Is a Nice Muslim a Good Muslim?

After a murderous jihad at Fort Hood or the Christmas day airplane bombing attempt, did you hear: "Of course, not all Muslims are bad?" That brings up the question of how do you even tell if a Muslim is bad? Or good?

First off, what is a Muslim? A Muslim is a person who follows the doctrine of Islam. When that same person, does something that does not follow the doctrine of Islam, they are not a Muslim. The common idea is that anyone who says that they are a Muslim has their every action and word dictated by Islam. Put another way, every Muslim is seen as perfect follower of Islam at all times and circumstances. However, the truth is that a "Muslim" is not always a Muslim. When they do not follow Islamic doctrine, they are no longer a Muslim, but are a kafir (non-Muslim).

Now, how do we know if a Muslim is good or bad? If they are following the Koran and the Sunna (the perfect example of Mohammed), they are a good Muslim. If they don't follow the doctrine, then they are not a Muslim. That means that from the stand point of Islam there is no such thing as a good or bad Muslim. You either are a Muslim or you are not. When anyone follows the Koran and the Sunna, they are Muslim. When anyone does not follow the doctrine of Islam then they are a kafir.

This means that a person called a Muslim has two modes of being-Muslim and kafir, or kafir-Muslim. The same person can be a Muslim in one moment and a kafir in the next.

What do kafirs mean by a good Muslim? Simple, the same way we judge all other people as good and bad-the Golden Rule. Do they follow the Golden Rule when they are with us? If so, then they are a good person.

Since the Koran and the Sunna do not have the Golden Rule, how are Muslims to treat us? Islamic doctrine lays out an alternative to the Golden Rule. Those who do not believe Mohammed are kafirs, and kafirs are treated differently from Muslims.

Islamic doctrine says a great deal about the kafir. Most of the Koran is about kafirs, 61%, only 39% is about Muslims. About 20% of the Hadith is about kafirs and 98% of the Sira is about kafirs. Mohammed was fixated on kafirs and annihilated every kafir by violence, exile or conversion. When Mohammed died, there was not a person alive in Arabia who would argue with him.

Mohammed's actions are pure Islam; therefore, annihilating kafirs and kafir culture is pure Islam. A Muslim has to be, in some way, in some form of action, eliminating kafirs and their world. The action against kafirs is jihad. There are four flavors of jihad and murder is only one. Deception, conversation, articles and TV appearances can be jihad of speech and writing. There is always the option of giving to an Islamic charity, since one of the Koranic uses of charity is jihad.

Every Muslim believes that all nonbelievers are kafirs. The Koran says that kafirs may be hated, plotted against, deceived, murdered, raped, enslaved, mocked and tortured. All of those actions are Islam and perfect doctrine. When a person is being a good Muslim, they are following Islam and that means that you are a kafir. Hate, deception, murder, mockery and torture are bad for kafirs, but good for Muslims.

Kafirs are pure other. Muslims treat other Muslims as brothers and sisters, but they can treat a kafir well or they can treat them as less than an animal. Islam has dualistic ethics, one set of rules for Muslims and another set of rules for kafirs. Dualism is bad. When a Muslim practices dualism, they are bad. There is no good in Islam for a kafir and therefore, there is no good in a Muslim for a kafir.

Does this mean that the Muslim at work is bad? Yes, when they are following the doctrine of Islam. Whenever they are not following Islam, that person can be as good as any other. It is not about people, but about doctrine. It is the doctrine of Islam to be bad to kafirs. When anyone is practicing Islam around a kafir they must be bad, since Mohammed was never good to kafirs.

Wait! What about the nice, pious Muslim at work? He is good, isn't he?

Is he nice because of the Golden Rule or is he practicing the Sunna of the charming Mohammed we find in the early Meccan days? Mohammed could be very polite with kafirs, however, if charm did not work, then other methods were used. Islam is a process of increasing force that can start out pleasantly.

We are left with an ethical confusion around any Muslim. They can seem pleasant, but nothing changes the fact that they see Mohammed as the perfect person to imitate. Nothing changes the fact that we are kafirs. Kafir is the worst word in the human language.

Whom are we to believe-the Muslim at work or Mohammed? Every Muslim wants to imitate Mohammed; every Muslim is a Mohammedan. The problem is that Mohammed annihilated every kafir he ever met. It was a process. The process started out nice and when nice did not work, it ended in annihilation of the kafir. In Islam, nice is the beginning of bad for the kafir.

So how do you tell if a nice Muslim is good or bad? From the kafir point-of-view, there is only the fact that a Muslim is following Mohammed's example. And that is bad, very bad.

Dangerous Accommodations

Scott Brown can't get to Washington soon enough. In his victory speech on Tuesday night, the newly elected Senator from Massachusetts underscored a central plank in his campaign platform: "Let me say this: with respect to the people who wish to harm us, I believe – and I know all of you believe – that our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation. They do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. And the message we need to send in dealing with terrorists: Our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, and not lawyers to defend them."

This commonsensical approach to dealing with our enemies clearly found resonance with the voters of one of the most liberal states in the nation. Polls suggest on related questions about closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay and bringing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to trial in New York City, Americans across this country are of a similar mind. Yet, with each passing day it is evident that the Obama administration is committed to a very different course, one that is likely to get more of us killed.

For instance, we discovered this week that neither the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency nor the Secretary of Homeland Security were consulted before the decision was taken to allow Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab to lawyer-up in Detroit. We are told that, for some reason, local FBI agents – who had gotten a wealth of valuable intelligence in the course of a few hours with the alleged Christmas Day pantybomber before they told him he had the right to remain silent – believed they needed to Mirandize the terrorist before he went into surgery.

With that, on advice of counsel, Abdulmutallab clammed up and – despite claims by the President's Homeland Security Advisor, John Brennan, that plea-bargaining will elicit more cooperation from this jihadist – it now seems unlikely that such help will be forthcoming and, if it is, that it will be "actionable."

Then, we learn that the State Department has decided to offer 14,000 of its "diversity visas" to Nigerians wishing to immigrate to this country. Never mind that Abdulmutallab exemplifies a portion of that nation's Muslim population that has embraced the supremacist, totalitarian ideology called "Shariah" by authoritative Islam, the same program that obliges its adherents to engage in jihad (or holy war). Randomly allocating visas to such folks assuredly increases the probability of inviting more of jihadists into our midst.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the State Department announced that Secretary Hillary Clinton had personally exercised her authority to waive a prohibition on the entry into the United States of two prominent Islamists, Tariq Ramadan (the Swiss Islamist who is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna, the son of a preeminent Brotherhood propagandist and a professor at Oxford) and Adam Habib, a professor at the University of Johannesburg. As spokesman Darby Holladay put it, "Both the president and the secretary of state have made it clear that the U.S. government is pursuing a new relationship with Muslim communities based on mutual interest and mutual respect."

The chief State Department press flak, P.J. Crowley, added: "As we look at it, we do not think that either one of them represents a threat to the United States. We want to encourage a global debate. We want to have the opportunity potentially to have Islamic scholars come to the United States and have dialogue with other faith communities in our country."

