Why We Are Fighting

An essay from Dennis Prager:


Last year at UCLA, I debated a professor who argued that Israel and the Palestinians were moral equivalents. He is not alone (especially on college campuses) in his lack of understanding of the immoral nature of the Islamic enemies of America and Israel.

Thus it is important to remind people once again about the moral world inhabited by the people we are fighting, whom President George W. Bush calls the Islamic Fascists.

Societal examples:

-- The Islamic Republic of Sudan, in its attempt to force Arab/Muslim rule on the largely non-Arab and non-Muslim population of southern Sudan, has led to the killing of well above 1 million Christians and animists and black (i.e., non-Arab) Muslims, in addition to the widespread enslavement, rape and torture of those people.

-- No major international Arab or Muslim organization has condemned the Sudanese government's mass murders that border on genocide.

-- The leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and repeatedly called for the annihilation of Israel. As the 6 million Jews of Israel do not plan a mass exodus from their ancient and modern homeland, such annihilation would in fact mean another Holocaust.

-- The holy center of Islam, the Muslim country where the holiest Muslim sites are situated, is Saudi Arabia. That country bans the practice of any religion other than Islam, amputates hands of thieves, does not allow women to drive a car, mandates what women wear outside of their homes and is the only country in the world to feature a weapon on its national flag. Women were treated considerably better and had more civil rights in ancient Rome, not to mention ancient Israel, than women living in the holiest cities of Islam today.

-- Virtually every Islam-based country decrees the death penalty for any Muslim who converts to another religion.

In other words, every country that calls itself "Islamic" is morally inferior to just about every country in North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, almost every Asian country and many African countries.

No Muslim country treats non-Muslims and their religions anywhere nearly as decently as any Western non-Muslim country (including Israel) treats Muslims. That is why tens of millions of Muslims immigrate to non-Muslim societies and virtually no non-Muslim immigrates to any Muslim society. In every Muslim country, non-Muslims are either systematically persecuted at worst or treated as inferiors at best.

Individual examples (in just the last five months):

-- "A German court sentenced a Turkish man to more than nine years in jail yesterday for the 'honour killing' of his sister. . . . The murder of Hatun Surucu, 23, who was shot several times at a bus stop in a Berlin suburb last year, shocked Germany. . . . Forced to marry a cousin in Turkey as a young girl, Ms. Surucu later broke with her Turkish-Kurdish family in Berlin and was living independently with her 5-year-old son, to the intense disapproval of her relatives. . . . Public outrage at the murder was exacerbated when some teenage boys at a school with many pupils from immigrant families . . . reportedly openly applauded the killing, condemning the victim for having lived 'like a German.'" (The Guardian, UK, April 14, 2006)

-- "An Egyptian state-controlled newspaper praised Monday's suicide attack in Tel Aviv, which killed nine people and wounded dozens, calling it an act of sacrifice and martyrdom." (Jerusalem Post, April 18, 2006)

-- In Britain, Abdula Ahmed Ali, 25, and his wife Cossor, 23, were arrested in connection with the plot to blow up airplanes flying across the Atlantic. According to Scotland Yard, the Muslim couple planned to take their 6-month-old baby on the suicide mission, using their baby's bottle to hide a liquid bomb. (Daily Telegraph, UK, Aug. 14, 2006)

-- "We've got Hezbollah fighters running around in our positions, taking our positions here and then using us for shields and then engaging the [Israelis]." -- words of a Canadian UN observer written days before he was killed by Israeli bombs (Ottawa Citizen, July 27, 2006)

-- "Canadian authorities rounded up a group of 17 Muslim men and boys suspected of plotting to bomb major buildings in the Toronto area . . . " (CNN, June 5, 2006)

-- "A third suspect detained in a failed attempt to blow up two German trains is a Syrian national . . . German and Lebanese authorities are each holding one of two young Lebanese men accused of carrying the suitcase bombs onto trains in Cologne station on July 31. . . . Officials say they could have caused many casualties and set the trains on fire." (Newsday, Aug. 26, 2006)
Does all this suggest that we are fighting a billion Muslims? Of course not.

Does all this suggest that all or even most Muslims are bad people? Of course not.

