Posted on 02/25/2005 7:36:52 AM PST by Cornpone
WASHINGTON - Despite the apparent decision by US President George W Bush against renominating him to the board of the US Institute of Peace (USIP), "anti-Islamist" activist Daniel Pipes is working as diligently as ever to protect the United States and the Western world from the influence of radical Islamists.
He has proposed the creation of a new "Anti-Islamist Institute" (AII) designed to expose legal "political activities" of "Islamists", such as "prohibiting families from sending pork or pork by-products to US soldiers serving in Iraq", which nonetheless, in his view, serve the interests of radical Islam.
"In the long term ... the legal activities of Islamists pose as much or even a greater set of challenges than the illegal ones," according to the draft of a grant proposal by Pipes' Middle East Forum (MEF) obtained by Inter Press Service.
Pipes is also working with Stephen Schwartz on a new "Center for Islamic Pluralism" (CIP) whose aims are to "promote moderate Islam in the US and globally" and "to oppose the influence of militant Islam, and, in particular, the Saudi-funded Wahhabi sect of Islam, among American Muslims, in the America media, in American education ... and with US governmental bodies ..."
Schwartz, a former Trotskyite militant who became a Sufi Muslim in 1997, has received seed money from MEF, which is also accepting contributions on CIP's behalf until the government gives it tax-exempt legal status, according to another grant proposal obtained by IPS.
The CIP proposal, which says it expects to receive funding from contributors in the "American Shi'ite community" and in "Sunni mosques once liberated from Wahhabi influence", also boasts of "strong links" with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and other notable neo-conservatives, such as former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey and the vice president for foreign-policy programming at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Danielle Pletka, as well as with Pipes himself.
Pipes, who created MEF in Philadelphia in 1994, has long campaigned against "radical" Islamists in the US, especially the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and several other national Islamic groups.
Long before the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, he also raised alarms about the immigration of Muslims, suggesting that they constituted a serious threat to the political clout of US Jews, as well as a potential "fifth column" for radical Islamists.
In addition, Pipes has been a fierce opponent of Palestinian nationalism. He told Australian television this month, for example, that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza-disengagement plan and his agreement to negotiate with the new Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, were a "mistake" because 80% of the Palestinian population, including Abbas, still favor Israel's destruction.
In 2002, Pipes launched "Campus Watch", a group dedicated to monitoring and exposing alleged anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian and/or Islamist bias in teachers of Middle Eastern studies at US colleges and universities.
The group, which invites students to report on offending professors, has been assailed as a McCarthyite tactic to stifle open discussion of Middle East issues.
Pipes' nomination by Bush in 2003 to serve as a director on the board of the quasi-governmental USIP, a government-funded think-tank set up in 1984 to "promote the prevention, management and peaceful resolution of international conflicts", moved the controversy over his work from academe into the US Senate, where such appointments are virtually always approved without controversy.
Pipes' nomination, however, offered a striking exception. Backed by major Muslim, Arab-American and several academic groups, Democratic senators, led by Edward Kennedy, Christopher Dodd and Tom Harkin, strongly opposed the nomination as inappropriate, particularly in light of some of his past writings, including one asserting that Muslim immigrants were "brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene".
Several Republican senators subsequently warned Bush that they would oppose the nomination if it came to a vote, and, in the end, the president made a "recess appointment" that gave him a limited term lasting only until the end of 2004. It appears now that, despite the enhanced Republican majority in the Senate, Bush does not intend to renominate him.
Indeed, both the USIP and Bush now probably regret having nominated him in the first place. During his board tenure, Pipes blasted USIP for hosting a conference with the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, charging that it employed Muslim "radicals" on its staff.
That accusation was publicly refuted by the USIP itself, which echoed the complaints of his longtime critics, accusing him of relying on "quotes taken out of context, guilt by association, errors of fact, and innuendo".
Pipes also criticized Bush for "legitimizing" various "Islamist" groups, such as CAIR and the Arab-American Institute, by permitting their representatives to take part in White House and other government ceremonies and for failing to identify "radical Islam" as "the enemy" in the war on terror.
His own disillusionment with Bush is made clear in the AAI draft, which notes that "creative thinking in this war of ideas must be initiated outside the government, for the latter, due to the demands of political correctness, is not in a position to say what needs to be said".
