Quick question about arming rebels

Does the administration’s decision to arm the Libyan rebels remind you of anything?  It does me.  It reminds me of the Reagan administration’s decision to arm the rebels in Afghanistan.

Back then, the rebels were not our enemy, and they were fighting a sworn enemy against whom we’d been engaged in myriad proxy wars for decades.  This time, the rebels are our enemy, killing our civilians and soldiers all over the world, and they’re fighting a government that hasn’t does us any active harm in recent years.

Somehow, despite our pure and fairly reasonable thinking back in 1980s, I seem to recall that our decision to arm and train radical Islamists proved to have bad and lasting consequences for us.  (Hint:  the Taliban.)  This time around, we don’t even have the excuse of ignorance.  The Libyan rebels we’re arming, comprised of useful idiots, Al Qaeda operatives, and Muslim brotherhood members, were our active enemy yesterday; they’re our active enemy today; and tomorrow, pumped up with our weapons and supplies, they’ll still be our active enemy, only more dangerous.

Another jihad attack, this time against the American military *UPDATED*

My condolences to the family and friends of the two airmen killed in Germany.  And my best wishes for a safe and speedy recovery for the two airmen who are seriously wounded.  And a plague and a pox on the media which tries so desperately to hide that this was not a random crazy man, but yet another assault in the Islamists’ ongoing war against the West.

The New York Times has reluctantly included in its report on the shooting a statement hinting that the shooter was a Muslim.  However, it not only buries this fact in the last paragraph, it never states it explicitly, choosing, instead, a tortuously oblique way of reporting that the shooter was dedicating his attack to Islam:

A man whose office is near the site of the shooting, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect his business, said witnesses told him that before opening fire the gunman shouted “God is great” in Arabic. Mr. Füllhardt said he could not confirm such reports.

I hate when our troops die, but I especially hate it when they are sitting ducks on the receiving end of a terrorist attacks.  These are men who are trained to fight and are committed to battle, and there is something almost insulting when they are attacked on the home bases or on buses in noncombat nations.  For a warrior to die like a civilian highlights the enemy’s evil, because it always seeks out soft targets.  I know that sounds stupid, ’cause dead is dead.  I guess this goes back to the Jewish thing of saying “never again” to the way in which civilians were meekly herded to their deaths.  It hits me viscerally.

Hat tip:  Jihad Watch

UPDATE:  The shooter’s uncle spells it out:  Devout Muslim.

It is (I hope) not futile to resist the Islamic Borg

One of the things the Leftist multiculturalists refuse to acknowledge is that Islam does not assimilate.  Individual practitioners of the faith may, periodically and superficially, espouse the culture in which they live, but the fact remains that Islam, by its nature, is the Borg.

Borg-like, the Islam collective’s motto is “Resistance is futile.  You will be assimilated.”  The Borg/Islam collective does not recognize the possibility that it might be the entity that assimilates.  As with the fictional Borg populating Star Trek : The Next Generation, when the Islamists move in on a territory, they move in to conquer and for no other reason.

I mention this pop culture analogy here, because one of Singapore’s past leaders, Lee Kuan Yew, in an interview to promote his new book, spoke about Islam’s failure to assimilate, and he made a statement that is, I think, full comparable to Churchill’s speech about the Iron Curtain dividing Europe:

In the book, Mr Lee, when asked to assess the progress of multiracialism in Singapore, said: “I have to speak candidly to be of value, but I do not wish to offend the Muslim community.

“I think we were progressing very nicely until the surge of Islam came, and if you asked me for my observations, the other communities have easier integration – friends, intermarriages and so on, Indians with Chinese, Chinese with Indians – than Muslims. That’s the result of the surge from the Arab states.”

He added: “I would say today, we can integrate all religions and races except Islam.”

He also said: “I think the Muslims socially do not cause any trouble, but they are distinct and separate.”

Mr lee then went on to speak of how his own generation of politicians who worked with him had integrated well, including sitting down and eating together. He said: “But now, you go to schools with Malay and Chinese, there’s a halal and non-halal segment and so too, the universities. And they tend to sit separately so as not to be contaminated. All that becomes a social divide.”

He added that the result was a “veil” across peoples. Asked what Muslims in Singapore needed to do to integrate, he replied: “Be less strict on Islamic observances and say ‘Okay, I’ll eat with you.’”  (Emphasis mine.)

Certainly if there’s one image that epitomizes Islam, it’s the veiled face, whether the veil hides women from all civic interactions or masks the men on Western streets who commit violence with impunity as they hide their faces from the authorities.

Yew, who is no longer a power broker, has the luxury of age and retirement to speak of this veil.  It’s interesting, however, that Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has suddenly decided to speak up as well about the Borg in Britain’s midst:

In an attack on Britain’s previous government, Cameron said authorities there had been too hesitant to intervene when some sectors of society espoused abhorrent views.

“We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values,” Cameron said. “We have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream.”

Cameron said a culture of tolerance had allowed both Islamic extremists, and far-right extremists, to build support for their causes. “We’ve been too cautious, frankly even fearful, to stand up to them,” he said.

Some European allies have criticized Britain for harboring hardline Islamic clerics and failing to clamp down on mosques that promote a perverted view of Islam.

Several terrorists involved in attacks or attempted plots in the U.S., Sweden, Denmark and Norway over the last two years have had links to Britain, or British-based clerics.

“If we are to defeat this threat, I believe it’s time to turn the page on the failed policies of the past,” Cameron said. “Instead of ignoring this extremist ideology, we – as governments and societies – have got to confront it, in all its forms.”

I am delighted to see people with bully pulpits begin to speak, although I don’t expect to hear anything intelligent on the subject from the world’s premier bully pulpit until January 2013 (assuming all goes well in the November 2012 elections).  As it is, my only hope now is that the Islamic/Borg invaders haven’t already reached to a tipping point from which there is no return.

Hat tip:  American Thinker

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

And Mussolini made the trains run on time….

When I read that the Obama administration is good with having the Muslim Brotherhood on board in Egypt, because it’s really not such a bad organization, I keep thinking of 1930’s rationalizations about Mussolini:  He made the trains run on time.  Surely our standards of decency are higher than that?

Uh, no.  I guess not.

UPDATE:  Yet another example of the “Mussolini was efficient” attitude.

Two questions for you about Egypt

1.  Faced with a popular revolt of the type we’re seeing in Egypt, can an American president make a difference?

My sense is that, while we’re certainly not going to drop bombs, the American president (any president, not just Obama) is such a vast presence that both his silence and his speech matter.  His bully pulpit is so large that, by appearing to support one side or another, either through silence or affirmative statements, he can affect the momentum within the other country.  What’s your point of view?  This is separate from whether Obama is being inept.  After all, if anything he does is meaningless theater, his ineptitude, if it exists, is irrelevant.

2.  What do you think will happen in Egypt?

I think that, while the average Egyptian on the street is not an Islamist (meaning he’s not committed to the Muslim Brotherhood’s jihadist goals), he really doesn’t know what he wants beyond not wanting the current situation.  That vagueness creates a vacuum, and I think the MB is poised to fill that vacuum.  If it does, I predict that, in four months, (a) Egypt will have sharia law; (b) Egypt will abrogate the treaty with Israel and attack; and (c) there’s a 50% chance that the Islamists will let their hostility to the Wets override their economic self-interest and shut down the Suez Canal.  Of course, if Mubarek can hang on long enough for a peaceful transition, maybe something good will come of all this.

Pat Condell on Europe’s continued slow-mo suicide

The Enlightenment was born in Europe and, clearly, will die there too:

Hat tip:  Small Dead Animals

Left again allies itself with radical Islam

My husband has, for years, castigated me for refusing to listening to Cat Stevens’ music.  He makes two points, the first of which is valid, the second of which is not.  First, he says, the music predates Stevens’ conversion.  If I hear it on the radio, Stevens isn’t getting any royalties anyway, so there’s no harm, no foul.

This is true.  But I still hate to hear Stevens because he irritates me so much.  And why does he irritate me?  Well, that gets to the second reason my husband scolds me, and as to that reason, my husband is wrong:  “You don’t like him just because he’s a Muslim.”  No, buddy.  I don’t like him because he’s a jihadist who advocates the murder of those who disagree with Islam.

My twenty-year old mini-dispute with my husband (and it really is mini, because how often does Cat Stevens come up in daily life?) has suddenly taken on a bit more resonance for me, as my husband’s favorite comic du0 — Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert — happily and proudly hosted this jihadist at their rally to “restore sanity.”  I know I’m picky, but I don’t consider it sane for Americans, especially Jewish Americans, to cavort with jihadists.  I’m clearly out of step, though, with this “super hip” American zeitgeist.

If you want to know more, lots more, check out Ed Driscoll, who always has good stuff.

Obama’s “war” on terror at odds with Americans’ goals

Andrew McCarthy hits the nail on the head in these paragraphs:

Obama sought the presidency as the candidate who would turn the clock back to the 1990s. He idealized the Clinton years, when terrorism was treated only as a crime, when preventing it was decidedly secondary to prosecuting it and the courthouse was the only battlefield on which the government had any interest in meeting al-Qaeda — an arrangement that suited al-Qaeda just fine.

Outside Obama’s left-wing base, Americans don’t share these sentiments. Their speed is more President Bush’s conception of counterterrorism as a defensive war to quell enemies — not defendants but enemies — who are actively making war against the United States. The war in Iraq and, now, in Afghanistan, turned unpopular, but that is because its focus drifted from defeating Islamist terrorists (an aim still strongly supported) to building Islamic democracies (an aim that never had strong support).

