Religion of peace? Not in the slightest. A religion of authorized killing.

[ScreamingEagle]

dumbass, jingo/racist/religio sensibilities, white/fascist/corporatist/republican,
running around in your summer dress and pink bonnet screaming,
retards of you ilk , retarded gusto, eat chain shit-knuckle, go fuck youself,
etc.

It always amazes me how so-called rational intellectuals can lose it...methinks your slip is showing… it's standard routine for libs to carry on with personal insults…because, ultimately, they are full of it.

I really don't care to hijack this thread on old arguments….I believe I got my questions answered. However, regarding guns, people can still own and carry them…contrary to liberal wishes. The assault weapons ban did not get renewed and more Dems are getting endorsed by the NRA. Read about it:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/12/17/democrats_recast_gun_control_image/?page=1

 

[LOki]

It always amazes me how so-called rational intellectuals can lose it...methinks your slip is showing… it's standard routine for libs to carry on with personal insults…because, ultimately, they are full of it.

Nicely edited to avoid what was being replied to.

Just for the record:

1. "Heh, just as I thought. Another liberal on the board." is predictably dumbass. And since "liberal" was meant to be insulting, it was taken as such. <br>
   
2. If you think that the white/fascist/corporatist/republican fear mongering paradigm is not founded upon jingo/racist/religio sensibilities, just say so--and defend it. If you do not subscribe to the white/fascist/corporatist/republican fear mongering paradigm founded upon jingo/racist/religio sensibilities, then say so and we can agree. Let us just not pretend that the white/fascist/corporatist/republican fear mongering paradigm founded upon jingo/racist/religio sensibilities that we are experiencing now, is not a backlash from the victim-power/communist/democrat fear mongering, founded upon world-government/racist/moral-relativist sensibilities we experienced in the past. <br>
   
3. You are clearly running around screaming, "OH NOES!!! AYRABS!!!", whether you're doing it in your summer dress and pink bonnet or not. <br>
   
4. Your statement, "You libs will sacrifice self-preservation of this country with your idiotic claims of fairness." was certainly meant to cast me as a "lib" and an "idiot" for "fairness." As for my own response, I will maintain that sacrificing liberty to the "The War On Terror (TM)" is retarded--as retarded as sacrificing liberty to "The War On Drugs (TM)", "The War On AIDS (TM)", "The War On Homelessness (TM)", and "The War On Poverty(TM)." If you are of that ilk that considers waging war--in particular waging war on "things"--a productive solution a problem, and NOT just a new attempt to crush liberties, then you are a member of a particularly retarded ilk. <br>
   
5. Any assertion that the institution of internment camps was not fascist in nature is such a broad denial of reality that calling it "retarded" insults retards--I apologize to them. Regardless, any "gusto" with which one might attempt to defend internment camps as freedom, and American as apple pie, can fairly be characterized as "retarded." <br>
   
6. As long as you continue to cast "you liberals" at me as a pejorative, you can continue to eat chain and you can accept me casting the pejorative "shit-knuckle" at you. All the more emphatically so, should you go fuck yourself with your "appeasment" accusations against me--because apparently, "it's standard routine for you to carry on with personal insults…because, ultimately, you are full of it."

End of record.

However, regarding guns, people can still own and carry them…contrary to liberal wishes.

Provided those weapons are registered, licensed, the appropriate fees paid, they are not full auto, are not "sawed-off", they have ballistic records, etc., etc....--IOW, provided you have jumped through any number of hoops and bought off any number of regulatory agencies, judges or other officials, only then may have permission to the right to keep and bear your arms. Hardly consitent with "shall not be infringed."

The assault weapons ban did not get renewed...

No thanks what-so-ever to President G.W.Bush.

...and more Dems are getting endorsed by the NRA. Read about it:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/12/17/democrats_recast_gun_control_image/?page=1

These "pro-gun" democrats are no less transparent on the issue than the President is.

 

[American_Jihad]

A Radical Imam’s Infiltration of Philadelphia

June 17, 2013 By Ryan Mauro

Radical Imam Siraj Wahhaj isn’t who comes to mind when you think of interfaith partnerships, but two of his associates have served at the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia. The two are colleagues of Wahhaj and they lead their own Islamist groups, one of which even used to go by the name of International Muslim Brotherhood.

Wahhaj’s notable quotes include, “America is the most wicked government on the face of the planet Earth” and “If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.” He is also listed as “unindicted person who may be alleged as co-conspirators” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Wahhaj is the Amir of the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA). Two of its Shura Council members have served on the board of the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia. The Interfaith Center boasts that in 2010 it “served nearly 10,000 individuals, partnered with more than 150 local religious congregations and institutions and two dozen civic and service organizations…”

...

A Radical Imam?s Infiltration of Philadelphia | FrontPage Magazine

 

[theword]

April 28, 2006, 6:24 a.m.
Not for the Feint of Heart
Robert Spencer asks the hard questions about Islam...and answers them.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), by Robert Spencer (Regnery, 233 pp., $19.95)

It is often said that in order to keep polite company polite, we must refrain from speaking of religion and politics. Yet, the two are not equals in the hierarchy of politesse. Political debate may be unwelcome in many settings, but no one clears the room by observing that the great totalitarian evils of the 20th century, Communism and fascism, were directly responsible for incalculable carnage.

