[Slings and Arrows]

Ping!

[Robert Lomax]

ping

[Poundstone]

I've never read such a clear, convincing, and obviously well-researched explanation of Islam in the United States. The author of this piece (whose website I'm about to archive) deserves some kind of award.

Thank you, sir, for your public service.

For Freepers: may I simply urge that we propagate this information to as many people as possible. Especially members of Congress.

[Robert_Paulson2]

This author is wrong, or lying or both.
there is no "moderate" islam.
Only obedient jew and christian killing types who can read the koran....
and apostates who largely reject the entire ball of wax, want equality for their little girls and LIKE going to movies, drinking and ignoring stupid idiotic customs, prayers, the veil, the burqua, and the rest of the bs...

apostate islamics... are our only friends.
the rest are nuts waiting to be radicalized at the mention of the "I" word... Israel.

[weegee]

The only remedies for Muslim silence in the U.S. are, first, to empower and defend those Muslims willing to publicly declare their adherence to the classic, and long-established Islamic principle of obedience to any government that "does not interfere with the call to prayer"

Speaking of which, this is an example of "not interering with the call to prayer":

Muslim Call to Prayers in Michigan

The City Council of Hamtramck, Michigan approved an amendment to the city's noise ordinance to allow the Muslim call to prayer over (amplified) loudspeakers 5 times daily, from 6 a.m. - 10 p.m. The new ordinance takes effect May 26.

[Barney Gumble]

Interesting article. The Muslim silence over Berg was heard. Every Arab country seems to be taking it's cue from Saudi Arabia. The only ones that might be slightly better is Jordan or Pakistan.

But what about America? The non-Wahhabist Muslims need to speak out more. They can't sit quietly by as their religion is hijacked by extremists or their silence will be heard as acceptance. All Muslims aren't bad people. They need to take back the organizations such as CAIR or form new ones.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

... Christian groups which, for better or worse, have a theology of their own to defend, and which, rightly or wrongly, see Islam as counterposed to their faith.

I would ask the author why Christians would be "wrongly" convinced Islam is "counterposed to their faith." Christianity is literally outlawed in many Muslim countries and Christians have been slaughtered for their faith in unprovoked Muslim attacks historically too numerous to list. If allowed by the civilized world, they would kill every last Christian who refused to convert to Islam.

[CharlotteVRWC]

bmp

[LS]

Let me speak to American Muslim (IN)action:

where are the disproportionate number of Muslim-Americans volunteering to enlist in the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines as German-Americans did in WW I and as Japanese Americans (the most decorated unit in the war) did in WW II?

As one on this board who has constantly urged moderation of anti-Muslim sentiments, I still wait for this evidence of "loyalty." I think this would be the perfect way for Muslim-Americans to shut up those critics who are suspicious of them. We are all waiting.

[kjvail]

I'm getting real tired of these Muslim apologists trying desperately to convince people that somewhere in the mythical land of Hon-o-Lee there are a 'majority' of peaceful, moderate Muslims. I especially find this line offensive

"Some of the worst Arab advocates seen on our airwaves, defending extremist violence, are not even Muslims, but are Arab Christians"

So Christians are the problem???

[MSSC6644]

Real journalists need to get the real facts about Islam

Good morning, Kat. There's a real problem with this statement, don't you think?

[kjvail]

A rebuttal article:

The praise of Allah for all Muslims with his support and the humiliating of those who attempt to defeat Islam and who attack it and who entice the unbelievers with their cunning... He has ordered the prophet — peace be upon him — and he is master the merciful are with the slitting of the necks of some prisoners and their slow killing. And for us it is an example and a good example... we tell you to know that the coffins will arrive to you one coffin after another, as your people are slaughtered in this way... Then you kill the polytheists (Christians) where you find them and you take them and count them and place them where they can be seen...Allah is the greatest and the honor to Allah and to its messenger and to the militants. And our last claim is that the praise of Allah is the Lord of the Worlds.... And you see the slaughter your fighting brothers suspend the head of this unbeliever on one of Baghdad bridges so that they teach a lesson to others from the infidels and serves as a witness to the honor of the Muslims.

— Statement read just moments before the video taped murder and beheading of Nick Berg.

Americans have yet to realize that they are now embroiled in a decade's long war with vicious Islamofascists who hail from dozens of countries and nationalities. Al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader behind the savage deaths of hundreds of Shiite civilians and Iraqi police, the attempted Ricin attacks in the UK and chemical attacks in Jordan, and the beheading of American civilian contractor Nick Berg, spoke just months ago of "gathering the sheep" for slaughter. Nick Berg was just the first victim in the plan of a series of dramatic public atrocities that will unfold in the months to come.

