Category Archives: USA

Bush’s Islamophobic fantasy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Most American must realize by now that President Bush will claim almost anything to justify the constantly escalating tragedy of his Iraq policy. So atop his long refusal to drop the implied linkage of Saddam Hussein to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush’s vision of an attempt to create a ‘radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia’ is not surprising…. The frightful terms with which Bush warns of rampant Islamism recall the ‘yellow peril’ that once obsessed U.S. opponents of immigration from Asia, and the tales of Mohammedan conquest that fueled the Crusades…. The Osama bin Ladens have not managed to take over a tiny Persian Gulf fiefdom much less an actual country in their regions of maximum strength…. The Islamic ’empire’ promises to be a storybook affair for many decades after Bush has left the White House.”

Editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, reproduced by Muslim News, 14 October 2005

Klinghoffer killed by ‘Islamic terrorists’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Debbie Schlussel marks the twentieth anniversary of the murder of Leon Klinghoffer on the hijacked cruise ship Achille Lauro by accusing “Islamic terrorists” of responsibility for his death. Schlussel concludes:

“Klinghoffer’s murderers weren’t Christians. And they weren’t from Samoa or Fiji, either. They were Arab Muslims. The same group we keep denying is after us, today. WAKE UP, AMERICA!”

Front Page Magazine, 11 October 2005

Which of course rather overlooks the fact that Klinghoffer was killed by members of the Abu Abbas faction of the Palestine Liberation Front, a secular nationalist organisation.

’60 percent of British Muslims support Al-Qaida’ claim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“I happened to hear President Bush’s speech last week in its entirety. It was a pretty mixed bag. Some of what he had to say obviously needed to be said – that there is no compromising or appeasing Islamic fascism is obvious. But he again either chose to ignore or was simply unwilling to bring up the fact that it’s not just Osama and al Qaeda we’re up against – it’s a substantial part of Islam. In Britain, after the 7/7 bombings, over 60 percent of British Muslims polled said they would not help the British government against al Qaeda or other Islamic terrorists.”

Robert Miller in the Jewish Weekly, 11 October 2005

And where exactly did Miller get that figure from? A YouGov poll conducted for the Daily Telegraph in the immediate aftermath of 7/7 asked British Muslims who they would tell if they suspected someone they knew might be planning a similar attack. 73% said they would inform the police, others said they would tell their family, friends or the local council, and only 3% said they wouldn’t tell anyone. I imagine this compares favourably with the percentage of non-Muslims prepared to inform on someone they suspected was planning a violent attack on Muslims.

Miller has an equally informed opinion on US foreign policy, where he suggests that the appropriate response to the current dispute with the government of Iran would be “a devastating raid on the Iranian oil fields”.

This only goes to prove that the US is the undisputed world leader when it comes to pop-eyed Islamophobia. By comparison, Melanie Phillips, Nick Cohen or GALHA appear almost level-headed.

Target Muslims says Daniel Pipes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pipes“The detailed texture of Mr. Bush’s speech transforms the official American understanding of who the enemy is, moving it from the superficial and inadequate notion of ‘terrorism’ to the far deeper concept of ‘Islamic radicalism’. This change has potentially enduring importance if finally … it convinces polite society to name the enemy. Doing so means, for example, that immigration authorities and law enforcement can take Islam into account when deciding whom to let into the country or whom to investigate for terrorism offenses. Focusing on Muslims as the exclusive source of Islamists permits them finally to do their job adequately.”

Daniel Pipes in the New York Sun, 11 October 2005

Marc Lynch reports on Pipes’ performance on al-Jazeera: “Bush’s speech, according to Pipes, indicates that the American government is worried about what is in the Arab media, and that the governments and institutions running those media should expect greater American pressure to behave responsibly. (He does have a point, you know: it’s hard to argue that al-Jazeera doesn’t give a platform to extremists when Pipes keeps getting invited back…)”

Abu Aardvark blog, 12 October 2005

US neocons embrace Nick Cohen

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nick Cohen holds forth about the supposed rise of anti-semitism on the left. As an example he offers the observation that “Ken Livingstone embraced a Muslim cleric who favoured the blowing up of Israeli women and children, along with wife-beating and the murder of homosexuals and apostates”. Even leaving aside the predictable lies about Dr al-Qaradawi’s views, it’s difficult to see how welcoming a leading Muslim figure to a conference, and defending him against attacks by the right-wing press, constitutes anti-semitism.