In the case of Ramadan, this action reverses a decision taken as long ago as 2004 by George W. Bush's Department of Homeland Security. At the time, one of America's leading experts on Islamism, Daniel Pipes, reported that a "DHS spokesman, Russ Knocke, explained that this had been done in accord with a law that denies entry to aliens who have used a ‘position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity.' The revocation, Mr. Knocke added, was based on ‘public safety or national security interests.'"

Interestingly, in his prepared statement, Clinton spokesman Holladay claimed that the two professors "were denied admittance after making statements counter to U.S. foreign policy." For Ramadan, at least, the grounds for exclusion were very different: Daniel Pipes points out that he did not get a visa because the Swiss Islamist had "funded two Hamas-related groups."

In an article in the New York Sun published on August 27, 2004, around the time of Ramadan's exclusion, Dr. Pipes went on to enumerate a number of Ramadan's other, publicly reported ties to terrorism:

• He has praised the brutal Islamist policies of the Sudanese politician Hassan Al-Turabi. Mr. Turabi in turn called Mr. Ramadan the "future of Islam."
• Mr. Ramadan was banned from entering France in 1996 on suspicion of having links with an Algerian Islamist who had recently initiated a terrorist campaign in Paris.
• Ahmed Brahim, an Algerian indicted for al Qaeda activities, had "routine contacts" with Mr. Ramadan, according to a Spanish judge (Baltasar Garzón) in 1999.
• Djamel Beghal, leader of a group accused of planning to attack the American embassy in Paris, stated in his 2001 trial that he had studied with Mr. Ramadan.
• Along with nearly all Islamists, Mr. Ramadan has denied that there is "any certain proof" that bin Laden was behind 9/11.
• He publicly refers to the Islamist atrocities of 9/11, Bali, and Madrid as "interventions," minimizing them to the point of near-endorsement.

While the President and Secretary of State gloss this decision with platitudes about "mutual interest and mutual respect" between Muslim and non-Muslim communities, Americans will get no genuine "respect" from Ramadan – nor will he encourage his co-religionists to give it to others considered "infidels."

In fact, Ramadan is, as Caroline Fourest documented in her marvelous book, Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan, a man gifted at saying one thing to non-Muslims and something altogether different to Muslim ones. If admitted into the United States, he will engage in his sophisticated "double discourse," sounding the quintessential moderate in settings where that will serve his cause, yet espousing Shariah and the Islamic supremacism it demands when speaking to the faithful.

In each of these instances, and too many others to mention in the space available here, the Obama administration is acting in ways that intensify the risk to Americans at the hands of those who adhere to Shariah. It can only be hoped that the more prudent and responsible attitude towards our enemies endorsed by the people of Massachusetts with their election of Scott Brown will translate into a vigorous rejection of Team Obama's priorities and conduct with regard to those who practice Islam pursuant to Shariah and who seek to impose it on the rest of us.

Should Tax Dollars Prosecute Terrorists or Pay for Their Defense Lawyers?

Scott Brown's victory speech Tuesday night in Massachusetts included a sharp criticism of Obama's benevolent treatment of foreign terrorist suspects:

"And let me say this, with respect to those who wish to harm us, I believe that our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation - they do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them."

Many political pundits are attributing Brown's stunning upset yesterday in the Bay State to Obama's unpopular health care agenda, but Brown's ascent in the polls also coincided with the Christmas Day bombing attempt and its aftershocks, of Northwest Flight 253 by a 23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and negative publicity stemming from missed warning signs by those in government who have been given a massive infusion of taxpayer resources to fight terrorism and prevent terror attacks since 9/11 (including an entire new federal agency dedicated to the defense of the homeland, the Department of Homeland Security and its subsidiary agency, the TSA (Transportation Security Administration).

To make matters worse, the Obama Administration decided to reward terrorist suspect Abdulmutallab with a civilian trial rather than turning him over to the military to be tried by military commission without consulting, according to Obama's Director of National Intelligence who testified before the Senate today, either the Homeland Security Secretary, the CIA Director or himself. It's been reported that the Nigerian underwear bomber was "singing like a canary" until provided a lawyer and magnanimously granted the special rights and privileges that uniquely accrue to American citizens per our Constitution and Bill of Rights. It is hard to conceive of what information will now not be gleaned from this suspect about the al Qaeda network and the Islamic cleric in Yemen that Abdulmutallab was in touch with (the same who claims helping to encourage Army Maj. Hasan in his lethal attack at Fort Hood on unarmed fellow soldiers) since the Obama Administration granted this illegal enemy combatant Fourth Amendment protections.

The Clinton Administration tried the same failed approach now being revisited by Obama – of treating international terrorism as a law enforcement problem, rather than as a military problem and refused to connect the dots. After the first World Trade Center bombing, other Islamic terrorist attacks followed – the attacks on two U.S. Embassies in Africa, the near sinking of the Aegis cruiser, the U.S.S. Cole, in the port of Yemen – meanwhile Osama bin Laden and his clan recruited jihadis and plotted the devastating attacks on U.S. soil on September 11, 2001.

Former Attorney General Mike Mukasey, speaking last week at a conference in New York criticized DoD Secretary Bob Gates on this point, invoking Gates' comment that we cannot kill our way out of this conflict. Mukasey's rebuttal was that we certainly can't convict ourselves out of it. Jamming U.S. courts with foreign/enemy terrorists and granting them the same rights of U.S. citizens – and treating terrorism like an ordinary domestic crime such as bank robbery or embezzlement – defies common sense and ignores the successful tradition and history of U.S. prosecutions during wartime.

As also pointed out at the New York conference by Andrew McCarthy (who prosecuted the first World Trade Center bombing), Franklin Delano Roosevelt designated the Nazi saboteurs who landed on Long Island and in Florida in 1942 as enemy combatants. These enemy agents met with swift justice, with a trial held just four weeks after their capture. Hearing that the German invaders were seeking habeas corpus to challenge their treatment as enemy combatants, FDR arranged to have word passed by his Attorney General to the Supreme Court Justices that he did not care what the Justices thought.

Within less than eight weeks of their capture, six of eight saboteurs were executed. FDR acted as a President who understood his role as Commander-in-Chief; he was not going to permit enemy operatives to take advantage of the liberal protections afforded American citizens by the protections of the U.S. Constitution. FDR did not want to take chances with a civil trial where secrecy could not be guaranteed and legal technicalities could result in allowing the prisoners to go free. Instead, he established a military tribunal, the first to be convened since Lincoln’s day, and the Supreme Court upheld his authority to do so. Further back in history, Gen. George Washington used military commissions to prosecute the Whiskey Rebellion, and military commissions were also used to prosecute John Wilkes Booth's accomplices.

Ambassador John Bolton has pointed out that the "law enforcement paradigm" simply does not work during war. Moreover, the "war paradigm" does not reject the rule of law as supporters of the "law enforcement paradigm" imply. The United States military has the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) which serves to prosecute perpetrators when violations occur - as happened at the Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib. The prison at Guantanamo Bay was set up, in conformance with the requirements of the Geneva Convention, to deal with extremely dangerous prisoners. GTMO detainees are permitted Geneva Convention protections despite having violated its fundamental requirements which are to wear a military uniform and to avoid killing innocent civilians. Terrorists deliberately target civilians and refuse to abide by the civilized code of conduct that other nations embraced when they signed the Geneva Convention. Rewarding ruthless terrorists with civilian trials (indeed, with better treatment than our own POWs would be entitled to) simply undermines respect for, and the objective of, the Geneva Convention which is to encourage conformance by adversaries to rules during wartime.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and who took credit for slitting the throat of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, supposedly boasted upon his capture by American forces, "I'll see you in New York with my lawyer." With the prosecution of the 20th hijacker taking four years to work its way through the domestic courts, and no indictment yet of the 9/11 hijackers, it is evident that civilian trials are simply a means to drag out prosecutions and afford a public stage and spotlight to our enemies for propaganda purposes, letting them exploit America's attributes to their own benefit, and to thwart the U.S. war effort. As Scott Brown declared, we need to finance weapons to stop them, not pay for their legal defense.

