The Most Enduring Legacy Of Nazi Hate

April 23, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Book Review, History, Islam, Islam and the West, Israel and Palestinians, Middle East, Presidents, U.S. History, UK Politics, War on Terror | 6 Comments 

On February 1, 1944, two unlikely allies in the United States Senate—Robert Wagner (D-New York) and Robert Taft (R-Ohio)—introduced a resolution that caused shockwaves around the globe. Their initiative advocated American support for “free and unlimited entry of Jews into Palestine for the creation of a Jewish commonwealth.” This was a bold move and one that put the Roosevelt administration on the spot.

Nearly five years earlier, the British government had released a White Paper on the issue of Palestine—one that largely abandoned the Jewish people in that region. Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and during the period of the British Mandate they had been largely supportive of Jewish migration to Palestine and the idea of a Jewish state there. In essence, the White Paper changed all of that. It advocated severe limitations on Jewish immigration to Palestine—this at a time when European anti-Semitism was reaching critical mass.

The gang in Berlin was pleased.

Interestingly, at the time of that 1939 White Paper, two men who would later strongly support the creation of the modern state of Israel saw things differently. Winston Churchill spoke to the House of Commons on May 22, 1939 “as one intimately and responsibly concerned in the earlier states of our Palestine policy,” and insisted that he would not “stand by and see the solemn engagements into which Britain has entered before the world set aside.”
And here at home, Senator Harry S. Truman from Missouri—who had no clue at the time that he’d be a major player on the world stage in a few years–also issued a forthright condemnation that was inserted into the Congressional Record:

Mr. President, the British Government has used its diplomatic umbrella again,(this being an unmistakable dig at Neville Chamberlain) …this time on Palestine. It has made a scrap of paper out of Lord Balfour’s promise to the Jews. It has just added another to the long list of surrenders to the Axis powers.

But instead of embracing the ideas put forth by Taft and Wagner in 1944, the White House, State Department, and other powerful entities in the government pulled out all the stops to make sure that the idea of proposing a homeland in Palestine for Jews went away. They did this even though they knew very well about the ongoing mass extermination of European Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

The standard answer to the obvious question as to why the Holocaust evoked little official response from our government until near the end of the war has been to cite “isolationism,” or “economic Depression,” or “xenophobia” in our nation. Presumably, the idea of doing anything overtly “pro-Jewish” was politically untenable—so goes the argument.

But a closer look reveals something else going on at the time—and ever since.

The most lasting legacy of the toxins that created an epochal global conflict is the fact that elements of Nazism in many ways survive to this day in Islamism. The short-sightedness of FDR’s cronies was corrected in part by his successor, a man of courage who chose to recognize the new State of Israel eleven minutes after its birth in May of 1948. But the question remains: Why did FDR and company not get on the bandwagon, even while millions of Jews were being slaughtered?

Sadly, the real reason has a lot to do with U.S. surrender to Nazi propaganda—its power and content.

Largely overlooked or dismissed in the years since is the fact that the Nazi propaganda machine, the distortion factory that shaped attitudes in Germany throughout the duration of the infamous Third Reich, had its most lasting impact far away from the boroughs and beer halls of Deutschland. In fact, Hitler’s nightmarish vision of ridding Europe of Jews was only the beginning of what he wanted to do—he wanted to extend The Final Solution to Palestine.

And he had been preparing the hearts and minds of the Muslim world for many years.

Jeffrey Herf, a professor of history at the University of Maryland, has written an eye-opening book about the effectiveness of Nazi ideas in the Middle East during the Second World War called, “Nazi Propaganda For The Arab World.” In it, he describes the Nazi campaign for the minds and hearts of the Arab world in great detail—particularly the Axis radio programs that ran in Arabic around the clock from late 1939 until March of 1945.

These broadcasts spewed venomous anti-Semitism and pushed every demagogic button imaginable. They were also highly effective. In fact, long after the last vestige of Nazi rhetoric faded from consciousness in Europe, the poisonous seeds planted back then are still bearing deadly fruit.
The mind-set that gave way to the Third Reich is very much alive and well in the Muslim world of the Middle East.

When those two senatorial strange-bedfellows offered their visionary resolution in 1944 about a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the “Axis Broadcasts in Arabic” were way ahead of the story. Mr. Herf has accessed a significant cache of transcripts and leaflets produced by the Nazis during the war—materials that have not been adequately examined—until now.

So back in 1944, any hopes a couple of well-intentioned voices in Washington might have had to garner widespread national support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine were dashed by forces largely influenced by the hate-speak of Nazi propagandists. Berlin, broadcasting in Arabic, referred to Taft and Wagner as “criminal American senators,” while announcing, “a great tragedy is about to be unfolded, a great massacre, another turbulent war is about to start in the Arab countries.”

And in phraseology that sounds eerily familiar to what we still regularly hear from Islamists, the Nazis described the stakes as kill or be killed:

Arabs and Moslems, sons of the East, this menace threatens your very lives, endangers your beliefs and aims at your wealth. No trace of you will remain. Your doom is sealed. It were better if the earth opened and engulfed everybody; it were better if the skies fell upon us, bringing havoc and destruction; all this, rather than the sun of Islam should set and the Koran perish…Stir up wars and revolutions, stand fast against the aggressors, let your hearts, afire with faith, burst asunder! Advance your armies and drive out the menace.

Bear in mind that this is a Nazi broadcast to the Arab/Muslims in Palestine. Of course, the relationship between Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti in Jerusalem, is well known and documented (see my article: “Hitler’s Favorite Jihadist”), but the broadcasts from Berlin to Palestine are just now beginning to be examined. And what is being found is further evidence that to refer to Islamists as Nazi or Fascist-like is no smear—or stretch.

The rhetoric broadcast to the Middle East 70 years ago is still being noised about—and even more pervasively and effectively. Back then, the attitudes it reinforced, complete with distortion, hate, and prejudice, caused U.S. officials, from FDR on down, to “go wobbly”—as Margaret Thatcher would say.

It is sadly clear that the most lasting impact of the Nazi propaganda machine is that murderous ideas espoused back then are alive and well in our day and age and still being used to threaten and kill Jews—while nouveau wobblers turn away.

Wake Up Calls And Snooze Buttons

January 1, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, History, Intelligence, International Affairs, Islam and the West, National Security, Terrorism, U.S. History, War on Terror | 2 Comments 

On December 7, 1941, United States Senator Gerald Nye looked over his notes for a speech he was about to deliver to a packed house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nye was a Republican, but part of a progressive element in the GOP and he was no-doubt influenced by the politics of the late Robert M. La Follette. In other words, he was a fiscal liberal in domestic matters and a fierce isolationist when it came to foreign entanglements.

So speaking before a group known informally as the “America Firsters” (sponsored by the America First Committee, of which he was a member) was a piece of cake for him and he knew the lines that would draw the biggest applause. He only wished his hero could be there: Charles A. Lindbergh.

These men were part of a highly popular movement in those days, this success being reflected in Gallup Polls showing that less than a quarter of Americans favored entering the fires of war then engulfing much of the world. This group was largely anti-Semitic (and therefore, pro-German), and was joined by other luminaries of the day, including: flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker and movie actress, Lillian Gish.