It does suggest, however, that the dominant forces within Islam are bad at this time; that Muslims who see this evil in their midst have not mobilized any counterforce either out of fear for their lives or for some other reason; and that decent men and women around the world -- Hindu, Christian, Jewish, atheist, Buddhist and Muslim -- are threatened by this powerful, death-loving force.

Muslims who do not acknowledge the threat to civilization from within the Muslim world at least have two excuses -- fear for their lives or group solidarity. What excuses do non-Muslims have who deny this threat?

8 Months Before the War

April 28 1941

Crusader

Islamist Malaise Reaches Malaysia

The International Herald Tribune covers the depressing state of Malaysia:

In recent years, a number of high- profile court cases have highlighted the clash between Muslim and secular laws, but none so much as the lawsuit brought by Lina Joy, a computer saleswoman, who is challenging the Malaysian government over its refusal to officially acknowledge her conversion from Islam to Christianity. After two lower courts ruled for the government, Joy awaits a judgment from the country's highest court.

How the problem started:

Malaysia has a hybrid legal system that incorporates both Islamic and civil laws for personal and family matters: Muslims are governed by religious laws against drinking, eating during the daylight hours of Ramadan and having close proximity between unmarried women and men. Marriages, divorces, funerals, and inheritance are governed by Islamic laws.

Why should Islamic law be "equal" to civil law when the Muslim-majority can make it the only law in the land?

The non-Muslims who welcomed dual laws likely did so for peace and harmony. What they really did is give Sharia the chance to entrench itself. Soon, it'll be Sharia for everyone.

"You are seeing worldwide a common thing happening," said Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a Muslim lawyer. "Muslims are defining themselves by their religion instead of their country." Malik recently asked for police protection after receiving death threats for his role in the Lina Joy case: he submitted a brief in defense of Joy's right to convert.

Muslims are defining themselves by their religion instead of their country. Even in America.

First link via Dhimmi Watch.

Al Qaeda in America

For quite some time, Jeffrey Epstein of America's Truth Forum, Joe Kaufman of Front Page Magazine, and I have been monitoring a website based in Ohio that appears to be the "official" site of one of the UK's leading Al Qaeda terrorists.

We posted the article today. If you're interested in seeing how a mild-mannered innocuous-looking real estate website can also be home to virulent, anti-western propaganda calling for the murder of Kuffars (that would be us!) then you'll want to read this article.

In a war that is being fought in Cyberspace as well as on the battlefield,
it is common to find calls for attacks on westerners deeply embedded in US
websites.

Abu Musa’ab Al Suri, widely credited as the chief of Al Qaeda
in the UK, has his official website buried inside a real estate website owned by
a man in the US town in Solon, OH.

Internet records show that the
website for the For Sale By Owner Association, FSBOA.COM, is owned by American
Capital Funding, and has as its administrative contact a man named Alan Isham.

What connection, if any, does the owner of the real estate site, have
with the notorious Abu Mus’ab al Suri, one of Al Qaeda’s top ideagogues? (Al
Suri, whose real name is Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, and who also is called Umar
Abd al-Hakim, had a $5 million reward on his head by the US government, and is
now reportedly in US custody.)

We’re not sure.

But it does
appear that a website which Isham controls is home to Al Suri’s own website. In
an article published in March 2006 about Abu Mus’ab al Suri, the Jamestown
Foundation described the site located at http://www.fsboa.com/vw as “his own
website al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya al-‘Alamiyya, ("The International Islamic
Resistance") hosting his works and statements”. (Source:
http://www.jamestown.org/news_details.php?news_id=171)

Link: http://blog.lauramansfield.com/2006/08/29/uncovering-al-qaeda-websites-in-america.aspx

No Way. Really?

Ynet News has amazing news.

Iranian schools teach hatred of Christians, Jews and the West, according to a new study.
The analysis by researchers with the Center for Monitoring Peace in the Middle East found examples of anti-Western hatred and anti-Semitic hatred in many of 115 textbooks used in grades 1 to 12.

In one third-grade textbook, inhabitants of a clean town chase away a repugnant figure wearing a Star of David.

Full results of the analysis, conducted by the center and the American Jewish Committee, are scheduled to be released later this year.

Excuse the sarcasm, it's of course important that we, bloggers, confront readers with information about how the Mullahs teach the Iranian children to hate, but... did we need a 'study' to find this out?
We could've just asked the average immigrant from Iran.