AII's goal, it goes on, "is the delegitimation of the Islamists. We seek to have them shunned by the government, the media, the churches, the academy and the corporate world."
Pipes' complementary goal - to enhance the influence of "moderate" Muslims - is to guide the work of Schwartz's CIP, which is "headed by one born Muslim [its president] and a 'new Muslim', ie an American not born in the faith, as its executive director. This is the best combination for leading such an effort."
The "extremists", according to the CIP proposal, are mainly represented by the "Wahhabi lobby", an array of organizations consisting of CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the North American Islamic Trust, the Muslim Students Association of the US and Canada, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, as well as "secular" groups, including the AAI and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
"The first goal of CIP will be the removal of CAIR and ISNA from monopoly status in representing Muslims to the American public," the proposal goes on. "So long as they retain a major foothold at the highest political level, no progress can be made for moderate American Islam."
In achieving its goal, CIP cites the help it can expect from its "strong links" to Wolfowitz, Woolsey and Pletka; as well as Senators Charles Schumer and Jon Kyl, among others, "terrorism experts" Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project, Paul Marshall of Freedom House, and Glen Howard of the Jamestown Foundation; and journalists such as Fox News anchors David Asman, Brit Hume and Greta van Susteren, Dale Hurd of the Christian Broadcasting Network; and editors at the New York Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Globe and Mail.
Interviewed by phone, Professor Kemal Silay, "president-designate" of the CIP who teaches Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies at the Indiana University, told IPS he was not aware that he was to be the group's president, but that he had talked about the group with Schwartz and agrees with both Pipes and Schwartz about the dangers posed by "Wahhabi" groups in the US and the world.
Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Washington-based Saudi Institute and named as CIP's research director in the grant proposal, told IPS he had also talked with Schwartz about the group and strongly supported its goals, although he thought several of the groups listed as part of the "Wahhabi" lobby were more independent.
He also said that he did not know that Pipes was involved with the group.
Pipes "sees all Arabs and Muslims the same, because he has interest in the security of the state of Israel", said al-Ahmed, who publicizes human-rights abuses committed in Saudi Arabia.
Schwartz refused to speak with IPS.
ping...see my post #20. Sloppy research on my part...sorry.
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hmmm.... sounds strange.
Read later - BTTT
How the Mainstream Media Headlines the Abu Ali Indictment. The American government yesterday indicted Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a raging Islamist, with plotting to kill the president of the United States. Details have emerged about his attending the Islamic Saudi Academy and the University of Medina. His fervent hatred of the United States apparently led to his joining up with Al-Qaeda. He had connections to Ismail Royer and the paintball jihadists. His mother wears a niqab. Islamist organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS) jumped on his cause.
Given all this, how might mainstream media headline the story of Abu Ali's indictment? Here are three examples:
Chicago Tribune: U.S. citizen charged with plot to kill Bush"
The Guardian: American accused of plotting with al-Qaida to assassinate Bush
"The New York Times: Valedictorian suspect in plot on Bush's life.
Comment: Yet again, over-sensitivity to Muslim sentiments obstructs the plain telling of facts – as though Abu Ali's citizenship or class rank were the key factor in motivating him.
The alleged plotter's mother yesterday
Is Lobe a Muslim, a Marxist, or a paid Dhimmi?
I believe the old adage: "Judge a man by the enemies he makes." Daniel Pipes has made enemies of those I consider to be enemies of this country, so what he says has to have validity.
It's especially notable when they try to nitpick certain phrases, such as the "brown-skinned" one. Any reasonable person would understand his point once it was read in context, and thanks to cornpone in his noble quest for the truth in this matter.
It is interesting how similar the attacks against Mr. Pipes are when compared to certain comments made against FReepers by a certain group of Islamofascist apologists, who have been a lot more silent of late.
It is also amazing how the MSM is seriously downplaying the assassination plot, while playing up the "valedictorian" part, isn't it. Yeah, great, the smartest kid in a school for psychotics.
Daniel Pipes is still my hero. I just had to clarify my statements. Besides, he made those remarks almost 15 years ago before there was such PC sensitivity over insuring we let the Islamofascists control the media.