During the first days of the last month of that tense year, their present preoccupation was the potential of war with Japan. To them, this was merely an excuse to enter the war in Europe through a back door. Therefore, the headline of their then-very-popular tabloid, the America First Bulletin, on December 6, 1941 was: “BLAME FOR RIFT WITH JAPAN RESTS ON ADMINISTRATION.”

After a glowing introduction, followed by furious applause, Nye, the Senator from North Dakota, plunged into his theme. But before he had gotten very far, he noticed someone in his peripheral vision approaching him from the stage wing bearing a piece of paper. He paused and read the note, which informed him of the breaking news about a Japanese attack on our fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Buzz kill.

After fumbling and hemming and hawing for a moment he mumbled: “I can’t somehow believe this…” – and then proceeded to finish his speech. Telling the crowd about what the note said, the Senator ventured his own take, which included the predictable: “We have been maneuvered into this by the President,” and the old reliable: “This was just what Britain had planned for us.”

A few days later, on December 11th, members of the America First Committee met in Chicago and decided to disband. Lindbergh didn’t attend, but sent a telegram begging them not to go out of business. He was now isolated himself, though – by his own ignorant bias.

Pearl Harbor was many things: an infamous attack, an example of unspeakable treachery, a telling moment of vulnerable denial, but ultimately it was the one thing the Japanese had not counted on – a wake-up call.

Literally overnight, opinions changed and so did the course of history, because in moments of great peril, it is foolish, immoral, and ignorant to hit the snooze button when the alarm rings.

September 11, 2001 was a wake-up call, one that kept us vigilant for a period of time roughly equivalent to the length of our involvement in World War II. We had been attacked, we knew who the enemy was, and we were resolved to find and annihilate him.

But that was then.

Some understandably suggest these days that we are in a “pre-Sept. 11” mindset. This is, of course, somewhat true, but the cliché doesn’t tell the whole story. Because before that dreadful day when the world changed forever – or as so many of us thought – there had been other ominous moments and indications of terror to come. The bombing of the USS Cole and attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, for example. However, these obvious acts of war were preceded by one on our very soil – the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. And the very mistakes we made following that attack (and those that followed before Sept. 11, 2001) we seem to be determined to make again.

History rhymes one more time.

The day after – September 12, 2001 – Daniel Pipes, director of The Middle East Forum, wrote passionately about how, though the moral blame for what happened fell upon those who planned and carried out the attacks, the tactical blame actually fell on the U.S. government, “which has grievously failed in its topmost duty to protect American citizens from harm.” His list of mistakes back then included:

• Seeing terrorism as a crime
• Relying too much on electronic intelligence
• Not understanding the hate-America mentality
• Ignoring the terrorist infrastructure in this country

Can anyone with a brain possible grade our efforts in these areas, now more than eight years later, as anything higher than, say, a D+? Bear in mind that self-given marks don’t count and in matters of life and death there is no grading on a curve.  It’s the same principle that says “almost” only works in horseshoes or hand grenades.

We are not really just in a “Pre-Sept.11th” mindset, we are actually approaching current Islamism-driven horror in ways reminiscent of how we did things in the 1990s.

How’s that working for you?

The Fertile Crescent

November 13, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Cold War, Culture, Domestic issues, Economic issues, Ethics, Faith, History, Islam, Islam and the West, Military, National Security, Religion, Terrorism, War on Terror | 2 Comments 

Every time I read, view, or hear the latest attempt to portray Nidal Malik Hasan as a “loner” or “victim of racism” or “psychotic” – or (this may be my favorite) someone suffering from something called “PRE-traumatic stress disorder,” I am torn between the desire to scream or laugh. My internal conflict increases when I hear Chicago Mayor Daley suggest the problem is that Americans love guns too much.

And then there’s the granddaddy of all recent rhetorical absurdities when Army Chief of Staff, Gen. George Casey uttered the incredibly clueless thought: “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.”

Can someone explain to me how the death of 14 (one of the victims was pregnant) can be trumped by the importance of a particular political agenda? The General should include a very real apology in his resignation letter.

It would be funny if not for the fact that it is all so dangerously sad. As I take it all in, it’s like the ghost of Groucho Marx is sitting on one of my shoulders making me smile at the outrageousness of such comments with his famous, “Who are you going to believe? Me? Or your own eyes?” This is all balanced by the difficult to ignore presence of the ghost of Gen. George S. Patton, who sits on the other shoulder and regularly fills that ear (this would be the right ear, by the way – in every sense of that word) with words I am not completely able to translate in this column.

Psychologists use the term “denial” to describe a way some people interpret reality. This manifests itself in denying something ever actually happened, or that it happened but it wasn’t to big of a deal (the “isolated event” approach), or even in something called “projection” which admits that something has indeed happened, but deflects blame and responsibility. We are a nation in official and pervasive denial.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis (c. 1962), if an American soldier would have opened fire on his comrades while wearing a Che Guevera T-shirt and yelling, “Long Live Lenin, Khruschev, and Castro,” it is doubtful that the guy’s communist sympathies would have been dismissed as irrelevant and peripheral. The commies were the enemy. And, if an investigation into his background would have yielded clues to his political feelings and fanaticism, there is no doubt that the case would have been a slam-dunk. And those who should have picked up on his radicalism before the awful fact would have been held accountable.

In fact, if some white-hooded fool were to open fire on a group today in the name of a fiery cross and a virulent racist perversion of certain passages in the Christian Bible, it is unlikely that such a terrorist would have any apologists reluctant to tie what he did to what he believed. Religious violence, be it of the cross or crescent, is always worthy of condemnation and contempt.

But when it comes to Islamism, the various contortions some use to distance what a Jihadist did from the ideology that so-obviously informed his actions are very difficult to watch.

Of course, I very much understand the complexities of this issue. We are a free society and among the most precious of those freedoms is that of religion. But as with another vital right – the freedom of speech – there are clear limits. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. And religious liberty notwithstanding, you cannot advocate the violent overturning of our constitutional way of life in this country in the name of any God.

Anyone, therefore, who embraces Sharia law and believes that it should become the code of a new America, should be disqualified from serving in the military. At any rate – how can they really take the required oath? Clearly one day long ago, the Fort Hood terrorist said:

I, Nidal Malik Hasan, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

We are told “officially” that there are 3,572 Muslims in our military ranks. Although it’s interesting to note that The American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council has that number much higher, in fact, four times higher – at more than 15,000. What do they know that those in the barracks don’t?

Some might want to counter that bad things have been done – violently so – in this country and the world throughout history, in the name of my religion – Christianity. And, sadly, I must confess that this has been the case, on occasion. But it has never been the norm. And those who do such stuff certainly don’t get their instructions from Christian doctrine.

To get from the teachings of Jesus to murderous evil requires a tortured, twisted, ignorant, and monumentally long journey. Yes, people have done bad things in Christ’s name – but in doing so they have, in effect, denied him.

Some ideologies, however, are much more friendly to the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. For example, when it comes to economic theory, you are hard pressed to find any possible pathway from Milton Friedman’s monetary ideas to killing a bunch of people. On the other hand, when you take a look at the writings of Karl Marx (no relation to Groucho), history has shown that the distance from theory to bloodshed is not all that far. In fact, Marxism and violence are close cousins because you really have to force people to turn from self-interest – all for their own good, of course.