Not so when it comes to religion — or, at least, one particular religion. The past three decades have borne witness to a rising, global tide of terrorist atrocities, wrought by Muslims who proclaim without apology — indeed, with animating pride — that their actions are compelled by Islam. Nonetheless, the quickest ticket to oblivion on PC's pariah express is to suggest that the root cause of Islamic terrorism might be, well, Islam.

That the possibility is utterable at all today owes exclusively to the sheer audacity of Muslim legions, who have rioted globally, on cue, based on what even their exhausted defenders must now concede are trifles (newspaper cartoons and a tall tale of Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay leap to mind). But the largest obstacle to any examination of creed — larger even than a growing alphabet soup of Muslim interest groups — has been the same Western elites who are the prime targets of jihadist ire. In the most notable instance, President Bush absolved Islam of any culpability even as fires raged at the remains of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. And, although attacks before and after that date have been numerous and widespread, it has become nearly as much an oratorical staple as "My fellow Americans" for U.S. politicians to begin any discussion of our signal national security challenge with the observation that Islam is a "religion of peace" — a religion that has surely been perverted, "hijacked," and otherwise misconstrued by terrorists.

No more, insists Robert Spencer, the intrepid author and analyst behind the Jihad Watch website. Spencer's theory is as logical as it is controversial: when the single common thread that runs through virtually all of the international terrorism of the modern era is that its perpetrators are Muslims, and when the jihadists themselves tell us that their religion is the force that drives them, we should seriously consider the probability that Islam is a causative agent, even the principal causative agent, of their terrorist actions. This he undertakes to do in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)..

One might once have assumed it inarguable that an ideological battle cannot be fought with complete inattention to ideology. But that has been the case with the war on terror, and Spencer's mission is to rectify that with a simple, user-friendly volume that walks the reader through elementary facts about Islam — its tenets, its scriptures, and its history, including most prominently the Koran and the life and deeds of the Prophet Mohammed. It is a tutorial shorn of wishful thinking.

While Spencer does not declare that anyone adhering to Islam is a terrorist waiting to happen, he clearly believes it is a perilous belief system. Make no mistake: This is a disturbing account. And most disturbing is that the truly arresting passages are not the author's contentions and deductions. They are the actual words of Islamic scripture and the accounts of several revered events in Islamic tradition.

The story by which Islam achieves hegemony over much the world and the loyalty of millions of worshippers, very nearly extending its dominion throughout Europe, is a story of military conquest. Mohammed, deemed the final Messenger of Allah — superseding the prophets of the Judeo-Christian tradition, a group in which Muslims include Jesus — was a warrior, in addition to wearing the hats of poet, philosopher, and economist, among others.

The Koran, Spencer argues, does not teach tolerance and peace. At best, he explains, there are isolated sections which urge Muslims to leave unbelievers alone in their errant ways, and which counsel that forced conversion is forbidden. But these must be considered in context with other verses, such as those directing that Mohammed "make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them," and that the faithful "slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them captive, and besiege them," and so on.

What are we to make of the seeming contradiction? Obviously, self-professed moderate Muslims point often to the benign passages, while terrorists echo the belligerent ones. Who is right? Spencer vigorously contends that the militants have the better of the argument. The Koran, which is not arranged chronologically but according to the length of its chapters (or "suras"), is theologically divided between Mohammed's Meccan and Medinan periods. The former, from the early part of the Prophet's ministry when he was calling inhabitants of Mecca to Islam, are the soothing, poetic verses. The latter, written in Medina after Mohammed was ousted from Mecca, are the more bellicose. The Medinan scriptures come later in time and, sensibly, overrule their predecessors.

This is bracing in at least two ways. First, even if there were a logical counterargument to this (and let us pray that someone comes up with a compelling one soon), it underscores the seeming impossibility of proving wrong those who commit atrocities in the name of Islam. When they claim justification in their religion for merciless attacks and other brutalities (such as beheadings), they are not imagining it out of thin air — it's right there in black-and-white. The reformers may try gamely to minimize or reinterpret, but they cannot make the words go away.

Second, those words are taken to be the words of God Himself. The Koran is not like the books of the Old and New Testaments. It is not thought to be "inspired," to be related through intermediaries whose assumed human gloss opens up possibilities of reinterpretation or correction. Muslims believe the Koran contains the unvarnished teachings of Allah, dictated directly to Mohammed by the archangel Gabriel. This renders all the more challenging (to put it mildly) the burden of discrediting terrorist operatives who claim to be doing precisely what they have been divinely instructed to do — and doing it in the service of jihad, the "striving" which, Spencer explains, is a bedrock obligation of all Muslims.