Worse than 'Sleeping with the Enemy?'

The Swiss Islamist Tariq Ramadan was about to take up a position at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana in 2004 when the U.S. government prevented him from entering the country on the grounds that he had funded two Hamas-related groups. For five years, his exclusion has been debated and tried. Finally, it was reversed today. The Associated Press explains:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has signed orders enabling the re-entry of professors Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University in England and Adam Habib of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa once they obtain required admittance documents, department spokesman Darby Holladay said.

Clinton "has chosen to exercise her exemption authority for the benefit of Tariq Ramadan and Adam Habib," Holladay said. "We'll let that action speak for itself." In a prepared statement, Holladay noted the change in U.S. posture since both professors, who are frequently invited to the United States to lecture, were denied admittance after making statements counter to U.S. foreign policy. Both the president and the secretary of state have made it clear that the U.S. government is pursuing a new relationship with Muslim communities based on mutual interest and mutual respect."

Comments: (1) I always expected this outcome, that Ramadan would be allowed in, because so many forces were aligned in his favor. That the exclusion lasted over five years was impressive.

(2) Note that this change was ordered from the very top, specifically invoking Obama.

(3) Note also the sleaziness of the State Department spokesman, ascribing Ramadan's exclusion to his "making statements counter to U.S. foreign policy." No, the reason was explicitly his having provided funds to a terrorist-related organization. Why the gratuitous lie, State Department?

(4) The Obama administration puts this case into the context of "pursuing a new relationship with Muslim communities based on mutual interest and mutual respect." But it's always been a terrorism case, with no connection to issues of Islam. What amateurs.

(5) Note the term "mutual respect," the hackneyed phrase repeatedly applied to the U.S. government and Muslims – so much so that I have devoted a whole blog to Obama's use of these words.

(6) So, fellow Americans, how many of you feel safer with the prospect of Tariq Ramadan present in person to talk to our Islamists?

Geert Wilders's Speech at His Trial

Mister Speaker, judges of the court,

I would like to make use of my right to speak for a few minutes.

Freedom is the most precious of all our attainments and the most vulnerable. People have devoted their lives to it and given their lives for it. Our freedom in this country is the outcome of centuries. It is the consequence of a history that knows no equal and has brought us to where we are now.

I believe with all my heart and soul that the freedom in the Netherlands is threatened. That what our heritage is, what generations could only dream about, that this freedom is no longer a given, no longer self-evident.

I devote my life to the defence of our freedom. I know what the risks are and I pay a price for it every day. I do not complain about it; it is my own decision. I see that as my duty and it is why I am standing here.

I know that the words I use are sometimes harsh, but they are never rash. It is not my intention to spare the ideology of conquest and destruction, but I am not any more out to offend people. I have nothing against Muslims. I have a problem with Islam and the Islamization of our country because Islam is at odds with freedom.

Future generations will wonder to themselves how we in 2010, in this place, in this room, earned our most precious attainment. Whether there is freedom in this debate for both parties and thus also for the critics of Islam, or that only one side of the discussion may be heard in the Netherlands? Whether freedom of speech in the Netherlands applies to everyone or only to a few? The answer to this is at once the answer to the question whether freedom still has a home in this country.

Freedom was never the property of a small group, but was always the heritage of us all. We are all blessed by it.

Lady Justice wears a blindfold, but she has splendid hearing. I hope that she hears the following sentences, loud and clear:

It is not only a right, but also the duty of free people to speak against every ideology that threatens freedom. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States was right: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I hope that the freedom of speech shall triumph in this trial.

In conclusion, Mister Speaker, judges of the court.

This trial is obviously about the freedom of speech. But this trial is also about the process of establishing the truth. Are the statements that I have made and the comparisons that I have taken, as cited in the summons, true? If something is true then can it still be punishable? This is why I urge you to not only submit to my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of freedom of speech. But I ask you explicitly to honour my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of Islam. I refer not only to Mister Jansen and Mister Admiraal, but also to the witness/experts from Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Without these witnesses, I cannot defend myself properly and, in my opinion, this would not be an fair trial.

Dutch MP Geert Wilders on trial for anti-Muslim stance

The Dutch MP Geert Wilders was greeted with applause from the public gallery as he faced court for the first day of his landmark trial on charges of inciting racial hatred against Muslims.

Mr Wilders, 46, sat impassively as his lawyer argued that the leader of the Freedom Party, which made big gains at last summer's European elections, had made his critical remarks about Islam in his role as an elected Member of Parliament.

Bram Moszkowicz said that Mr Wilders had a mandate to speak out against what he saw as the Islamisation of the Netherlands and argued that he had not discriminated against a specific national group, saving his attacks for the ideology of political Islam.

Around 200 supporters of Mr Wilders had travelled from as far as Cologne in Germany to hold up placards declaring that free speech was under assault by Islam and by the politically correct. The case is being watched as a test of the limits of political tolerance in the Netherlands after years of relaxed immigration policies which have seen the Musim population rise to around 1 million out of 16 million.

"This case is about more than Mr Wilders," Mr Moszkowicz told Amsterdam District Court this morning. "It touches us all. It is such an important and principled question that could have far-reaching consequences."

Mr Wilders faces a 70-page charge sheet covering five counts of breaking Dutch law on incitement and discriminiation against Muslims in more than 100 public statements, for example by likenening the Koran to Adolf Hitler'sMein Kampf and calling for an end to the "Islamic invasion."

The alleged offences include Mr Wilders' film Fitna, which shows images of 9/11 and beheadings interspersed with verses from theKoran. It ends with a the controverisal Danish cartoon of the prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb as a turban.

At one point there was laughter in the public gallery when Mr Moszkowicz tried to insist on his client's right to have the entire charge sheet read out in court. The chief prosecutor refused saying that his voice would not hold out that long and the panel of four judges settled for a summary which still lasted almost 20 minutes.

"Mr Wilders has always made his statements in his capacity as a public representative," Mr Moszkowicz said, arguing that the Amsterdam court was the wrong arena and that the Supreme Court in The Hague was the place to hear allegations of misconduct by an MP.

But Birgit van Roessel, for the prosecution, countered that "expressing his opinion in the media or through other channels is not part of an MP's duties." She said that MPs only had immunity for what they said inside parliament. He faces a fine or the possbility of jail if convicted.

The public prosecution service initially decided not to bring charges but were ordered to press ahead by the appeals court. Otto van der Bijl, a spokesman for the prosecution service, today said: "It is possible that we may ask for an acquittal at the end of the trial."

Ulrich Rosendahl, 46, an engineer who took the day off work to travel from Cologne to support Mr Wilders, held up a banner outside the court which read: "Wilders does as [Charlie] Chaplin did. He attacks fascism — Islamo."