Leftists mistook the unpopularity of the war overseas for a rejection of Bush’s robust antiterrorism approach at home. They assumed that because the public was confused and angry over the unrequited sacrifices our troops were making, Americans must also have bought the ACLU narrative that Bush had shredded the Constitution. In point of fact, Americans are very content to have terrorists treated as military enemies and killed or captured before they can strike. They don’t think Gitmo is a gulag, they don’t see military justice as a kangaroo-court system, they don’t believe alien jihadists should automatically be endowed with constitutional rights, and they don’t want those jihadists brought into our country, where — the public adroitly suspects — our federal judges will find reasons to order their release.

Read the whole thing.  It’s good.

Two to read *UPDATED*

Working on deadline, so I can’t blog right now.  (Anyway, I couldn’t say anything better than Danny did, in the post immediately preceding this one.)  I did, however, want to bring two posts to your attention, ’cause I think you’ll find them interesting.

The first is the Rosh Hashanah sermon from Rabbi Shal0m Lewis in Atlanta.  I’d like to believe the ideas expressed are game changers for American Jews but, so far, I’m only hearing about it from Jews who have already shifted to the conservative side.  I urge you to read it and send it to all your friends, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.

The second is a Greyhawk post about the problems in Pakistan, an unstable, dangerous, but currently necessary US ally, and the Obamaniacs’ . . . mmm, shall we say “creative” approach to that problem.

UPDATE:  Yet another liberal rabbi is figuring out there is a problem.  I wonder how long before they tug on those strings and realize that the other end is held firmly in the hands of the Progressive party, all the way up to the White House.  (h/t:  Bruce Kesler, who seems to have a nice rabbi who is open minded)

Kristof takes relativism to its logical and utterly stupid extreme *UPDATED*

I admit it — I didn’t read the whole thing, because the obscene relativism permeating Nicholas Kristof’s first couple of paragraphs so disgusted me, my brain shut down.  Anyway, because of fair use concerns, I don’t want to quote more than the first two paragraphs, which more than adequately make my point:

Many Americans have suggested that more moderate Muslims should stand up to extremists, speak out for tolerance, and apologize for sins committed by their brethren.

That’s reasonable advice, and as a moderate myself, I’m going to take it. (Throat clearing.) I hereby apologize to Muslims for the wave of bigotry and simple nuttiness that has lately been directed at you. The venom on the airwaves, equating Muslims with terrorists, should embarrass us more than you. Muslims are one of the last minorities in the United States that it is still possible to demean openly, and I apologize for the slurs.

You understand that Kristoff just equated extreme Muslim conduct with what he perceives to be extreme American conduct, right?

It’s useful to list the conduct he’s speaking about.  First, extreme Muslim conduct against Americans and other Westerners:

1.  The first World Trade Center attack, in 1993 = 6 dead; 1,042 injured.

2.  The USS Cole attack = 17 dead, 39 injured.

3.  The Fort Hood attack =13 dead, 30 injured.

4.  The 9/11 attack = 2,996 dead.

5.  The Beslan massacre = 334 dead, mostly children.

6.  The Madrid train bombing = 191 dead; 1,800 injured.

7.  The Mumbai massacre = at least 173 people dead; at least 308 injured.

8.  The U.S. Embassy bombing in Africa = 230 or so people dead; approximately 4,100 injured.

9.  The attack on the U.S. Marines in Beirut = 299 dead.

10.  The Bali night club bombing = 202 dead; 240 injured.

And that’s just the short list of Islamic attacks against civilians.  The long list is here.  Since 9/11, the total number if attacks exceeds 16,000.  That’s not dead bodies; that’s just attacks — against Americans, Europeans, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and even fellow Muslims.

And now for extreme American conduct against Muslims:

1.  Many Americans complained that it was inappropriate for a mosque to be raised at Ground Zero, considering that it was practitioners of Islam that brought down the Twin Towers killing 2,996 people.  These same Americans pointed out that the Imam’s ostensibly reconciliatory rhetoric was belied by (a) his past words dreaming of a destroyed Israel and a sharia-controlled America and (b) his threats that, if Americans didn’t comply with his peaceful mosque plan, Muslims would get violent.  Finally, these aggressive Americans suggested that the mosque would be a fine thing if it was moved a few blocks away.  Dastardly Americans!

2.  Two Americans threatened to burn the Koran, sparking national outrage . . . against the ones threatening to burn the Koran.

I don’t know about you, but my feeling is that you’d have to have an IQ in the single digits to agree with Kristof that those Americans who failed to object to the Koran burning (about 50 Americans) or side with media about the GWM’s location (about 70% of Americans), are precisely the same as those Muslims who are utterly silent, nay, complacent, in the face of two decades of blood-saturated Muslim atrocities.

UPDATE:  This Austin Hill article is nicely on point.

Liberals demand Big Government, except when it comes to national security

On my personal Facebook account, I linked to a report about the cartoonist who suggested “Everyone Draw Mohammed” day.  It turns out that this little moment of satire occasioned death threats so serious that she has now been forced into a life of hiding:

An American cartoonist whose satirical work inspired the controversial “Everybody Draw Mohammed Page” on Facebook has gone into hiding, the newspaper which published her comics said Wednesday.

Molly Norris, of Seattle, Washington, has moved and changed her name following a call for her assassination by US-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, The Seattle Weekly said.

“You may have noticed that Molly Norris’ comic is not in the paper this week,” the newspaper said. “That’s because there is no more Molly.”

“The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, ‘going ghost’: moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity.

“She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program — except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab,” the newspaper said.

I understand this news story to demonstrate how Islamists and jihadists are using terrorist tactics to hijack American freedoms — in this case, freedom of speech. In America, we fight speech with speech, not with swords.

My Facebook post resulted in comments several friends, two of whom (both far Left liberals) used it as a springboard to vent, not about Islamic terrorism, but about America’s security infrastructure.*  One complained that the airport security measures encourage terrorism.  Huh?  The TSA measures are definitely inconvenient band-aids, that leave the root cause of terrorism unaddressed, but I’m completely confused as to how they relate to the fact that Islamists are threatening to kill Molly Norris because she made a joke about their religion.

The other made almost precisely the same point:  He didn’t say that jihadists or Islamists are the problem.  Instead, he said that the U.S. government uses these threats (which he dismissed without comment) to justify stripping us of our civil rights and fighting two wrongful wars.  In other words, it’s not “cause and effect,” it’s “effect and cause” in his world.

Is it too much to ask of the liberals that they say “these Islamists are bad people whose theocratic world view is a fundamental threat to our Constitutional civil rights?”  Why do I ask these dumb questions.  Apparently it is too much to ask.

It’s this vast ideological chasm that explains why it’s virtually impossible to hold a civil conversation, let alone a persuasive one, with a liberal.  For one thing, they do not see Islam as a problem.  Instead, they see our government as a problem — except that they’re also the ones who want to expand our government to totalitarian levels.  They want overwhelming welfare and nanny-statism, which is the one thing the Founders didn’t want; while utterly rejecting national security, which is the lowest common denominator of effectiveness for any functioning government, and is both an implicit and explicit part of the government’s obligations under the Constitution.  Without the latter, you end up without a state.  (Just ask the Romans.)

______________________________

*Yes, I do have liberal friends, because I grew up in a liberal part of the world.  These are people I’ve known for decades.  In any event, I find their views interesting, if not always intelligible.

About that “growing” anti-Muslim sentiment

The MSM is bewildered.  How is it that nine years after 9/11, people are more hostile to Muslims than they were the day of 9/11, when 20 Muslims murdered thousands of Americans, and sought to decapitate the American government?  This article from the San Francisco Chronicle nicely presents the liberal confusion:

Anti-Muslim sentiment grows 9 years later

Nine years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, one thing remains certain: Some politicians and media types can stir the nation’s darker impulses to tar all Muslims with the same hatred most people feel toward the 19 fanatics who killed nearly 3,000 people in New York and Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon.

The experts are pretty sure that the primary reason for this is because Americans are paranoid scapegoaters:

The roots of America’s continuing “ambivalence” toward Muslims and Islam is rooted in larger forces shaping the culture, said John C. Green, a professor of political science at the University of Akron and expert on the relationship of religion and politics.

“Part of it is the continuing threat of terrorism – not just in this country but around the world,” Green said. “A lot of it has to do with the economy. There is a sense that life is unstable. The American public is under siege. So, foreign threats are magnified. In a lot of people’s minds, there is this sense that this religion is associated with violence.”

Did you get that? Sure, there’s terrorism, but the real problem is that we’re scared, so we have “this sense” that Islam is “associated” with violence.

The article hastens to assure is that this sense is, to quote the article, “faulty.” Apparently the fault lies with Glenn Beck, but I have to admit to have gotten bored with the usual anti-conservative, pro-Muslim pabulum, so I kind of stopped reading about the time Glenn’s name came up.

Here’s the deal: The majority of Americans are more than smart enough to understand that the majority of Muslims worldwide are people who have no desire to bomb buildings or decapitate people.  Like us, they just want to live their lives.  We wish them well.

But we, the American people, have learned something in the last nine years, something that, prior to 9/11, only hyper-aware people knew: There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. A small percentage of them are jihadists, who are actively engaged in war against the United States and against Western culture generally, and have been so, with varying degrees of success and intensity since the early Middle Ages.