Islam, Spencer elaborates, aims at nothing less than total domination — first, unrivalled supremacy in any territory that is (or was at any time) under its sway, and, ultimately, spreading throughout the world — whether by persuasion or by sheer force. The bleak choices presented to non-believers in the Muslim lands are to accept Islam (and its attendant social system, which is particularly oppressive of women); to live the grim life of dhimmitude by submitting to the authority of the Islamic state (permitted to practice other religions under tight regulations and only if the jizya, or poll-tax on non-Muslims, is paid); or to die. The bleak future for non-believers in the rest of the world is a state of war until they are subdued, as — beginning in the seventh century — were the Byzantine Empire, Persia and the Christian strongholds of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

Consistent with the "Politically Incorrect" model, Spencer spends much of his time deconstructing "PC Myths." These involve not only the sugar-coated conventional wisdom about Muslim doctrine but also what he sees as the cognate project to revise Islamic history.

The "Golden Age" of Islam, for example, is, according to the author, a gross exaggeration. He does not deny that there were grand achievements under caliphates that ruled various places from the tenth through the fourteenth centuries, and Muslims themselves, he acknowledges, were responsible for important advances in mathematics and, to a lesser extent, medicine. Nonetheless, Spencer counters that many of the epoch's achievements either occurred despite Islam (particularly in the areas of literature, art, and music) or are better understood as the accomplishments (especially in science and architecture) of better educated peoples whom Muslims conquered.

Islamic culture, for Spencer, thwarted great possibilities. Muslim philosophers were singularly responsible for preserving and explicating the work of Aristotle — but over time, these philosophers were read primarily in the West, because waves of anti-intellectualism and a conceit that rote study of the Koran was sufficient education overtook the Islamic world. Medical advance was stymied because of traditions that forbade or discouraged dissections and artistic representations of the human body. Spencer does credit Islam with causing the Renaissance and the discovery of the New World — but only indirectly. The conquest of Constantinople caused Europeans (like Columbus) to seek new trade routes to the East and hastened the flight of Greek intellectuals to Western Europe.

A final "Myth" Spencer endeavors to explode is the legacy of the Crusades. While not gainsaying Christian excesses and brutality, the story, he asserts, is far from one-sided. It is just that, consistent with today's victimology leitmotif, only one side gets told anymore.

The comprehensive narrative, Spencer insists, stretches back for 450 years before the supposed eleventh century start of the Crusades — back to the conquest of Jerusalem in 638. "The sword spread Islam" and ultimately repressed the formerly predominant non-Muslim populations that are tiny minorities in what are now Islamic countries. The Crusades, Spencer relates, were largely defensive struggles to protect threatened Christians. He does not dispute that the political agenda of recapturing what had been eastern Christendom loomed large, but he does contend that the legends of forced conversions, insatiable looting, and mindless atrocities are largely overblown.

This is not a book for the feint of heart. Nonetheless, it is well done and extremely important. Much of current American policy hinges on the notions that there is a vibrant moderate Islam and that it must simply be possessed of the intellectual firepower necessary to put the lie to the militants. These are the premises behind the ambitious projects to democratize the Middle East, to establish a Palestinian state that will peacefully coexist with its Israeli neighbor, and to win the vast majority of the world's billion-plus Muslims over to our side in the War on Terror.

They are, however, premises that are more the product of assumption than critical thought. In this highly accessible, well-researched, quick-paced read, Robert Spencer dares to bring that critical thought to the equation. The result is not a promising landscape, but it's a landscape we must understand. You really can't fight an ideological battle without grappling with the ideology.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/mccarthy/mccarthy200604280624.asp


Of course the informed already know Islam condones violence and murder. It's time to call Islam what it is. A religion of violence whose believers practice and condone the killing of others. I hope soon our "leaders" including unfortunately George Bush, pull their heads out of their politically correct backsides and open their eyes to the truth.

The truth is that Christianity was used by Rome, Spain, France, Holland, United States, Great Britian, etc. to conquer the world by killing millions of natives who were in their way of Christian leaders looking for land, gold, silver and other minerals to build their false gods.

 

[American_Jihad]

April 28, 2006, 6:24 a.m.
Not for the Feint of Heart
Robert Spencer asks the hard questions about Islam...and answers them.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), by Robert Spencer (Regnery, 233 pp., $19.95)

It is often said that in order to keep polite company polite, we must refrain from speaking of religion and politics. Yet, the two are not equals in the hierarchy of politesse. Political debate may be unwelcome in many settings, but no one clears the room by observing that the great totalitarian evils of the 20th century, Communism and fascism, were directly responsible for incalculable carnage.

Not so when it comes to religion — or, at least, one particular religion. The past three decades have borne witness to a rising, global tide of terrorist atrocities, wrought by Muslims who proclaim without apology — indeed, with animating pride — that their actions are compelled by Islam. Nonetheless, the quickest ticket to oblivion on PC's pariah express is to suggest that the root cause of Islamic terrorism might be, well, Islam.

