Jun 29, 2006
The Boston Globe
Jeff Jacoby ( bio archive contact )
T.F. Boggs is a 24-year-old sergeant in the Army Reserves serving his second tour of duty in Iraq, where he helps to provide security for a military base in Mosul. He is also an occasional blogger, venting his views at www.boredsoldier.blogspot.com. On Sunday, those views took the form of a letter to Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times. Two days earlier, the Times (along with The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times) had exposed the existence of a top-secret government effort to monitor the international movement of funds between Al Qaeda and its financial collaborators.
"Your recent decision to publish information about a classified program intended to track the banking transactions of possible terrorists is not only detrimental to America but also to its fighting men and women overseas," Boggs wrote. "Terrorism happens here every day because there are rich men out there willing to support the . . . terrorist who plants bombs and shoots soldiers. . . . Without money, terrorism in Iraq would die because there would no longer be supplies for IED's, no mortars . . . and no motivation for people to abandon regular work in hopes of striking it rich after killing a soldier. Thank you for continually contributing to the deaths of my fellow soldiers."
Boggs isn't the only angry soldier the Times has heard from. Lieutenant Thomas Cotton, a Harvard Law School graduate who practiced law in Washington before becoming an infantry officer, wrote from Baghdad (in a letter posted on the influential Powerline website) about the roadside explosion that recently "killed one soldier and severely injured another from my 130-man company." Cotton, too, underscored the fact that terrorism runs on money. The people trying to kill him and his men "require financing to obtain mortars and artillery shells, priming explosives, wiring and circuitry, not to mention for training and payments to locals willing to emplace bombs . . . You may think you have done a public service, but you have gravely endangered the lives of my soldiers and all other soldiers and innocent Iraqis here."
It obviously didn't come as news to the editor of the Times that money is crucial to terrorism, or that Al Qaeda will be a threat until its financial supply lines are choked off. The Times had made that point itself in a strong editorial less than two weeks after 9/11. "Washington and its allies must also disable the financial networks used by terrorists," the editorial said. "The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity. . . Much more is needed, including . . . greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also be closer coordination among America's law enforcement, national security, and financial regulatory agencies. . . . If America is going to wage a new kind of war against terrorism, it must act on all fronts, including the financial one."
It was just such reasoning that led the Treasury Department to develop the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program that last week's stories exposed. As even those stories made clear, the program was legal, disclosed to members of Congress, carefully limited to prevent abuse, and -- above all -- effective. Among other successes, administration officials told the Times, it led to the capture of the Indonesian terrorist who masterminded the horrific 2002 bombing of a Bali resort. For what reason would any responsible media outlet want to sabotage such a program? If not out of sheer political animus -- contempt for the Bush administration and opposition to the war -- then why?
Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet said yesterday that he "felt that the legitimate public interest in this program outweighed the potential cost to counterterrorism efforts." Keller, of The New York Times, said much the same thing last week. (The Times is owned by the New York Times Co., which also owns The Boston Globe.) But neither has explained just how the public interest is advanced by deliberately compromising a crucial counterterrorism tool. Once upon a time, mainstream journalists would have been aghast at the revelation of national security secrets in wartime. Apparently only some of us still feel that way.
The media may not be the most detested institution in America, but it is surely a contender for the title. A Harris poll in March found that only 14 percent of American adults express a "great deal" of confidence in the press, while 34 percent -- one American in three -- have "hardly any" confidence in it.
The nation's most trusted institution, by contrast, is the military. According to Harris, 47 percent of Americans have a "great deal" of confidence in the armed forces. Only 14 percent have "hardly any." No doubt it is just a coincidence that the small fraction of the public that disdains the military is equal to the small fraction that greatly admires the media. But at a time when prominent newspapers are running stories that are apt to get more soldiers killed, I'll bet Sergeant Boggs and Lieutenant Cotton don't think so.
Jeff Jacoby is an Op-Ed writer for the Boston Globe, a radio political commentator, and a contributing columnist for Townhall.com.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Michael Fumento: Killing the Passive Smoking Debate
Jun 29, 2006
Michael Fumento ( bio archive )
“Secondhand smoke debate ‘over.” That’s the message from the Surgeon General’s office, delivered by a sycophantic media. The claim is that the science has now overwhelmingly proved that smoke from others’ cigarettes can kill you. Actually, “debate over” simply means: “If you have your doubts, shut up!”