I believe that Mr. Pipes is a worthy man, but guilty of self-indulgent optimism. My sensation is that he wants to carve out a special niche for himself, the entire history of Islam, the entire ethos engendered by Islam (which might as well be called the "aftermath") be damned.
Islam is like a nest of eels inside a barrel of hair lotion. It can be anything for anyone in any given moment. It can stand proud, truthful and courageous as a West Point graduate with top honors; it can be a frenzied mob stamping heels on the charred remains of innocent civilians.
Therein lies the evil, the multi-headed, squirming, evading duplicity, quintiplicity, googleplexicity of a religion based on conflicting verses, in a vague language, placed in jumbled order, left to the interpretation of self-appointed Imams, and regardless, clearly enjoined to expand... "con le belle o con le brutte" (one way or the other).
Frankly! If this were a worthy religion, one that merited trust, how could there be a doubt whether "Jihad" meant something noble like "internal struggle" (to learn trigonometry or get the garage painted) or actual blood-letting warfare?
All religions need interpretation, of course they do, but others offer broad avenues and not tangled Casbahs where anything goes. And ANYTHING DOES GO, because there is no pope or supreme authority. Being a Muslim means you never have to say you're sorry. You simply say: "That's not true Islam."
I'm a Roman Catholic and I feel the sting, the shame of the pedophilia incidents that have plagued my church. They make me red. WE MUST CHANGE.
If 19 Christians had hijacked planes and destroyed 10% of Cairo's office space shouting "Jesus is Love" before crashing their planes... naturally Christians would've denied them representing Christianity... but there would be synods, grand councils, meetings. "Where have we gon wrong?" - "Why all this madness in our midst?"
Has the Islamic world risen to this occasion? Has it ever risen to any challenge? Of course not! Islam, the very soul of Islam is submission of ones conscience.
Islam can only be what Islam does, not what it says... all the more so because taqqya (deceit) is permitted.
Mr. Schwartz's sufism is nonsense. I could become a sufi meditating on a piece of cheese or on my Windows XP manual. Just think of all the spiritual that could come to mind with Bill Gates asking: "Where do you want to go today?"
Frankly, I see here a marriage of interest between an ambitious scholar and a con artist.
Any culture, any society that has opened the gates to Islam (when not having its walls breeched) has had the devil to pay. Such a fine scholar as Mr. Pipes knows that... and if he had his country's well-being at heart more than his ambition (or pride), he'd protect the USA from Islam instead of opening a back door with the truly pious illusion of a "moderate Islam".
This man is dangerous. Just say "No Thank you!"
islamic Terrorist Attack Time Line
Radical Islam's 'plan' to take over America - Arab-American author outlines secret 20-year strategy to undermine country
The Islamic States of America?
Misunderstanding the Enemy: the Islamic Threat and the U.S. Media
Islamic Concept of Al-Taqiyah to infiltrate and destroy kafir countries
CAIR Proposes World Islamophobia Report
CAIR: 'Moderate' friends of terror
An Open Letter to Islamic Organizations in America
Exploiting the Koran to Terrorize
islamic infiltration in the schools:
The Clinton and Islam partnership: Evidence of negotiations using America's public school children
A Seat at the Table: Islam Makes Inroads in Education
Spreading Islam in American Public Schools
Islamist Threat to Public Schools in Columbia, South Carolina?
Respecting Ramadan, Banning "Christmas" (School District Favors Muslims Over Christians)
"Why I left Islam", by Dr. Ali Sina
"...the real Islam is not what its philosophers and mystics have inferred but what is in the Quran and that is the Islam of the fundamentalist and the terrorist. The real Islam is the Islam that abuses women, that allows men to beat their wives, that imposes penalty tax on the religious minorities, that wants to dominate the world by subduing all the non-Muslims, that calls for Jihad and killing the non-believers until Islam becomes the only dominant religion of the World*.""The enemy is Islam and that is the target of my attacks. I do that, despite knowing that I have become the magnet of the hatred of fanatical Muslims and my own life could be in danger.
Yet I know that by eradicating Islam we can save the world from the dangers of a catastrophe that otherwise is looming over our heads and could cause more disaster than the 1st and 2nd World Wars combined."
Islamic terror based on Qu’ran: ex-CIA official
"A former top official of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency paints a menacing picture of the relationship between Islam and terrorism.