Mr Rosendahl said: "I support what he says and I know he has lived under police protection for many years and I think that he pays a high price to fight for freedom of speech."

Anne Wirix, 71, from Schagen in the north of Holland, travelled for two hours to come and support Mr Wilders. "This weekend I am 72 and never in my life have I demonstrated for something until now. I think it is necessary because of the lack of freedom to say what you want. Mr Wilders says the words that a lot of us think."

Ignoring the Reality of Jihad at Our Peril

Most sentient Americans had one question in the wake of the massacre at Fort Hood last November: How on earth could the Army have allowed to remain in its ranks a soldier known to espouse the supremacist, seditious ideology that justifies murderous jihad?

Now, thanks to a report submitted last Friday by an official inquiry, we have the answer. Incredibly, though, that answer is not to be found within the 86-page document issued by the "Department of Defense Independent Review Related to Fort Hood." Rather, it is evident from what the report does not say.

Like its name, the independent review co-chaired by former Clinton Army Secretary Togo West and former Chief of Naval Operations Vern Clark elides the central fact: The murder of 12 servicemen and women and one civilian at Fort Hood, Texas on November 5, 2009 was indeed an act of jihad, or Islamic "holy war."

Incredibly, there is exactly one reference to the word "Islam" or its derivatives in the entire report. It is only to be found in a footnote, which cites a publication whose title is "Countering Violent Islamic Extremism."

No mention is made at all of "jihad" or "Shariah," the ideology that, according to authoritative Islam, requires its adherents to engage in holy war. Neither, for that matter, are the following terms ever used: "Muslim," "Muslim Brotherhood," "Salafi," "al Qaeda" or "enemy." Even the administration’s favored euphemism, "violent extremism" is not employed, ever.

Instead of even alluding to the wellspring of Maj. Hasan's antipathy towards this country and his comrades, the review goes to absurd lengths to leave the obvious unsaid. It tells us that "signs" of the "alleged perpetrator's" mindset, without telling us what the signs were. It suggests a problem with "officership standards," again without making clear how those standards should be changed.

The review concludes with a recommendation for close monitoring of what it calls "indicators of potential violence," as though that potential is something that can be reliably ascertained, let alone precluded, without acknowledging the underlying cause. Instead, we are told that what is needed is a "Secretary of Defense Initiative on Indicators of Violence" or even more absurdly, a "Defense Committee on Recognition of the Indications of Violence."

These august institutions would, if Messrs. West and Clark have their way, be tasked to: "gather, analyze and interpret data useful in identifying indicators of potential for violent action and create a comprehensive and usable catalogue of those indicators with constant updates."

Worse yet, they envision having these bodies "composed of acknowledged experts drawn from inside and outside the Department, such as academia, research institutes, business, former public service and the like." As things stand now, among those used for this purpose would almost certainly be operatives of various Muslim Brotherhood front organizations. Never mind that the U.S. government itself has demonstrated in court that the Brotherhood has as its mission "the destruction of Western civilization from within."

Such adherents to Shariah have contributed materially to our present fix with their "sensitivity training" of government personnel and their exclusive and manipulative facilitation of official "Muslim outreach" programs. The West-Clark review is a prime example of the sort of systematic dumbing-down the Brothers have achieved of the military's "situational awareness" - and that of the American government more generally – about the threat posed by them and their fellow stealth jihadists.

Tragically, at a moment when we urgently need clarity about that threat, not more dissembling, we have gotten pap, not answers. The West-Clark review has properly been scathingly criticized by, among others, retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters as evidence of a far-larger crisis. In his New York Post column on Saturday, Peters wrote: "This report's spinelessness is itself an indictment of our military's failed moral and ethical leadership."

The problem, however, is not simply one of failed leadership that feels compelled to defer to "political correctness." Properly understood, the West-Clark review and the institutional mindset it reflects really amount, instead, to collective acts of submission – the literal meaning of the word "Islam" and what its Shariah ideology requires of everyone, adherents and non-adherents alike.

If we are to prevent such an unacceptable outcome and defeat those seeking to impose it – or even just to reduce the danger of further, needless loss of American lives, we must say the unsayable: Adherents to the ideology of Shariah are our enemies, just as were the Nazis, the fascists and communists. Like these other ideologues, their unalterable objective is the destruction of our Constitution, democratic political system and freedom-loving country. Whether they seek these ends through overtly terrifying violence or through stealthy jihad, adherents to Shariah have no place in our military, in our government or, for that matter, in our mosques.

Those who act on these necessary precepts in the armed forces, in the intelligence and law enforcement communities, in other government agencies or among the public at large must know what will be said of them from here on out: Far from being branded as "racists," "bigots," "Islamophobes" or simply "politically incorrect," their countrymen will give them the names they will have earned – "patriots" and "heroes."

Islam is Not the Answer ...

Is confronting or reforming Islam the answer to the al-Qaeda challenge?

You probably heard of Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, but have you heard of Mohammad Badie and the Muslim Brotherhood?

If not, you should reconsider all your assumptions about Islam and al-Qaeda's terrorism and whether confronting or reforming Islam is the answer to the al-Qaeda challenge.

The Egyptian Mulsim Brotherhood that boasts an estimated half a million members and commands the support of about on third of the country's population (no accurate public figures), has over the weekend elected Badie, a 63 year old scientist, as its leader or "guide".

Imprisoned 4 times for a total over 13 years over the last four decades, the new leaders belongs to the conservative wing of the movement who began his journey in prison with its hawkish leadership in the 1960s. However, pragmatic and disciplined, the movement's reformists and conservatives have rallied around the new leader.

After his election, Badie spoke unequivocally about the Brotherhood's peaceful pursuit of social and political agenda, and how under no circumstance it would seek power through violence.

Most of the other branches of the World's Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood adhere to the same principles as their Egyptian counterparts, except in cases of direct foreign military assault or occupation.

Two Interpretations of Jihad

For all practical purpose, al-Qaeda's jihadi doctrine was established by disenfranchised members of the Muslim Brotherhood, such as Abdullah Azzam the former head of the Jordanian Brotherhood who rejected the Brotherhood's peaceful jihadi doctrine.

They abandoned the mother group after its leaders renounced revolutionary violence following painful confrontations against Arab regimes, and instead adopted religious, social and political preaching as a way to win hearts and minds in the Muslim world.

Many of these radical 'brothers' found their way to Afghanistan through the Brotherhood's networks and later through their own "services bureau" all of which was supported by the CIA's effort to reverse the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan at the height of the Cold War.

Once fully organized, al-Qaeda leaders like Ayman al-Zawahiri, formerly of the Egyptian Jihad, accused the Muslim Brotherhood of betraying the cause of Islam and abandoning their jihad in favour of forming political parties and supporting modern state institutions.

With the Soviet withdrawal at the end of the Cold War, al-Qaeda turned against secular or ''apostate'' Arab regimes and against any form of Western presence (crusaders and Jewish) in the Muslim world, from Andalusia in Spain to Kashgar in China, in order to establish an Islamic caliphate.

On the opposite side, the Muslim Brotherhood maintain that Arab regimes are not their nemesis, even if they suppress and oppress it all too frequently.

Instead, they seek constitutional reform and equality for all citizenship for all religions in rights and responsibilities.