But you definitely should have doubts over the new Surgeon General’s report, a massive 727-page door stop. Like many massive reports on controversial issues, it’s probably designed that way so nobody (especially reporters on deadline) will want to or have time to read beyond the executive summary. That includes me; if I had that much time I’d reread "War and Peace". Twice. But the report admits it contains no new science so we can evaluate it based on research already available.
First consider the 1993 EPA study that began the passive smoking crusade. It declared such smoke a carcinogen based on a combined analysis (meta-analysis) of 11 mostly tiny studies. The media quickly fell into line, with headlines blaring: “Passive Smoking Kills Thousands” and editorials demanding: “Ban Hazardous Smoking; Report Shows It’s a Killer.”
But the EPA’s report had more holes than a spaghetti strainer. Its greatest weakness was the agency’s refusal to use the gold standard in epidemiology, the 95 percent confidence interval. This simply means there are only five chances in 100 that the conclusion came about just by chance, even if the study itself was done correctly.
Curiously, the EPA decided to use a 90 percent level, effectively doubling the likelihood of getting its result by sheer luck of the draw.
Why would it do such a strange thing? You guessed it. Its results weren't significant at the 95 percent level. Essentially, it moved the goal posts back because the football had fallen short. In scientific terminology this is known as “dishonesty.”
Two much larger meta-analyses have appeared since the EPA’s. One was conducted on behalf of the World Health Organization and covered seven countries over seven years. Published in 1998, it actually showed a statistically significant reduced risk for children of smokers, though we can assume that was a fluke. But it also showed no increase for spouses and co-workers of smokers.
The second meta-analysis, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in 2002, likewise found a statistical significance when 48 studies were combined. Looked at separately, though, only seven showed significant excesses of lung cancer. Thus 41 did not.
Meta-analysis, though, suffers from such problems as different studies having been conducted in different ways – the apples and oranges conundrum. What was really needed was one study involving a huge number of participants over a long period of time using the same evaluation.
We got that in the prestigious British Medical Journal in 2003. Research professor James Enstrom of UCLA and professor Geoffrey Kabat of the State University of New York, Stony Brook presented results of a 39-year study of 35,561 Californians, which dwarfed in size everything that came before. It found no “causal relationship between exposure to [passive smoke] and tobacco-related mortality,” adding, however “a small effect” can’t be ruled out.
The reason active tobacco smoking could be such a terrible killer while passive smoke may cause no deaths lies in the dictum "the dose makes the poison." We are constantly bombarded by carcinogens, but in tiny amounts the body usually easily fends them off.
A New England Journal of Medicine study found that even back in 1975 – when having smoke obnoxiously puffed into your face was ubiquitous in restaurants, cocktail lounges, and transportation lounges – the concentration was equal to merely 0.004 cigarettes an hour. That’s not quite the same as smoking two packs a day, is it?
But none of this has the least impact on the various federal, state, and city agencies and organizations like the American Lung Association for a very good reason. They already know they’re scientifically wrong. The purpose of the passive smoking campaign has never been to protect non-smokers, but rather to cow smokers into giving up the habit.
It’s easy to agree with the ultimate goal, but inventing scientific outcomes and shutting down scientific debate as a means is as intolerable as it was when Nazi Germany “proved” the validity of eugenics.
Michael Fumento is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., the author of BioEvolution.
Michael Fumento ( bio archive )
“Secondhand smoke debate ‘over.” That’s the message from the Surgeon General’s office, delivered by a sycophantic media. The claim is that the science has now overwhelmingly proved that smoke from others’ cigarettes can kill you. Actually, “debate over” simply means: “If you have your doubts, shut up!”
But you definitely should have doubts over the new Surgeon General’s report, a massive 727-page door stop. Like many massive reports on controversial issues, it’s probably designed that way so nobody (especially reporters on deadline) will want to or have time to read beyond the executive summary. That includes me; if I had that much time I’d reread "War and Peace". Twice. But the report admits it contains no new science so we can evaluate it based on research already available.First consider the 1993 EPA study that began the passive smoking crusade. It declared such smoke a carcinogen based on a combined analysis (meta-analysis) of 11 mostly tiny studies. The media quickly fell into line, with headlines blaring: “Passive Smoking Kills Thousands” and editorials demanding: “Ban Hazardous Smoking; Report Shows It’s a Killer.”