That the possibility is utterable at all today owes exclusively to the sheer audacity of Muslim legions, who have rioted globally, on cue, based on what even their exhausted defenders must now concede are trifles (newspaper cartoons and a tall tale of Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay leap to mind). But the largest obstacle to any examination of creed — larger even than a growing alphabet soup of Muslim interest groups — has been the same Western elites who are the prime targets of jihadist ire. In the most notable instance, President Bush absolved Islam of any culpability even as fires raged at the remains of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. And, although attacks before and after that date have been numerous and widespread, it has become nearly as much an oratorical staple as "My fellow Americans" for U.S. politicians to begin any discussion of our signal national security challenge with the observation that Islam is a "religion of peace" — a religion that has surely been perverted, "hijacked," and otherwise misconstrued by terrorists.

No more, insists Robert Spencer, the intrepid author and analyst behind the Jihad Watch website. Spencer's theory is as logical as it is controversial: when the single common thread that runs through virtually all of the international terrorism of the modern era is that its perpetrators are Muslims, and when the jihadists themselves tell us that their religion is the force that drives them, we should seriously consider the probability that Islam is a causative agent, even the principal causative agent, of their terrorist actions. This he undertakes to do in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)..

One might once have assumed it inarguable that an ideological battle cannot be fought with complete inattention to ideology. But that has been the case with the war on terror, and Spencer's mission is to rectify that with a simple, user-friendly volume that walks the reader through elementary facts about Islam — its tenets, its scriptures, and its history, including most prominently the Koran and the life and deeds of the Prophet Mohammed. It is a tutorial shorn of wishful thinking.

While Spencer does not declare that anyone adhering to Islam is a terrorist waiting to happen, he clearly believes it is a perilous belief system. Make no mistake: This is a disturbing account. And most disturbing is that the truly arresting passages are not the author's contentions and deductions. They are the actual words of Islamic scripture and the accounts of several revered events in Islamic tradition.

The story by which Islam achieves hegemony over much the world and the loyalty of millions of worshippers, very nearly extending its dominion throughout Europe, is a story of military conquest. Mohammed, deemed the final Messenger of Allah — superseding the prophets of the Judeo-Christian tradition, a group in which Muslims include Jesus — was a warrior, in addition to wearing the hats of poet, philosopher, and economist, among others.

The Koran, Spencer argues, does not teach tolerance and peace. At best, he explains, there are isolated sections which urge Muslims to leave unbelievers alone in their errant ways, and which counsel that forced conversion is forbidden. But these must be considered in context with other verses, such as those directing that Mohammed "make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them," and that the faithful "slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them captive, and besiege them," and so on.

What are we to make of the seeming contradiction? Obviously, self-professed moderate Muslims point often to the benign passages, while terrorists echo the belligerent ones. Who is right? Spencer vigorously contends that the militants have the better of the argument. The Koran, which is not arranged chronologically but according to the length of its chapters (or "suras"), is theologically divided between Mohammed's Meccan and Medinan periods. The former, from the early part of the Prophet's ministry when he was calling inhabitants of Mecca to Islam, are the soothing, poetic verses. The latter, written in Medina after Mohammed was ousted from Mecca, are the more bellicose. The Medinan scriptures come later in time and, sensibly, overrule their predecessors.

This is bracing in at least two ways. First, even if there were a logical counterargument to this (and let us pray that someone comes up with a compelling one soon), it underscores the seeming impossibility of proving wrong those who commit atrocities in the name of Islam. When they claim justification in their religion for merciless attacks and other brutalities (such as beheadings), they are not imagining it out of thin air — it's right there in black-and-white. The reformers may try gamely to minimize or reinterpret, but they cannot make the words go away.

Second, those words are taken to be the words of God Himself. The Koran is not like the books of the Old and New Testaments. It is not thought to be "inspired," to be related through intermediaries whose assumed human gloss opens up possibilities of reinterpretation or correction. Muslims believe the Koran contains the unvarnished teachings of Allah, dictated directly to Mohammed by the archangel Gabriel. This renders all the more challenging (to put it mildly) the burden of discrediting terrorist operatives who claim to be doing precisely what they have been divinely instructed to do — and doing it in the service of jihad, the "striving" which, Spencer explains, is a bedrock obligation of all Muslims.

Islam, Spencer elaborates, aims at nothing less than total domination — first, unrivalled supremacy in any territory that is (or was at any time) under its sway, and, ultimately, spreading throughout the world — whether by persuasion or by sheer force. The bleak choices presented to non-believers in the Muslim lands are to accept Islam (and its attendant social system, which is particularly oppressive of women); to live the grim life of dhimmitude by submitting to the authority of the Islamic state (permitted to practice other religions under tight regulations and only if the jizya, or poll-tax on non-Muslims, is paid); or to die. The bleak future for non-believers in the rest of the world is a state of war until they are subdued, as — beginning in the seventh century — were the Byzantine Empire, Persia and the Christian strongholds of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

Consistent with the "Politically Incorrect" model, Spencer spends much of his time deconstructing "PC Myths." These involve not only the sugar-coated conventional wisdom about Muslim doctrine but also what he sees as the cognate project to revise Islamic history.