However, totalitarian and authoritarian Arab regimes have consistently pursued policies of containment or crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood which they accuse of deception and the pursuit of Islamic rule.

The violent suppression of the Islamist movement has predictably produced radical elements that seek and adopt extreme means in dealing with Arab regimes and their backers. And since 9/11 Arab regimes have exploited the "War on terror" to further isolate their Islamists.

Resistance Islamists

The Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda have been vocal about Islamic resistance movements in the region because of the challenge and opportunity they present to political Islam.

The Muslim Brotherhood has supported various resistance movements against foreign occupation, including Palestinian Hamas (offshoot of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood), the Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Islamist Iraqi resistance groups. But it also supported their attempts to join the political processes in their countries.

Al-Qaeda on the other hand, has supported only the violent expressions of these groups, and whenever they turned to politics, al-Qaeda rejected all their political overtures as surrender to the enemies of Islam.

A Sunni group, al-Qaeda has expressed hostility towards the Iranian supported Shia-based Lebanese Hezbollah despite its victory against Israel in the 2006 war.

However, al-Qaeda inspired militants who declared themselves ''Fath Al Islam'' were defeated by the Lebanese army, leaving Hezbollah as the most potent armed group in the country.

Likewise, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then head of Al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq targeted the Islamic party, a branch of the Brotherhood, when it joined the post Saddam Hussein coalition government.

And in Gaza, Hamas crushed the self-declared al-Qaeda inspired fringe group (''Army of Islam'') leaving little room for al-Qaeda to establish base in Palestine.

Though restricted to Gaza and big clans, Palestine has put Hamas in direct confrontation with leaders of ''al-Qaeda Central'' whose leadership accused it of abandoning its faith and surrendering four fifth of Palestine to the Jews.

However, the centrality of the Palestinian cause and Hamas's victory in the elections and its steadfastness against the superior Israeli military have further weakened al-Qaeda appeal among radical Islamists.

Paradoxically, the stronger Islamist Hamas comes out of its confrontations with Israel, the less chance al-Qaeda has to play a role in the Palestinian cause it has long invoked to gain popularity in the Muslim world.

But for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas have given its Arab and notably Egyptian counterpart the honor of championing the "central cause" of Arabs and Muslims, while at the same time maintaining non-violent agenda in their countries.

All of these traditional, reformist, resistance groups of Islamists who balance between religion and politics and between soft power and hard power, in addition to the even larger Islamic groups who maintain a distance from politics, whether Sufists or Salafists, not to mention the absolute majority of secular and liberal Muslims, reject al-Qaeda's activist political interpretation of Islam and its violence against civilians.

So what makes al-Qaeda so dangerous?

Clearly, Islam is not the answer.

Islam and its Crimes Against the Self

A brief look at the means by which Islam requires “death by a million cuts” – as the saying goes -- tiny leaps of faith away from reason which result in the destruction of the mind, character, and will.

In my book “Essays” I discuss the topic of religion and its effect on personal will - namely, the degree to which religions with more strict requirements necessitate a higher level of intellectual self-mutilation. Islam, poster-child for this practice, through the obsessive degree of control it imposes on behavior, reveals itself as merely a mechanism of social reproduction. Like schools, families, languages, and of course, other religions, Islam has its own ways of ensuring its existence, creating unquestioning, unthinking, docile, servile sheep.

Let us first examine the concept of subjectivity – the “uniqueness” of our experience which shapes us as human beings. This subjectivity, this uniqueness, is not a biological certainty, but a result of power relations which shape us during our life time – parent/child, school/student, employer/employee, state/citizen. We must be mindful of the dichotomy between “training” and “education.” The two are not synonymous.

For this reason, the state of “being” has not remained constant throughout time. “Reality” for ancient man was far different than that of modern man. This process which I mention, that of subjectivity-creation, this so-called uniqueness, should by now be alarming to the more astute readers…It should be plainly, painfully apparent that most people are decidedly not unique. In fact, they are largely the same. It is a result of normalizing forces: the parent decides what is normal behavior for a child, the school for a student, and so on, until we come to Muslims, who are taught the Quran, an antiquated children’s book, is the unalterable source for all that you may desire.

For those outside the Arab world, the control is stronger. Most are taught how to read Arabic – but not to understand it – so that they may read the Quran in its original script. Most do not bother reading it in their native tongue, yet will still defend it fiercely. They do so because they are taught to do so.

For this reason it is impossible for a true individual, someone truly educated, someone with a real understanding of the world in which they live, someone with a knowledge of strategy, power, control, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, to ever consider themselves a Muslim. To be a leader, to be great in any task requires “ego development” – a sense of self – while Islam creates excessive “superego” development – a preoccupation with what is right and wrong, in great detail, right down to the hand you use to eat and the foot with which you step into your home.

Islam is man’s greatest attempt to legitimize suffering. Personal weakness is an honorable thing. Place yourself in the hands of god. Do not learn or better yourself – you will not succeed without god. And if all your meager attempts fail, you must not try harder, “black magic” or the “evil eye” are convenient scapegoats for incompetence.

Be servile. Kneel five times a day. Never forget that you live your life on your knees. Be sexually repressed. Be thankful your parents found you a nice beta male/obedient woman to marry, so that you may “play house” and delude yourself into believing you’re in love. I’d advise caution; he or she may be your cousin. This is “projection” – the psychological condition in which repressed feelings result in improper infatuation towards individuals with imagined ideals.

And so the cycle continues – away from reason, away from dignity. For example, consider the following passage:

“Have they not observed things that Allaah has created: (how) their shadows incline to the right and to the left, making prostration unto Allaah, and they are lowly?

And to Allaah prostrate all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth, of the moving (living) creatures and the angels, and they are not proud [i.e. they worship their Lord (Allaah) with humility]”

[al-Nahl 16:48-49]

I once heard a man claim that all animals were created in a constant state of prostration, on all fours, and that man alone, being able to walk on two feet, was given free will – the ability to decide whether or not to worship. This was one of the many miracles in Islam. Perhaps he never saw a penguin…or a kangaroo. My intention is to point out the absurd degree to which this grown man performed mental gymnastics in order to rationalize what his mind knew was irrational. I believe every former Muslim can recall countless similar examples.

All mature individuals will attest to the notion that not all things should be rationalized, that human beings are both rational and emotional, both Apollonian and Dionysian. In fact, many atheists are incorrectly portrayed by the religious as considering “reason” their religion. But it is Islam and religions like it which bastardize both of these faculties, attempting to rationalize the irrational, to poison the rational with bitter emotion and hatred, and to reify the absurd. Be a Muslims – be sheep, sacrifice for your flock, be servile, afraid, and ignorant – or embrace the power of personal freedom. As Satre said, the shepherd is the most devious of charlatans – leading his flock to green pastures, only so that they may be fat for the slaughter.

Calling Islam "Islam"

Although Islamic terrorists, the enemy of the West, call Islam "Islam", Western intellectuals would call it by other names...

---

Western intellectuals and commentators refer to the enemy's ideology as:

"Islamic Fundamentalism", "Islamic Extremism", "Totalitarian Islam", "Islamofascism", "Political Islam", "Militant Islam", "Bin Ladenism", "Islamonazism", "Radical Islam", "Islamism", etc....

The enemy calls it "Islam".