"Islamic terrorism is based on Islam as revealed through the Qu’ran," keynote speaker Bruce Tefft claimed in a panel discussion at the University of Toronto on jihad and global terrorism.
And, he added, "There is no difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism, which is a totalitarian construct..."
According to Tefft, the Qu’ran enjoins Muslims to believe that the whole world should be governed by the principles of Islam*, an expansionist religion that has historically grown through conquest..."
-- Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations), San Ramon Valley Herald, July 1998
Thanks for sharing. I will add to my reading list of must do's. I'm up to about 30 books on the subject right now.
So in short, you are complaining that Pipes is too moderate? You're funny.
There is no entity in our world which we cannot clearly identify by it's attributes, and there is no belief system in our world which doesn't have clearly conceived precepts. The only way to attract followers to any belief system is to provide them with a clearly defined path, and one which they willingly follow because it meets their requirements for a purpose in life.
Islam is no different.
If a dog has feathers, it's not a dog, and no one would attempt to say that in some cases dogs have feathers.
No one would attempt to define certain Christians as believers in the Holy Bible, but not believers in Jesus Christ.
That is the conundrum with Islam. We keep trying to apply the word "moderate" to "Muslim" when the two are mutually exclusive.
The Quran provides a clearly defined path for it's followers, and only when we attempt to dilute that message to make it more politically palatable does the identity of it's followers become confused.
If it's a dog, it can't have feathers, and if it's a Muslim, he or she cannot believe in moderation.
Bingo!
Hey! Where's the picture? The Pipes Rule is in force just as much as the Ann Coulter rule, you know!
Ciao TheOtherOne,
I'm accusing him of being in bad faith. He should know that Islam is not good at anything but expansion. He should know that "moderate" Islam, meaning the pacified variety can snap from agelong abulia to paroxysms of violence in ways that other systems cannot. He should know that wherever it has taken hold, the spirit of man has been dullened and conscience has fallen asleep.
Islam is his business, so the more of it, the more he is relevent... In so many words he's dealing with a topic in which useful savant and useful idiot are the same.
Are the Filipinos so terribly hard to get along with? Are the Thais? The Indians? Are Americans? Are Italians?
We're looking at some of the sweetest, friendliest, open-armed people of the world... and yet in each of those countries - in ALL countries - there are Islamic groups dedicated to Jihad. Can one talk about Taoists, Buddhist, Catholic uprisings? Ireland maybe? The Hindu uprisings against the Christian tribals maybe?
Maybe not. No other faith system has so many interconnected para-military organizations. Recognizing patterns is a sign of intelligence. So too is artfully hiding them... but that's bad faith.
Simply take the Koran, the Hadith and the Sira and I defy you not to see violence, hatred, mysogeny, foul examples. Perhaps for 20 years all will go on peacefully, but then at the first negative turn of events you will see reversion to fury. This has been the pattern of Islam since the day it started. He knows that. There is no such thing as Islam without Jihad.
We're not talking about theological disputes, as those between Catholics and Protestants, Orthodox Jews and Reformed. We are talking about a very potent system of evil. Look at the appeal that Islam has on prison populations!
Islam cannot be reformed short of someone claiming to be a New Prophet. It can go through quieter phases in which it succumbs to overweening strength, but the day it finds the proper weakness (such as today's extreme moral relativism), the day it finds the means, such as today's petro dollars, it will rear up and strike.
Better to just say no. No, the ends do not justify the means. No we don't want Nazis, Communists, Muslims... as a matter of fact, better the Nazis and Communists, because those are ideologies, not bottomline religious beliefs that are extremely difficult to eradicate.
Ciao
I think a little reality is needed. People who espouse that view are not not invited to debate serious policy in this country. Mr. Pipes is expressing as conservative a view while maitaining his ability to do something about it.
Ponder that road sign. Ponder it carefully, theologically, spiritually, politically, morally. Remember that is the place Muslims pray to. The kindest man on earth, one who has cast away all pleasures to spoon feed the starving Muslim children of Chad, is unfit to set foot there. He is not pure enough. At the same time the Imam of Rome thunders for anihilation of Jews and Americans and praises the oblivion of suicide bombing.
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