The thing that too many in our nation are simply ignoring is that when it comes to Islam, as opposed to any other religious idea extant, the journey from ideology to what happened at Fort Hood is also not a very long one. For any Christian to become so radicalized as to open fire people in the name of his or her religion would require a virtual repudiation of the faith. Could it happen? Sure – anything can happen. And if it did, the mainstream media in this country would have no qualms about wrapping the deed around the doctrine.

But the quantifiable fact is that such things really don’t happen with Christians the way they do with Muslims. And even when certain violent acts by professed Christians, such as the killing of a doctor who has performed abortions, make the news, usually among the first and loudest expressions of condemnation and outrage are from Christians.

Does anyone hear all that many Muslim voices condemning Hasan?

Much has been made of the fact that the Fort Hood Jihadist/Terrorist was harassed for his beliefs. First, let me be clear – I think it is wrong, un-American, and certainly un-Christian to at all persecute someone for what is believed and practiced in the context of our Constitutional freedoms. And when it comes to Christians – who have known the pain of persecution throughout the centuries – there is no Biblical mandate for a follower of Jesus to ever persecute another human being. If fact, in our way of thinking, and from the wonderful Jewish scriptures that inform our faith, we are ever admonished to love neighbor as self.

The Christian response to persecution is never to be that of reactive violence. The Apostle Peter gave instruction near the end of his life on this matter:

Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. – I Peter 3:13-16 (NIV)

Gentleness, respect, hope, and love – these are the watchwords of the follower of Jesus. But there is no “turn the other cheek” stuff in Islam. And at some point people in this country need to stop ignoring the obvious.

So I respect my Muslim neighbors and want them to be treated justly. This means, when there is peace, community, love of law, love of country, all will be well. And when these values are violently violated there must be justice of another kind – to punish evil, especially the egregious wickedness of terrorist murder.

But I also, taking another cue from Jesus, must be “wise as a serpent,” and this means I need to be aware that certain ideologies are more fertile when it comes to hate and violence. And, like it or not, they – and those who espouse such teachings – need to be watched very carefully.

Too many people have been looking the other way in America. It’s time to focus.

For You TNN Early Birds

August 4, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Islam, Islam and the West, Terrorism, War on Terror | Leave a Comment 

I will be on FOX & FRIENDS, on the FOX NEWS CHANNEL, tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at approximately 6:50 a.m. (eastern) to talk about issues related to the subject of a recent column I wrote about the expansion of a Saudi-funded school in Fairfax County. 

Support Your Local Sharia

July 31, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Book Review, Cold War, Europe, Immigration, Islam, Islam and the West, Religion, Terrorism, War on Terror | 2 Comments 

It is pretty clear at this point that barring some kind of last minute reality check the Fairfax County (Virginia) Board of Supervisors will approve the Islamic Saudi Academy’s application for a special exemption this Monday, August 3rd.   This will enable the Saudi-funded madrasa to expand and plant even deeper roots in America’s backyard, teaching in the anti-democratic traditions of wahhabism.

It will happen despite the fact that neighboring home owners associations are opposed, the land use and legal issues argue against the school and would have been a death knell to any other application, and the academy in question has on many occasions failed to honor previous county agreements, not to mention state law.  

Oh, and the wise ones on the panel defiantly refuse to factor in the fact that the Saudi curriculum taught at ISA is filled with hateful things that most Americans would find repugnant – even dangerous.   We’re not talking about mere religious ideas.  What has been taught there in the past should have caused the powers that be to shut the place down years ago.

Interestingly, just a few days ago one of the academy’s past students – in fact, a former valedictorian and a young man voted “most likely to be martyred” (really) named Ahmed Omar Abu Ali – was resentenced to life in prison for plotting with al-Qaeda and trying to kill President George W. Bush.  As the cool song says: “I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way.”  He graduated in 1999, bounced around for a bit and wound up in Saudi Arabia in 2002.

In his written confession, Abu Ali said: “It was decided that I would go [to the United States] and live a normal life [overtly] to keep attention away from me, marry a Christian woman, and at the same time I would prepare as best I could for operations.”  If all this seems decidedly inconsistent for someone who practices a religion of virtue and peace, bear in mind that there is an Islamic doctrine called taqiyya.  What it basically means is that deceit is a legitimate weapon when dealing with infidels (read: “We the People”).

Grasping the fact that our determined enemies will at times use monumental deceit to further their cause is imperative right now.   The members of the Fairfax County panel seem oblivious to this. More than a quarter of a century ago the board of supervisors denied a similar application by a Christian school, citing traffic concerns.   Of course, the traffic is much better now.  Right.

“I cannot put the safety of the American citizenry at risk,” said U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, when he handed down Abu Ali’s sentence.  Good call, your honor.  Now, would you ever consider becoming a county supervisor? 

Christopher Caldwell, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, has written a book called, Reflections On The Revolution In Europe.  In it he notes: “In the middle of the 20th century, there were virtually no Muslims in Western Europe.  At the turn of the 21st century, there were between 15 and 17 million.”  Now in many major European cities the most common baby names Mohamed, Ayoub, Hamza, etc.

He suggests that these Muslims have not assimilated, but rather have formed “a parallel society.”  And they are bringing anti-Semitism back big time.

“Imagine that the West,” Caldwell writes, “at the height of the Cold War, had received a mass inflow of immigrants from Communist countries who were ambivalent about which side they supported.  Something similar is taking place now.”

And it’s not just happening over there.

The expansion of the Islamic Saudi Academy may not seem to be that big of a deal to some and certainly the members of the board of supervisors see no threat in allowing them to get a better foothold.   But such things are, in fact, part of a pattern of denial and outright stupidity on the part of people who should be intelligent enough to know better. 

Convinced, though, of the liberal notion of “enlightened tolerance,” such political leaders are playing a dangerous game of mindless appeasement.   There is a growing subculture in this country, a network of nefarious groups sharing a common theo-political vision for taking over everything.  Operating under the aegis of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and so many others, they all say one thing, while doing another.  

Ignore what they say; watch what they do.

Their unmistakable goal is the dominance of Sharia-law in this country – the world for that matter.   In other words, they envision a political overthrow and remaking of everything we know, love, and hold dear as Americans.  And they are using the Bill of Rights and opportunities created by a systemic decrease in vigilance to gain ground toward their objective. 

I believe in the Christian faith.  I therefore do not believe in the tenets of Islam.  Nor am I into Buddhist doctrine.   I do, though, believe in religious liberty and free speech.  But what we are seeing is a case where religious liberty and free speech have become weapons in the hands of would-be terrorists and tyrants.  

I will defend with all my heart the right of any Muslim to pray and live according to the precepts of that faith.  I will also do all in my power to bear witness about Christianity in the free marketplace of ideas.  But if anyone, in the name of religion, or under its cloak, seeks the overthrow of the very system that grants us those freedoms, that’s where the line is drawn. 

Free speech ends with the cry of fire in a crowded theater.   Religious freedom ends when there is deception en route to coercion that would ultimately lead to an end of liberty for all.   And no municipality or government entity should deliberately ignore the toxicity of certain ideas that would undermine the Constitution.
 
What if the Ku Klux Klan wanted to put a school in Fairfax County?  How about if Kim Jong-il decided to put a nice North Korean institution in our backyard – fully funded?   I imagine such enterprises would not even get a hearing.   Why then the Saudis?  The wahhabism taught at the Islamic Saudi Academy should be every bit as objectionable to freedom-loving Americans as what some other enemy might espouse.  