Fawstin's book, "Propiganda"

Imagine, if during past wars, we used terms such as "Radical Nazism", "Extremist Shinto" and "Militant Communism". Those who use terms other than "Islam" create the impression that it's some variant of Islam that's behind the enemy that we're facing. A term such as "Militant Islam" is redundant, but our politicians continue praising Islam as if it were their own religion. Bush told us, "Islam means peace" -- after 2,996 Americans were murdered in its name. He maintained that illusion throughout his two terms, and never allowed our soldiers to defeat the enemy. And now we have Obama, who tells us, from Egypt: “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." Washington's defense of Islam has trumped the defense of America and this dereliction of duty could well be called Islamgate.

Islam is a political religion; the idea of a separation of Mosque and state is unheard of in the Muslim world. Islam has a doctrine of warfare, Jihad, which is fought in order to establish Islamic ("Sharia") Law, which is, by nature, totalitarian. Sharia Law calls for, among other things: the dehumanization of women; the flogging/stoning/killing of adulterers; and the killing of homosexuals, apostates and critics of Islam. All of this is part of orthodox Islam, not some "extremist" form of it. If jihadists were actually "perverting a great religion", Muslims would have been able to discredit them on Islamic grounds and they would have done so by now. The reason they can't is because jihadists are acting according to the words of Allah, the Muslim God. From the Koran:

"Slay the idolators wherever you find them..." Chapter 9, verse 5

"When you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads until you have made a great slaughter among them...." Ch. 47:4

Beyond the doctrine, there is the historical figure of Mohammad, who, more than anyone, defines Islam. How would you judge a man who lies, cheats, steals, rapes and murders as a way of life? This evil man is Islam's ideal man, Mohammad. Whatever he said and did is deemed moral by virtue of the fact that he said it and did it. It's no accident that the only morality that could sanction his behavior was his own. Nor is it an accident that Muslims who model themselves after him are the most violent. For the 13 years that Mohammad failed to spread Islam by non-violent means, he was not so much peaceful as he was powerless. It was only through criminal activity that he gained power and a large gang of followers. But he wanted his moral pretense, too, so he changed Islam to reflect the fact that the only way it could survive was through force. And so, acting on Allah's conveniently timed "revelation" that Islam can and should be spread by the sword, Mohammad led an army of Muslims across Arabia in the first jihad. From then on, violence became Islam's way in the world. And today, acting on Mohammad's words, "War is deceit", Muslims use earlier "peaceful" verses from the Koran as a weapon against the ignorance and good will of their victims. Those "peaceful" passages in the Koran were abrogated by later passages calling for eternal war against those who do not submit to Islam. How Mohammad spread Islam influenced the content of its doctrine and therefore tells us exactly what Islam means.

Note also that the only reason we're talking about Islam is because we've been forced to by its jihad. And where are Islam's "conscientious objectors"? Nowhere to be found, for even lax Muslims have been silent against jihad. But that doesn't stop desperate Westerners from pointing to them as representives of "Moderate Islam". Far from being a personal faith, Islam is a collectivist ideology that rejects a live-and-let-live attitude towards non-Muslims. And while the jihadists may not represent all Muslims, they do represent Islam. In the end, most Muslims have proven themselves to be mere sheep to their jihadist wolves, irrelevant as allies in this war. Recovering Muslims call the enemy's ideology "Islam", and they dismiss the idea of "Moderate Islam" as they would the idea of "Moderate Evil". When, based on his actions, Mohammad would be described today as a "Muslim Extremist", then non-violent Muslims should condemn their prophet and their religion, not those who point it out.

Islam is the enemy's ideology and evading that fact only helps its agents get away with more murder than they would otherwise. Western politicians have sold us out, so it's up to the rest of us to defend our way of life by understanding Islam and telling the truth about it in whatever way we can. If we can't even call Islam by its name, how the hell are we going to defend ourselves against its true believers? One could argue that we'd be better off if the West would just choose one of the many terms currently used for the enemy's ideology. For my part, I call the enemy what they are, "Jihadists", and our response, "The War on Jihad." But behind it all, it's Islam that makes the enemy tick.

Despite my frustrations with the refusal of many to call Islam "Islam", I know that those who speak out against Jihad put themselves in danger, and I respect their courage. But it's important that we acknowledge Islam's place in the threat we face and say so without equivocation. Not saying "Islam" helps Islam and hurts us. So let's begin calling the enemy's ideology by its name. Let's start calling Islam "Islam."

Political Correctness, a Deadly Infection

Only recently have I become aware of the depths to which political correctness has permeated our culture. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know how bad. It’ll be the ruin of us if we don’t kill it and comb its nits out of our hair.

I began to get a clue at a private reception for Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders in Washington last February. After Wilders was escorted out by his bodyguards (radical Muslims ordered him killed for making a movie called Fitna), I found myself in extended conversation with a young Defense Department analyst who had been tasked by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to research and report on the ideology of our radical Muslim enemies. He immersed himself in Islamic law and came to the conclusion that it’s the radical Muslims who appear to have the doctrinal base in Islam, not the moderates.

He said that most of the highest officials at the Pentagon rejected his brief. Then they rejected the young man himself – and that was during the Bush Administration. The Pentagon, he said, “as an institution,” wanted to believe that the Radical Muslim interpretation of jihad, which is holy war against infidels worldwide – convert them or kill them, was an aberration.

I had hitherto believed that our National Security planners knew the threat, but were just being polite in their public statements. Not so, according to my young friend. Radical Muslims posing as moderates had more influence with Pentagon planners than he did, he told me. It was their advice the Pentagon was heeding. I’m withholding his name because that’s how he apparently wants it at this point. Last week he was interviewed by Bill Whittle of Pajamas TV (Go here, then click on "The Islamic Infiltration, Part 1") and appeared only in silhouette as he told his story.

Next, Whittle interviewed a former FBI special agent (also a silhouette) who spent most of his 15-year career working on the Islamic movement in the United States, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islamic doctrine. He said our Department of Homeland Security is being advised by people from the Council for American Islamic Relations or CAIR. The trouble is, he claims, “they’re a front for Hamas – a Radical Islamic organization. The Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Islamic Society of North America – ISNA – a huge financial entity for Hamas in the United States.”

A little background for readers: The Muslim Brotherhood, according to author Robert Spencer, spawned both Hamas and al Qaeda. Khalid Sheik Muhammed, who planned the September 11th attacks for al Qaeda and goes on trial in New York City soon, belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now back to the anonymous FBI agent in Whittle’s interview: “CAIR and ISNA (both closely affiliated with Hamas),” he said, “are the two groups that DOD, DHS, the State Department all use to do their Muslim outreach in North America. They sit in on brainstorming about investigative techniques that our agents are using in the field.”

“I have to stop you,” said Whittle, “because, frankly, that sounds so absurd that I have to really make sure I’m understanding you correctly. Are you saying that the radicalized Muslim groups are invited in to learn our investigative techniques, that they’re invited in to get their feedback on how we’re going to fight against them? Is that what I understood you to say?”

“Yes,” he answered. “The General Counsel of the FBI invites them in as well as the ACLU and other groups in [to make sure that whatever our government agencies did] was okay and not offensive to these organizations. . . . that’s nothing short of outrageous.”

“So you’re giving away the farm in order to make sure their feelings don’t get hurt,” said Whittle.

