Free Republic

Months after Karen Hughes assumed the role of diplomat-at-large to the Muslim world, she told Time magazine that one of her two key influences on understanding Islam was Georgetown Prof. John Esposito. She’s not alone. The FBI has repeatedly consulted him, and much of academia holds him in high regard. But when he’s not busy shaping U.S. policy toward the Muslim world, Prof. Esposito mentors a man who wishes he could be a suicide bomber and who recently (and publicly) reinforced his support for “martyrdom.” He has collaborated on two books with Dr. Azzam Tamimi, and he still maintains a...

What would possess a Muslim motorist to drive around San Francisco Bay Area streets in his SUV and deliberately run over pedestrians, including kids? Insanity, shrugs the mainstream media. Omeed Aziz Popal was taken into custody Tuesday after a hit-and-run spree that terrorized pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists for a full hour, killing one and injuring 14. The news treated the bloody rampage like a random act of violence. Those in the media who didn't brush it off as an "inexplicable tragedy" before moving on to the next story focused on the alleged mental illness and not the religion of suspect...

First of three parts The threat of the radical Islamists taking over Europe is every bit as great to the United States as was the threat of the Nazis taking over Europe in the 1940s. We cannot afford to lose Europe. We cannot afford to see Europe transformed into a launching pad for Islamist jihad. While we in the United States and Europe have vast resources for protecting ourselves, we have thought ourselves into a position of near impotence. Beyond the growing number of Muslims committed to terrorism is the threat from the Islamic diaspora's growing cultural and religious assertiveness...

Report Warns of Terrorists' 'Great Ramadan Offensive' By Sherrie Gossett CNSNews.com Staff Writer September 08, 2005 (CNSNews.com) - Al Qaeda's plans for a series of spectacular terrorist strikes in October, targeting American interests as well as U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East and said to be coordinated by Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenant in Iraq - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- are the subject of a non-public report issued by terrorism experts this week. The attacks, planned to coincide with the Muslim observance of Ramadan and dubbed the "Great Ramadan Offensive," are designed to create a "fateful...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Jack Wheeler, the publisher and editor of To The Point, a geopolitical intelligence subscription website at www.tothepointnews.com. He has been called the “Indiana Jones of the Right” by the Washington Post, the “creator of the Reagan Doctrine” which dismantled the Soviet Union by the Wall Street Journal, and he holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Southern California with a specialty in Aristotle. He is the owner of Wheeler Expeditions, leading numerous expeditions to Tibet, Mongolia, the Sahara, Himalayas, the Amazon, 21 expeditions to the North Pole, and is listed in the Guinness...

DUBAI (AFP) - The group headed by Iraq's most wanted man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi hailed in an Internet statement what it said was the "start of the collapse" of the United States after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. "Congratulations to the Islamic nation, to our sheikh Osama abu Abdullah (Osama bin Laden).. and to sheikh Ayman Zawahiri (bin Laden's deputy) for the destruction of America, which is at the forefront of evil. It is the start of its collapse." The statement, whose authenticity could not be confirmed, was referring to the hurricane that has devastated New Orleans and left...

In the aftermath of the ritualistic near-decapitation of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam, as well as the death threats and frivolous “hate-crime” lawsuits directed against honest scholars writing about Islamic extremism, some Muslims and their western sympathizers appear determined to control, by fair means or foul, what is said and written about Islam in the West. A first-hand example of this trend can be seen in the response to the keynote address I delivered on June 9, 2005 in Krakow, Poland at the Annual Meeting of the Public Administration Theory Network (PAT-Net), an international academic organization, in which I discussed...

Efforts were under way on Sunday to calm the situation in this Christian village east of Ramallah after an attack by hundreds of Muslim men from nearby villages left many houses and vehicles torched.

One of President Bush’s closest confidants, Karen Hughes, this weekend is scheduled to address the annual conference of an organization whose primary purpose is the propagation of Saudi-sponsored Wahhabist Islam—and which has praised suicide bombers, whose president has publicly denied that al Qaeda was behind 9/11, and whose web site to this day sells a book that lavishes praise on Osama bin Laden. Not only is Hughes publicly endorsing the Islamic Society of North America with her mere presence, but this is the first major public address in her new role spearheading outreach to the Muslim world. In the process,...

SYDNEY (AFP) - Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law have been told to get out of Australia. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown. Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state and its laws were made by parliament. "If those are not your values,...