The "Golden Age" of Islam, for example, is, according to the author, a gross exaggeration. He does not deny that there were grand achievements under caliphates that ruled various places from the tenth through the fourteenth centuries, and Muslims themselves, he acknowledges, were responsible for important advances in mathematics and, to a lesser extent, medicine. Nonetheless, Spencer counters that many of the epoch's achievements either occurred despite Islam (particularly in the areas of literature, art, and music) or are better understood as the accomplishments (especially in science and architecture) of better educated peoples whom Muslims conquered.

Islamic culture, for Spencer, thwarted great possibilities. Muslim philosophers were singularly responsible for preserving and explicating the work of Aristotle — but over time, these philosophers were read primarily in the West, because waves of anti-intellectualism and a conceit that rote study of the Koran was sufficient education overtook the Islamic world. Medical advance was stymied because of traditions that forbade or discouraged dissections and artistic representations of the human body. Spencer does credit Islam with causing the Renaissance and the discovery of the New World — but only indirectly. The conquest of Constantinople caused Europeans (like Columbus) to seek new trade routes to the East and hastened the flight of Greek intellectuals to Western Europe.

A final "Myth" Spencer endeavors to explode is the legacy of the Crusades. While not gainsaying Christian excesses and brutality, the story, he asserts, is far from one-sided. It is just that, consistent with today's victimology leitmotif, only one side gets told anymore.

The comprehensive narrative, Spencer insists, stretches back for 450 years before the supposed eleventh century start of the Crusades — back to the conquest of Jerusalem in 638. "The sword spread Islam" and ultimately repressed the formerly predominant non-Muslim populations that are tiny minorities in what are now Islamic countries. The Crusades, Spencer relates, were largely defensive struggles to protect threatened Christians. He does not dispute that the political agenda of recapturing what had been eastern Christendom loomed large, but he does contend that the legends of forced conversions, insatiable looting, and mindless atrocities are largely overblown.

This is not a book for the feint of heart. Nonetheless, it is well done and extremely important. Much of current American policy hinges on the notions that there is a vibrant moderate Islam and that it must simply be possessed of the intellectual firepower necessary to put the lie to the militants. These are the premises behind the ambitious projects to democratize the Middle East, to establish a Palestinian state that will peacefully coexist with its Israeli neighbor, and to win the vast majority of the world's billion-plus Muslims over to our side in the War on Terror.

They are, however, premises that are more the product of assumption than critical thought. In this highly accessible, well-researched, quick-paced read, Robert Spencer dares to bring that critical thought to the equation. The result is not a promising landscape, but it's a landscape we must understand. You really can't fight an ideological battle without grappling with the ideology.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/mccarthy/mccarthy200604280624.asp


Of course the informed already know Islam condones violence and murder. It's time to call Islam what it is. A religion of violence whose believers practice and condone the killing of others. I hope soon our "leaders" including unfortunately George Bush, pull their heads out of their politically correct backsides and open their eyes to the truth.

The truth is that Christianity was used by Rome, Spain, France, Holland, United States, Great Britian, etc. to conquer the world by killing millions of natives who were in their way of Christian leaders looking for land, gold, silver and other minerals to build their false gods.

That's a load of

 

[theword]

April 28, 2006, 6:24 a.m.
Not for the Feint of Heart
Robert Spencer asks the hard questions about Islam...and answers them.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), by Robert Spencer (Regnery, 233 pp., $19.95)

It is often said that in order to keep polite company polite, we must refrain from speaking of religion and politics. Yet, the two are not equals in the hierarchy of politesse. Political debate may be unwelcome in many settings, but no one clears the room by observing that the great totalitarian evils of the 20th century, Communism and fascism, were directly responsible for incalculable carnage.

Not so when it comes to religion — or, at least, one particular religion. The past three decades have borne witness to a rising, global tide of terrorist atrocities, wrought by Muslims who proclaim without apology — indeed, with animating pride — that their actions are compelled by Islam. Nonetheless, the quickest ticket to oblivion on PC's pariah express is to suggest that the root cause of Islamic terrorism might be, well, Islam.

That the possibility is utterable at all today owes exclusively to the sheer audacity of Muslim legions, who have rioted globally, on cue, based on what even their exhausted defenders must now concede are trifles (newspaper cartoons and a tall tale of Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay leap to mind). But the largest obstacle to any examination of creed — larger even than a growing alphabet soup of Muslim interest groups — has been the same Western elites who are the prime targets of jihadist ire. In the most notable instance, President Bush absolved Islam of any culpability even as fires raged at the remains of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. And, although attacks before and after that date have been numerous and widespread, it has become nearly as much an oratorical staple as "My fellow Americans" for U.S. politicians to begin any discussion of our signal national security challenge with the observation that Islam is a "religion of peace" — a religion that has surely been perverted, "hijacked," and otherwise misconstrued by terrorists.

No more, insists Robert Spencer, the intrepid author and analyst behind the Jihad Watch website. Spencer's theory is as logical as it is controversial: when the single common thread that runs through virtually all of the international terrorism of the modern era is that its perpetrators are Muslims, and when the jihadists themselves tell us that their religion is the force that drives them, we should seriously consider the probability that Islam is a causative agent, even the principal causative agent, of their terrorist actions. This he undertakes to do in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)..