It’s also worth noting that not so long ago Jonathan Freedland interviewed Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks for the Guardian. The interview featured the following exchange: “But aren’t there some differences too wide to bridge? Could Sacks ‘hear the voice of God’ from the mouth of a Muslim extremist who approved of terrorist violence? Could he even bring himself to meet such a man? ‘Yes’.  Would he meet, say, Abu Hamza, the sheikh of Finsbury Park, a Taliban sympathiser who admits to sharing the views of Osama bin Laden? ‘Yes’.”

I don’t recall Cohen denouncing Dr Sacks for expressing such views, yet when the Mayor of London welcomes one of the leading opponents of Al-Qaida to City Hall, Cohen presents this as evidence of anti-semitism.

And where, I hear you ask, does Cohen’s article appear? Well, it was originally published in the New Statesman, but the folks at Front Page Magazine were so impressed by his arguments that they reproduced his piece on their site. See here

For a detailed reply to Cohen, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 9 October 2005

‘Danger signs’ of Islamic extremism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The United American Committee, which describes itself as “a federation of concerned Americans, promoting awareness of Islamic extremist threats in the US”, have asked Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch for a list of warning signs that a given Muslim spokesperson may be a terrorist supporter. He has supplied them with a 7-point summary which features such self-evident indications of Al-Qaida sympathies as “demanding that Americans accommodate Islamic customs and practices”, “denying that Sharia forbids equal rights for women” and “complaints of Muslims being unfairly targeted in the War On Terror”. The UAC have included Spencer’s list in a draft statement which they intend to distribute among US Muslims, and have appended the following helpful advice: “If you hear or see any of these danger signs in your Mosque or neighborhood, leave the area immediately. Do not speak with anyone and call the local authorities right away.”

See Jihad Watch, 10 October 2005

Egyptian reveals fresh Guantánamo horrors

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An Egyptian man freed from Guantanamo detention camp has revealed that US guards in the notorious facility “took pleasure” in torturing the inmates, who have been held for over four years without charge or trial. “The torture I suffered in the military camp left me crippled in a wheelchair,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Sami Al-Leithy as telling the Egyptian television Sunday, October 9, night. “They used to grab me by the arms and then hurl me on the floor, on my back. They took pleasure in torturing us,” he said.

Islam Online, 10 October 2005

Stephen Schwartz on the whingeing Wahhabis

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stephen SchwartzStephen Schwartz offers his assessment of a recent OSCE conference in Poland.

CBS News, 8 October 2005

In Schwartz’s world-view, of course, virtually all non-Sufi strands of Sunni Islam qualify as “Wahhabism”. Note also that the original version in the Weekly Standard carries the strap: “Extremists get together to worry about intolerance”! CBS evidently baulked at describing an OSCE meeting in such terms.

Schwartz writes: “The OSCE is, to put it bluntly, political correctness personified. Its agenda for combating intolerance and discrimination includes everyone from prostitutes to victims of schoolyard bullying.” After all, why should anyone waste their time worrying about the exploitation of sex workers or the victims of school bullies?

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Jihad Watch on the ‘clash of civilizations’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The phrase ‘clash of civilizations’, made famous by Samuel Huntington, is misleading. In Huntington’s formulation (he owed an unacknowledged good deal to Adda Bozeman, who taught at Sarah Lawrence in the days when Kurt Rausch taught painting to well-bred young women and Randall Jarrell was taking notes for ‘Pictures from an Institution’), there are the Sinic, the Orthodox, the Hindu, the Islamic, the Western, and so on. And these are all potentially clashing. But this is nonsense. There is only one clash that counts: that of Islam with all of non-Islam.”

Hugh Fitzgerald give his take on the “clash of civilisations” thesis.

And what solution does he propose? “… to put a complete stop to Muslim immigration, and to find creative ways to deport all Muslim non-citizens. These two measures would be accompanied by the creation of an environment where the practice of Islam is made not easy but difficult. Meanwhile, authorities would engage in wholesale efforts to explain, both to the population of Europe and to the Muslims in its midst, the real nature of Islam. They would explain why it is encourages despotism … economic paralysis … intellectual failure … and moral failure.”

Jihad Watch, 9 October 2005