Cross posted at Liberty and Justice

Sinai Becoming Haven For Terrorists According To Shin Bet Chief

The Haaretz reports that Yuval Diskin, director of the Shin Bet, has warned the members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Sinai Peninsula - and the adjacent Gaza Strip - is becoming a haven for terrorists.
The situation is becoming so bad that he warns that:

"If we don't move to counter this smuggling, it will continue and create a situation in Gaza similar to the one in southern Lebanon."

The terrorist organization responsible for creating this terrorist stronghold? Hamas.
It seems that Hamas has learned from Hizbullah and tries to copy Hizbullah's strategy.

He said that evidence of this already exists population centers in Gaza, and in the construction of tunnels and bunkers used to conceal weapons and people.
[...]
Diskin made special mention of the large number of arms smugglers, saying that since Israel transferred control of the Egypt-Gaza border to Egypt a year ago, large amounts of weaponry have been taken into Gaza from Sinai.

He listed as examples some 15,000 light weapons and four million rounds of ammunition, guns, rockets, dozens of anti-tank missiles and launchers, 15 tons of explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and Katyusha rockets with a 20km range.

In short: they're smuggling just about everything into Gaza, except for "tanks and planes", as Diskin put it.

I'm wondering about how Israel could do something against this growing problem because if one thing is clear it's that Israel isn't going to accept another 'southern Lebanon' so to speak.
The problem, as always, is how to do something against it. It seems that Israel must win Egypt's full cooperation if she wants to ensure that no more weapons and other equipment are being smuggled into Gaza.
Will Egypt cooperate?

The Palestinians Are "A Very Beautiful, Kind-Hearted and Caring People"

From Atlas Shrugs:


Sunday afternoon released hostages and Fox News journalists Steven Centanni and Olaf Wiig spoke before the cameras. The fact of their release and their statements were reported by more than 1,000 news organizations throughout the world.

At the press conference, Centanni and Wiig, who were forced by their Palestinian captors to convert to Islam, praised the Palestinians. Centanni said, "I just hope this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover this story because the Palestinian people are a very beautiful, kind-hearted and caring people that the world need[s] to know more about." Wiig similarly praised the Palestinians.

While their remarks were covered extensively, no one seemed to think that the fact that their first post-release statements were made at a Palestinian Authority sponsored media extravaganza in Gaza was significant. No one noted that the men were flanked by Palestinian "security forces," and stood next to Hamas terrorist leader and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

No mention was made of the fact that the two were initially kidnapped by just such PA "security officials," or that Haniyeh is one of the leaders of one of the most fanatical jihadist organizations in the world, an organization that the majority of the "beautiful, kind-hearted and caring" Palestinians voted into office last January.


Go read the rest.

Storm Track Disinformation: Comic Response or Common Sense?

From The Gathering Storm

Wanna hear something funny? Terrorism is reaching comic proportions. At least that’s what a Turkish online newspaper thinks.

Their article “US Terror Paranoia Taking Comic Proportions” seriouslystates:

“Pronunciation of the word “bomb” in American airports can lead to arrest and flight delays. Different versions of this paranoia have created a “comedy-like terror panic,” which delayed seven U.S.-bound flights in just one day. Another plane was forced to land after it was discovered that the mirror in one of the lavatories was not properly secured, and in another event, passengers were made to wait in an airport for hours because of the panic caused by a screaming child that refused to get on a plane. A false bomb threat forced another plane to land urgently and the discovery of an unclaimed knife in an empty seat caused “terror paranoia” on another flight.”

Their version of the comedy goes on and details other recent “comedy-like terror panic” incidents. A real side splitter, huh? Is our response more comic response or common sense? Or perhaps the Daily Telegraph has it right.

“No one should be surprised to learn that Australians want a tougher response to global terror for one simple reason - the Islamofascists who started this war show no sign of bringing their attacks on the civilized world to an end.”

Are we acting out of some irrational fear of current events? Maybe not. Here, according to the Telegraph, is what common sense tells us.

• Iran and Syria's backing of the terrorist group Hezbollah in its recent ill-fated war on democratic Israel and the refusal of many Islamic nations to recognise Israel's right to exist only further demonstrate the irrational nature of the fundamentalist Islamic ideology driving the overwhelming majority of today's international terrorist groups.

• Hezbollah's hated flag has been waved at demonstrations in Melbourne and Sydney and masked protesters have echoed the calls of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the total destruction of Israel.