One might once have assumed it inarguable that an ideological battle cannot be fought with complete inattention to ideology. But that has been the case with the war on terror, and Spencer's mission is to rectify that with a simple, user-friendly volume that walks the reader through elementary facts about Islam — its tenets, its scriptures, and its history, including most prominently the Koran and the life and deeds of the Prophet Mohammed. It is a tutorial shorn of wishful thinking.

While Spencer does not declare that anyone adhering to Islam is a terrorist waiting to happen, he clearly believes it is a perilous belief system. Make no mistake: This is a disturbing account. And most disturbing is that the truly arresting passages are not the author's contentions and deductions. They are the actual words of Islamic scripture and the accounts of several revered events in Islamic tradition.

The story by which Islam achieves hegemony over much the world and the loyalty of millions of worshippers, very nearly extending its dominion throughout Europe, is a story of military conquest. Mohammed, deemed the final Messenger of Allah — superseding the prophets of the Judeo-Christian tradition, a group in which Muslims include Jesus — was a warrior, in addition to wearing the hats of poet, philosopher, and economist, among others.

The Koran, Spencer argues, does not teach tolerance and peace. At best, he explains, there are isolated sections which urge Muslims to leave unbelievers alone in their errant ways, and which counsel that forced conversion is forbidden. But these must be considered in context with other verses, such as those directing that Mohammed "make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them," and that the faithful "slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them captive, and besiege them," and so on.

What are we to make of the seeming contradiction? Obviously, self-professed moderate Muslims point often to the benign passages, while terrorists echo the belligerent ones. Who is right? Spencer vigorously contends that the militants have the better of the argument. The Koran, which is not arranged chronologically but according to the length of its chapters (or "suras"), is theologically divided between Mohammed's Meccan and Medinan periods. The former, from the early part of the Prophet's ministry when he was calling inhabitants of Mecca to Islam, are the soothing, poetic verses. The latter, written in Medina after Mohammed was ousted from Mecca, are the more bellicose. The Medinan scriptures come later in time and, sensibly, overrule their predecessors.

This is bracing in at least two ways. First, even if there were a logical counterargument to this (and let us pray that someone comes up with a compelling one soon), it underscores the seeming impossibility of proving wrong those who commit atrocities in the name of Islam. When they claim justification in their religion for merciless attacks and other brutalities (such as beheadings), they are not imagining it out of thin air — it's right there in black-and-white. The reformers may try gamely to minimize or reinterpret, but they cannot make the words go away.

Second, those words are taken to be the words of God Himself. The Koran is not like the books of the Old and New Testaments. It is not thought to be "inspired," to be related through intermediaries whose assumed human gloss opens up possibilities of reinterpretation or correction. Muslims believe the Koran contains the unvarnished teachings of Allah, dictated directly to Mohammed by the archangel Gabriel. This renders all the more challenging (to put it mildly) the burden of discrediting terrorist operatives who claim to be doing precisely what they have been divinely instructed to do — and doing it in the service of jihad, the "striving" which, Spencer explains, is a bedrock obligation of all Muslims.

Islam, Spencer elaborates, aims at nothing less than total domination — first, unrivalled supremacy in any territory that is (or was at any time) under its sway, and, ultimately, spreading throughout the world — whether by persuasion or by sheer force. The bleak choices presented to non-believers in the Muslim lands are to accept Islam (and its attendant social system, which is particularly oppressive of women); to live the grim life of dhimmitude by submitting to the authority of the Islamic state (permitted to practice other religions under tight regulations and only if the jizya, or poll-tax on non-Muslims, is paid); or to die. The bleak future for non-believers in the rest of the world is a state of war until they are subdued, as — beginning in the seventh century — were the Byzantine Empire, Persia and the Christian strongholds of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

Consistent with the "Politically Incorrect" model, Spencer spends much of his time deconstructing "PC Myths." These involve not only the sugar-coated conventional wisdom about Muslim doctrine but also what he sees as the cognate project to revise Islamic history.

The "Golden Age" of Islam, for example, is, according to the author, a gross exaggeration. He does not deny that there were grand achievements under caliphates that ruled various places from the tenth through the fourteenth centuries, and Muslims themselves, he acknowledges, were responsible for important advances in mathematics and, to a lesser extent, medicine. Nonetheless, Spencer counters that many of the epoch's achievements either occurred despite Islam (particularly in the areas of literature, art, and music) or are better understood as the accomplishments (especially in science and architecture) of better educated peoples whom Muslims conquered.

Islamic culture, for Spencer, thwarted great possibilities. Muslim philosophers were singularly responsible for preserving and explicating the work of Aristotle — but over time, these philosophers were read primarily in the West, because waves of anti-intellectualism and a conceit that rote study of the Koran was sufficient education overtook the Islamic world. Medical advance was stymied because of traditions that forbade or discouraged dissections and artistic representations of the human body. Spencer does credit Islam with causing the Renaissance and the discovery of the New World — but only indirectly. The conquest of Constantinople caused Europeans (like Columbus) to seek new trade routes to the East and hastened the flight of Greek intellectuals to Western Europe.