Evidently, political correctness could be fatal.

“There’s no training for local law enforcement officials about the real nature of the threat,” said the agent. “The training they get is given by agents of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“How did this happen?” asked Whittle. “How did [it] get this far?”

“The Muslim Brotherhood has a long-term strategy,” said the agent. “They’re well organized with hundreds of front groups that support their public relations, their research arms, they have insinuated themselves into our largest universities. They have Muslim Student Associations (MSA), which is [sic] the first Muslim Brotherhood organization that formed in the United States in 1963. MSA is on every major college campus in the United States recruiting people to the Brotherhood on our own campuses.”

No wonder we haven’t captured Osama bin Laden after eight years.

When we know how closely foxes are consulted on the design our National Security chicken coop, we can begin to understand why the White House said they wasn’t sure Fort Hood’s Major Hasan was a radical Muslim after he shot more than 40 of our soldiers while yelling “Allahu Akbar!” or why he said the Christmas Pantybomber was “an isolated extremist.” We can understand why this is not called a war with Radical Islam and instead is referred to as “Overseas Contingency Operations.”

Radical Muslims are fanatic, yes, but they understand us better than we understand ourselves. They know we’re so infected with political correctness that we’re more afraid of offending them than we are of losing a war to them.

Are Human Rights Universal?

The United Nations charter says human rights are universal, but Islamic countries not only violate the charter most grossly, but are also trying to undermine it by subjugating it to what is permitted by Sharia...

---

The Roman Catholic Archbishop Dom Helder Camara famously said, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

I work to protect and promote the rights of people. The government and groups with different names and notions challenge me. Most associate themselves with different races, religions, colors, and political and national identity. I also like to identify with my nation and notion, but I don’t want to forget that my first identity is I am a human and my responsibility is seeking rights for humanity. Unfortunately, human rights are denied in times and places where human led crisis cause maximum hatred for a minimum of reasons.

Human rights are the birthrights of all human beings, which are inherent and inalienable and not granted or bestowed by a sovereign power and are not capable of being given or taken away. But it is very sad that there is no place in the world where one can enjoy all rights. Rather, there are many places where people have bare minimum rights.

In the early ages when nature was out of control, man fought against animals and nature. Today, the same man is fighting against the system of suppression and brutality waged by the powerful towards the powerless.

Powerful people are the fuel source of powerful institutions like the state and sometimes they indulge in immoral acts, which are the sources of suppression and oppression.

Some states dictate rights like God edits our wants through our prayers. When we pray, God edits and corrects them and brings them in line with his will. He detects our rights and the boundaries, which according to him should not be crossed at any cost.

Through the charter of the United Nations, almost all sovereign states have recognized the existence of human rights and understand that such rights should be promoted and protected.

The universality of human rights is closely related to the promotion of public moral imperatives under the notions of equality or non-discrimination without distinction to race, sex, language or religion.

But sometimes, religion and political system become a burden before fulfilling any human rights standards. The Abraham religions clearly violate human rights standards by taking the position that men are created higher than women while others like Islam say that those who desire any religion other than Islam will never be accepted.

In some countries dominated by Abrahamic faith believers, the ignorance of believers is causing serious human rights violations in different ways and degrees.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of others, which is seen in India’s democratic system.

On Mar. 17, 1998, the then Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi at a commemorative ceremony of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Geneva appealed for a “revision of the Declaration.”

While Islamic criminal laws have a vast official and informal jurisdiction, the UDHR and other U.N. instruments are promoting human rights in countries like Iran.

For example, in 1986, Section 295-C was introduced in Pakistan’s penal code, making the death penalty mandatory for anyone convicted of blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad. Over 200 Ahmadi Muslims were charged with “blasphemy” between 1986 and 1993. The prominent human rights activist John Joseph, Bishop of Faisalabad killed himself to protest against the law. Christians are continuously facing suppression, detention and torture in Pakistan.

The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam defends its own Declaration but challenges the UDHR, “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Sharia and the Islamic Sharia is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration.”

While such divisions only help to dissolve human rights, there is still a good opportunity for the world to unite and promote human rights.

Jihadists and the "Wretched of the Earth"

One of the striking things in the three most recent high profile jihadist attacks -- the "Underpants Bomber," the Ft. Hood assassin and the attacker on the CIA base in Afghanistan -- has been the attackers themselves.

While many studying terrorism have understood that the threat is not from the dispossessed of the earth, but from an educated elite in the semi-Westernized (or completely Westernized) world who radicalize in different ways.

Yet there is still a policy, going back many years and continued now, that aims at a completely different social and economic demographic -- the poor and wretched of the earth who are believed to be angry at the U.S. and the West for its policies in the Middle East.

We spend vast amounts of money to convince one group that we have virtually no way to reach that they should like us, while having little strategy to deal with those who have repeatedly shown themselves to be the greater danger.

Yet we have Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a a doctor who was the son of middle-class, English-speaking Jordanians; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who grew up in a wealthy Nigerian family and studied at University College London; and Nidal Hasan, who was born in Arlington, graduated from Virginia Tech and did his psychiatric residency at Walter Reed.

One of the chief radicalizing influences in the case of the latter two was Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who did not rise out of the teeming ghettos or dirt-poor villages, but family that lived in the United States, a country he returned to in order to study at George Washington University.

Perhaps this will put an end to the myth of the poor and wretched jihadist waging a form of religious class struggle.

As Anne Applebaum wrote in the Washington Post, we are seeing a "international jihadi elite" that resembles international elites of the Bolshevik days who were no more working class than the Tsar. As she notes:

These people are not the wretched of the Earth. Nor do they have much in common, sociologically speaking, with the illiterate warlords of Waziristan. They haven't emerged from repressive Islamic societies such as Iran, or been forced to live under extreme forms of sharia law, as in Saudi Arabia. On the contrary, they are children of ambitious, "Westernized" parents who sacrificed for their education -- though they are often people who, for one reason or another, didn't "make it," or didn't feel comfortable, in their respective societies.

What makes this slice of Islamists so difficult to counter is that they move with ease in Western societies, acquire passports or citizenship in countries that do not arouse suspicion, and have no ethical difficulties in hiding their Islamist beliefs if necessary to advance the cause of

How to counter this is something we should spend much more time on than trying to figure out how to get the average Yemeni to embrace Western liberal democracy.

One of the fascinating things to note is the perceived affinity by many of the international jihadists with the radical left or radical right. Defne Bayrak, the wife of al Balawi, wrote a book titled "Bin Laden: Che Guevara of the East," apparently trying to link the two to liberation struggles of the poor. Iran's Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez (along with his acolyte, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega) regularly link the authoritarian governments of the Bolivarian revolution with the repressive Muslim revolution of Iran.

On the other side, one of the great deniers of the Holocaust was Ahmed Hubber, a neo-Nazi leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, and others like him.

It is interesting to note that Hubber, like Chávez and those who claim the mantle of the revolutionary left, was welcomed by Ahmadinejad. Perhaps that is because all three totalitarian tendencies, from the neo-Nazi to the 21st Century Socialism to Islamism, have more in common than any of them would care to recognize.

Jihadis Inside the Gate

As the new decade opens, the country is reeling: the year just past saw more attacks by Islamic jihadis directed against Americans than in any other year since 9/11. Several were discovered and stopped before they could claim any victims, including the Najibullah Zazi bombing plot, bomb plots in Illinois and Texas, and the case of the five American-born jihadi wannabes caught in Pakistan.