• Australian civilians have been mercilessly slaughtered in two unprovoked attacks on holidaymakers in Bali, the Australian Embassy in Jakarta has been targeted and fanatical Muslims living in Australia have attempted to justify such murder.

• Around the world, Arabic television stations relentlessly beam anti-Semitic, anti-Western propaganda at an audience largely made up of illiterate Muslim children and adolescents.

• On Palestinian television, children as young as three are exhorted to admire killers who have torn living people apart, licked their victims' blood and eaten their warm flesh.

Seems like fear of these people is common sense for any rational human being - especially when European poll after poll shows an increase in fear of Islam and the reasons why.

I think we will see more and not less of people exercising their common sense like the ‘sane munity’ of those passengers who refused to board their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed. I don't think they found those characters funny at all.

People will exercise their common sense when they feel t heir government lacks the will to protect them and as the old saying goes, “People will vote with their feet”. In the case of the sane mutinies, those feet will refuse to ride with people they deem a threat to their’s and their family’s lives.

CAROLINE GLICK ON THE JIHAD MEDIA AND THE BLOGS

Brilliant, Caroline Glick writes an extraordinary column eviscerating the corrupt and vicious predatory media and hails the emergence of the blogs as the force of good that will save freedom loving peoples. Gd love that woman. I know I do.

What are we seeing when we watch events from the Middle East on our television screens? Is it news or is it terrorist theater?

Caroline Glick writes in her column today "Our World: Terrorist theater tricks" here:

As each day passes, the governments, formal and informal legal apparatuses, and media of free societies show themselves to be less and less capable of contending with the information operations conducted against their societies by subversive forces seeking their destruction.

The blogosphere, and particularly Little Green Footballs, Powerline, Zombietime, Michelle Malkin, and EU Referendum, have relentlessly exposed the systematic staging of news events, fabrication of attacks against relief workers, and doctoring of photographic images by Hizbullah with the active assistance of international organizations and the global media.
[..]
As each day passes it becomes clear that the responsibility of protecting our nations and societies from internal disintegration has passed to the hands of individuals, often working alone, who refuse to accept the degradation of their societies and so fight with the innovative tools of liberty to protect our way of life. The vigilance of just a handful of bloggers brought us the knowledge of the corruption of our media and the network of global NGOs that we have come to rely on to tell us the "objective" truth.

It is up to all citizens of the free world, who value our freedom to recognize this corruption, applaud the bloggers and join them in refusing to allow these corrupt institutions to cloud our commitment to freedom

Glick describes the media as jihad tool;

AS IS the case with the Palestinian war against Israel, one of the most notable aspects of Hizbullah's latest campaign against Israel has been the active collaboration of news organizations and international NGO's in Hizbullah's information war against Israel. Like their rogue state sponsors, subversive sub-national groups like Hizbullah, Fatah and Hamas, see information operations as an integral part of their war for the annihilation of Israel and defeat of the West. And their information operations are more advanced than any the world has seen. As becomes more evident with each passing day, they have successfully corrupted both the world media and the community of NGOs that purportedly operate in a neutral manner in war zones READ IT ALL HERE

LGF roundup:

Fauxtography Scandal updates:
EU Referendum: The Corruption of the Media
About Those Israeli 'Chemical Weapons...'
All Your Fakes Are Belong To Us
Zombie: The Red Cross Ambulance Incident
BBC Admits Engaging in Staged Photos
Perlmutter: Photojournalism in Crisis
Green Helmet Admits Staging Photos
Still More Photo Staging Identified
Lebanese Autos Miraculously Survive Airstrikes
Photographer Alleges Unearthing of Bodies
LA Times: Take a Closer Look
CAIR's Fauxtography Scandal
AP Stands Behind Green Helmet Guy
LGF Exclusive: How Much Does It Cost to Buy Global TV News?
Multi-Use Buildings
Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut?

The Left Wages Jihad Against A Fellow Infidel

Pamela, at Atlas Shrugs, is under heavy fire from the left wing of the blogosphere. Why? Frankly, it's because they are jealous and livid over the fact that she got an interview with John Bolton. In turn, they have "outed" Pamela by using her full name in article after article, something Pamela has declined to do out of a desire to remain relatively anonymous.