A final "Myth" Spencer endeavors to explode is the legacy of the Crusades. While not gainsaying Christian excesses and brutality, the story, he asserts, is far from one-sided. It is just that, consistent with today's victimology leitmotif, only one side gets told anymore.

The comprehensive narrative, Spencer insists, stretches back for 450 years before the supposed eleventh century start of the Crusades — back to the conquest of Jerusalem in 638. "The sword spread Islam" and ultimately repressed the formerly predominant non-Muslim populations that are tiny minorities in what are now Islamic countries. The Crusades, Spencer relates, were largely defensive struggles to protect threatened Christians. He does not dispute that the political agenda of recapturing what had been eastern Christendom loomed large, but he does contend that the legends of forced conversions, insatiable looting, and mindless atrocities are largely overblown.

This is not a book for the feint of heart. Nonetheless, it is well done and extremely important. Much of current American policy hinges on the notions that there is a vibrant moderate Islam and that it must simply be possessed of the intellectual firepower necessary to put the lie to the militants. These are the premises behind the ambitious projects to democratize the Middle East, to establish a Palestinian state that will peacefully coexist with its Israeli neighbor, and to win the vast majority of the world's billion-plus Muslims over to our side in the War on Terror.

They are, however, premises that are more the product of assumption than critical thought. In this highly accessible, well-researched, quick-paced read, Robert Spencer dares to bring that critical thought to the equation. The result is not a promising landscape, but it's a landscape we must understand. You really can't fight an ideological battle without grappling with the ideology.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/mccarthy/mccarthy200604280624.asp


Of course the informed already know Islam condones violence and murder. It's time to call Islam what it is. A religion of violence whose believers practice and condone the killing of others. I hope soon our "leaders" including unfortunately George Bush, pull their heads out of their politically correct backsides and open their eyes to the truth.

The truth is that Christianity was used by Rome, Spain, France, Holland, United States, Great Britian, etc. to conquer the world by killing millions of natives who were in their way of Christian leaders looking for land, gold, silver and other minerals to build their false gods.

That's a load of

Nice pic!!!!

 

[American_Jihad]

The truth is that Christianity was used by Rome, Spain, France, Holland, United States, Great Britian, etc. to conquer the world by killing millions of natives who were in their way of Christian leaders looking for land, gold, silver and other minerals to build their false gods.

That's a load of

Nice pic!!!!

Thanks, hard to find a pic with a clown and a pile of

...

 

[Agit8r]

"... Communism and fascism, were directly responsible for incalculable carnage."

Communism and fascism, ironicly, were also the irrationally emotional rejoinders to the incalcuable carnage of the totalitarian theocracies that preceded them. This Mr. Spencer while railing against Islamic theocratic idealism (OH NOES!!! AYE-RABS!!!!), and accusing the left as being accomplices, he appears to let Judeao/Christian theocrats, their rightist-corporatist/fascist accomplices, and their fascist response to terrorism right off the hook.

Actually, fascism (whether in Italy, Germany, Chile, the US, etc.) has always been a response to secular and egalitarian democracy:

"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
— Adolf Hitler; from speech in Berlin (Oct. 24, 1933)

"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and co-operation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."
-- Adolf Hitler; from national proclamation (February 1, 1933)

 

[American_Jihad]

Beheading for a ‘Free’ Syria


June 28, 2013 By Majid Rafizadeh

“Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar.” This chant, meaning “God is great” in Arabic, is repeatedly heard in this barbaric and savage video clip (below). Amidst a crowd of men standing on a small hill, while women and children watch behind, are three kneeling men – supposedly supporters of Assad’s regime – who are beheaded by a large knife. In the background, someone exclaims, “This is the punishment of the Shabiha.” Sabiha, a militia group, has been unleashed by Assad’s regime as a tool for cracking down and suppressing his opposition. After the gruesome beheading, in which one of the detached heads falls to the side, another rebel yells, “Place the head of that dog straight.” In Middle Eastern Muslim culture, calling someone a dog is considered a grave insult. The beheading by the Islamists, who appear to be imported from another country and are supposedly connected to the Jabhat Al-Nusra front, is a reference to Islamic Sharia law.

...

Beheading for a ?Free? Syria | FrontPage Magazine

 

[Avatar4321]

The truth is that Christianity was used by Rome, Spain, France, Holland, United States, Great Britian, etc. to conquer the world by killing millions of natives who were in their way of Christian leaders looking for land, gold, silver and other minerals to build their false gods.

What does your view of Christianity have to do with a 7 year old article about Islam?

 

[theword]

That's a load of

Nice pic!!!!

Thanks, hard to find a pic with a clown and a pile of

...

Photoshop works great. I remember standing on the moon holding the american flag in one of my pics done through this awesome program.

