Posted on 09/23/2004 2:51:20 AM PDT by kattracks
The hardest thing for Westerners to understand is not that a war with militant Islam is underway but that the nature of the enemy’s ultimate goal. That goal is to apply the Islamic law (the Shari‘a) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with the Qur’an.
This aspiration is so remote and far-fetched to many non-Muslims, it elicits more guffaws than apprehension. Of course, that used to be the same reaction in Europe, and now it’s become widely accepted that, in Bernard Lewis’ words, “Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century.”
Because of the American skepticism about Islamist goals, I postponed publishing an article on this subject until immediately after 9/11, when I expected receptivity to the subject would be greater (it was published in November 2001as “The Danger Within: Militant Islam in America”). I argued there that
The Muslim population in this country is not like any other group, for it includes within it a substantial body of people—many times more numerous than the agents of Osama bin Ladin—who share with the suicide hijackers a hatred of the United States and the desire, ultimately, to transform it into a nation living under the strictures of militant Islam.
The receptivity indeed was greater, but still the idea of an Islamist takeover remains unrecognized in establishment circles – the U.S. government, the old media, the universities, the mainline churches.
Therefore, reading “A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America,” in the Chicago Tribune on Sept. 19 caused me to startle. It’s a long analysis that draws on an exclusive interview with Ahmed Elkadi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader in the United States during 1984-94, plus other interviews and documentation. In it, the authors (Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Sam Roe, and Laurie Cohen) warily but emphatically acknowledge the Islamists’ goal of turning the United States into an Islamic state.
Over the last 40 years, small groups of devout Muslim men have gathered in homes in U.S. cities to pray, memorize the Koran and discuss events of the day. But they also addressed their ultimate goal, one so controversial that it is a key reason they have operated in secrecy: to create Muslim states overseas and, they hope, someday in America as well. …
Brotherhood members emphasize that they follow the laws of the nations in which they operate. They stress that they do not believe in overthrowing the U.S. government, but rather that they want as many people as possible to convert to Islam so that one day—perhaps generations from now—a majority of Americans will support a society governed by Islamic law.
This Brotherhood approach is in keeping with my observation that the greater Islamist threat to the West is not violence – flattening buildings, bombing railroad stations and nightclubs, seizing theaters and schools – but the peaceful, legal growth of power through education, the law, the media, and the political system.
The Tribune article explains how, when recruiting new members, the organization does not reveal its identity but invites candidates to small prayer meetings where the prayer leaders focus on the primary goal of the Brotherhood, namely “setting up the rule of God upon the Earth” (i.e., achieving Islamic hegemony). Elkadi describes the organization’s strategic, long-term approach: “First you change the person, then the family, then the community, then the nation.”
His wife Iman is no less explicit; all who are associated with the Brotherhood, she says, have the same goal, which is “to educate everyone about Islam and to follow the teachings of Islam with the hope of establishing an Islamic state.”
In addition to Elkadi, the article features information from Mustafa Saied (about whose Muslim Brotherhood experiences the Wall Street Journal devoted a feature story in December 2003, without mentioning the organization’s Islamist goals). Saied, the Tribune informs us, says
he found out that the U.S. Brotherhood had a plan for achieving Islamic rule in America: It would convert Americans to Islam and elect like-minded Muslims to political office. “They’re very smart. Everyone else is gullible,” Saied says. “If the Brotherhood puts up somebody for an election, Muslims would vote for him not knowing he was with the Brotherhood.”
Citing documents and interviews, the Tribune team notes that the secretive Brotherhood, in an effort to acquire more influence, went above ground in Illinois in 1993, incorporating itself as the Muslim American Society. The MAS, headquartered in Alexandria, Va. and claiming 53 chapters across the United States engages in a number of activities. These include summer camps, a large annual conference, websites, and the Islamic American University, a mainly correspondence school in suburban Detroit that trains teachers and imams.
Of course, the MAS denies any intent to take over the country. One of its top officials, Shaker Elsayed, insists that
MAS does not believe in creating an Islamic state in America but supports the establishment of Islamic governments in Muslim lands. The group’s goal in the United States, he says, “is to serve and develop the Muslim community and help Muslims to be the best citizens they can be of this country.” That includes preserving the Muslim identity, particularly among youths.
Notwithstanding this denial, the Tribune finds MAS goals to be clear enough:
Part of the Chicago chapter’s Web site is devoted to teens. It includes reading materials that say Muslims have a duty to help form Islamic governments worldwide and should be prepared to take up arms to do so. One passage states that “until the nations of the world have functionally Islamic governments, every individual who is careless or lazy in working for Islam is sinful.” Another one says that Western secularism and materialism are evil and that Muslims should “pursue this evil force to its own lands” and “invade its Western heartland.” [links added by me, DP]
In suburban Rosemont, Ill., several thousand people attended MAS’ annual conference in 2002 at the village’s convention center. One speaker said, “We may all feel emotionally attached to the goal of an Islamic state” in America, but it would have to wait because of the modest Muslim population. “We mustn’t cross hurdles we can’t jump yet.”
These revelations are particularly striking, coming as they do just days after a Washington Post article titled “In Search Of Friends Among The Foes,” which reports how some U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials believe the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence “offers an opportunity for political engagement that could help isolate violent jihadists.” Graham Fuller is quoted saying that “It is the preeminent movement in the Muslim world. It’s something we can work with.” Demonizing the Brotherhood, he warns, “would be foolhardy in the extreme.” Other analysts, such as Reuel Gerecht, Edward Djerejian, and Leslie Campbell, are quoted as being in agreement with this outlook.