But some might ask: What about “moderate” Muslims?   Well, as Bruce Bawer points out in his book, Surrender: Appeasing Islam – Sacrificing Freedom, “that while there are such things has moderate and liberal Christianity, there is no such thing as a moderate or liberal Islam.  Yes, there are millions of good-hearted individuals who identify themselves as Muslims and who have no enmity in their hearts for their non-Muslim neighbors and coworkers.  Some of these Muslims are religiously observant, some are not; but their moderation is not an attribute of the brand of Islam to which they officially subscribed but is, rather, a measure of their own individual character.” 

In other words, their moderation comes not from a particular interpretation or variant, but rather “they have chosen to put a certain distance between their own religious thought and practice and the strict tenets of institutional Islam.”

Those of us in Fairfax who oppose the expansion of the Islamic Saudi Academy will likely have to concede defeat this Monday. But in doing so we will long remember – at least until the next county election – where the supervisors stood on the issue.   Stay tuned.

It appears that many liberal-minded types want us to be more like Europe and their views may be ascendant these days, but those who see European-socialistic-democracy as a model for our future should pay attention to how it is being threatened by an enemy within. 

As Mr. Caldwell says in his new book about what is happening there, “When an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture (Europe’s) meets a culture that is anchored, confident, and strengthened by common doctrines (Islam’s) it is generally the former than changes to suit the latter.”

 

The County And The School Of Hate

July 10, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under History, Islam, Islam and the West, National Security, Religion, Terrorism, War on Terror | 2 Comments 

Last month, a Saudi Arabian man named Raed Abdul-Rahman Al-Saif, placed three bags on the Tampa, Florida airport security conveyor belt as he made his way toward his gate to board US Airways flight 1077 to Phoenix, Arizona and Portland, Oregon. He never made it to the gate.

A Transportation Security Administration representative saw something on his screen that made him curious. Upon further investigation, TSA officers found a knife “artfully concealed between the outside fabric and the expandable pull handles of the bag.” This bag, by the way, would have been easily accessed by Al-Saif had he made it on his flight.

It was a butcher knife.

It turns out that he has been living in the U.S. illegally for a while and had been previously arrested on drug-related charges and for driving without a license. He had been a student at the University of Tampa, but was dismissed this past May due to poor academic performance. Word is, though, that he was a much better student back in high school. In fairness, that likely had to do with where he went to school and what he was learning.

Raed Al-Saif is a 2003 graduate of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), the same institution that gave us the likes of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was the school’s valedictorian in 1999. If that name rings a bell, it’s because he’s the guy who was convicted in 2005 on charges that included “providing material resources to Al-Qaeda” and “conspiracy to assassinate President George W. Bush.”

Then there were Mohammed Osam Idris and Mohammed el Yacoubi, both former ISA students, who were denied entrance to Israel in 2001. It turns out that they had written farewell letters before the trip for some kind of “suicide mission in the name of jihad.” And, let’s not forget Mr. Abdall I Al-Shabran, the ISA director who was arrested last year for failing to report child abuse.

Islamic Saudi Academy operates under the direct authority of the Saudi embassy, one of 20 or so such institutions around the world. It is also funded by the Saudi government and uses Saudi government “curriculum, syllabus, and materials.”

It is also virtually in my backyard – at least part of it. And they want to grow, that is, if the Fairfax County Government Planning Commission continues down its current path of blind accommodation and politically correct assuagement.

There is another meeting on the subject this Monday, July 13th at the county government center, and it should prove to be interesting. Last March, a handful of concerned citizens tried to speak over the disconcerting protests of about 600 ISA supporters. The few brave souls argued against a “special exemption” to zoning regulations that would allow “for the building of an expansion to the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax.” By the way, the school now operates on property leased directly from the county.

As the pastor of a church in Fairfax County, and having for many of those years managed a private Christian School in the area, I can speak first-hand about how difficult it usually is to navigate the processes of county government here on behalf of a religious institution. But in the case of ISA, there appears to be an almost fawning and subservient approach on the part of many county leaders. Perhaps they are afraid of being politically incorrect. Perhaps they are just afraid.

Most likely, however – they are simply naïve.

Some of those arrayed against ISA are doing so simply out of concerns about traffic and other logistics on a particularly picturesque stretch of Popes Head Road. But most opponents are involved because they see ISA as a training institution for Wahhabism, an ultra-dogmatic and extreme form of Islam. They see ISA as “a hate training academy.” One detractor has said of the school: “We feel that it is in reality a madrassa, a training place for young impressionable Muslim students in some of the most extreme and most fanatical teachings of Islam.”

Of course, one of the great challenges when dealing with issues like this is to think and work through it in the context of religious liberty and tolerance. But what happens when our best intentions to preach freedom and tolerance wind up being used as a cover for something more sinister – even deadly?

The Nazis twisted a cross and developed a quasi-religious cult, but such a group would be hard pressed to lease property directly from any county in America. Hitler and his henchmen, by the way, came to power in Germany by using their constitution, then once in power they shelved it.

The Ku Klux Klan used a fiery cross as its symbol of hate and preached a sordid synthesis of misapplied Christianity and mysticism. But the religious element of it all was clearly a cover story. Are Islamists today using our Bill of Rights as a weapon against us en route toward the goal of a nation governed by Muslims, Islam, and Muslim law?

The answer appears to be all too clear – at least for those who are really watching.

Islam may indeed be one of the world’s three great monotheistic religions, but Islamism is better compared to Nazism and the Klan in a religious sense, not to Judaism and Christianity in general. Are there fanatical people who hate in the name of Christianity and Judaism? Probably, but they would be statistically insignificant and considered criminally insane. Not so, when you compare Islam itself with Islamism.

Daniel Pipes is a widely read expert on the threat of radical Islam. He is a director of the Middle East Forum and calculates that, “10 to 15 percent of Muslims worldwide support militant Islam.” Let’s do the math: Estimates of the global Muslim population range between 1.3 and 1.6 billion – roughly one in five human beings. This means, if Pipes is right (and it is possible his estimates may be on the conservative side) – that there may be between 130 and 240 million people in the world who, in the name of Islam, hate America. These are the people who had a party on that sad September day seven years ago.

By the way, the total combined population of an earlier axis of evil enemies – Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in September of 1939 – was approximately 194 million. That’s total – as in every man, woman, and child.

How about the statistics right here in the U.S.? Well again, the estimates are all over the place, but it is generally accepted that between three and five million of our neighbors are Muslim. Applying the Pipes formula to here at home, we come up with the potential for anywhere between 300,000 and 1,200,000 people in this country who may be less-than-enamored of the rest of us. Or worse, some may be longing for the day when the fruited plain becomes a Muslim caliphate.

At what point, if ever, will some Americans awaken to the idea that a fair amount of what is passed off as Islam is, in fact, a cloak of unrighteousness – designed to use the guise of religion to gain cultural and ultimately political hegemony here?

Sure, not all Muslims are advocates of the kind of hate that would overthrow a government and superimpose Sharia-rule over the rest of us. But the evidence is growing that the number of Islamists in the Islamic fold is significant. And the battles are now being fought with the issues blurred.

What is needed now in America more than ever is an emergent group of leaders who are discerning – people who are wide awake to the threat from within.