Given the 1.3 billion starting point, this small percentage point adds up to well more than a million Muslims around the world who actively wish us ill.  Actively.

They fight American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, they blow up our cultural allies in Israel, England, Spain, Bali, and other places around the world.  They gleefully decapitate their perceived enemies wherever they find them, whether in the Philippines, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, or anywhere else in the world.

They are also engaged in a concerted effort to use the threat of violence to blackmail Western culture into abject capitulation.  Free speech within the boundaries of Western nations  = death threats or, if you’re Theo van Gogh, actual death.  Women appearing in public per the norms of Western culture, within the boundaries of Western nations = death threats, rape, acid attacks, etc.  Open debate about Islam = death threats.

What Americans have also figured out is that the remaining billion or so non-violent Muslims are utterly passive.  With remarkably few exceptions, beyond saying “we’re not violent,” they are doing nothing whatsoever to stop the cancer that lies at the heart of their religious affiliation.  Frankly, that’s not good enough.  Fine, I understand that they’re deathly afraid too, but they certainly cannot expect Americans to respect them unreservedly if they (a) keep repeating, contrary to available evidence, that Islam is not connected to violence; and (b) do nothing to stem the violence.

So the reason Americans are more anti-Islamic now than they were on 9/11 is that, in the ensuing nine years, they’ve learned more about Islam.  What they’ve learned is that Islam, in active mode, is indeed a violent and threatening religion; and that Islam in passive mode, despite being the majority of Muslims, is useless at stemming the tide of millions of murderous Islamists.  This has nothing to do with American ignorance, paranoia and economic fear, and everything to do with paying attention.

How jihad (violent) and Islamism (political and social) work towards the same goal

Clifford May beautifully explains the fact that Jihadis, who use violence, and Islamists, who use more subtle means, are both threats to the West — and he manages to mention, too, why reform isn’t happening:

Terrorism is not the core of the problem. It is merely the weapon of choice for some of the regimes, movements, and ideologies that are waging a war against the U.S. and other democratic societies.

The terrorists regard themselves as “jihadis” — heroic Islamic warriors and conquerors. They see their enemies as “infidels” — enemies of Allah who deserve death and would be better off dead.

Yes, the jihadis and those who support them have grievances against America, Europe, India, and, of course, Israel. But resolving policy differences is not their goal. Their goal is to humiliate, defeat, and subdue the West, and to restore to Muslims the power and glory they enjoyed in the distant past and which, they are confident, they are destined to enjoy again in the not-too-distant future.

Not all those who seek this restoration engage in acts of terrorism or even support them. There are those — call them “Islamists” — who are not militants. They believe non-violent strategies can more effectively hasten the transition from the rule of law as constructed by men to the rule of law as ordained by Allah, along with the transfer of global dominance from Judeo-Christian and secular societies to “the Muslim world.”

It should go without saying but probably does not: Most of the world’s Muslims are not participating in this struggle, are not eager for bloodshed, and do not want to live under clerical dictatorships. But if, as has been conservatively estimated, only 7 percent of the world’s Muslims support Jihadism and/or Islamism, that’s more than 80 million people — a formidable force backed by enormous Middle Eastern oil wealth. By contrast, Islamic reformers and peacemakers are isolated, targeted, and without substantial resources.

I urge you to read the whole thing.

I’ll just throw in here a conversation I had with one of my friends.  I’ve never discussed politics with her because it hasn’t come up.  I’ve assumed that she is a liberal, simply because most people in Marin are liberals.

Our conversation swung around to the military, and it turns out that she admires the military greatly for its ability to cultivate leadership skills in people.  She’s a professional consultant whose job is to teach leadership skills, and she thinks the military has that down pat.

I mentioned that my son has always wanted to join the military, because he’s fascinated by it but, as he piped up (since he was present for this conversation), “I don’t want to get killed.”  My friend and I both agreed that, during times of war, your chances of sudden death in the military are increased over that same chance in peace time.

Then my friend said something along the lines of, “I think we’re going to have active wars for a long time, because of the forces against us.”  Wow!  Did a Marinite just say something that sounded very much as if she believed America is fighting a defensive war, rather than an offensive, imperialist war?  I think so.

I added, “Yup, and these wars matter, because they’re existentialist.  It’s us versus them.”  She said, “You’re right.”

The conversation moved on then, but I was left with the very strong impression that, Democratic or Republican, conservative or liberal, this is one person in Marin who gets it.

Australian welfare system funds jihad cell

It took almost two years for this video to come to my attention (it was originally posted in September 2008), but I believe “better late than never,” so I’m bringing it to your attention.

Debate: On what legal grounds could the Ground Zero mosque be rejected?

In a comment to an earlier post, a reader raised a good issue:  Let’s accept as absolutely true that the proposed Ground Zero mosque is emotionally offensive, and that, for Islamists, a mosque at the site of a battleground is the sign of conquest.  Do those two factors justify refusing the mosque on legal grounds, whether those legalities arise from municipal codes, state legislation, federal legislation, or the Constitution?

Debate, please.  I ask only that the debate be polite, since this is a heated issue.  As an aid to the discussion, I offer both John Hawkins’ list of quotations making the case against the mosque and Dorothy Rabinowitz’s WSJ article.

“KKK Hall to be built at Gettysburg”

I was thinking of headlines to rival the one I saw this morning:

Landmark vote opens door to Ground Zero mosque

For true parallelism, you can’t have as the new occupier the same person or entity that caused the deaths at the site. Instead, you have to have the fellow-travelers, the ideological descendants, the spiritual soul mates, the ones who have never given up on or repented the original theory leading to the massacre. These are my ideas:

KKK Meeting Hall to be built near Gettysburg site

Neo-Nazis build recreation center at Auschwitz

Pol Pot family to build resort center on “Killing Fields”

Of course, were any of the above to happen, one would hear the roar of outrage from one end of the media and the self-anointed elite to the other (especially if the first was to happen).  However, in an age that sees the political elite driven in equal parts by political correctness and a never-acknowledged fear of the violence that lies at the heart of Islam, the bureaucrats approve this desecration and the media stays silent.

And it is a desecration, because this mosque is about conquest.  This is not a mosque that is being urged on the site by sheer coincidence or as an act of contrition.  It is being financed and built by the ideological soul mates of the same men who hijacked four planes; crashed into two towers, one low-lowing building, and a field; and caused almost 3,000 deaths on a single horrible morning. The conquerors march and the quislings bow.  Feh.

Random fascinating stuff out there, plus a few opinions of my own about the California Academy of Sciences *UPDATED*

Although it’s been open for more than a year now, I went for the first time today to the newly rebuilt California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.  My visit there was an interesting contrast to my first visit, some years ago, to the newly rebuilt De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.

Although I can’t find it now (I think it was on my old Word Press blog), my review of the De Young Museum was that, on the outside, it looks like a series of stacked chicken coops but that, on the inside, it is an exceptionally lovely museum, with beautiful flow and lighting.  And since I go to see the art and not the exterior, it’s basically a very satisfying experience to visit the place.  It makes the art accessible, which is all one can ask for.

I have the exact opposite view of the newly rebuilt Academy of Sciences.  On the outside, the designers managed to create a facade that is both classical and streamlined in a very modern way.  It nestles contently on the eastern side of the Park’s main concourse, and is a chic, appealing visual treat.  Inside, however, it is utterly chaotic.  Various exhibits all seem to struggle to occupy the same space.  There is no flow whatsoever, which is disastrous for a building that is meant to cater, not only to crowds, but to crowds composed, in significant part, of highly kinetic little children.

The underground aquarium, for example, is a maze of short tunnels, each of which has exhibits placed randomly in the center of the walkway, as well as along the sides.  Tossed about by the milling crowds, it is impossible to discern where one is or what one is seeing.  Although I grasped, intermittently, that there was some overarching geographic organization (e.g, fresh water, salt water, tide pools, etc.), everything was so noisy and chaotic, I couldn’t make sense of the exhibits.  The old Academy may have had a pokey rectangular layout, but it sure was easy to move through, to see things, and to understand.

Nor has the Academy improved the food problem that always vexed it.  For as long as I can remember, the old Academy offered vile food at a shabby underground food court dominated by a stuffed grizzly.  The new Academy now has three food venues:  a fancy hot dog stand, a buffet style restaurant, and a very pricey restaurant.  Oh, did I say that only the last named was very pricey?  Forgive me.  They all are.  If you want anything more than a $3.00 pork bun, feeding a family of three in the Academy will run you close to $50.  The prices are justified by the fact that everything is organic this and organic that, but the fact is that the all-organic ham and cheese sandwich tastes remarkably like an ordinary ham and cheese sandwich, only $4.00 more than I usually pay.  Of course, the food prices are consistent with the admission prices.  It cost me almost $50.00 to take my two kids there, which is a pretty hefty price tag for an experience that left me with an eyeball popping headache.

The new Academy also disappointed me for a very personal reason:  they’ve done away entirely with the old gem and mineral collection.  Although not of the scale or caliber of the amazing gem and mineral collection at the New York Museum of Natural History, this was a lovely, little gathering of precious, semi-precious and simply interesting stones.  For me, it was always one of the highlights of a visit to the Academy, and I sorely missed it today.

Speaking of all-powerful centralized government, if you haven’t thought long and hard about the implications of Obama’s appointing a “Food Czar,” you should.