But it is a deeply wrong and dangerous approach. Even if the Muslim Brotherhood is not specifically associated with violence in the United States (as it has been in other countries, including Egypt and Syria), it is deeply hostile to the United States and must be treated as one vital component of the enemy’s assault force.
Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).
Before they press home Sharia Law, they will be sure to gun control a priorty. It will be one of the ways they prove they are a religion of peace, by siding with the liberals on gun control. These people are not stupid, they are evil. Big difference.
Not in the least bit is this true. Mohammad made his ticket Taking Allah from a pile of Arab Gods and raising him up against the God of the Christians and the Jews. The description of Allah is the description of Satan in the Bible, not God. If I put a boat label on a motorcycle, would you try to ride it across the lake? All gods are not the same, some people worship trees, that does not make God into wood.
"When you meet the unbelievers in the Jihad strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly." - Koran 47: 4
Obviously this is not the same in practice. I'm sure in private GW Bush probably says "Jeez, I hate having to keep telling everyone that Islam is a religion of peace."
I find it so amusing that they gave Cat the boot. Then, he was whining on the Beeb about how everyone knows him and his activities to promote peace. Whatever mate.
bump and thanks!
Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Roy Moore agree...
Chechen leaders’ relatives say stop terrorism, punish massacre perpetrators
AsiaNews.it ^ | September 7, 2004 | Staff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1211655/posts?page=19
Russian Muslims Rally Against Terror
IslamOnline.net ^ | Sept. 8, 2004
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1210981/posts?page=9
No, more like:
"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (9:29)"
My point is you can find pretty much anything you want in the Koran. What the radicals have done is emphasized those verses that tell them to kill (anyone who doesn't believe what they do...ie Algeria, Shites in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia...etc. to the exclusion of any other verses.
It's like those Christians who take one or two verses from the Bible and make them the center of the faith, (I'm thinking of those who make Revelations the center of their faith).
"Is there such a thing as a good cancer cell"??
DOWNLOAD IT AND TEST YOUR FRIENDS!
Bump for later.
Believe me, I understand your point and agree that scripture can be twisted to fit an agenda or ideology. There is more to this, however, as it relates to the Quran, specifically the Mecca vs. Medina interpretations.
There is nothing in the New Testament that could be "mis-interpreted" as violent or as inciting violence.
There are no major conflicts in the world today that involve Christians or Jews, Hindus, Sikkhs, Buddhists,etc., who act violently and justify these actions based on their religious texts. However, there are over 10 major world conflicts that involve the followers of Islam. They are justifying their use of violence based on the Quran. I specifically mean the radical Islamists.
There are no major conflicts in the world today that involve Christians or Jews, Hindus, Sikkhs, Buddhists,etc., who act violently and justify these actions based on their religious texts.
Today yes, but you don't have to go back all that far to find them. A Hindus/Sikkh war could happen (as an example)
"Quran, specifically the Mecca vs. Medina interpretations."
Given that I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree [feel free to disagree:-)] what do you mean?
Therein lies the conundrum. Couching it in "religious" terms conceals the political nature of Islam and its true face, while opposing it chips away at the most sacred pillar of our own culture and political system as well as that of most other Western countries: freedom of religion.
Most ignorant and naive well-meaning people among us can't entertain that contradiction. Who would have thought that an ignorant, illiterate thug 1400 years ago would invent the putrefaction that would bring down the culmination of the Greek democratic ideal not to be invented for centuries?
The first step (sooner or later) must be the official finding by the Federal government that Islam is not a religion as defined by the Constitution (clearly it is not). This would be followed by the immediate destruction of every mosque in the United States, followed by a period of at least four generations to allow Islam to reconstitute itself into a form similar to all other world religions, which universally respect and distance themselves from the secular and political political units we now define as States or Countries.
Without this explicit, clear, permanent and unambiguous separation, no present or future movement claiming to be a religion will ever be legal again in the United States of America.
The logic should be crystal clear. Any "religion" which claims our constitutional protection, while simultaneously seeking the destruction of every other religion, as well as the secular state which harbors it, will be subject to eternal and everlasting enmity with prejudice by our Republic. The rest of the world can go right ahead and commit suicide. We have taken Political Correctness to the brink. Let's make sure that when we step back that we remove the danger permanently.
You sir, are an idiot and part of the problem.
When the Constitution becomes the enemies' greatest weapon, it is time to take a hard look at why we have a constitution. Is it the end in itself? or simply a means to prevent certain really bad things from happening. As someone smarter than both of us put it, it is not a suicide pact.
Accepting your simple minded logic, the original thugees could simply call themselves a religion, waltz into our country kill with reckless abandon and you would not lift a finger because it would be unconstitutional!
This insidious enemy has found a way around our Constitution, and I'll be damned if I will stand still until he has completely replaced it with shari'a.
I have no trouble seeing them all supporting the "few" extremists among them; all 200,000,000 of them...
During WWII in Poland, after months and months of starvation a few Jews managed to get a few guns. They took a stand and decided to fight.
The Nazi's brutally put the "rebellion" down but it took months. Guns in the hands of civilians makes a tremendous difference.
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