Watching the beheading of this idealistic young American and listening to his screams as he was butchered was revolting, sickening and maddening and yet it should be mandatory viewing. To truly understand the nature of this enemy we must digest their viciousness and use it to fuel the avenging fire that was initially kindled on September 11th 2001. War is not pretty, fun or nice but sometimes it is not only necessary but desirable when dealing with an enemy of such diabolical methods and goals.

The commitment to victory can only be solidified by free and just peoples when faced with such recent outrages as the enemy hacking and displaying bodies in Fallujah, the point blank shooting of a pregnant women and her four young daughters in Gaza, militants parading through the streets with the bloody remains of slain Israeli soldiers and the butchery of one slightly lost 26 year old American civilian.

Some commentators have made the observation that Islam has shown itself to be less of a religion than a bloody ideology similar to Nazism, Maoism, or the pesky militant Japanese cult of the Emperor that caused so much trouble a few decades ago. Where is the outrage in reaction to such crime from the good peaceful Moslems we are told are the vast majority of Islam? The silence is deafening and the followers of Mohammad bear a portion of responsibility and blame due to their failure to condemn such actions and for the continued support, shelter and protection of such terror artists offered by their clerics, mosques and communities not only here in the United States but all over the world.

One of my friends put it this way.

"Never forget that many of us saw, way back on Sept. 11, 2001, that the enemy of the Americans was the same enemy that was fighting Israel, and India, and Russia, and Indonesia and the Philippines, and infiltrating Europe, and advocating in America, and throwing acid in the face of unveiled women across the world, and preaching fanaticism in Saudi Arabia, and blowing up statues in Afghanistan, and manning the madrasses in Pakistan, and pushing propaganda on al-Jazeera, and blowing up schoolchildren in Tel-Aviv, and now beheading Jewish young men from Philadelphia."

Truer words have never been spoken. The mindset of Islamofascism is one of genocidal mania; the celebration of death and butchery, and revelry in the slaughter of innocents. Americans and civilized people the world over have been shocked by such sub-human behavior but they should not be. That is the character of the enemy that they face. It is the nature of a religious ideology that seeks the death or subjugation of all infidels and the extermination of the Jew. Al-Queda is just the latest manifestation of 7th century barbarism that has waged an endless shadow war on Western Civilization and has finally provoked the world war of ideology and religion that it has so eagerly sought.

American politicians in particular insist that this is not a war of religion or clash of civilizations. It is an endless spewing of "religion of peace" quotes, diatribes on "a nation of immigrants" and complaints about ethnic profiling at airports. I wish that someone would tell that to the enemy, for that is exactly the war that they are waging.

Whether it is the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Queda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Al-Tawhid, Abu Sayyaf, the Taliban, Al-Ansar Islam, Al-Sadr's militia, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Beyyiat el-Imam, Jund al-Shams or the dozens of other militant terrorist groups infesting the globe, their methodology, goals, tactics, cruelty, tenacity and victims are often eerily the same. It is a strange world of martyrdom, jihad, cries of Allah Akbar and fantasies of a heavenly reward of 72 virgins. They may differ by sect, creed or nationality but each wages war on the innocent, the Christian and the Jew, the concepts of Liberty and Justice, and Western Civilization itself.

The ideology of militant Islam is not some small isolated group of malcontents as they are so often portrayed. Millions of Moslems are adherents to the ideology and religious fervor that wages war on the West. The cries of jihad echo in the bloody guerilla warfare of Algeria. It is the ideology of the Arab slavers waging war on Christians in Sudan. It is the call from hundreds of minarets in Saudi Arabia and the gospel of the mullahs of Iran. It is the creed of the border tribes of Pakistan and was the heart and soul of the Taliban. It flourishes in the jungles of the Philippines and the slums of Indonesia. It sallies forth from the green valleys of Lebanon and preaches its hate in the mosques of Europe.

There will be no easy victory and the legions of the deluded zealots who vent their rage in the blood of the vulnerable, innocent and helpless will not be quickly defeated. Civilized peoples across the globe must learn to steel themselves against the coming barbarity and prepare for the long struggle against those who would slice your throat and murder your children in their beds if given half a chance. Their fanaticism cannot be underestimated and the righteousness of the cause of those who fight against them cannot be doubted. The world must answer terrorism and those who fancy themselves the warriors of Allah with a resolve for utter and total victory.

David Huntwork
May 15, 2004
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/huntwork/040515

[Sabertooth]

Second, Americans of all faiths must pressure the media to abandon its addiction to the black-white versions of the Muslim story, both the liberal version, which depicts hegemonic America and victimized Muslims, and the conservative version, which portrays Islam as demonic. Real journalists need to get the real facts about Islam.

Here's a test for Stephen Schwartz:

What are the real facts about Islam's founder, Mohammed?

What are the real congruencies between Mohammed and Muslim terrorists?