What I also disliked about the Academy (and what I also dislike about the newly, and nicely, refurbished San Francisco Zoo), is the hectoring tone all these places take.  In the old days, the message was, “Aren’t these natural wonders great?”  Nowadays, the relentless message is “These natural wonders are great, but you’re destroying them by your very existence.”  I don’t take kindly to spending massive amounts of money only to be insulted.

The only part of the Academy that I thought was wonderful, although it too had design problems, was the rain forest dome, which was almost, standing alone, worth the price of admission.   It’s a clear plastic dome that has a spiral walkway that takes one up through three levels teaming with trees, plants, birds, butterflies, moths, frogs and lizards.  It’s truly beautiful and really well done.  The only down side is that the only way to get out is to stand in line at the very top, waiting for an elevator.  The lines are long and chaotic.  Additionally, since the elevator is at the very top of a rain forest dome, it’s incredibly hot, steamy and, as with the rest of this echo-y, clamorous place, incredibly noisy.

I will say that what made the trip there a much greater pleasure than it would otherwise have been was the fact that I met up with my brother-in-law and niece there.  My two were delighted in the company of their cousin, and I always feel lucky when I get to spend time with my brother-in-law, no matter where that time is spent.  What a nice man he is.

Whining is finished now.  This is where I put in all the links for the things I read today, many of which readers brought to my notice (thank you!), but that I really didn’t get a chance to think about.

I think I am the last conservative blogger in America to link to it, but link to it I will.  You must read Angelo Codevilla’s America’s Ruling Class — and the Perils of Revolution, which pretty accurately spells out the state of American politics.  You won’t be less worried or frustrated when you’re done reading it, but you will be enlightened.

Did I mention whining a couple of paragraphs above?  That’s actually something important to think about.  Although I do it all the time, I’m aware that whining is not an attractive quality.  A couple of PR and public policy experts have figured out that Israel has been whining lately.  The whines are completely righteous and justified, but they fall into a vacuum of ignorance.  Listeners are not sympathetic.  It turns out that the effective way for Israel to deal with her plight is to do exactly what the Palestinians and their fellow travelers have been doing for so long:  she needs to demonize the opposition.  And what’s so great about this tactic is that, rather than making things up, as her enemies do, all that Israel has to do is broadcast the opposition’s actual words and deeds.  When people see what Israel is up against, as opposed to just hearing how Israel suffers, they become remarkably more sympathetic to Israel’s situation and dire security needs.

By the way, those same Palestinians who have managed to convince just about everyone in the world that the Israelis are worse than Hitler, have managed to hide from the world’s view the fact that, with Israel as their enemy, they are living high on the hog, enjoying standards far in excess of those Arab Muslims in lands that don’t have the good fortune to have Israel as their next door neighbor and enemy.

I loooove Andrew Breitbart.  Seriously.  I’m just crazy about the guy.  I think he is one of the most brilliant political thinkers in America right now.  He’s figured out what the PR folks are talking about:  show the opposition’s ugly side, using real footage of them being really ugly.  And to that end, immediately after the NAACP made waves complaining about unprovable and almost certainly non-existent Tea Party racism, he came out with actual footage of vile racism courtesy of — the NAACP.  Genius.  Sheer genius.  Here’s just one example of the ugly, discriminatory race obsession that characterizes the NAACP and its fellow travelers:

UPDATE:  Andrew Breitbart jumped the gun.  The snippet he got was taken out of context and, when put back into context, shows Sherrod explaining that, having once been a racist, she’s learned the error of her ways.  It also appears that the NAACP audience, which should have been the real focus of this video, as the video was a counter-attack to the NAACP’s decision to lambaste the Tea Party on racism grounds, murmurs approvingly when Sherrod reveals her new, enlightened views of race.

If you need it, here’s a little more on the Democrats’ entire ugly obsession with race, one that turns on its head Martin Luther King’s vision of an America in which people are judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.  Oh, and here’s one more thing about that race obsession, and how Obama’s administration uses it to consolidate power, while sowing civil dissent.

When I wrote my post about burqas as a weapon, not just a type of clothing, I dragged in discussions of mosques and minarets too.  I entirely forget to mention in that article the mosque that is plotted for Ground Zero.  Pat Condell did not forget:

Even the New York Times periodically recognizes that federalizing school funding with no regard whatsoever for the situation at the ground is unfair, disruptive and damaging.  What staggers me is that these same NYT types are incapable of recognizing an overarching principle, which is that reactive government closer to home is always more understanding than directive central government far away.

Whether you’re in the military or not, don’t believe this administration when it claims to love the military and cries crocodile tears over its sufferings.

It took me almost half a lifetime to figure out that the NRA has always been right:  “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”  I needed to see crime rates soaring in London, in Chicago, and in Washington, D.C., as well as the chaos in post-Katrina New Orleans neighborhoods that did not have gun owners to finally understand this simple principle.  More and more, statistics are revealing the obvious:  a law-abiding, armed citizenry is safer than a law-abiding unarmed citizenry.  Contrary to liberal fears that arms will automatically turn us into Liberia or some equally horrific anarchic society, it’s clear that what effects such a change is leaving arms only to the criminals.

When is a burqa not a burqa? When it’s a weapon.

On July 14, the French parliament voted to ban the burqa in public places, causing much anguish amongst Muslims, Leftists, and even some conservatives, especially libertarians.  Regardless of the political filter through which they viewed the new law, its detractors all claimed that a free society cannot ban clothes without infringing on its citizens’ human rights.  (Never mind, of course, that “free” European societies, with their obsessive, nanny-state bureaucracies and profound limitations on speech, routinely infringe on their citizens’ human rights.  That is a post for another day.)

An opinion in Forbes, written by an analyst at the libertarian Reason Foundation, is a good representative example.  After first proving her liberal chops (I was once made to dress modestly in Hindu India, and I think women shouldn’t be forced to do so), Shikha Dalmia runs through a laundry list of problems she has with the bill.

I’m willing to concede right now that all the facts Dalmia cites are absolutely correct, including her claims that burqas aren’t worn by that many women in France, so that they’re not really a threat to French society; that it’s not true that that many women are being forced to wear burqas against their will, especially because, in a free society, we should assume that the women want to wear tents; and that the burqa isn’t really a slap in the face to French public secularism, but is simply a way for free women to express their religion through dress.  And so on, and so on.

Dalmia’s concluding paragraph pretty much spells it out, both her view and the view of all others opposed to the new French law:

This is a profoundly anti-liberal and anti-secular idea. Indeed, if the French and [Christopher] Hitchens [an enthusiastic supporter of the new French law] were serious about either secularism or liberalism, instead of asking Muslim women to shed the burqa, they would be shedding their own proselytizing prejudice against it.

There’s nothing new in what Dalmia, or her pro-burqa fellow travelers have to say.  As you may recall, we heard precisely the same arguments when the Swiss voted to ban minarets.  Then too, we were treated to arguments claiming that banning buildings is antithetical a free society; that it’s an improper hostility that the non-religious were expressing towards the religious; that it unfairly infringed upon Muslim civil rights, and yada, yada, yada.  Again, those who oppose the ban, even as they concede that Islam’s practitioners pose problems within a free society, still can’t believe that a “mere” building is a reason for people to get their knickers in a twist.

The above arguments, whether about burqas or buildings, might be good arguments if they were about the buildings or clothing of any other religion but Islam.  Islam as a religion, however, is sui generis.  Unlike all other religions, which are focused in one way or another on bringing individuals closer to God (or Gods), Islam’s predicate is Jihad or, in plain English, conquest.

The historic truth, whether or not one wants to acknowledge it is that, from the moment Mohamed began articulating his faith, it was inextricably intertwined with conquest.  For that reason, Islam, as a faith, cares not whether the people brought within its fold actually believe the faith.  It is enough that, having come under the control of an Islamic government (and do remember that mosque and government are one and the same) they follow its forms.

This is why Islam, as a religion, is entirely comfortable with and, indeed, encourages, both forced conversions and the death penalty for apostates.  Faith as we understand it — meaning a belief in and commitment to a God — is irrelevant.  Instead, submission is everything.  It’s fine if you submit at the point of the sword and, if you refuse to submit, it’s fine if that same sword summarily executes you.  While Islam may be dressed up in the trappings of monotheism, and while I don’t doubt that there are millions of genuinely spiritual Muslims around the world, the religion’s primary — and explicit — goal is conquest of both geographical territory and human bodies.

Because Islamic religious trappings are not about man’s relationship to God but, instead, are about man’s relationship to the Islamic state, every Islamic procedure or practice, whether it’s abstaining from alcohol, ritual foot washing, burqas or minarets is, in essence, a body count.  The number of burqa clad women in any given society is the equivalent of a Western census.  If you can get all of your women to wear the burqa and then, through rape and acid-throwing intimidation, get all of their women to wear the burqa, you’ve won.  Who cares that the women so clad are not closer to Allah?  It’s enough that they’ve been submitted, willingly or not, to Islam.  There is no faith involved, just force and a numbers game.

The same holds true for those minarets.  When Islamists conquer a country, the first thing they do is build their minarets — and, significantly, they build their minarets to be higher than any existing structures in the conquered territory.  In other words, the minarets do not simply represent houses of worship in which the faithful can gather.  Instead, they are about proving Islam’s dominance.  This is true whether Islam conquers a territory through war or just through building permits.

(Incidentally, the same line of reasoning holds true for foot baths on college campuses, pit toilets at modern British shopping malls, demands that taxi passengers discard their alcohol and seeing eye dogs, ukases on pig images in work places, vanishing British flags, etc.  None of these causes célèbres in the unending litany of Muslim demands for accommodation represents any single Muslim’s personal spiritual experience.  Each represents an attempt to control the greater, non-Muslim culture.)