But the EPA’s report had more holes than a spaghetti strainer. Its greatest weakness was the agency’s refusal to use the gold standard in epidemiology, the 95 percent confidence interval. This simply means there are only five chances in 100 that the conclusion came about just by chance, even if the study itself was done correctly.
Curiously, the EPA decided to use a 90 percent level, effectively doubling the likelihood of getting its result by sheer luck of the draw.
Why would it do such a strange thing? You guessed it. Its results weren't significant at the 95 percent level. Essentially, it moved the goal posts back because the football had fallen short. In scientific terminology this is known as “dishonesty.”
Two much larger meta-analyses have appeared since the EPA’s. One was conducted on behalf of the World Health Organization and covered seven countries over seven years. Published in 1998, it actually showed a statistically significant reduced risk for children of smokers, though we can assume that was a fluke. But it also showed no increase for spouses and co-workers of smokers.
The second meta-analysis, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in 2002, likewise found a statistical significance when 48 studies were combined. Looked at separately, though, only seven showed significant excesses of lung cancer. Thus 41 did not.
Meta-analysis, though, suffers from such problems as different studies having been conducted in different ways – the apples and oranges conundrum. What was really needed was one study involving a huge number of participants over a long period of time using the same evaluation.
We got that in the prestigious British Medical Journal in 2003. Research professor James Enstrom of UCLA and professor Geoffrey Kabat of the State University of New York, Stony Brook presented results of a 39-year study of 35,561 Californians, which dwarfed in size everything that came before. It found no “causal relationship between exposure to [passive smoke] and tobacco-related mortality,” adding, however “a small effect” can’t be ruled out.
The reason active tobacco smoking could be such a terrible killer while passive smoke may cause no deaths lies in the dictum "the dose makes the poison." We are constantly bombarded by carcinogens, but in tiny amounts the body usually easily fends them off.
A New England Journal of Medicine study found that even back in 1975 – when having smoke obnoxiously puffed into your face was ubiquitous in restaurants, cocktail lounges, and transportation lounges – the concentration was equal to merely 0.004 cigarettes an hour. That’s not quite the same as smoking two packs a day, is it?
But none of this has the least impact on the various federal, state, and city agencies and organizations like the American Lung Association for a very good reason. They already know they’re scientifically wrong. The purpose of the passive smoking campaign has never been to protect non-smokers, but rather to cow smokers into giving up the habit.
It’s easy to agree with the ultimate goal, but inventing scientific outcomes and shutting down scientific debate as a means is as intolerable as it was when Nazi Germany “proved” the validity of eugenics.
Michael Fumento is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., the author of BioEvolution.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Michelle Malkin: The terrorist-tipping Times
Jun 28, 2006
http://www.townhall.com
Michelle Malkin ( bio archive contact )
The New York Times (proudly publishing all the secrets unfit to spill since 9/11) and their reckless anonymous sources (come out, come out, you cowards) tipped off terrorists to America's efforts to track their financial activities.
Guess what? It isn't the first time blabbermouth journalists have jeopardized terror-financing investigations since Sept. 11, according to the government.
I remind you of the case of the Treason Times, the Holy Land Foundation, and the Global Relief Foundation. As the New York Post reported last September, the Justice Department charged that "a veteran New York Times foreign correspondent warned an alleged terror-funding Islamic charity that the FBI was about to raid its office -- potentially endangering the lives of federal agents." Times reporter Philip Shenon was accused of blowing the cover on a Dec. 14, 2001, raid of the Global Relief Foundation.
"It has been conclusively established that Global Relief Foundation learned of the search from reporter Philip Shenon of The New York Times," U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald wrote in an Aug. 7, 2002, letter to the Times' legal department.
Shenon's phone tip to the Muslim charity (which occurred one day before the FBI searched the foundation's offices), Fitzgerald said, "seriously compromised the integrity of the investigation and potentially endangered the safety of federal law-enforcement personnel." The Global Relief Foundation (GRF) wasn't some beneficent neighborhood charity sending shoes and Muslim Barbie dolls to poor kids overseas. It was designated a terror-financing organization in October 2002 by the Treasury Department, which reported that GRF "has connections to, has provided support for, and has provided assistance to Usama Bin Ladin, the al Qaida Network, and other known terrorist groups."