In Qur'an, the Islamic scripture, we read: "truth stands forth from falsehood." In this context, the same may be said. America will cleanse itself of the stain of prison abuse in Iraq, because America's culture rejects hatred and cruelty. Let ADC, MPAC, CAIR, and the rest work on cleansing their culture of the stain of Nick Berg's blood -- to name but one victim. Otherwise, at the present time, Muslim silence might be preferable to Muslim noise.

Since about all we get from Muslims is noise or silent acquiescence, let's look at what else we read in the Koran, according to Mohammed:

"Seize them and put them to death wherever you find them, kill them wherever you find them, seek out the enemies of Islam relentlessly." (Sura 4:90)

"Fight them until Islam reigns supreme." (Sura 2:193)

"Cut off their heads, and cut off the tips of their fingers." (Sura 8:12)

"Allah threatens the Muslim who does not make war on the "unbelievers" with death." (Sura 9:39)

[MissAmericanPie]

"Indeed, most Arab and Indo-Pakistani-Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants to the U.S. came for normal and rational reasons -- to gain economic success, as well as better educational and other opportunities for their children."

Their desire for these things is not a good enough reason to allow them to "migrate" to our nation. The only reason to allow anyone to migrate to the US is because they are in some way an asset, and/or mainly that they embrace our constitutional form of government and reject any other. Muslims have no business here. Arabs should only be welcome, as long as they are not Muslim.

The very act of being a Muslim reveals an ambition for only a theoracy form of government. That is not welcome here and it is past time for our government to start representing the American citizen living here, rather than looking at all of humanity as an American waiting to happen and representing them instead of us.

[nuconvert]

P O N G !

" If one speaks up in a Wahhabi-controlled mosque, dire consequences may result -- including even death."

"The only remedies for Muslim silence in the U.S. are, first, to empower and defend those Muslims willing to publicly declare their adherence to the classic, and long-established Islamic principle of obedience to any government that "does not interfere with the call to prayer;"

LONG, but VERY GOOD, PONG !

[Valin]

Finding that 80 percent of the main mosques in America are controlled by Saudi-Wahhabis is a pretty big shock to the average Muslim immigrant.

Islamic Extremism: A Viable Threat to U.S. National Security
An Open Forum at the U.S. Department of State, January 7, 1999

(snip)
Moreover, what we are interested in in the United States. I’d like to say that there have been many non-profit organizations established in the United States whose job is only to collect money and to send it, as you know – most of you know – to send it to extremists outside the United States. This is a big dilemma that is facing us here, because you don't know where the money is going, and it is more than hundreds of millions of dollars that have been sent to extremist parties in the Middle East and the Far East, as well as Afghanistan and the Caucasus now. Our sources say that many, many millions of dollars have been collected and sent. They send it under humanitarian aid, but it doesn't go to humanitarian aid. They say that it is to help the people of this country or that country, and they show on television and on their flyers that they are delivering it to help homeless people or poor people. Yes, some of it will go to homeless people and poor people but the majority, 90 per cent of it, will go into the black markets in these countries and buying weapon arsenals.

I know this from my home country of Lebanon where we used to receive a lot of aid from the United States and United Nations. As soon as the aid arrived in Lebanon, you could see a little bit go to the public and the rest would be sold in the black market. For a box that costs more than $100, you can go and buy it in the black market for less than $20. All this money, that came under humanitarian aid, they resell so you cannot trace it, they go back and buy weapons with it to fight and to spread extremism under the name of Islam.

The second issue that United States has to look on within, for security, is the fact that there are many Muslim organizations that claim to speak on behalf of the Muslim community but that in reality are not moderate, but extremist. They hijacked the mike, or they were elected because they are good speakers, but they give a wrong idea about Islam. Always we see them in the media criticizing and complaining and sending action alerts and media alerts and showing people that we do not accept this or we reject that.

Like, for example, with the recent issue of Iraq. The Islamic Supreme Council sent a statement that there are victims in Iraq and there is bloodshed in Iraq, but it is a matter of national security to stop Saddam Hussein from running the country, and it is not a Muslim issue. When everyone was saying from the Muslim community that it is a Muslim issue, we stood fast and we stood alone to say that it is not a Muslim issue but that it is a political issue. Saddam Hussein is a communist in his background. He is of the socialist Ba'ath party, which does not believe in religion. It is secular and does not believe in religion. Anyone who has a beard or anyone wears a turban will be put in prison within a day. This is the mentality of this kind of regime. So it is not a Muslim issue, it's a political issue. It's a Muslim issue when you are hurting the people, and you are hurting a whole community as if we were to say that we are fighting the Iraqi people. But the policy was not to fight the Iraqi people. The policy was to fight a tyranny that was running Iraq. That's a big difference. So we stood up and we said this and we have received a lot of criticism from the Muslim community. But we want to advise the American community and we want to advise our government, our congressmen, that there is something big going on and people are not understanding it.