Air Brushing History

June 4, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, Islam and the West | Leave a Comment 

Max Boot points to some obvious revisionist history on earlier American-Islamic relations in President Obama’s speech in Cairo earlier today:

Obama also twisted history when, for example, he mentioned how “Islam has always been a part of America’s story.” He said: “In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, ‘The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.’ ” That made the treaty sound like a celebration of American-Muslim partnership when in reality it was a treaty whereby the U.S. paid substantial bribes to the ruler of Tripoli in return for a cessation of attacks on American shipping by his corsairs. Tripoli didn’t keep its promises, and the result was America’s first overseas conflict — the Barbary Wars fought against the Muslim states of North Africa.

Oh….Those Wars Of Liberation

June 2, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, Islam and the West | Leave a Comment 

Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright has advice for Obama and a reminder to the Islamic world:

I have attended a number of conferences designed to promote understanding between the United States and people who live in Muslim-majority states. According to Muslim speakers at such events, one fact stands out: When the cold war ended, America needed an enemy to replace Communism and chose Islam.

How else, they ask, to explain the two Gulf wars, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and the plight of the Palestinians? To support their thesis, they cite the bellicose post-9/11 rhetoric of U.S. officials, the Western media’s preoccupation with Muslim extremists and the plethora of pundits who have identified Islam, especially “political Islam,” as the leading threat to civilization in the 21st century.

To most Americans, the idea that our country is attacking Islam or that we view the Islamic faith as an enemy is absurd. The first Gulf War was a response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of a neighboring Arab country. On 9/11, America was the victim, not the aggressor. In Iraq, President Bush’s rationale for regime change, though misguided, was hardly anti-Islamic. U.S. leaders can’t be held accountable for what some writers say in order to scare people and sell books. What is more, in the 1990s, America twice led NATO into conflicts on behalf of Muslim populations — first in Bosnia, then Kosovo.

Nevertheless, the perception that America is hostile to Islam remains widespread, much to the satisfaction of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the government of Iran. To his credit, President Bush attempted on several occasions to communicate his respect and peaceful intentions to Muslim audiences. Sadly, those efforts fell on deaf ears.

On Thursday, President Obama can be assured of a wide audience, and he will speak with a far cleaner slate than his predecessor. Mr. Obama has a family connection to Islam; he also has a well deserved reputation for weaving moral and political themes together in a coherent and thoughtful way. His challenge — not unusual for this president — will be to fulfill the expectations he has raised.

Mr. Obama’s dilemma is that no speech, however eloquent, can disentangle U.S.-Muslim relations from the treacherous terrain of current events in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and the Middle East.

Since the president is unlikely to announce major policy changes, he must persuade Muslims abroad to view our existing policies in a new light. That is no small job. It requires separating the rationale for contemporary actions from the long history of clashes between Islam and the West, and it requires overcoming the resentment caused when Muslim noncombatants are killed as a byproduct of conflict.

The more direct the president is in acknowledging these problems, the more likely it is that Muslims will think objectively about his words.

A Responsible Anti-Jihadism?

April 23, 2009 by Joshua Treviño | Filed Under Islam, Islam and the West | 2 Comments 

Better late than never:

“I don’t think there is an anti-jihadist movement anymore,” Johnson said. “It’s all a bunch of kooks. I’ve watch some people who I thought were reputable, and who I trusted, hook up with racists and Nazis. I see a lot of them promoting stories and causes that I think are completely nuts.”

Charles Johnson’s disenchantment with a movement he did much to create is more likely a function of his contrary nature than his active conscience, but it would be ungracious to pry overmuch. The sad truth is that the self-proclaimed anti-jihadists, as a group, have done a great deal to discredit themselves in the past decade.

The list of major sins looks something like this:

Enthusiastic and uncritical identification with right-wing politics and policies.

Inability to distinguish critiques of Islam from critiques of Muslims.

Willingness to associate with racists.

Credulity in subscribing to conspiracy theories. (Viz.)

Inability to formulate and advocate meaningful public policy.

In this light, the anti-jihad movement is something far less than a considered intellectual tendency. Instead, it is an attitude of inchoate belligerence, with its only consistent focal point being hatred of the Muslim. “The Muslim,” depending on what that means, may give one much to hate; but to hate him (and her) per se is to commit a grave error. The first and most compelling reason for this is, of course, that each individual (of any stripe) deserves to be judged as such. On a broader level, post-9/11 rhetoric and sentiment may be as they are — and I’ve indulged in both in full measure — but we are not in fact at actual war with Islam or Muslims at large. As such, to adopt a stance of conscious and deliberate hate is to indulge in the mental precursor of genuine and terrible crimes.

Whether we are at metaphorical war with Islam is a different question, and even an arguable one; but the effect of the war metaphor is, I believe, generally toxic — and even causative of the basic frivolity of the anti-jihadists. It should be enough to acknowledge that Islam in nearly every form contains within it certain doctrines and traditions inimical to our classical liberal traditions, our concepts of rights, and our assumed freedoms. (Indeed, I have reported on this threat firsthand.) This said, there are a number of things that do not follow from this understanding, including:

That any given Muslim is inimical to the same.

That Islam cannot exist within the context of the same.

That Islam must necessarily threaten the same.

That only Islam poses this manner of threat.

The anti-jihadist movement generally believes all of these propositions, and it is difficult to see that belief as anything but a lazy intellectual shortcut. From a plain movement standpoint, this is understandable: who wants to rally to the banner of, “Islam is deeply problematic, but not necessarily fatal?” Far better to guard the gates of Vienna, or shrug like Atlas, or stoke the fires of 9/12, or whatever last-stand-of-the-West rhetoric strikes one’s inner Charles Martel. This is the stuff of a short-term movement, and perhaps a stirring read, but it is not, to borrow a phrase, reality-based.

Lost in the shrill din of the anti-jihadists is the woeful truth that there is such a thing as jihad, and it does demand a policy response. What would responsible anti-jihadism look like? The wish list flows from the indictments:

It would embrace the whole of the political mainstream, as anti-Communism once did.

It would hold no animus for the individual Muslim.

It would reject all trafficking with racists.

It would reject conspiracy theories and anything too easily sliced by Occam’s razor.

It would seek the implementation of meaningful and realistic public policy.

The last point is perhaps the most important, from the pragmatic (though not the moral) standpoint. As a rule of thumb, the policy preferences of the anti-jihadists range from thoughtless support of neoconservatism at best, to strange and unworkable schemes of Muslim exclusion at worst. A basket of responsible anti-jihadist policy preferences might encompass human-rights advocacy in the Muslim world, support for liberal education, support for religious minorities, and similar measures. (I personally favor the conceptual approach of Georgetown’s Thomas Farr.) My intent here is not to imagine or present a full list of idealized preferences, but to illustrate possible alternatives, and to make a point: that responsible anti-jihadism requires more engagement with the Muslim world, not less.

If and when this responsible alternative emerges, it almost certainly won’t be called an anti-jihad movement. For now, that label is sullied by the “bunch of kooks” who took the notion and ran it into the ground. The irony is that in seeking to defend the West — or their idea of it — they have managed to discredit, with their immoderation and insensibility, what should be a given in our politics. That’s real damage that will be difficult to fix, and impossible to forgive.

Israel Should Go Local

April 1, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Islam and the West | Leave a Comment 

Middle East expert Bernard Lewis discusses why Israel’s current parliamentary political system – despite its longevity – is still unstable and prone to insular party politics rather than the urgent needs of constituents:

A significant disadvantage of the present system is that there is no direct relationship between the elected members and the electors. In the Anglo-American system, every member is directly answerable to the people of the place he represents. They watch their member’s actions, and vote accordingly in the next election.