 

[American_Jihad]

Christian Man Tortured In Front of Wife

July 30, 2013 By Theodore Shoebat

On 21st July 2013, a crippled Christian man, Shafaqat Emmanuel, and his wife, Shagufta Kausar, were arrested in Gojra District for allegedly sending blasphemous text messages to local Muslims. Police registered the FIR 407/13 under sections 295-B and 295-C. Complainants Muhmmad Hussain and Anwar Mansoor Goraya, Tehsil Bar Association president, alleged they received the blasphemous text messages from the number registered on Shagufta Kausar’s name.

The Station House Officer (SHO) of Gojra City Police Station, Mr. Muhammad Nasir, said:

“The police had verified that the SIM used to send the blasphemous text messages was registered in Shagufta’s name whereas her husband admitted to use her phone to send the messages to Hussain”

However, Shagufta told the police that they had lost the cell phone a month earlier. She denied the charges but police started 3rd degree torture on Shafaqat Masih, who is crippled and physically challenged. They tortured him in front of his wife and four children. Police forced him to confess to the charges or implicate others. Otherwise, they would start torturing his wife Shagufta. Then Shafaqat admitted that he had sent the messages, whereas when our lawyers visited Shafaqat Emmanuel, he denied the charges and stated:

“There is no man who can stand to see his wife being tortured by police, so to save my wife, I confessed.”

...

We felt the need to write something about the role of the cruelties of one greedy, religious leader in particular, but for some reason, our team working on the ground stopped us from doing so at this stage. We will soon uncover the story behind the closed doors and how our leaders play with such persecuted victims.

Our team is defending the persecuted couple and has already given shelter to the four children and their grandfather, Emmanuel Masih. We hope that soon we will be able to get justice for this persecuted couple.

We request you again please keep the couple and their children in your prayers.

Christian Man Tortured In Front of Wife | FrontPage Magazine

 

[waltky]

Dat's right...

... it's the doctrine...

... of the Anti-Christ.

 

[Agit8r]

Radicalized religion is always a problem, regardless of the religion. The fact that Christian book stores sell books by a fucktard that would blame the Crusades on anyone but European Christians is all the testament to the fact that any thinking person needs.

http://www.christianbook.com/the-po...-islam/robert-spencer/9780895260130/pd/260131

 

[American_Jihad]

Radicalized religion is always a problem, regardless of the religion. The fact that Christian book stores sell books by a fucktard that would blame the Crusades on anyone but European Christians is all the testament to the fact that any thinking person needs.

Christianbook.com: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades): Robert Spencer: 9780895260130

You fvcking morons always talk about going or leaning foward and yet you go all the way back to the crusades. Islam is the only violent religion in today's world - Google Search...

 

[American_Jihad]

Coptic Christian Children Kidnapped and Killed for Cash

January 16, 2014 by Raymond Ibrahim

Yet another Coptic Christian child was recently kidnapped in Egypt. Thirteen-year-old Cyril Rif‘at Fayiz was abducted in the Minya district by “unknown persons” who later called the child’s parents demanding one million Egyptian pounds, nearly the equivalent of $150,000 USD.

This phenomenon—kidnapping and holding Coptic children captive for large ransoms—has become a regular feature of the Egyptian landscape, particularly in Minya, Upper Egypt. A few examples follow:

&#9632;August 2013: Copts held a funeral for Wahid Jacob, formerly a young church deacon. He too was kidnapped by “unknown persons” who demanded an exorbitant ransom from his family—1,200,000 Egyptian pounds (equivalent to $171,000 USD). Because his family could not raise the sum, he was executed—his body dumped in a field where it was later found. The priest who conducted his funeral service said that the youth’s body bore signs of severe torture.
&#9632;May 2013: After 6-year-old Cyril Joseph was kidnapped and the family paid ransom, he was still killed. In the words of the Arabic report, the boy’s “family is in tatters after paying 30,000 pounds to the abductor, who still killed the innocent child and threw his body in his sewer system, where the body, swollen and moldy, was exhumed.”

...

Coptic Christian Children Kidnapped and Killed for Cash | FrontPage Magazine

 

[American_Jihad]

x-Muslim in Sweden found Islam to be a religion of hatred – Video
Posted on December 21, 2015 by Admin

Mona Walter is on a mission. Her mission is for more Muslims to know what is in the Koran. She says if more Muslims knew what was in the Koran, more would leave Islam.

We don’t fully agree. Muslims don’t need to know the Koran. Their entire culture is built on it. By living in their cultural ideology they live by the Koran. If Muslim women had the freedom to chose their religion many may leave, but it’s doubtful the men would follow so willingly.

Mona Walters says when Muslims read the Koran they become killing machines. Walters says that Muslims don’t view al-Shahaab, Boko Haram, ISIS and other terror groups as extremist. Muslims view them as good Muslims.



Published on Apr 30, 2015
Mona Walter is on a mission. Her mission is for more Muslims to know what is in the Koran. She says if more Muslims knew what was in the Koran, more would leave Islam.
...

Ex-Muslim in Sweden found Islam to be a religion of hatred - Video