It would be foolish to deny, of course, that the burqas and the buildings serve a dual purpose, one of which is religious expression.  For the devout Muslim woman, a burqa is a necessary part of her attire, just as the devout Orthodox Jewish woman would never appear outside her home without a wig.  Likewise, in a free society, no one wants to deny people the right to build a house of worship, whether it’s a mosque, church or temple.

If this religious devotion was the sole reason behind Muslim clothing and building imperatives, I too would be up in arms about the strictures in France and Switzerland.  However, the sad fact is that, because the burqas and buildings are not only symbols of faith, but are also actively, and predominantly, used as weapons of war, any society that wishes to remain free of the totalitariansim that is Islam must, sadly, trample on some religious expression.

Only by recognizing that Islam uses as weapons symbols that we, children of the Enlightenment, view as freely expressed signs of a personal faith, can we preserve our liberties and lay claim to true religious freedom.  Switzerland and France have taken this step towards understanding why the Islamic religion is different from all other religions.  It’s time that the rest of us do so to.

The ad that CBS and NBC refused to run

There’s still time to stop a mosque from being built at Ground Zero.  People who pay attention to Islam understand that Islam always builds mosques at the site of military victories.  This ad gets it.  The media, some branches of which are refusing to run this ad, and the PC crowd in New York do not:

Quote of the day

From Charles Krauthammer:

President Obama’s National Security Strategy insists on calling the enemy — how else do you define those seeking your destruction? — “a loose network of violent extremists.” But this is utterly meaningless. This is not an anger-management therapy group gone rogue. These are people professing a powerful ideology rooted in a radical interpretation of Islam, in whose name they propagandize, proselytize, terrorize, and kill.

[snip]

The Pentagon report on the Fort Hood shooter runs 86 pages with not a single mention of Hasan’s Islamism. It contains such politically correct inanities as “religious fundamentalism alone is not a risk factor.”

Of course it is. Indeed, Islamist fundamentalism is not only a risk factor. It is the risk factor, the common denominator linking all the great terror attacks of this century — from 9/11 to Mumbai, from Fort Hood to Times Square, from London to Madrid to Bali. The attackers were of various national origin, occupation, age, social class, native tongue, and race. The one thing that united them was the jihadist vision in whose name they acted.

A challenge to us all to renew the philosemitic paradigm in America

Stand With Us is an extraordinarily important organization.  I cannot emphasize that enough.  Its goal is to counter the calumnies that an unholy union of Leftists and Islamists spread against Israel, especially on college campuses.

The Stand With Us founders realized something that American Jews and other friends of Israel had missed completely:  while most kids, Jewish and non-Jewish, go to college to get educated and have fun (not necessarily in that order), a certain sector of Muslim students goes to college, not for education and fun, but to delegitimize the State of Israel.

Delegitimization is not a sideline or a hobby.  This is the main goal.  On college campuses, the vehicle for this goal, usually, is the Muslim Student Union (“MSU”).  Outside of college, CAIR dedicates itself to the same full-time principle.

Here’s a useful analogy, especially if you’ve lived through teenagers.  You are a busy person.  You have a job, a household to run, obligations to your community, and children to raise.  Your teenager is not a busy person.  Oh, sure, he or she attends school and has some extracurricular activities, but they’re just side issues to the teenager’s main goal:  getting what he or she wants.

So if your teenager wants a new pair of ridiculously expensive shoes, that is what will occupy your teenager’s every waking thought.  And your teenager will let you know that.  You will never hear the end of the shoes.  While you’re trying to finish a major project, run errands, cook dinner, clean house and manage the carpools, all that your teenager is saying is “I want those shoes.  I want those shoes.  I want those shoes.”

Those Muslims dedicated to Israel’s destruction are precisely the same — they eat, sleep, live and breath destroying Israel.  They are completely dedicated and well-funded.  (We’ll just guess where that money comes from, right?)  And for about 30 years, they’ve been the only voice heard, especially in the higher education world.  When they set up their tables on campus malls, Jewish kids and other friends of Israel walked by them in disgust, but pretty much ignored them.  They were pernicious, but who really cared, right?  After all, there are final exams next week and parties this week.

But just as a drop of water can wear away a rock, the relentless anti-Israel messaging has had an effect on those who know nothing about Israel.  The know-nothings are the vacuums that the MSU and CAIR has been filling.

Filling this vacuum has been especially easy on campus because college professors are so often Marxists, and the Marxists have made common cause with the Islamists.  Each for their own reasons wants Israel and traditional Western values gone.  When they’ve achieved that goal, then they’ll fight over the spoils.  This means that college students — young, uninformed, malleable, and encouraged to be open to new ideas — are being filled with anti-Israel bile, within the classroom, on the campus plazas, and inside of the meeting rooms and dormitories.

As for whether the anti-Israel bile shades into old-fashioned antisemitism, look at what the MSU, CAIR, and their allies, both Muslim and Leftist say, and you will see, over and over and over, the signs of antisemitism that Natan Sharansky has helpfully spelled out:  demonization, delegitimization, and double-standards.  Those factors appear on every campus, in every Leftist march, and at every U.N. gathering.

Which brings me back to Stand With Us:  This organization aims to fill that 30 year old vacuum.  By providing students from all over the world with pro-Israel facts, by training them to stand up to a fact-devoid but hate-filled argument, and by giving them mountains of attractive, easy-to-read, and fact-filled written materials, Stand With Us is fighting back.

If you believe in Israel’s legitimacy, and her right to survive as a nation among nations, then you should donate to Stand With Us.  (You’ll find contact information here.)  If you believe that Israel’s and America’s fates are tied together, not because of some nefarious Jewish lobby, but because both are truly the last bulwarks in the world of true democracy and individual liberty against onslaughts by Leftism and Islamism, then you should donate to Stand With Us.  If you believe that freedom of speech means that the truth should be heard, then you should donate to Stand With Us.

But I have another challenge for you, one that isn’t just about giving money to what has become the premier organization in the world for countering anti-Israel slanders.  I want you to help me change the American zeitgeist, which has become very hostile to Jews.  This means, of course, changing America’s popular culture.  I’ve written before about the fact that I came of age in the post-WWII era when Jews were admired.  Israelis were seen as plucky Davids, and Jews at home were seen as wise, funny and principled.

That’s changed so much.  Israel is now seen as a rapacious, repressive, apartheid-style, genocidal nation.  And Jews — well, Jews support that regime, so how good can they be?

Worse than that, the Jews we see in popular culture, the Jews that Hollywood promotes, are not nice people.  Larry David is truly a brilliant comic mind, but his show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, presents an extraordinarily loathsome individual:  self-centered, insensitive, demanding, cheap, malicious, etc.

David is not an anomaly.  The most popular Jewish comedienne, and another one with her own show, is Sarah Silverman:  vindictive, vicious, anti-Christian, and neurotic.  Oh, and how about Jon Stewart?  He’s neurotic, anti-Christian, hostile to traditional American values, exceptionally foul-mouthed, etc.

These are the Jews that the mid-West sees.  No more long-suffering, wise and kind George Burns; no more silly Milton Berle; no more wildly talented Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, or Jerome Kern; no more hapless Jack Benny.

I’m not asking you all to become movie stars.  I am thinking, however, about the fact that the next generation, my kids’ generation, gets the world through entertainment media.  To change the paradigm for that generation, how about a rockin’ song that manages to interweave Israel’s 3,000 year old connection to Jerusalem?  How about an awesome video game, a la Call of Duty, that has IDF soldiers hunting down Ahmadinejad?  How about a warm-fuzzy comedy, which has an old-fashioned Hollywood Jew, wise and funny, rather than neurotic and mean-spirited?

Adam Sandler was on the right track when he did You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, a movie about a wildly talented Israeli Special Forces fighter who really wanted to be a hairdresser, but it was too gross to gain enough traction.  So far the only other thing Hollywood has managed to do recently about Israeli goals and fighters was Munich, in which Spielberg managed to make Israel look evil for bringing mass murderers to justice.  Spielberg gets great kudos for his Holocaust work, but it’s pretty clear that his interest in Jewish well-being ends with 1945.

So, if you have any type of talent, or if you know someone who does (I don’t, and I don’t), Israel needs your help.  It’s not enough to educate the people in the vacuum aware of the facts.  We need to make them care about the facts — and that’s done by changing the pop culture paradigm.  So, to borrow a perfect pop culture phrase:  JUST DO IT.

Latma takes us inside the Muslim War Council

“Juice” hater wants to train to be mad killer

No kidding.  Really.  It’s true.

Now, having clicked over to the link, I bet you’re not at all surprised.

Boston’s Islamic Cultural Center — and Gov. Deval Patrick

Thanks to a reader for bringing this video to my attention.  It explains how Boston’s Islamic Cultural Center has deep jihadist ties — and how Massachusett’s governor Deval Patrick has allied himself with this organization:

Lowering the bar on incitements to violence *UPDATED*

Unless you’ve been visiting some other planet somewhere in the universe, you already know about Comedy Central’s South Park debacle.  That’s the one, of course, that saw Comedy Central, the oh-so-hip-and-edgy (meaning often offensive) television station brutally censoring a South Park episode that implied that Mohamed was walking around wearing a bear suit — when it turned out to have been Santa in the suit all along.