Riyadh (AsiaNews) – With the death of King Fahd and the arrival of King Abdullah, the persecution by the Saudi Kingdom of believers of religions other than Islam, especially Christians, is on the rise. Sources close to AsiaNews in the Saudi capital have confirmed that the religious police, the Muttawa, has raided the homes of foreigners, especially suspect homes (i.e. those where Christians live). This has forced many groups, who used to meet in the privacy of their home to pray, to stop this activity. Furthermore, fear is such that people have stopped meeting out of fear that the police...

Do terrorist atrocities in the West, such as the attacks of September 11, 2001 and those in Bali, Madrid, Beslan, and London, help radical Islam achieve its goal of gaining power? No, they are counterproductive. That's because radical Islam has two distinct wings - one violent and illegal, the other lawful and political - and they exist in tension with each other. The lawful strategy has proven itself effective, but the violent approach gets in its way. The violent wing is foremost represented by the world's no. 1 fugitive, Osama bin Laden. The popular and powerful prime minister of Turkey,...

CNSNews has just updated it's article on Michael Graham and changed the headline from "Talk Show Host Fired Over Remarks About Islam" to "CAIR Hails Firing of Michael Graham". CAIR says in the article; "Just as Michael Graham has the right to hold bigoted views, so, too, does our society have the right to live free of hatred and incitement," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad in a statement. "We are saddened that Michael Graham would not take responsibility for his hate-filled words, but we do welcome WMAL's action as a step toward reducing the level of anti-Muslim bigotry on...

Michael Graham vs. CAIR08/23 09:27 AMOver at the homepage, Andrew McCarthy has a defense of Michael Graham, the ABC Radio talk show host who was fired for making the following comments: Because of the mix of Islamic theology that — rightly or wrongly — is interpreted to promote violence, added to an organizational structure that allows violent radicals to operate openly in Islam’s name with impunity, Islam has, sadly, become a terrorist organization. It pains me to say it. But the good news is it doesn’t have to stay this way, if the vast majority of Muslims who don’t support...

Forgive me if I interpreted the words (1st Amendment) incorrectly, but where does it say anything about not hurting anyone's feelings or pointing out facts even though they may be painful? With that, where does the Council on American-Islamic Relations get off going around suing people and getting people fired for stating what is to this day a fact that cannot be honestly refuted: Islamic fanatics want to kill everyone not Islamic?

The First Amendment and I have been evicted from ABC Radio in Washington, DC. On July 25th, the Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded that I be “punished” for my on-air statements regarding Islam and its tragic connections to terrorism. Three days later, 630 WMAL and ABC Radio suspended me without pay for comments deemed “hate radio” by CAIR. CAIR immediately announced that my punishment was insufficient and demanded I be fired. ABC Radio and 630 WMAL have now complied. I have been fired for making the specific comments CAIR deemed “offensive,” and for refusing to retract those statements in a...

A group of American Muslims produced a video that shows its members on a city street corner declaring Islam's dominance over America as they tred on a U.S. flag and then rip it apart. In the video, released by the New York-based Islamic Thinkers Society, one of the Muslims is shown placing a sign on the flag that says, "Oh Muslims! Do you know your enemy? Isn't it obvious?" Author and researcher Robert Spencer, who posted the video on his weblog Jihad Watch, commented that Muslim lobby groups such as the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations have helped foster an...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has filed a $1.35 million lawsuit against the founder of a website that accuses the controversial lobby group of supporting terrorism. The Washington, D.C.-based CAIR charges five statements made by its Internet critic, Anti-CAIR, amount to "libelous defamation." CAIR seeks $1 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages in addition to its legal fees and interest. Anti-CAIR's founder is Andrew Whitehead, 46, a retired Navy enlisted man in Virginia Beach, Va., who says he simply wants to see CAIR "go away." He told the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot newspaper last week he has no money,...

One of the nation's leading experts on Islam says that "moderate" Muslims are actually a tiny minority of the entire Islamic movement, with most Muslims either being jihadists or supportive of jihadists. Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the book 'The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades'. He says there is a gross misunderstanding about moderate Muslims. "People talk about a tiny minority of extremists, [but] actually in terms of the truth about the Islamic world, it's the moderates who are the tiny minority -- not the jihadists," he says. Spencer says while...

Tuesday, August 16, 2005 HOMELAND INSECURITY Symposium on Islamic terror resisted Organizer finds opposition to event from politicians, media, bank Posted: August 16, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Ron Strom � 2005 WorldNetDaily.com The organizer of a Connecticut symposium addressing the threat of Islamic terrorism to the U.S. has run into resistance from the media, politicians and even a bank. Jeff Epstein, who is working to stage the conference "The Radical Islamist Threat to World Peace and National Security," is determined to continue to get the word out about the Sept. 21 event, despite roadblocks that have been thrown in...