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 enemys ultimate goal. That goal is to apply the Islamic law (the Sharia) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with the Quran.
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 its 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 peoplemany times more numerous than the agents of Osama bin Ladinwho 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. Its 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 dayperhaps generations from nowa 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 organizations 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 organizations 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. Theyre 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 groups 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 chapters 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 villages 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 mustnt cross hurdles we cant 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 Brotherhoods 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. Its 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 enemys assault force.
Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).
This is no laughing matter and should given some serious thought!
Be Ever Vigilant!
How about the courthouses which are closed during Jewish holidays?
People thought Marx was crazy," world communism?" "Never happen!", but they sure as hell tried! Adolph Hitler? They laughed at his "dream" of a greater fatherland and world conquest, till he tried! The wahabists are no different, and yet if you tell the average person this they`ll laugh,"no way,you`re a crack pot!"
They say if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water it will jump out, but if you put it in a pot of cold water and slowly heat it, frog soup. Keep your powder dry my fellow patriots.
I checked the local court's Web page and they're open on Jewish holidays, but closed (except for felony arraignments) on Good Friday, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.
Hmmmm, tell that to the Dividians!
Mohammedanist better be careful in the Good O'l USA.
The picture above could be a ......., well you know.
Are all Muslims Wahabists?
Good post, but to most everyone its a tinfoil issue.
Shame too, because this is all too real.
From Pipes:The hardest thing for Westerners to understand is not that a war with militant Islam is underway but that the nature of the enemys ultimate goal. That goal is to apply the Islamic law (the Sharia) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with the Quran.
You know, our society's obsession with being P.C. is going to get us all killed. We've be conditioned (more like verbally bludgeoned) to accept all cultures as equal, in terms of none being any better or worse than any others, and even the atrocities of 9/11 and the publicized islamofascist attacks since then (Madrid, Bali, Iraq, etc.) haven't fully convinced people that this notion of moral equivalence is not only wrong, but very lethal.
Until society as a whole accepts that this branch of Islam is not just a religion, but a violent political and military movement, we're in deep danger.
All true, except the part about kids getting time off from school for their holidays. I never went to school on the High Holy Jewish days, and I doubt that any Christian who grew up in this country ever went to school on Christmas.
Maybe so, but then He sure isn't the same G-d in Judaism. G-d, as Jews know Him, doesn't require us to convert or kill non-Jews. We're taught to respect and revere life, not use it as a cheap commodity.
The problem is that so few of the "moderate" Muslims speak out and unconditionally condemn terrorism and islamist extremism. By unconditionally, I mean that they don't "condemn" it while in the next breath blaming the U.S. and/or the Jews.
It's been more than 3 years since putatively "radical" Muslims brutally slaughtered 3000 of us, and very few of the moderates have spoken out and unequivocally and unconditionally condemned what's supposed to be a radical minority.
Makes me wonder just which group is the true minority.
I find it interesting that so many support the notion of a separation of church and state when the church in question is Christian, but you could hear a pin drop when its Islam we are talking about.
it depends on you area at least in my state. Nothing horrible, it just is.
As far as I'm concerned, the establishment clause applies to any and all religions. So too does the free exercise clause.
Everyone can subscribe to his newsletter at danielpipes.org
President Bush had to resort to a recess appointment to place Daniel Pipes on the U.S. Institute for Peace.
Such is the violent objection to his clear thinking.
He said something like "This is a model for all American cities" only it had stronger implications.
I bet he likes islam just because islam is against freedom and the united states.
I bet he does not even believe in the allah thing. Just the mean idealogy that goes along with it.
Hey. Good to see you.
Group guilt does exist. All of the germans who supported or tolerated the nazis were guilty to a certain extent.
Groups outnumber individuals and if they are particularly acidic and destructive they must be dealt with even if good "individuals" exist.
Not all, but the US state dept said several years ago that 80% of our mosques here in the US are infected with wahabism.
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