The Muslim charity had "received funding from individuals associated with al Qaida. GRF officials have had extensive contacts with a close associate of Usama Bin Ladin, who has been convicted in a U.S. court for his role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania." Moreover, the Treasury Department said, "GRF members have dealt with officials of the Taliban, while the Taliban was subject to international sanctions."
Shenon's then-colleague, Judith Miller, had placed a similar call to another Muslim terrorist-front financier, the Holy Land Foundation, a few weeks before Shenon's call to the GRF. She was supposedly asking for "comment" on an impending freeze of their assets. According to Fitzgerald in court papers, Miller allegedly also warned them that "government action was imminent." The FBI raided the Holy Land Foundation's offices the day after Miller's article was published in the Times.
The Times' reporters -- surprise, surprise -- refuse to cooperate with investigators trying to identify the leakers. The government is appealing a ruling protecting the loose-lipped reporters' phone records. Which side are they on? Actions speak louder than words.
Oh, and while they continue to sabotage terror-financing investigations, the blabbermouths of the Times should be reminded -- as the conservative bloggers Bill Keller despises so much are doing -- of their own call in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 for vigorous counterterrorism measures to stop the bankrolling of terror:
"The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also be closer coordination among America's law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies."
"Much more is needed?" Right. And when the Bush administration came through, the Times stabbed them, and us, in the backs. The lesson is clear. When terror strikes, don't believe a word the know-it-all Times prints. They are opportunistic, hindsighted hypocrites who endanger us all.
Michelle Malkin is a syndicated columnist and maintains her weblog at michellemalkin.com. She has also authored books such as Unhinged and In Defense of Internment.
http://www.townhall.com
Michelle Malkin ( bio archive contact )
The New York Times (proudly publishing all the secrets unfit to spill since 9/11) and their reckless anonymous sources (come out, come out, you cowards) tipped off terrorists to America's efforts to track their financial activities.
Guess what? It isn't the first time blabbermouth journalists have jeopardized terror-financing investigations since Sept. 11, according to the government.
I remind you of the case of the Treason Times, the Holy Land Foundation, and the Global Relief Foundation. As the New York Post reported last September, the Justice Department charged that "a veteran New York Times foreign correspondent warned an alleged terror-funding Islamic charity that the FBI was about to raid its office -- potentially endangering the lives of federal agents." Times reporter Philip Shenon was accused of blowing the cover on a Dec. 14, 2001, raid of the Global Relief Foundation.
"It has been conclusively established that Global Relief Foundation learned of the search from reporter Philip Shenon of The New York Times," U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald wrote in an Aug. 7, 2002, letter to the Times' legal department.
Shenon's phone tip to the Muslim charity (which occurred one day before the FBI searched the foundation's offices), Fitzgerald said, "seriously compromised the integrity of the investigation and potentially endangered the safety of federal law-enforcement personnel." The Global Relief Foundation (GRF) wasn't some beneficent neighborhood charity sending shoes and Muslim Barbie dolls to poor kids overseas. It was designated a terror-financing organization in October 2002 by the Treasury Department, which reported that GRF "has connections to, has provided support for, and has provided assistance to Usama Bin Ladin, the al Qaida Network, and other known terrorist groups."
The Muslim charity had "received funding from individuals associated with al Qaida. GRF officials have had extensive contacts with a close associate of Usama Bin Ladin, who has been convicted in a U.S. court for his role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania." Moreover, the Treasury Department said, "GRF members have dealt with officials of the Taliban, while the Taliban was subject to international sanctions."
Shenon's then-colleague, Judith Miller, had placed a similar call to another Muslim terrorist-front financier, the Holy Land Foundation, a few weeks before Shenon's call to the GRF. She was supposedly asking for "comment" on an impending freeze of their assets. According to Fitzgerald in court papers, Miller allegedly also warned them that "government action was imminent." The FBI raided the Holy Land Foundation's offices the day after Miller's article was published in the Times.
The Times' reporters -- surprise, surprise -- refuse to cooperate with investigators trying to identify the leakers. The government is appealing a ruling protecting the loose-lipped reporters' phone records. Which side are they on? Actions speak louder than words.