Two other attacks left Americans dead and injured outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark. and at Ft. Hood, Texas. That the Christmas Day terror attack by a Nigerian Muslim jihadi on board an intercontinental flight from Europe failed is due only to the incompetence of the al Qaeda bomb-maker who fashioned the device that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab carried on board NWA Flight 253 in his underwear.

Our national security agencies deserve credit for foiling any jihadi attacks. But the enemy is not just getting closer: he’s inside the gates. And the reason is because current U.S. national security policy is simply not adequate to the Islamic jihad challenge that’s coming at us.

How could that be, more than eight years after 9-11? It is so because counterterrorism policy is being formulated under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the lead international jihadist organization charged with “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers…” It’s important to note that the objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood coincide exactly with those of al Qaeda and every other Islamic jihadist organization in the world today: re-establishment of the caliphate/imamate and imposition of Shari’a (Islamic law) over the entire world.

Don Feder nailed it in a 4 January 2010 online posting to GrassTopsUSA, where he wrote that the ineffectual counterterrorism policies of President Obama and his administration “could have been designed by…Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR].” In many respects, they are.

Former North Carolina State Senator Larry Shaw, elected CAIR Board Chairman in March 2009 stated that he “looks forward to partnering with the Obama administration…” In case anyone failed to notice, CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terror funding case and an acknowledged affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, just how close is that partnership?

The policy implications of Brotherhood influence are both startling and evident. For example, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano sets the tone for the Obama administration view of Islamic jihad, but in April 2009, she rejected any notion that the enemy is either Islamic or a jihadi. Absurdly, she even refused to even use the word “terror," instead preferring the inane “man-made disaster.” She was joined in planting the collective U.S. national security leadership head firmly in the sand by senior counterterrorism advisor to the president, John Brennan, who, apparently oblivious of Islamic doctrine and law, claimed in August 2009 that the meaning of jihad is to ". . . purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal."

Following the foiled Christmas Day airliner bombing, Brennan made a frenzied round of the Sunday talk shows, shocking most of us with the off-hand announcement that a plea deal was “on the table” for Abdulmutallab (who lawyered up and shut up the moment he’d been Mirandized). Treating Islamic jihad as a legal problem or as though it doesn’t exist cripples U.S. national security policy making.

Where did such ideas come from? How could our most senior officials entrusted with the defense of national security be so far off the tracks? It matters critically, because policy executed in ignorance of the essential linkage between Islamic doctrine and terrorism is bound to miss warning signals that involve Muslim clerics, mosques, teaching, and texts. A key indicator about our counterterrorism officials’ failures may be found in their advisors: their jihadi and Muslim Brotherhood advisors.

The inability of the National Counterterrorism Center (“NCTC”) to connect the dots is no accident. It is not meant to connect the dots. In the summer of 2008, the NCTC organized a conference on U.S. Counter-Radicalization Strategy. According to a 4 January 2010 posting by Patrick Poole at Pajamas Media, one of the leading speakers at that conference was Yasir Qadhi, a featured instructor at the AlMaghrib Institute in Houston, Texas. But by his own public admission, Yasir Qadhi was on the U.S. terror watch list!

Yes, a key speaker for an NCTC discussion about Counter-Radicalization Strategy is on the terror watch list. He’s obviously there for good reasons. For one thing, Qadhi’s Ilmquest media company featured audio CD sets of sermons by al Qaeda cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, on its website and for sale at Ilmquest seminars. Yes, that al-Awlaki -- the one linked to both Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Muslim Ft. Hood shooter, and Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian Muslim would-be Christmas airline bomber.

To be sure, enemy influence within the Intelligence Community didn’t begin in 2009. In fact, the blueprint for the Muslim Brotherhood information warfare operation against the West goes back to a 1981 MB document called “The Project” that was discovered in a raid in Switzerland. More recently, the FBI discovered the MB’s 1991 U.S. Manifesto in a 2004 raid, a manifesto that not only confirmed the existence of the Brotherhood in the U.S., but outlined its organizational structure and agenda in this country.

The dozens of groups listed as associates in that document include a number who’ve succeeded in forging close relationships inside the structures of U.S. national security. One of them is the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA, another unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF trial). The FBI itself has maintained a longstanding liaison relationship with ISNA officials and placed ads in its monthly publication seeking Muslim applicants to become agents. A top FBI lawyer named Valerie Caproni joined senior ISNA official Louay Safi on a 2008 panel discussion at Yale University for a discussion entitled "Behind the Blindfold of Justice: Security, Individual Rights, & Minority Communities After 9/11.” Worse yet, in the wake of the horrific November 2009 military jihad assault at Ft. Hood that took fourteen lives and left dozens injured, it was revealed that Louay Safi was at Ft. Hood providing seminar presentations about Islam to U.S. troops about to deploy to Afghanistan. That’s an amazing record of successful penetration. And it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

As noted above, the influence of the enemy extends to the very words we use to describe that enemy and his campaign of conquest. Words matter because they shape the way we perceive the enemy and design the strategy to confront him. Back in 2008, the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued lexicon guidance to their employees, counseling avoidance of words like “jihad” or “ummah” or “Caliphate” when describing the enemy. They refused to identify the Muslim American sources who’d advised them on their decisions.

But it is enlightening to note the list of Muslim Brotherhood front groups that endorsed the vocabulary list once it had been issued: the Muslim American Society (MAS -- founded by the Muslim Brotherhood); Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC -- which lobbies to remove Hamas, Palestinian Jihad, and Hizballah from the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organizations list); ISNA; and CAIR. When Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee, led by Congressman Peter Hoekstra, proposed an amendment to the 2009 Intelligence funding bill that would have prohibited the Intelligence Community “from adopting speech codes that encumber accurately describing the radical jihadist terrorists that attacked America and continue to threaten the homeland”, the Democratic majority rejected it outright.
Congressional Democrats would appear to be thoroughly influenced by the MB. In mid-2009, a group of seven House Democrats wrote Attorney General Eric Holder asking that he meet with representatives of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates including CAIR, ISNA, and the Muslim Students Association. The letter was signed by representatives from California, Ohio, and Northern Virginia who sit on the House Judiciary Committee, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Appropriations Committee subcommittee on defense, and the House Homeland Security Committee, among others.
Explanation of how such things could occur in the very halls of the U.S. Congress hit the bookshelves with damning revelations about CAIR’s penetration of Capitol Hill in the 2009 Muslim Mafia by David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry. A meticulously-referenced expose based on CAIR’s own documents, the Muslim Mafia documents an extensive and well-funded CAIR campaign to plant operatives and run influence operations inside law enforcement and on the staffs of congressional offices.

These are the Jihad wars, and they are nearly 1400 years old. The U.S. has only been confronting Islamic jihadis since our 18th century naval campaigns against the so-called Barbary pirates but liberal democracy will not see the 22nd century if we do not acknowledge and confront this enemy here and now in the 21st. Until and unless the United States proves capable of appointing and electing officials to the top ranks of our national security leadership who both understand and reject the influence of Islamic jihad groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, our country will be incapable of effective defense against either kinetic or stealth jihad attack. We can do better than this…..much better.