The thing is, Pamela gets interviews with people like John Bolton, Andrew Bostom, Phyllis Chesler, Benyamin Netanyahu, Natan Sharansky, and Brigitte Gabriel, because Pamela is good at what she does. Pamela is a former Associate Publisher of the New York Observer, so she knows the journalistic ropes. She is a good writer, with an eye for the interesting details of character, place, and zeitgeist which make the story come alive. When you read her reports from Israel, for instance, you feel as if she has taken you there.

What's more, Pamela is charming, witty, able to keep up with powerful minds. To her credit, she also posseses one of the most important qualities of a strong probative journalist; she is competely fearless. Witness Pamela's challenging of Bolton on his insistence that France was capable and trustworthy in insuring the peace in Lebanon. Remember as you read this, that she was challenging Bolton on the day after the Peace Treaty was announced. Three weeks later we see that Pamela was right, and Bolton was wrong. And, she told him so at the time.

But, the left can't sit with the simple explanation that Pamela is a good journalist, with connections, who lives in New York, and that these things account for the fact that she gets the interviews she gets. No.

Instead, they have to invent an alternate narrative. They have to invent a whole other Pamela. They say she is a drunk, that she's stupid, and that she is incoherent. That she gets the interviews because she is too stupid to ask the questions. That she is just a pawn in a bigger game controlled by larger forces behind the scenes.

Is this sounding familiar? Doesn't this sound eerily similar to what they say about George Bush?

It seems that whenever the left is confronted with their own impotence, they reach into their top drawer and pull out the same old tired smear template.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't write about such crap, but there is something else going on here about which I am concerned. Some of the attacks on Pamela are of the "she is a racist" variety. She is being branded an anti-Islam hater, who wants to "kill Arab civilians." And, many of the leftie writers who are tying to paint her as such are doing so in the hopes that their smears will spill over onto John Bolton in time for the upcoming confirmation vote.

This has to stop, my friends. This idea that we can't speak out against the violence and racism of Islam is very dangerous. Religion, like government, the media, and academia, is an insititution of power within society. Moreover, religions embody specific ideologies, in the same way that political parties embody ideologies.

If we, as a society, decide that we are not allowed to criticize religion, then we will have rendered ourselves powerless against ideologies which have the capacity to steer large amounts of people down dangerous paths.

In other words, we will have created the perfect conditions for totalitarianism.

If Muslim clerics in major mosques and universities call Jews apes and pigs who are to be murdered, then we ought to, as responsible citizens, speak out against this genocidal racism. If Muslim politicians do the same, citing the Koran as their inspiration, then we can only call ourselves decent people if we oppose them.

Somehow, though, many on the left now want to ban criticism of the ideology of religion.
We must put a stop to this idea now, as it is in its infancy as a force on the American political landscape. Once a meme gets out there, it is harder to inoculate the population against its virulence.

Our friend Pamela is being attacked by the left. We can not sit and be silent as she is branded a bigot for speaking out against bigotry. If we allow them to come after Pamela like this, they will come for another one of us next, and eventually the knock on the door you hear will be them coming for you.

A "Madhuri" Was Murdered

Charles Johnson:

Here’s a documentary from BBC2, on the appalling execution by Iran of a 16-year old girl, Atefah Sahaaleh, for violating shari’a law. LGF covered this story of medieval misogyny in 2004: Justice in the Islamic Republic.

Here's the direct link to the video. Be warned, there you'll find gruesome images of hangings, lashings and public stonings.

(Atefah was very pretty like Madhuri--an Indian actress. One can see a poster of Madhuri at the three-minute point.)

Lord A.'s letter to Merkel

Lord Apocalyps, the evil gnome heading Iran these days, wrote a letter to German Chancellor Merkel. The letter was supposed to be kept under wraps, but has now finally been published by Farsnews. It's a lengthy epistle, but here are some choice snippets.

On Germany's post-WW2 situation

For sometime I have been thinking why some nations that their history shows they have indeed had an important and prominent share and role in material and spiritual progress of mankind in various arenas of science, arts, philosophy, literature and politics and were makers of civilization are not allowed to be proud as a nation of their historical accomplishments and play their deserved and constructive role on the global arena. They try to keep the black cloud of humiliation and shame hanging over their heads. And even more regrettably, some of the leaders of such a nation regard this situation befitting them and their nation and try to justify it. This is really an astonishing phenomenon in today's world. The propaganda machinery after World War II has been so colossal that has caused some people to believe that they are the guilty party by historical accounts and must pay the penalty fort the wrongs committed by their forefathers for successive generations and for indefinite period of time.