Oh, and while they continue to sabotage terror-financing investigations, the blabbermouths of the Times should be reminded -- as the conservative bloggers Bill Keller despises so much are doing -- of their own call in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 for vigorous counterterrorism measures to stop the bankrolling of terror:
"The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also be closer coordination among America's law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies."
"Much more is needed?" Right. And when the Bush administration came through, the Times stabbed them, and us, in the backs. The lesson is clear. When terror strikes, don't believe a word the know-it-all Times prints. They are opportunistic, hindsighted hypocrites who endanger us all.
Michelle Malkin is a syndicated columnist and maintains her weblog at michellemalkin.com. She has also authored books such as Unhinged and In Defense of Internment.
Daniel Pipes: How Muslims Think
Daniel Pipes
http://www.FrontPageMag.com
June 28, 2006
How do Muslims worldwide think?
To find out, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press carried out a large-scale attitudinal survey this spring. Titled “The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other,” it interviewed Muslims in two batches of countries: six of them with long-standing, majority-Muslim populations (Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey) and four of them in Western Europe with new, minority Muslim populations (France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain).
The survey, which also looks at Western views of Muslims, yielded some dismaying but not altogether surprising results. Its themes can be grouped under three rubrics.
A proclivity to conspiracy theories: In not one Muslim population polled does a majority believe that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks on the United States. The proportions range from a mere 15 percent in Pakistan holding Arabs responsible, to 48 percent among French Muslims.
Confirming recent negative trends in Turkey, the number of Turks who point the finger at Arabs has declined from 46 percent in 2002 to 16 percent today. In other words, in every one of these ten Muslim communities, a majority views 9/11 as a hoax perpetrated by the U.S. government, Israel, or some other agency.
Likewise, Muslims are widely prejudiced against Jews, ranging from 28 percent unfavorable ratings among French Muslims to 98 percent in Jordan (which, despite the monarchy’s moderation, has a majority Palestinian population). Further, Muslims in certain countries (especially Egypt and Jordan) see Jews conspiratorially, as being responsible for bad relations between Muslims and Westerners.
Conspiracy theories also pertain to larger topics. Asked, “What is most responsible for Muslim nations’ lack of prosperity?” between 14 percent (in Pakistan) and 43 percent (in Jordan) blame the policies of the U.S. and other Western states, as opposed to indigenous problems, such as a lack of democracy or education, or the presence of corruption or radical Islam.
This conspiracism points to a widespread unwillingness in the umma to deal with realities, preferring the safer bromides of plots, schemes, and intrigues. It also reveals major problems adjusting to modernity.
Support for terrorism: All the Muslim populations polled display a solid majority of support for Osama bin Laden. Asked whether they have confidence in him, Muslims replied positively, ranging between 8 percent (in Turkey) to 72 percent (in Nigeria). Likewise, suicide bombing is popular. Muslims who call it justified range from 13 percent (in Germany) to 69 percent (in Nigeria). These appalling numbers suggest that terrorism by Muslims has deep roots and will remain a danger for years to come.
British and Nigerian Muslims the most alienated: The United Kingdom stands out as a paradoxical country. Non-Muslims there have strikingly more favorable views of Islam and Muslims than elsewhere in the West; for example, only 32 percent of the British sample view Muslims as violent, significantly less their counterparts in France (41 percent), Germany (52 percent) or Spain (60 percent). In the Muhammad cartoon dispute, Britons showed more sympathy for the Muslim outlook than did other Europeans. More broadly, Britons blame Muslims less for the poor state of Western-Muslim relations.
But British Muslims return the favor with the most malign anti-Western attitudes found in Europe. Many more of them regard Westerners as violent, greedy, immoral, and arrogant than do their counterparts in France, Germany, and Spain. In addition, whether asked about their attitudes toward Jews, responsibility for 9/11, or the place of women in Western societies, their views are notably more extreme.
The situation in Britain reflects the “Londonistan” phenomenon, whereby Britons preemptively cringe and Muslims respond to this weakness with aggression.
Nigerian Muslims have generally the most belligerent views on such issues as the state of Western-Muslim relations, the supposed immorality and arrogance of Westerners, and support for bin Laden and suicide terrorism. This extremism results, no doubt, from the violent state of Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria.
Ironically, most Muslim alienation is found in those countries where Muslims are either the most or the least accommodated, suggesting that a middle path is best – where Muslims do not win special privileges, as in the U.K., nor are they in an advanced state of hostility, as in Nigeria.