In the Israeli system, the member is only responsible to the party leadership or, worse still, to the party bureaucracy. His success or failure in the election depends less on the will of the electorate than on the place assigned to him in the party list. This is not a healthy system, and it can only encourage the corruption about which so many Israelis complain today. The Knesset would improve dramatically in quality and experience if its members, including the members of the government, were obliged to fight and win their own election and re-election by the electorate.

Horatio Alger Ahmadinejad

February 17, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under International Affairs, Iran, Islam, Islam and the West, Middle East | Leave a Comment 

Catching up on some old reading files, I find some interesting points raised by Turi Munthe in a review of Kasra Naji’s book Ahmedinejad: the Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader.

Naji has spent his life in Iran, reporting for the world’s English-language media. Despite its overblown sub-title – The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader - it is subtle, faultlessly researched, wide-ranging, balanced and well written.

There is a Prophet-like quality in this story of a man’s rise from humble beginnings to the helm of a divinely inspired movement. Ahmadinejad was born in 1956 in the small town of Aradan on the edge of a salt desert in central Iran.

His father was a blacksmith called Ahmad Sabaghian (or “Dye-master”) who would later change his “peasant” name when they moved to Teheran a few years later. “Life was difficult for our family and my birth made it more difficult,” the president wrote on his blog.

His rise to prominence from a shabby suburb of Teheran was due to a combination of intellectual brilliance and Islam.

In its context, it has a touch of heroism: the story of a nobody who triumphed in the national school-leaving exams but gave up his place at a prestigious university to stay near his spiritual mentor; of the genius who dedicated his twenties to the Revolution and the war against Saddam; of the underdog who became mayor of the capital but refused the palace and salary; and finally, of the presidential candidate who campaigned in the streets of the capital as “the Iranian nation’s little servant and street-sweeper”.

Naji clearly traces the moral code and real social conscience behind the president, which help us to understand his popularity and also the man himself.

Naji points out that Ahmadinejad is driven by a messianic belief in God and his own role in bringing about the return of the Shia’s quasi-messiah – the Mahdi or “Hidden One”.

In 2005, he warned the UN General Assembly to be ready for “the emergence of a perfect human being who is heir to all prophets”.

Ahmadinejad believes he will be at the herald of a “third revolution”, an Aryan Dream (with explicit gestures to the Third Reich) with anti-Semitism at its heart, and that he will lead Iran into battle against the “Jerusalem-Occupying State”.

Naji is even more impressive on the vote-rigging, political manipulation and cheating that characterised Ahmadinejad’s presidential victory in 2005. And he shows that, despite seeming to the outside world to be a purely theocratic state, Iran has a surprisingly vibrant (if monstrously corrupt) political engine.

Here is the paradox of Iran. It is a theocracy that wants to drag its population back to the social norms of early Arabia, but it has a blogosphere so huge it has made Farsi the fourth most common language used on the internet.

Iran is devoutly Muslim but anti-Arab; it wants to lead the Muslim world against what Ahmadinejad calls “the world-devouring powers”, and yet its self-image is as the “martyr state”.

Would You Turn Your Cheek For A Terrorist?

February 6, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Barack Obama, History, Islam, Islam and the West, Religion, Terrorism, U.S. History, War on Terror | 4 Comments 

During a recent interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, President Obama indicated that his administration is in fact moving away from the of the phrase “war on terror.” Recognizing that “we have a battle or a war against some terrorist organizations,” he sees those groups as not “representative of a broader Arab community.” Presumably, his use of the word “some” in reference to terrorist organizations does not mean he thinks other terrorist organizations are less dangerous, but is just a case of awkward phrasing.

Then again, he did say that “words matter.”

The president told Cooper that “words matter in this situation because one of the ways we’re going to win this struggle is through the battle of hearts and minds.” My question is this: Are we now trying to win over the hearts and minds of terrorists?

Certainly there are issues that need to be debated in the marketplace of ideas. There are a vast number of Muslims in the world who are not radicalized. And we certainly want to use reason, intelligent argument, and appeals to justice, mercy, and compassion as part of a concerted effort to prevent some from crossing over to the dark side.

But for those who are already indoctrinated, immersed, and otherwise in bondage to a fanatical Islamist ideology, it is foolhardy to think that any words from anyone in the west will disabuse them of their destructive notions and deadly ambitions.

Mr. Obama reminded those gathered at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington the other day that he is not naïve. But some of the signals being sent by him and his administration are, at best, mixed on the subject. If you have to say you are tough, you’re probably not. And if you have to say you are not naïve, you just might be.

Frankly, I – along with so many others – have never been a fan of the whole “war on terror” nomenclature. It smacked of vagueness and misdirection, directing focus on one particular methodology in a larger conflict. I have always thought we should be demonizing an ideology – one very worthy of such a characterization.

We should have, all along, been saying that we are in a war against a vile, loathsome, and pernicious ideology – Islamism. It is only a combination of a misguided sense of political correctness blended with a cowering fear of inciting dangerous people that has kept us from telling it like it is.

If President Obama wanted to move away from “war on terror” and toward “war on Islamism,” he would have my support. But his move away from George W. Bush’s definition of the conflict is in the wrong direction. He and those around him apparently think that “war on terror” is just too strong.

At a time when this country needs to be vigilant and focused on a very real enemy – one determined to end our way of life as we know it – Mr. Obama has blurred the issue. He is moving us away from a war mindset to something more surgical and limited. This should be no surprise to observant Americans. After all, he didn’t really have much to say on the issue during his campaign.

To minimize or marginalize danger is to ignore it. And to ignore danger is how to quickly become blind and vulnerable.

Make no mistake, anything less than a clear commitment, born of national self-interest and concern for international justice and stability, to destroy Islamism in this generation the way we defeated Nazism nearly 65 years ago, is, in fact, the epitome of naivety. Reaching out to moderate Muslims has its place, but not without a clear challenge to them to be on the front lines of resistance to Islamism.

Islamism is not synonymous with Islam, per se – but unless Muslims rise up and fight against the radicals, it may one day be. Much is made of the fact that Islamists only make up a small percentage of Muslims worldwide. But as I have written before, that kind of dismissal ignores the fact that we are still talking about more actual people than the total combined populations of Germany, Japan, and Italy, as the world went to war in 1939.

There are, in fact, clear parallels – even direct connections – between Islamism and the mechanisms of fascism and Marxist-Leninism.

As Daniel Pipes has noted, “Islam is the most political of religions, the one most oriented toward power.” He further suggests that Islamism – the kind that is radical, utopian, and totalitarian, “is a modern evolution of something that was always in Islam but takes it to an ideological extreme.”

It would follow, therefore, that Muslims themselves – particularly those who fly the flag of moderation – must deal with the cancer in their own religious body. Otherwise, they run the risk of ensuring the ultimate identity of Islam with terror, hunger for power, and violence.

In the 1920s, when the Ku Klux Klan paraded through the streets of America preaching a doctrine of bigotry and attaching their venom to an image sacred to all Christians – the cross – it took many Christians a long time to repudiate the hooded fanatics.

Why was that?