Comedy Central made this censorship decision when a New York Muslim suggested that airing the show as written might result in a Theo Van Gogh moment.  That would mean that someone associated with the show would soon be appearing on the streets of New York with multiple stab wounds, a partially severed head, and a wildly hostile-to-Western-culture letter impaled on his chest.

There are a couple of points I want to make about this whole embarrassing debacle — embarrassing for Comedy Central, which shows that it’s offensive only when it’s safe; and a debacle, because it’s one more nail in the coffin of the free speech that has always been an integral part of America’s political and social culture.

My first point riffs off something David Hazony said in a Commentary blog post about the South Park episode (emphasis mine):

The core of liberal society is the belief that every new thought, every iconoclasm, every “dangerous” idea, can be uttered somewhere, by someone, as long as it doesn’t openly incite violence — and that every sacred cow is ultimately just a cow.

(I urge you to read the whole post, but the above sentence is the one that intrigued me.)

In the old days, the notion of incitement to violence examined whether the speaker literally incited violence.  For example, the speaker might say to the crowd “Kill the President” or “Kill the Congress person” or “Kill all the meter maids” or something equally incendiary.  The threat of violence wasn’t implicit in the speech; it was explicit.  No civilized society could countenance speech that simply and directly inflamed blood lust.  We in America have always been willing to trade in the world of ideas, but the civil contract demands that we stop short of demanding someone’s head on a pike.

We’ve now entered a brave new world that redefines “incitement to violence” away from its traditional meaning of explicit demands for blood, death or revolution.  Now, “incitement to violence” includes speech or images that hurt someone’s feelings or offend their sensibilities.  As a society, we used to say that it was just tough if someone’s sensitivities were roughed up by speech that falls far short of calling for that person’s (or someone else’s) blood.  We recognized that our civil contract — our constitutional contract — requires for its health resilient people who can deal with hurt feelings.

Now, however, we see our media and political outlets repeatedly defining as incitement speech that lacks any calls for violence but that merely makes the crazy man angry.  Where we would once police the crazy man, we now police ourselves.  Everything we say must be run through the filter of “will it make the crazy man angry?”

Except of course, we’re not talking about any random crazy man.  We’re talking about the sharia-obsessed Muslim crazy man.  And by making that man — that sharia man — the standard by which incitement must be judged, we’re veering sharply away from a constitutional standard of free speech, and placing ourselves squarely within that man’s sharia code.  Which really means that the second American Revolution, the one that sees us forever part ways with our current system of government, will begin, and end, not with flaring muskets and brave midnight battles, but with a whimper and a bowed head.

What’s even worse (I’m at my second point, now), is that we’re out-sharia-ing sharia, and caving, not to the demands of the moderates, but to the extremists.  (Frankly, we’ve become such a PC, identity-politics obsessed culture that we’d cave to moderates too if we felt it would spare the feelings of someone defined as a victim in the PC lexicon.)  The wholesale ban on any Mohamed images whatsoever is an extremist ban.  Take for example this truly beautiful medieval painting, which I got from a pre-911 book:

Isn’t that exquisite (despite the scanning flaws arising from the picture’s spread across two pages)?

Not only is it beautiful, it’s also a picture of Mohamed.  The swaddled little baby in the far left corner, with his face fully revealed, cradled in the arms of two loving angels, is Mohamed himself.  Some medieval Muslim, inspired by Christian iconography surrounding the birth of Christ, painted this reverential scene of Mohamed’s birth.

Admittedly, the above painting seems to be a rarity.  Other medieval Muslims painted Mohamed too, but they carefully veiled his face, to avoid something that could be considered a blasphemous or inaccurate image.  (Considering that there are no contemporary images of Mohamed, just as there are no contemporary images of Jesus Christ, the fact is that all images are inaccurate, reflecting the artist’s faith and skill, rather than a carefully limned image of known features.)  The medieval era, therefore, produced myriad pictures, such as this one, portraying Mohamed’s marriage to one of his wives:

Mohamed, on the left, has a veil neatly drawn across his face.  The artist has reverentially drawn a scene without exposing himself to the inevitable risk of erroneously portraying the prophet’s face.  Incidentally, if you’re really thinking this through, as the radicals seem not to have done, you might conclude that, although a bear costume isn’t a neat, curtain-like little veil, the effect is identical:  Mohamed is hidden from view.

All of the above, of course, is art historian persnickety-ness.  The real issue is that fact that we, a free society that has never let government dictate to us the terms of our religious worship, are meekly allowing a religion to which we do not subscribe to dictate the terms of our social, political, artistic, ideological and intellectual behavior.  The proscription against potentially blasphemous images of Mohamed should apply only to Muslims.  The fact that Muslims wish to apply it to all of us tells us volumes about their jihad mentality (a world at war, with a winning Islam and a losing everyone else) and our self-abasing victim approach to those chest-thumpers in the Islamist camp who want to make now the time, and this the place, for their world conquest.

Sadly, Comedy Central isn’t an anomaly.  Instead, it seems to be a harbinger of things to come.  It’s conduct is the thin of edge of the wedge when it comes to a cultural decision to give in and, by giving in, give away the constitutional freedoms that generations of our forebearers fought bravely to defend.

UPDATE:  A friend reminded me that Zombie created a full post with exquisite Islamic iconography showing Mohamed’s face.  Please check it out, as the images are better than anything I’ve included here.

Thursday quick picks *UPDATED*

I’m working on a post, but thought you all would find this interesting in the meantime:

From AJ Strata, something that’s not just interesting, but is also terrifying:  the terrorists are out there and, having gotten the measure of our new president and his administration, they are massing for war.

If you needed a reminder that today’s progressives are warmed over versions of yesterday’s fascists, Rhymes with Right traces the history of the despicable anti-free speech law Obama is now praising in his support for fascists.

Here’s another one of those matched sets I like so much:  An article about the violent and sordid history of yet another Chicago Democratic pol (h/t Danny Lemieux) and Michael Barone’s optimistic prediction for Republicans based upon the Illinois primaries. (Should I remind you here that Obama selected and emerged from this Chicago political cesspool?)

And lastly, an enjoyable 3 minute video about education and young minds.

Telling a lie with a straight face is an art.  Telling nine lies about George Bush in three paragraphs is a Democratic art.  Watch Randall Hoven destroy those lies.  The only sad thing is that most of the people who read the lies won’t be reading Hoven later.

UPDATED:  I love a good mystery, but what happened to Jim Treacher is too unpleasant to be counted as good.  He was cross a street on a “walk” light, got hit by a speeding SUV driver that then left him lying in the street, broke his knee, got a ticket from the D.C. cops for jaywalking, and got told by witnesses that the SUV looked like a Secret Service vehicle.  Just what is going on here?  To mangle Shakespeare, “Something is rotten in the District of Columbia.”  (Here’s Jim’s own account of what happened.)

Defending against legal jihad

One of the lesser known, but very dangerous fronts, in the jihad war against the west is the Islamists’ habit of using our own Western laws against us.  Right now, a front in that particular battle is being waged in Canada, where McMaster University is suing Dr. Paul Williams after he wrote about the peculiar nexus between that institution, Islam, and terrorists.  You can read Dr. Williams’ side of the story here, at Right Truth.

If you read only one thing this weekend — read Mark Steyn on Fort Hood and Multiculturalism

In a field rich with excellent conservative writers, I always think Mark Steyn is the best.  The joyful days, though, are the days when he outdoes even himself.  In this week’s column about the fluffy multiculturalism that reared its head both before and after Hasan’s deadly terrorist attack at Fort Hood, Steyn outdoes himself.  Here are a few excerpts, but you have to read the whole thing to get the flavor:

The truth is we’re not prepared to draw a line even after he’s gone ahead and committed mass murder. “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy,” said Gen. George Casey, the U.S. Army’s Chief of Staff, “but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.” A “greater tragedy” than 14 dead and dozens of wounded? Translating from the original brain-addled multicult-speak, the Army chief of staff is saying that the same fatuous prostration before marshmallow illusions that led to the “tragedy” must remain in place. If it leads to occasional mass murder, well, hopefully it can be held to what cynical British civil servants used to call, during the Northern Irish “Troubles,” “an acceptable level of violence.” Fourteen dead is evidently acceptable. A hundred and forty? Fourteen hundred? I guess we’ll find out.

[snip]

The brain-addled “diversity” of General Casey will get some of us killed, and keep all of us cowed. In the days since the killings, the news reports have seemed increasingly like a satirical novel the author’s not quite deft enough to pull off, with bizarre new Catch 22s multiplying like the windmills of your mind: If you’re openly in favor of pouring boiling oil down the throats of infidels, then the Pentagon will put down your e-mails to foreign jihadists as mere confirmation of your long established “research interests.” If you’re psychotic, the Army will make you a psychiatrist for fear of provoking you. If you gun down a bunch of people, within an hour the FBI will state clearly that we can all relax, there’s no terrorism angle, because, in our over-credentialized society, it doesn’t count unless you’re found to be carrying Permit #57982BQ3a from the relevant State Board of Jihadist Licensing.

A prescient “news” show about the desperate search for answers after a bombing

I don’t think the media has ever before been so blatant in its desire to divorce an evil act from its ideological origins, but this isn’t the first time we’ve seen that game played out.  More than two years ago, a short lived comedy show on Fox used the occasion of an abortive bombing in London to examine the media’s perpetual confusion about motive:

I’d just like to add a couple more thoughts about whether the shooter was insane, since insanity is a free pass on the Left.  After all, in a therapeutic world, nothing is normal.  Everybody is a bundle of pathologies, some of which are worse — and therefore more excusable — than others.  In that view, of course Hasan was insane, because only insane people kill.  This is a comfortable tautology that removes all responsibility from the actor.  It also brings to mind a joke Jay Nordlinger retells in today’s Impromptus:

Two liberals are walking down the road and they come to a person in the ditch. He has been beaten, and lies moaning, broken, bleeding. One liberal says to the other, “Quick, we have to find the people who did this: They need help.”