On the guilty parties, those meanies:

Sixty years have passed since the end of the war. But, regrettably the entire world and some nations in particular are still facing its consequences. Even now the conduct of some bullying powers and power-seeking and aggressive groups is the conduct of victors with the vanquished.

And who is really to blame? Why, the Joos! Who else?

The extortion and blackmail continue, and people are not allowed to think about or even question the source of this extortion, otherwise they face imprisonment. When will this situation end? Sixty years, one hundred years or one thousand years, when? I am sorry to remind you that today the perpetual claimants against the great people of Germany are the bullying powers and the Zionists that founded the Al-Qods Occupying Regime with the force of bayonets in the Middle East.

On the Holocaust:

I have no intention of arguing about the Holocaust.

No need, oh evil one, we already know exactly what you're thinking is...

But, does it not stand to reason that some victorious countries of World War II intended to create an alibi on the basis of which they could continue keeping the defeated nations of World War II indebted to them. Their purpose has been to weaken their morale and their inspiration in order to obstruct their progress and power. In addition to the people of Germany, the peoples of the Middle East have also borne the brunt of the Holocaust.

Oh aren't those evil Zionists cunning? Using the Holocast as an excuse to oppress Europe:

Regrettably, the influence of the Zionists in the economy, media and some centers of political power has endangered interests of the European nations and has robbed them of many opportunities. The main alibi for this approach is the extortion they exact from the Holocaust.

Let us work together to defeat these evil Zionists:

Fortunately, with all the pressures and limitations, the great nation of Germany has been able to take great strides toward advancement and has become a major economic powerhouse in Europe that also seeks to play a more effective role in international interactions. But just imagine where Germany would be today in terms of its eminence among the freedom-loving nations, Muslims of the world and peoples of Europe, if such a situation did not exist and the governments in power in Germany had said no to the extortions by the Zionists and had not supported the greatest enemy of mankind.

I can see why the German government reacted as if stung by a wasp to this letter. On the other hand, I have to snigger a little bit. Lord A. may have thought it a master stroke to play on the latent feeling of victimhood and subject of injustice in many a German (still). But I can't think of a worse choice to try that ploy on, then a christian woman who knows first hand what a totalitarian regime is like.

At the same time, it would not surprise me if a lot of Germans are deeply insulted by this letters implication that deep down Germans still are Nazis, bent on forced recogition of it's greatness and the eradication of the evil Joo. And, hence, who's natural ally is Lord A. and his islamo-fascists.

Anyway, read the whole thing if you have a little time to kill. At the same time it is an utterly insidious and hopelessly inept letter.

Crossposted at Klein Verzet
.

Storm Track Intimidation: Biting the Hand That Feeds It

From The Gathering Storm

Here’s another sign of why I think Islam is a mental illness and clouds a Mulim's better judgment. Dhimmi Watch reports that mullahs tell aid groups in Pakistan to fire women or "face violent protests"

“Muslim clerics in earthquake-hit Azad Kashmir have told aid agencies to fire all local women employees or face violent protests, officials and religious leaders said on Thursday.”We have told the administration that we will not allow NGOs to exploit our women and asked them to give a date suitable to them for removal of all female workers," Syed Atta Ullah Shah, prayer leader of the Bagh central mosque, told Agence France Presse.”

It seems the non-Muslim female aid workers are a ‘bad influence’ on the saintly Muslim women in the earthquake devastated region that the non-Muslim women are there to help. The mullahs are afraid that some female infidel behaviors like wearing normal clothing, makeup and showing a bit of skin might rub off on their pious women.

Oh! And if the mullahs don’t get there way…..

"If our demand is not met then we will take direct action and extreme steps. There will be demonstrations and damage may be caused to public property…”

Yep – the normal response from this advanced perfect civilization that has given so much to the world. And yet another story out of the advanced Islamic society of Pakistan.