It was simply because many “Christians” (all white ones, of course) found themselves sympathizing with some of what the Klan stood for. They preached a form of patriotic Americanism that resonated with many in America’s heartland – especially during that decade of seismic social change.

Sure they wore hoods and had funny titles for everything, but they also waved the flag and carried the cross. So what if they burned the latter. This is how some rationalized their sympathy with such a glaringly un-Christian cause.

Using Christian imagery, clergymen, and even churches, for a short time the KKK had a place in the hearts of many “God-fearing” Americans. In some places, a person could not be elected to office without Klan support – it was a big deal for a while. It was an ugly chapter in the history of Protestantism in American church history.

When the KKK was finally repudiated as a major movement in America, it still took some “Christians” a long time to get it out of their system. The “nativist” instinct lived on, though spoken of only in whispers and with subtle winks of the eye.

I suspect it is that way with many of our Muslim neighbors these days. They may not buy into the terrorism and violence, as they practice a more moderate Islam, but there may be a few things that simply resonate with them. Possibly this is why it is so hard to find moderate Muslims who will actually renounce Islamism.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney may well be one of the most unpopular people in the country these days, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. And when he warns us – as he did this week – that the country is swiftly becoming more vulnerable to terrorist attack, in light of the body language of the new administration, he may be on to something.

Cheney, speaking of Islamist terrorism in general, and particularly Gitmo detainees, recently reminded us “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.”

It’s like that old story about the man who sold a mule, telling the buyer that the animal would do anything as long he was asked nicely. The next day, the buyer returned and shared a tale of frustration because the stubborn mule would not do a thing – no matter how many times he was asked nicely.

The seller picked up a wooden two-by-four that was leaning against his barn. He walked right up to the mule and hit the animal in the head. Then he whispered, “Please pull that plow.” The mule started moving as fast as he could.

“I thought you told me to never mistreat your mule,” the farmer told his neighbor with a questioning look on his face. The farmer hesitated and said, “Like I said, talking nice to him works every time. But, sometimes you have to get his attention first.”

I am all for reaching hearts and minds, but German entnazifizierung (denazification) could not happen until we had their attention by actually winning a war.

Re-education is much more effective as a post-war exercise.

Where Democracy Is Bad And Autocracy Is Good

February 3, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Islam and the West, Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

David Hazony whips up a little bit of Jeanne Kirkpatrick nostalgia in Commentary Magazine and applies it to Erdogan and Turkey’s lurking clericalism:

Funny country, Turkey. The more it democratizes, the more it Islamicizes. Founded as an anti-clerical state, this secular bastion has long been preserved by the army, which sees itself as the ultimate authority, and every once in a while stages a coup to prove it. This is the part that is pro-Israel, that has turned Turkey into one of Israel’s most important military allies.

Then there is the other Turkey, the one that holds democratic elections, the one that picked the pro-Islam, openly anti-Israel Recep Erdogan as its premier.

Suddenly we have a major hiccup in Israel-Turk relations, after a decade of deepening cooperation in military, economic, and tourism spheres. Israel fought Hamas, and Erdogan launched into the crimes-against-humanity canard. In the span of a week, we hear that Israelis have basically stopped vacationing there (this, after an Israeli basketball team was run off the court by violent, anti-semitic fans). Some American Jews are more willing to discuss the Armenian genocide, which they’ve tended not to mention for fear of harming Israel-Turkey relations. Israel’s president Shimon Peres has a public spat with Erdogan at Davos, resulting in the latter’s walking off the stage. And Israel, which is not very choosy in selling arms to other countries, is considering downgrading its arms sales to Turkey, for fear of the weapons getting into the wrong hands.

Where is this going? Unclear. Fixing things with Turkey will be a crucial burden for Israel’s next government. But for now, it’s nice to see Israel standing up for itself, not just against its enemies, but especially with its allies.

Obama And The Iranians, A Squandered Opportunity?

February 2, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, Iran, Islam and the West | Leave a Comment 

Abe Greenwald at The  Contentions blog explains how the human rights movement in Iran is enamored with President Obama, something that bodes very well for American foreign policy. What an opportunity!  But Greenwald contends that Obama’s reachout effort on Al-Aribiyah television wasn’t extended to them, but rather those who would “unclench their fists:”

I fear Iranian human rights activists are the next group to become disenchanted with Barack Obama. If they have not yet heard (and given Iranian media, they might not have), Obama is not interested in ideology: he’s interested in expedience (um, I mean, uh, smart power). And the heartbreaking difference between the two is best captured in these words, written by a group of Iranian human rights activists to President Obama: “You ordered the Guantanamo prison to be shut down, in our land we have many Guantanamos in Evin, Rajayi Shahr…where students, women, workers, and the journalists of our country are being held.” But what that group has yet grasp is that Obama didn’t campaign on closing down Evin prison.

Hope And Change In The Muslim World

January 28, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Islam and the West | Leave a Comment 

Means President Obama continuing Bush’s policies, and allowing CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petreaus the chance to develop an innovative counter insurgency strategy that can have a potential ripple effect throughout the region. Abe Greenwald:

Yet, hopefully that revolutionary impact will not be lost on those who felt it most. If security and political progress advances or merely holds in Iraq, and if President Obama allows David Petraeus to institute an innovative counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, the work of the Bush administrations will bear fruit for a long time to come. What exist as troubling blurs in the memories of Americans eager for “change,” live as the formative nuclei for Muslim democrats who were willing do die for change.

And here’s the difference made by the quotation marks: Within the confines of one spoken paragraph of his Al-Arabiya interview, Barack Obama asserted that “All too often the United States starts by dictating,” and then immediately praised the dictatorial King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for his “great courage.” If future American presidents find themselves short of apology material in addressing Muslims, they should look no further than President Obama’s cynical wordplay-as-policy.

The Problem With Obama’s Arab TV Interview

January 28, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, Islam and the West | Leave a Comment 

Victor Hanson notes that Barack Obama tried to appease and apologize to the Muslim world while distancing himself from a recent past that in reality was more advantageous to Muslims (for better or worse) than the purported worldliness of European, Asian, and yes Muslim nations:

There is no reason to be apologetic about past U.S. policy or to question recent generic bipartisan initiatives. Worse still, Obama offers little mention that the U.S. in fact has a far better record toward Muslims than does a Europe, China, Russia, etc. (cf. freeing Kuwait, giving help to the Somalis, bombing European Christians to save Balkan Muslims, billions in aid to the Jordanians, Egyptians, and Palestinians, fostering democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, tsunami relief, liberal immigration policy, lectures to Russia about its horrific treatment of Chechnya, helping to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan, etc). The problem with the Muslim Middle East transcends what we do, and its pathologies—statism, autocracy, religious intolerance, gender apartheid, tribalism, lack of human rights, and constitutional government—are mostly self-inflicted, rather than the result of American insensitivity. If there is no need for a president to mention all of these obvious and embarrasing problems, then in the same manner there is no need to apologize for U.S. policy.

In Sync?

January 27, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Islam and the West, Israel and Palestinians, Middle East | Leave a Comment 

President Obama was interviewed on Al-Arabiyah telvision yesterday to strike a more “conciliatory” and nuanced tone with the Muslim world than what was apparent during the “cowboy diplomacy” era of the Bush administration. But according to Jennifer Rubin, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton doesn’t sound that remote from the consistent, steadfast, and resolute President Bush:

Straight declarative sentences. A firm line on terrorism. An unapologetic tone about the United States’ ongoing humanitarian efforts for the Palestinian people. And an unequivocal stance in support of Israel’s right of self-defense. That sounds, well, downright reasonable.