The third major problem that is now going on is that you have many mosques around the United States and there is not an organized government or policy to look over the mosques like in Muslim countries where you cannot open a mosque by yourself, and you cannot open a charity by yourself. It has to be done according to the structure of the Islamic religion. That's why in the Muslim countries, you cannot find extremist ideology. As soon as you find the extremist ideology they kick them out and bring in traditional Islamic scholars. The extremist ideology comes from the street so the extremists don't know what they are talking about. So they form small circles in different homes or different basements or in different areas and they begin to brainwash the people. That's why we find this kind of movement is becoming big now, especially when the idea is that we have a struggle between us and the United States. "United States is not supporting us," "United States is supporting someone else," they find that United States is not supporting Afghanistan, as Congressman Rohrabacher said. The United States supported Pakistan, the United States supported Egypt, the United States supported PLO and the peace treaty, the United States supported Saudi Arabia, the United States supported Kuwait. The United States is supporting whomever they can, but sometimes it is out of reach that they can support everyone. So they cannot be blamed. The United States cannot be blamed for something that they cannot control.

The most dangerous thing that is going on now in these mosques, that has been sent upon these mosques around the United States – like churches they were established by different organizations and that is ok – but the problem with our communities is the extremist ideology. Because they are very active they took over the mosques; and we can say that they took over more than 80% of the mosques that have been established in the US. And there are more than 3000 mosques in the US.

So it means that the methodology or ideology of extremist has been spread to 80% of the Muslim population, but not all of them agree with it. But mostly the youth and the new generation do because they are students and they don't think except with their emotions and they are rebellious against their own leaders and government. This is the nature and psychology of human beings. When we are students in university or college we always fight the government, whether they are right or wrong, we have to attack the government. This is how they have been raised.

In this way we see that the extremist ideology, and this is the fourth danger, is beginning to spread very quickly into the universities through the national organizations, associations and clubs that they are establishing around the universities. Most of these clubs – they are Muslim clubs and the biggest is the national one – are being run mostly by the extremist ideology that they do not understand other than to say that America is wrong and they are right. You can find this on the Internet; you can find it everywhere on homepages and websites that they are against the United States. This is where we don't know how far it goes, and how far it is out of hand. This might affect the whole university system in the United States. Through the universities there will be the most danger. If the nuclear atomic warheads reach these universities, you don’t know what these students are going to do, because their way of thinking is brainwashed, limited and narrow-minded.

This is what I want to say to you, to present to you from within the Muslim community. We want to tell you that the Muslim community as a whole is innocent from whatever extremism and extremist ideology is being spread around the world. I don't know if there is time or not, but I know that to go in detail on how extremism evolved would take a lot of time, so I’ve tried to summarize as much as possible. I'd like to tell you that extremism , when a person has been brainwashed, demands that a person doesn't think, even if his father or his mother or his brother tells him to stop, he has to go to do what he has been asked to do. That's why there are 5000 suicide bombers being trained by bin Laden in Afghanistan who are ready to move to any part of the world and explode themselves. They are very sophisticated, they can buy anything they need locally and then put it on and explode themselves.

The problem of extremism is a big danger, and it can be solved if the West better understands Islam and builds bridges with the moderate Muslims, the traditional Muslims. This way, the Muslim community will eliminate the extremist threat from within. Otherwise, media, television, newspapers, and the leadership will not understand that there is a difference between extremists and Muslims. They have to begin a dialogue with Muslims from around the United States, and they have to have good advisors. What I am seeing, unfortunately, are those that are advising the media, or advising the government are not the moderate Muslims. Those whose opinion the government asks are the extremists themselves. Those that have been quoted in the newspapers, in the magazines, in the television, in the media are the extremists themselves. You are not hearing the authentic voice of Muslims, of moderate Muslims, but you are hearing the extremist voice of Muslims. That's why they are getting a wrong idea, because the extremists are very well supported, are very well affiliated with outside regimes that have sponsored them with billions of dollars to be active in the United States. They have been successful in doing that so the media does not listen except to them. I am even hearing that there are advisors to many congressmen, to many senators, to many organizations that are supporters of extremism and not moderate Muslims.

[Quix]

SIGH

[arthurus]

If the benign Moslems remain silet they are lumping themselves in with the enemey when the backlash comes.

[MarMema]

But if there is anyplace in the world known for a "culture of hate" it is the core of the Arab world, from whence such practices as videotaped beheadings of utter innocents originate. Videotaped beheadings were first seen, in the recent era, during the Bosnian war, when Arab "volunteers" produced some, showing the execution of Serb and Croat Christians. Bosnian Muslims, to their credit, stopped the practice from continuing. But the war in Chechnya, which has been infiltrated by Saudi-Wahhabis, has produced some 400 separate videos of the beheading of Russian soldiers, which remain on sale right here in the U.S.

On sale here in the US, and an origin named.