I also keep thinking of the 19th Century definition of insanity — the M’Naughton defense — which focused on the actor’s ability to distinguish right from wrong, and reality from absolute fantasy.  It wasn’t a perfect measure by any means, but it tended to hew more closely to a normal person’s sense of what insanity is.  You’re insane if you think the person next to you is a giant beetle and try to squash him; you’re not insane if you’re an adult in thrall to a homicidal ideology subscribed to by a substantial portion of the world’s population, and you decide to slaughter as many of your fellow soldiers as possible in order to advance that ideology.

Hat tip:  Sadie

He shouted Allahu Akbar *UPDATED*

An eyewitness heard those words — Allahu Akbar — come out of the killer’s mouth.  Private Joe Foster, though, is still ready to do his job, as he did at the time of the shooting, and that despite a bullet strike on his femur.

UPDATE:  You must — MUST — check out Mudville Gazette to see the way in which CNN twisted Private Foster’s words.  It’s shocking.

What you lose about Islamic terrorism when you read only the headlines

My liberal friend is a headline reader.  That’s why we had a ridiculous conversation in which he wondered about the Fort Hood shooter’s motives.  To the reader who scans, headlines that say “motives a mystery” trump even those articles that add, under the headline, little facts such as Muslim death cries (“Allahu Akbar!”), radical mosques, jihadist internet postings and FBI scrutiny.

I thought of this when a scan of my local paper led me to yet another completely misleading headline today: “Filipino militants behead captive schoolteacher.” The incurious reader, with the MTV or CNN approach to news gathering, is left with the impression that there’s some sort of civil war in the Phillipines, with some of those nasty Filipino’s acting out.  The slightly more inquisitive reader will discover that Al Qaeda lies at the heart of this brutal murder:

Suspected al-Qaida-linked militants in the southern Philippines beheaded a schoolteacher after kidnapping him last month, officials said Monday.

The severed head of Gabriel Canizares, 36, was left in a bag at a gas station on Jolo Island, three weeks after suspected Abu Sayyaf militants stopped a passenger minibus and dragged him away in front of his colleagues, said regional military commander Maj. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino.

The militants, notorious for bombings, ransom kidnappings and beheadings, were reportedly demanding a ransom of 2 million pesos ($42,000) for his release.

What’s fascinating is that the word “Islam” never appears in the article, while the word “Muslim” appears only in what seems to be an irrelevant aside, in the very last paragraph, about student populations in the region:

He said his department was at a loss how to ensure security for public schoolteachers in high-risk areas and feared that the kidnappings would discourage others from teaching underprivileged youths in Muslim areas.

I’ll readily concede that you’d have to have lived under a rock for a long, long time not to appreciate that organizations such as Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah (described in the same article as a “Southeast Asian terrorist group”) are Muslim in nature.  Nevertheless, the AP’s deliberately unwillingness to acknowledge that Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah aren’t just coincidentally Muslim, but have as their central tenet the violent advance of their Muslim faith, goes beyond a writer’s desire to avoid larding prose with the obvious.  Instead, the news service is manifestly trying to unlink the groups from religion in the public mind.  To this end, the report carefully carefully gives out the groups’ names, while describing them as “militants” or “terrorists,” the genesis of whose terror or militancy clearly has no known cause.

This obfuscatory, almost fraudulent writing* matters, as we know, because of the media’s frantic effort to de-couple the murderous Hasan of Fort Hood** from his faith.  Jeffrey Goldberg, whose tenure at the Atlantic is going to get shorter and shorter as he keeps stating honest truths,*** has this to say on that subject:

A consensus seems to have formed here at The Atlantic that the Ft. Hood massacre means not very much at all. Megan McArdle writes that “there is absolutely no political lesson to be learned from this.” James Fallows says: “The shootings never mean anything. Forty years later, what did the Charles Whitman massacre ‘mean’? A decade later, do we ‘know’ anything about Columbine?”  And the Atlantic Wire has already investigated the motivation for the shooting, and released its preliminary findings. Of Nidal Malik Hasan, the Wire states: “A 39-year-old Army psychiatrist, he appears to have not been motivated by his Muslim religion, his Palestinian heritage (he is American by nationality), or any related political causes.”

It seems, though, that when an American military officer who is a practicing Muslim allegedly shoots forty of his fellow soldiers who are about to deploy to the two wars the United States is currently fighting in Muslim countries, some broader meaning might, over time, be discerned, especially if the officer did, in fact, yell “Allahu Akbar” while murdering his fellow soldiers, as some soldiers say he did. This is the second time this year American soldiers on American soil have been gunned down by a Muslim who was reportedly unhappy with America’s wars in the Middle East (the first took place in Arkansas, to modest levels of notice). And, of course, this would not be the first instance of an American Muslim soldier killing fellow soldiers over his disagreements with American foreign policy; in 2003, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar killed two officers and wounded fourteen others when he rolled a grenade into a tent in a homicidal protest against American policy.

Please do read the rest of Goldberg’s thoughtful, intelligent and intellectually honest post.   Then think about everything else you’ve read.  And then wonder if the Fort Hood massacre will be the breaking point for the American people, because it will stand as the moment when they can no longer stomach the cognitive dissonance of a media that so assiduously avoids the hard facts playing out in real time before our eyes.

______________________________

*And it is fraud, as a matter of law, the the speaker deliberately fails to disclose material facts in order to deceive.

**I promised a military friend I wouldn’t use his rank and name together, since he doesn’t deserve that honor.

*** I see Goldberg pulling a John Stossel and seeking a more salubrious and intellectually honest work environment.

Islam had everything to do with Fort Hood

Insane people reflect the obsessions of their times.  In the old days, insane people heard messages from the Devil.  In the post-nuclear age, they were in contact with Martians.  And nowadays, if their Muslim, Islam gives the impetus to their urges.  Indeed, Islam is an all-purpose blank check for bad behavior.  As my cousin, the prison chaplain, says:

It is not a contradiction to be a Muslim and a murderer, even a mass murderer. That is one reason why criminals “convert” to Islam in prison. They don’t convert at all; they similarly remain the angry judgmental vicious beings they always have been. They simply add “religious” diatribes to their personal invective. Islam does not inspire a crisis of conscience, just inspirations to outrage.

Math was never my strong point at school, but I managed to grasp the concept of a Venn Diagram.   The beauty of a Venn Diagram is that it’s a nice visual for the common denominators that may bind together otherwise disparate facts or events.  On the Venn Diagram of massacres on American soil, one of the largest areas of overlap is Islam.  The fact that these attacks aren’t necessarily generated at Al Qaeda headquarters is irrelevant.  Indeed, the absence of Al Qaeda involvement is helpful, because police work probably finds it easier to catch groups than lone individuals.

Nevertheless, the President and the media are very busy assuring ordinary Americans that Islam had absolutely nothing to do with Hasan’s murderous rampage at Fort Hood.  Some examples:

• President Obama says “don’t jump to conclusions.”  On the one hand, he’s correct.  On the other hand, (a) he didn’t take his own advice when it came to Henry Louis Gates and “stupid cops” (although maybe he learned his lesson then); and (b) it’s very clear that he wants to steer Americans away permanently from even thinking that Islam is connected to death.
• The BBC says “Shooting Raises Fears For Muslims In US Army.”  Mark Steyn has the perfect riposte to this headline:  it is “the grossest bad taste to default every single time within minutes to the position that what’s of most interest about an actual atrocity with real victims is that it may provoke an entirely hypothetical atrocity with entirely hypothetical victims.”
• Chris Matthews expresses confusion at the way religion is even mentioned in connection with Hasan’s rampage (and the hell with him invoking Allah’s name at the height of his killing spree).
• NPR says “the motive behind the shootings was not immediately clear.”
• The New York Times suggests that this arm chair jockey, who just sat back and listened, snapped from the stress of war.  Yeah.  Right.

Just to offset this type of quisling behavior, let me offer to you a long list of articles that call murder in the name of Allah — whether the killer is alone or in a group, rational or irrational, American or non-American — by its true name:  Jihad.

Mark Steyn:   “What happened to those men and women at Fort Hood had a horrible symbolism: Members of the best trained, best equipped fighting force on the planet gunned down by a guy who said a few goofy things no one took seriously. And that’s the problem: America has the best troops and fiercest firepower, but no strategy for throttling the ideology that drives the enemy — in Afghanistan and in Texas.”

Rusty Shackleford:  “Hasan was a devout Muslim who, prior to his transfer to the Texas base, attended a conservative mosque on a daily basis and was known by associates to occasionally rant about U.S. involvement in the War on Terror. Press accounts also claim that Hasan had at one time been the subject of an FBI investigation because of an internet posting bearing his name which justified suicide bombings.  [Para.] No one should be shocked that Hasan would turn to murder and terror. The only thing shocking about Hasan’s actions is the amount of carnage.”

Jennifer Rubin:  “Listen, ignoring reality and feigning indifference to the views and behavior of Major Hasan is how we wound up with 13 dead and 30 wounded, right? Perhaps we should be candid for once. The American people can figure this one out — and those who continue to play dumb will earn only their contempt.”