Whether she is the lone voice in the wilderness or one of many conflicting voices emanating from the new administration (which seems to have a plethora of power centers) remains to be seen. But if she is going to maintain her influence as the President’s primary voice on foreign policy she better make sure everyone else is in sync with her. And right now that might not be a bad place to be.

Unjust Assault On Bush’s Wartime Legacy

January 25, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Islam and the West, Terrorism | Leave a Comment 

Joby Warrick of The Washington Post writes that the mere inauguration of President Obama, absent of a unique war strategy, is sending al-Qaeda into a spiral of defeat, getting under the terrorist group’s number two leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s skin for allegedly attaining a more favorable reception from the Muslim world, something that the more polarizing (and symbol for terror recruiting) President Bush wasn’t able to do:

The torrent of hateful words is part of what terrorism experts now believe is a deliberate, even desperate, propaganda campaign against a president who appears to have gotten under al-Qaeda’s skin. The departure of George W. Bush deprived al-Qaeda of a polarizing American leader who reliably drove recruits and donations to the terrorist group.

With Obama, al-Qaeda faces an entirely new challenge, experts say: a U.S. president who campaigned to end the Iraq war and to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and who polls show is well liked throughout the Muslim world.

Whether the pro-Obama sentiment will last remains to be seen. On Friday, the new administration signaled that it intends to continue at least one of Bush’s controversial counterterrorism policies: allowing CIA missile strikes on alleged terrorist hideouts in Pakistan’s autonomous tribal region.

But for now, the change in Washington appears to have rattled al-Qaeda’s leaders, some of whom are scrambling to convince the faithful that Obama and Bush are essentially the same.

“They’re highly uncertain about what they’re getting in this new adversary,” said Paul Pillar, a former CIA counterterrorism official who lectures on national security at Georgetown University. “For al-Qaeda, as a matter of image and tone, George W. Bush had been a near-perfect foil.”

But in April 2008, Mr. al-Zawahiri released a video that mocked President Bush and General Petraeus for their efforts to pacify Iraq, also evidently an act of desperation since at the time al-Qaeda had been dealt a devastating blow as a result of Bush’s decision to deploy an additional 20,000 troops.

Anbar Province, the most violent of the organization’s strongholds in Iraq had already seen a sharp reduction in violence in 2007, the culmination of the decision to surge and the creation of an anti-insurgent party made up of local sheiks inspiring an increase in police and military recruitment and a decline in attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces. These events had a ripple effect through the rest of the fledgling country, a wholesale rejection of AQI’s commitment to violence, and a national determination to defeat the terror group.

al-Qaeda’s morale turned for the worst when Osama Bin Laden’s mentor Salman al-Oadah sent his protégé an open letter in September 2007, condemning him for the use of violence:

“How many innocent children, elderly people, and women have been killed in the name of Al Qaeda?” asked al-Oadah in a letter on his Web site, Islamtoday.com, and in comments on an Arabic television station.

“How many people have been forced to flee their homes, and how much blood has been shed in the name of Al Qaeda?”

“Are you happy to meet Allah with this heavy burden on your shoulders?” al-Oadah asks bin Laden. “It is a weighty burden indeed – at least hundreds of thousands of innocent people, if not millions [displaced and killed]. And it is all because of the ‘crimes’ perpetrated against civilians by bin Laden’s Al Qaeda on 9/11.”

It is worth noting that Mr. al-Oadah,  a “respected religious authority,” earlier refrained from attacking bin-Laden directly for his role in the attacks of 9/11. His decision to turn on his protégé is significant, denoting a public relations defeat for bin Laden’s movement considering that according to The International Herald Tribune, they were both critical of the Saudi government’s relationship with the United States, especially with the Kingdom’s permission to station troops during the first Gulf War.

For his part, Ayman al-Zawahiri also suffered his own rebuke from a respective mentor. According to The New Yorker’s Lawrence Wright Sayyed Imam, an early founder of Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, not only condemned his group’s needless bloodshed on 9/11 and in the London and Madrid bombings, but questioned and effectively undermined al-Zawahiri’s and other’s authority to wage war on the West:

“You cannot decide who is a Muslim or who is an unbeliever or who should be killed based on the color of his skin or hair or the language he speaks or because he wears Western fashion,” Fadl writes. “These are not proper indications for who is a Muslim and who is not.” As for foreigners who are non-Muslims, they may have been invited into the country for work, which is a kind of treaty. What’s more, there are many Muslims living in foreign lands considered inimical to Islam, and yet those Muslims are treated fairly; therefore, Muslims should reciprocate in their own countries. To Muslims living in non-Islamic countries, Fadl sternly writes, “I say it is not honorable to reside with people—even if they were nonbelievers and not part of a treaty, if they gave you permission to enter their homes and live with them, and if they gave you security for yourself and your money, and if they gave you the opportunity to work or study, or they granted you political asylum with a decent life and other acts of kindness—and then betray them, through killing and destruction. This was not in the manners and practices of the Prophet.”

Imam’s manifesto prompted al-Zawahiri to write a desperate 215 page rebuttal that defended and encouraged violence, a hopeless message considering that President Bush was committed to securing Muslim populations from al-Zawahiri’s wrath.

OBL, Washed Up Terrorist, Token Color Commentator

January 14, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Islam and the West, Israel and Palestinians, Terrorism | Leave a Comment 

James Robbins at National Review notes just how pathetic and irrelevant Osama Bin Laden has become:

Osama bin Laden weighs in on Gaza, calling for jihad, criticizing Arab states for playing footsie with Israel, and so forth. And of course it is “news” because this is bin Laden, who hasn’t done much recently but who is still the embodiment of evil, and who occasionally demonstrates he is still alive. It is pathetic that the only way he can show the world he exists is by releasing occasional taped statements on events he is really not involved with and cannot influence. He is like a color commentator who has long since left the game and only states the obvious when on screen, but whose previous track record and personality keeps him bankable; and who knows, maybe someday he’ll do something memorable again. Meanwhile it’s jihad this, ummah that, Al Aqsa and the other thing — it’s a shame we haven’t been able to terminate his contract.

A Loss For The Mullahs

January 5, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Islam and the West, Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

Michael Ledeen contends that the Gaza offensive could be a devastating blow to Iran’s influence in the Middle East:

After years of refusing to see Iran’s aggressive intentions, most sensible observers of things Middle Eastern now recognize that the most important terrorist organizations, from Islamic Jihad to Hezbollah and Hamas, are essentially Iranian proxies. Figaro this weekend carries a story bluntly headlined “Iran Behind Hamas’ Grad Missiles,” and flatly states that Hamas military commanders have been trained in Iran and Syria to use the deadliest missiles in their inventory. The battle of Gaza is therefore the second between Israel and Iran in two and half years, the first being the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah (which, lest we forget, was kicked off when Hamas kidnaped three Israeli soldiers).

It follows that Iran could well lose this battle, and defeat is very dangerous to a regime like Tehran’s, which claims divine sanction for its actions and proclaims the imminent arrival of its messiah and of the triumph of global jihad. If Allah is responsible for victory, what can be said about humiliating defeat? The mullahs are well aware of the stakes, as we can see in their recent behavior.

Next Page »