dominance. As Muslim populations swell throughout Europe and the United States, this crisis will exacerbate. As long as parents find pride in their children’s martyrdom as human missiles, with no sane voices calling for a halt to the madness, implications for the future are terrifying. It is inconceivable that Christians or Jews would behead those with whom they disagree, or celebrate their holiest of days with a call for the execution of the religious leader of another faith; though such actions are commonplace for practitioners of the ‘religion of peace’.

“If we care about our progeny, we must address this malevolence with swift certainty. Otherwise, how do we answer the generations we leave exposed to irrational fundamentalist zealots posing as credible religious agents?”

Carol Turoff, in the Conservative Voice, 28 September 2006

Bush and Islam: words versus deeds

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The wide gap between U.S. President George W. Bush’s words and deeds vis-à-vis Islam and Muslims doomed to failure his speech at the United Nations on September 19, which could neither appease Muslims nor pacify the ever growing Islamophobia.

“President Bush has denied that the West is engaged in a war against Islam as a ‘false propaganda’, but confirmed his country’s determination to carry on with its ‘war on terror’ and its ‘great ideological struggle’ at the start of the 21st century exclusively against Muslims and Muslim countries.

“Bush is also on record as saying that ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ and praising Islam’s ‘commitment to religious freedom’, statements that were criticized by the popular U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson.

“These rare expressions of respect to Islam would have been welcomed by Muslims were they not swept to utter oblivion in the collective memory of the American public by his incessantly flowing anti-Muslim terminology: Islamic radicalism, Islamic fascism, Islamic extremism and extremists, Islamic or Islamist terrorism and terrorists, radical Islamists or Islamist and Islamic radicals, etc.

“His September 19 speech was almost exclusively confined to the Middle East, an overwhelmingly Muslim region. The absence of even a reference to the North Korean pillar of his so-called ‘axis of evil’ was revealing enough that his WWIII ‘on terror’ has shrunk to focus exclusively on the Muslim Middle East.”

Nicola Nasser at Global Research, 28 September 2006

‘France will be an Islamic state in only one generation’ – former Tory warns of Muslim threat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Radical Islam poses to Western civilization a threat similar to that of the Nazis and the Soviets, Winston Churchill said Sept. 26 at Union University.

Churchill – author, journalist, former Member of Parliament and grandson of the former British prime minister – spoke before about 1,800 people at Union’s 10th annual Scholarship Banquet to raise funds for students scholarships.

“Together we have overcome far more powerful enemies than those that assail us today,” Churchill said. “I have every confidence that, in confronting this new challenge, America and Britain – together with our allies – can prevail and shall prevail, just as together we have triumphed in the past.”

The threat from radical Islam comes in two forms, Churchill said. The first is the global terrorist threat that everyone recognizes. The second is a demographic threat confronting Europe.

For example, Churchill pointed to the population trends in France, where 10 percent of the population is Islamic. But among those 20 years of age and younger, that percentage rises to 30 percent. Given the rates at which Muslims reproduce, that means France will be an Islamic state in only one generation.

“Europe is sleepwalking towards disaster,” Churchill said. “We would sooner commit national suicide than be accused of being politically incorrect.”

Baptist Press, 27 September 2006

Who’s to blame for terrorism? The Islamofascists, and the Left, apparently

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Who is really responsible for the suicide bombers that target us? Is it the fault of George Bush or Tony Blair? Are we all somehow to blame? David Aaronovitch, journalist and commentator, has had enough of this argument. He asks how we’ve got to the point where British Socialists support Islamofascist Terrorism. Aaronovitch explains where the left have gone wrong on Israel, Palestine, the War in Iraq and the War on Terror.”

“David Aaronovitch: No Excuses for Terror” – documentary in the Don’t Get Me Started slot this evening, 7.15pm, on Channel 5.

Or, as today’s Morning Star prefers to summarise the contents of the programme: “The notorious reactionary launches into an extended right-wing rant.”

Postscript:  Yes, I’ve just watched it, and the Morning Star is right on the button.

Update:  With the enthusiastic approval of Atlas Shrugs, Harry’s Place has posted the documentary on YouTube.

Islamists are fascists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Make no apologies for the use of ‘Islamic fascism’. It is the perfect nomenclature for the agenda of radical Islam, for a variety of historical and scholarly reasons. That such usage also causes extreme embarrassment to both the Islamists themselves and their leftist ‘anti-fascist’ appeasers in the West is just too bad.”

Victor Davis Hanson in National Review, 25 September 2006

‘A closed door’ – US government continues to deny Tariq Ramadan a visa

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tariq Ramadan 5Tariq Ramadan outlines the latest developments in his appeal against the US government’s 2004 decision to deny him a visa:

“On September 21, 2006, after two years of waiting, an explanation at last arrived. The letter I received from the American embassy, though it refuses my visa application, puts an end to the rumours and baseless allegations that have circulated since my original visa was revoked. After two years of investigation, the State Department cites no evidence of ‘suspicious relationships’, of meetings with terrorists, of encouraging or advocating terrorism, or of so-called ‘doublespeak’. Instead, the State Department cites my having donated about 600 Euros to two humanitarian organizations (in fact a French organisation and its Swiss chapter) serving the Palestinian people.