“President Pervez Musharraf has opened a new and especially bitter confrontation with radical Islam by trying to rewrite Pakistan's controversial rape laws. These place an almost impossible burden of proof on women by compelling them to produce four "pious" male witnesses to prove rape or risk being convicted of adultery and face 100 lashes or death by stoning. This law, known as the Hudood Ordinance, has been regarded as untouchable since its passage 27 years ago. It is regarded as untouchable because it is rooted in the Qur'an. The adoption of this law was part of the long, slow abandonment of secular law by Pakistan. It also sets no minimum age for sex with girls, saying only that they should have reached puberty.”

If you look at the history of Pakistan you will see that when it broke off from India – a demand made by the Muslim leadership to Gandhi claiming they could not live within the same country as Hindus – India went to become a prosperous nation of the 21st century while Pakistan followed a slow downward spiral lead by fundamentalist Islam and Islamic law.

No matter how much the West tries and helps Islamic countries in need, they always turn on their Western benefactors.

Fauxtography Deja Vu

Michelle Malkin:

Bloggers take a closer look at the alleged Israeli strike on a Reuters news van from last week: See Power Line, Snapped Shot, and Hot Air.

Either someone is lying or Israel is using firecrackers in place of missiles.

Islam's Weakness

Mark Steyn wrote, as always, a fascinating column for today's New York Sun: Achilles' Heel.

As Steyn explains, Christianity spread throughout Europe in an entire different way than Islam spread throughout the Middle-East. Christianity spread through pacifism: Christians lived peacefully, were willing to endure torture and persecutions, but didn't turn to violence themselves. They tried to persuade people to convert by preaches, giving the right example, talking individuals personally, but never using violence.
Islam, as I said, had a slightly different start. Most people didn't convert to Islam because the early Muslims were persuasive with words, they were mostly 'persuasive' with the sword. Convert, (pay taxes) or die. That was the choice 'infidels' that got conquered by Muslim forces had.

Steyn quotes Jesus' final words (on the day of his ascension) to His disciples to Mohammed's last words:

Jesus:

"Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."

"Be witness" -> this simply means, spread the Word, spread the Gospel. Nothing violent about it.

Mohammed however:

"I was ordered to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no god but Allah.'"

Heh.

As he explains:

That's quite a difference. Christ is saying go to the remotest parts of the world and persuade others of what you know to be the truth. Mohammed is saying fight all men until they submit to your truth: It's not a plan for converting an existing empire (as Christianity did) but for establishing a new empire. Islam was born and spread as a warrior's creed and, while that can be sedated, the intensity of anger of today's western Muslims suggests that the Mohammedan fighter endures at the heart of their faith, albeit significantly augmented by greater firepower.

As should be obvious by now, Jihadis are, in a way, simply continuing the fine tradition of conversion by sword. That is also why, as Steyn also writes, we shouldn't expect some kind of 'reform' to take place in Islam. Violence is, sadly, at the very foundation of the birth of this religion.

Steyn concludes:

It's hard to argue direct quotation is a "distortion" of the "religion of peace." The respective statements of Jesus and Mohammed are, to say the least, indicative of disposition. The embrace of Christianity by the state power in Europe was the final stage in a process of pacific conversion. Whereas, at the height of its power in the eighth century, when the "Islamic world" stretched from Spain to India, its population was only minority Muslim, and it suited the Caliphate to keep it that way: fiscally speaking, a subordinate infidel population paying the jizya (the special tax for non-Muslims) was a critical component. Islam was less a proselytizing faith than a rationale for political authority. And today's jihad has far more in common with a conventional imperial regime than with any religious evangelizing.

Which means there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that Islam will soon be able to enforce submission-conversion at the point of a nuke. The good news is that any religion that needs to do that is, by definition, a weak one. More than that, the fierce faith of the 8th century Muslim warrior has been mostly replaced by a lot of hastily cobbled-together flimflam bought wholesale from clapped out European totalitarian pathologies. It would have struck almost any other ruler of Persia as absurd and unworthy to be as pitifully obsessed with Holocaust denial as President Ahmadinejad is: talk about a bad case of Europhile cultural cringe. But in today's mosques and madrassahs there is almost as little contemplation of the divine as there is in the typical Anglican sermon. The great Canadian columnist David Warren argues that Islam is desperately weak, that it has been "idiotized" by these obsolescent imports of mid-20th century Fascism. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but, if Washington had half the psy-ops spooks the movies like to think we have, the spiritual neglect in latter-day Islam is a big Achilles' heel just ripe for exploiting.

Cross posted at Liberty and Justice