Roger Simon:  “The immediate reaction of the mainstream media on learning of the activities of Nidal Malik Hasan was to say that he was crazy. And no doubt that was true. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM IV), could probably place Major Hasan comfortably in several categories.  [para.] Of course, the same could be said of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Usama bin Laden and various other mass murderers of recent history. Nevertheless, the attempt was to explain away Hasan’s actions as pathological and thus avoid dealing with, or even – to the degree possible – mentioning the ideology to which his neuroses adhere (hint: it begins with an “I”).  [para.] This strategy is a form of what is popularly known as political correctness, which I submit is also a pathology and a quite virulent one – in this case, arguably the cause of death of the thirteen men and women murdered at Fort Hood.”

J.R. Salzman:  “[Y]ou don’t get PTSD from sitting on your ass around Walter Reed. Not only is it not possible to “catch” secondhand PTSD, but it is not that kind of a place. I would know, I was a patient there for nine months. The place is simply not that stressful or chaotic. When I was there my PTSD got better, not worse.”

Leon de Winter:  “There is only one term that adequately describes the massacre at Fort Hood: a terrorist attack. The media tries to avoid this term, but the more that is known about the killer, the more it becomes clear that this premeditated and deadly attack on unarmed soldiers and civilians was driven by his belief that Islam should rule the world.”

Robert Spencer:  “Major Hasan’s motive was perfectly clear — but it was one that the forces of political correctness and the Islamic advocacy groups in the United States have been working for years to obscure. So it is that now that another major jihad terror attack has taken place on American soil, authorities and the mainstream media are at a loss to explain why it happened – and the abundant evidence that it was a jihad attack is ignored.”

Michael Ledeen:   “I’m all for waiting until all the evidence is in from Texas before reaching any conclusions, but that should apply to everyone.  Notably to the FBI, which seems to have developed a conditioned reflex that requires the Bureau to announce, within seconds of any act of murder, ‘there is no evidence of terrorism.’  Which, in this case, is ridiculous, since it was precisely that.  [para] All of which brings us back to one of the nastiest problems we face:  the indoctrination of Americans in this country.  If you look beneath the surface of these plots and murders, you will often find that the actual or would-be killers have attended radical mosques.  They don’t come to jihad by sitting quietly at home and reading the Koran.  They hear sermons, they are guided in the paths of terror, and they choose to become terrorists.  And in this country, those radical sermons and that incitement is traditionally treated as ‘protected speech.’  It’s protected by the First Amendment, and its guarantee of freedom of religion.”

Jamie Glazov:  “The murders by Malik Nadal Hasan at Ft. Hood, TX are not a ‘lone wolf incident’ as being described by most media organizations. Hasan had been taught the ideology that is being advocated by hundreds of Islamic scholars and Imams in the U.S. We as a country can continue to deny there are numerous Islamic leaders and their supporting organizations such as CAIR, ISNA, MSA, and MANA, to name a few, who advocate killing innocent men, women, and children whom they allege ‘oppress Islam.’”

Victor Davis Hanson carefully looks at the number of Islamists who have plotted or carried out attacks against civilians (and Ft. Hood’s soldiers were, within their home base, tantamount to civilians), and politely destroys the argument that it’s just coincidence that so many mass murderers, and attempted mass murderers, in the past decade have been Muslim.

David Horowitz:   “The Ft. Hood killings are the chickens of the left coming home to roost. Already the chief political correspondent of The Nation has decried even mention of the fact that the jihadist killer Hasan is a Palestinian Muslim. According to The Nation this  is ‘Islamophobia.’ This fatuous attempt to protect America’s enemies carries on The Nation’s 60-year tradition as the leading fifth column collaborator with America’s enemies — defender of the Rosenbergs, defender of Hiss, defender of their boss Stalin, defender of Mao, defender of Castro and now defender of Islamic terrorists. But The Nation is only the tip of an iceberg. The fifth column formed out of the unholy alliance between radical Islam and the American left is now entrenched in the White House and throughout our government. And in matters like the Muslim jihadist Major Hasan our military is its captive.”

Phyllis Chesler:  “Sudden Jihad Syndrome, (it’s not all that “sudden” by the way), Personal Jihad Syndrome, call it what you will—these terrible acts should not be psychiatrically diagnosed and excused. In Islamist culture what Major Hasan did is a glorious act, a desired act; it is not the act of someone who is considered psychiatrically deranged. At the risk of being called a racist, allow me to suggest that we must connect the dots before it is too late. Islam now=jihad=hate propaganda=9/11=the tragedy at Ft. Hood.  [Para.]  That means Islam now, and its followers of all colors and ethnicities, is at war with the entire world, is dreaming of a Caliphate to be achieved through violent jihad. I doubt that Major Hasan is a Sufi Muslim.”

Bruce Bawer:  “Could there be a more bitter contrast? At Fort Hood, so many courageous GIs, all of them prepared to risk their lives fighting the Islamic jihadist enemy in defense of our freedom, several of them now dead. And, on our TV screens, so many apparently craven journalists, public officials, psychiatrists, and (alas) even military brass — all but a few of whom seemed unwilling to do anything more than hint obliquely at the truth that obviously lies at the root of this monstrous act.”

John Weidner (who is kind enough to link to me):  “Pacifism, or rather nihilism disguised as fake-pacifism, is one of the sicknesses of our time. No matter how many times it’s proved wrong, a large portion of the populace will continue to believe that looking and being weak will make them safer and will prevent violence and war. But pacifism causes war.  [Para.] Whoever gave the orders that American soldiers should not carry their sidearms or other weapons on our military bases murdered those soldiers who died at Ft Hood. Charlene was an Army brat, and she says that personnel carried their weapons on the base when she was young. Somebody (the phrase “death panel” springs to mind) disarmed the very men and women who are sworn to protect us using violent force when necessary. INSANE! SICK!”

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

The lessons about bullies that we seem determined not to learn

So often, there are what I call “matched sets” of stories in newspapers.  This happens when one article makes a point, and another article perfectly illustrates that point.  Today, Spiegel provided the perfect pairing of the way in which the modern Western (that is, Leftist) world refuses to learn lessons, but insists on repeating the fatal mistakes of yesteryear.  The first article, part of a collection Spiegel is running to mark the 70th anniversary of WWII’s beginning, points to the fact that Europe’s appeasement stance was like steroid juice to Hitler, spurring him on to ever greater heights of aggression:

In the years leading up to World War II, Britain and France underestimated just how determined Adolf Hitler was in his lust for conquest. The failure of Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement meant war was inevitable.

[snip]

Chamberlain, the conservative product of a family of politicians, was part of a large faction that sought to appease Germany by fulfilling its wishes, provided they appeared legitimate and were not enforced with violence.

Appeasement was a policy that fed on emotions as well as intellect, at least with Chamberlain. The British prime minister had lost his beloved cousin in World War I. From then on, he advocated the basic principle of all pacifists: Wars have no winners, only losers.

[snip]

Historians have since realized that the military situation for the Western Allies was far from hopeless. Hitler had exposed western Germany by moving troops eastward for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. In addition, Germany’s gasoline reserves were barely sufficient for a four-month military campaign. Significantly, senior German military officials feared a world war. A small group, which included Beck and Weizsäcker, even planned to stage a coup in the event that war broke out.

But while Hitler shrugged off his generals’ warnings — “I know that England will remain neutral,” he said — the worst-case scenarios being painted by British and French experts played into the hands of those politicians who wanted to avoid war at all costs.

There’s so much more (and I urge you to read the whole article), but the above certainly makes the point: “I know that England will remain neutral.” A natural bully can immediately tell when his victim is going to abase himself for good ‘n all.

One would think that Germany, of all countries, would understand that, once bullies get a head of steam from dealing with compliant victims, little can stop them short of the brutist of brute force.  Yet the same day saw this article about a judge’s supine position in the face of demands from a known terrorist:

In Germany, it seems, it’s okay to name children “Jihad.” A Berlin court has ruled that the name Djehad is neither denigrating nor offensive — even if the child’s father is a man considered by German intelligence agents and the United States to be one of the country’s most radical Islamists.

A Berlin court ruled this week that a man suspected of being one of Germany’s leading radical Islamists, can name his son “Djehad,” an alternative spelling of the Arabic word jihad. A city official had previously rejected the name because of its connotation of Islamic holy war.

A city official said it had rejected listing the name in the city’s birth registry because it could endanger the child’s welfare. Following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States, the term “jihad,” which in the West is usually regarded as meaning “holy war,” has had negative connotations in Germany. The child’s father himself, German-Egyptian Reda Seyam, is being monitored by German intelligence agencies and is known to have fought as a jihadist in Bosnia.

But this week a local superior court, following previous rulings in an administrative court and a regional court, said the name was unobjectionable.

In its ruling overturning the city’s decision, the court argued that “Djehad” is a common first name for Arab males that also evokes the duty of Muslims to promote their faith both spiritually and within society. The use of the word as a first name, the court argued, was in no way denigrating or offensive.

The court conceded that, in recent years, radical Islamists have used the term to express the idea of an armed struggle against people who don’t share their faith. But that could not justify a restriction of the right of the parents to choose their child’s name as they see fit, they said, adding that the parent’s motives for selecting the name were irrelevant.

Again, I urge you to read the whole article, but the cited material gives you a sense of the way in which the German intelligentsia is bound and determined to worship at the feet of its new overlords.