“I should note that this was not something that the State Department’s investigation revealed. To the contrary, as the State Department acknowledges, it was I myself who brought these donations to the State Department’s attention. The U.S. government apparently believes that the organizations to which I gave small amounts of money have in turn given money to Hamas. But the organizations to which I donated are not deemed suspect in Europe, where I live. I donated to these organizations for the same reason that countless Europeans – and Americans, for that matter – donate to Palestinian causes: not to provide funding for terrorism, but because I wanted to provide humanitarian aid to people who are desperately in need of it.

“After two years of intense investigation, this is the explanation offered for the denial of my visa. I am of course disappointed in the government’s decision. At the same, time, however, I am glad that the State Department has abandoned its allegation that I endorse terrorism. While the State Department has found a new reason to deny my visa application, I think it clear from the history of this case that the U.S. government’s real fear is of my ideas. I am excluded not because the government truly believes me to be a national security threat but because of my criticisms of American foreign policies in the Middle East; because of my opposition to the invasion of Iraq; and because of my criticism of some of the Bush administration’s policies with respect to civil liberties. I am saddened to be excluded from the United States. I am saddened, too, however, that the United States government has become afraid of ideas and that it reacts to its critics not by engaging them but by suppressing, stigmatizing, and excluding them.”

Tariq Ramadan’s website, 25 September 2006

Disgraceful though it is, the US government’s decision does at least demolish Daniel Pipes’ slanders against Professor Ramadan.

For a recent interview with Tariq Ramadan, see Islam Online, 12 September 2006

Stations say ‘jihad’ car ads go too far

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Some Columbus radio stations have rejected as insensitive an advertisement for a car dealership that invokes Islamic references. The general manager of the dealership, though, says the promotions – which he called “tongue-in-cheek” – will air on some stations beginning next week.

In the spot, Keith Dennis of Dennis Mitsubishi talks about “launching a jihad on the automotive market.” Sales representatives “will be wearing burqas all weekend long,” the ad says. One of the vehicles on sale “can comfortably seat up to 12 jihadists in the back.”

“Our prices are lower than the evildoers’ every day. Just ask the pope!” the ad says. “Friday is fatwa Friday, with free rubber swords for the kiddies.”

Jeff Wilson, general manager of Radio One stations WCKX (107.5 FM), WJYD (106.3 FM) and WXMG (98.9 FM), doesn’t intend to air the spot. “We won’t play that,” Wilson said. “With no disrespect to their creativity or their desire to build business, everything we’re about is promoting the values of diversity. To air things of that sort would go against our mission statement.”

Representatives of WSNY (94.7 FM), WBNS (97.1 FM), WWCD (101.1 FM), WJZA/WJZK (103.5/104.3 FM), and WODB (107.9 FM) also said they won’t air the ad.

But Aaron Masterson, general manager of Dennis Auto Point, which writes and produces its own commercials, promised that the commercial will air. “It starts next Friday morning,” Masterson said. “As far as I can see, the top 10 stations – minimum – in the market. We made it very clear we wanted market saturation to get the point across.”

Columbus Dispatch, 23 September 2006

Congressional report stitches up US Muslim community

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Marc LynchThe House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has released a new report, “Al-Qaeda: The Many Faces of an Islamist Extremist Threat”. Marc Lynch is less than impressed:

“Some of the sourcing is hilarious. You’d think that the House Intelligence Committee could do a better job of sourcing a translation of a major statement by Osama bin Laden than the website jihadunspun (footnote 5), wouldn’t you? But there’s one place where the report does go a bit farther: on the alleged threat of homegrown American Muslim extremism. I’d go so far as to say that the lazily produced padding about al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiya, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (!), and even Iraq, was just thrown together as a vehicle to deliver a set of rather extreme views about the threat posed by the American Muslim community…. The whole narrative thrust of the report hypes the threat of homegrown terrorism and the need for more intense scrutiny of the American Muslim community.”

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Sam Harris on liberals and the threat to western civilisation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sam Harris writes in the Los Angeles Times:

A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world – for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a “war on terror”. We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise….

The truth is that there is every reason to believe that a terrifying number of the world’s Muslims now view all political and moral questions in terms of their affiliation with Islam. This leads them to rally to the cause of other Muslims no matter how sociopathic their behavior. This benighted religious solidarity may be the greatest problem facing civilization and yet it is regularly misconstrued, ignored or obfuscated by liberals….

In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal….

The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists. To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.

Yes, you did read that correctly. “The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.”