Overall, the Pew survey sends an undeniable message of crisis from one end to the other of the Muslim world.
Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.
Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).
http://www.FrontPageMag.com
June 28, 2006
How do Muslims worldwide think?
To find out, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press carried out a large-scale attitudinal survey this spring. Titled “The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other,” it interviewed Muslims in two batches of countries: six of them with long-standing, majority-Muslim populations (Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey) and four of them in Western Europe with new, minority Muslim populations (France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain).
The survey, which also looks at Western views of Muslims, yielded some dismaying but not altogether surprising results. Its themes can be grouped under three rubrics.
A proclivity to conspiracy theories: In not one Muslim population polled does a majority believe that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks on the United States. The proportions range from a mere 15 percent in Pakistan holding Arabs responsible, to 48 percent among French Muslims.
Confirming recent negative trends in Turkey, the number of Turks who point the finger at Arabs has declined from 46 percent in 2002 to 16 percent today. In other words, in every one of these ten Muslim communities, a majority views 9/11 as a hoax perpetrated by the U.S. government, Israel, or some other agency.
Likewise, Muslims are widely prejudiced against Jews, ranging from 28 percent unfavorable ratings among French Muslims to 98 percent in Jordan (which, despite the monarchy’s moderation, has a majority Palestinian population). Further, Muslims in certain countries (especially Egypt and Jordan) see Jews conspiratorially, as being responsible for bad relations between Muslims and Westerners.
Conspiracy theories also pertain to larger topics. Asked, “What is most responsible for Muslim nations’ lack of prosperity?” between 14 percent (in Pakistan) and 43 percent (in Jordan) blame the policies of the U.S. and other Western states, as opposed to indigenous problems, such as a lack of democracy or education, or the presence of corruption or radical Islam.
This conspiracism points to a widespread unwillingness in the umma to deal with realities, preferring the safer bromides of plots, schemes, and intrigues. It also reveals major problems adjusting to modernity.
Support for terrorism: All the Muslim populations polled display a solid majority of support for Osama bin Laden. Asked whether they have confidence in him, Muslims replied positively, ranging between 8 percent (in Turkey) to 72 percent (in Nigeria). Likewise, suicide bombing is popular. Muslims who call it justified range from 13 percent (in Germany) to 69 percent (in Nigeria). These appalling numbers suggest that terrorism by Muslims has deep roots and will remain a danger for years to come.
British and Nigerian Muslims the most alienated: The United Kingdom stands out as a paradoxical country. Non-Muslims there have strikingly more favorable views of Islam and Muslims than elsewhere in the West; for example, only 32 percent of the British sample view Muslims as violent, significantly less their counterparts in France (41 percent), Germany (52 percent) or Spain (60 percent). In the Muhammad cartoon dispute, Britons showed more sympathy for the Muslim outlook than did other Europeans. More broadly, Britons blame Muslims less for the poor state of Western-Muslim relations.
But British Muslims return the favor with the most malign anti-Western attitudes found in Europe. Many more of them regard Westerners as violent, greedy, immoral, and arrogant than do their counterparts in France, Germany, and Spain. In addition, whether asked about their attitudes toward Jews, responsibility for 9/11, or the place of women in Western societies, their views are notably more extreme.
The situation in Britain reflects the “Londonistan” phenomenon, whereby Britons preemptively cringe and Muslims respond to this weakness with aggression.
Nigerian Muslims have generally the most belligerent views on such issues as the state of Western-Muslim relations, the supposed immorality and arrogance of Westerners, and support for bin Laden and suicide terrorism. This extremism results, no doubt, from the violent state of Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria.
Ironically, most Muslim alienation is found in those countries where Muslims are either the most or the least accommodated, suggesting that a middle path is best – where Muslims do not win special privileges, as in the U.K., nor are they in an advanced state of hostility, as in Nigeria.
Overall, the Pew survey sends an undeniable message of crisis from one end to the other of the Muslim world.
Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.
Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Concert Review: Bruce Springsteen in Holmdel, N.J.
Running on all cylinders
Springsteen, Seeger Sessions Band in top form at second PNC show
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 06/27/06
BY MICHAEL RILEY
STAFF WRITER
In strange and dangerous times, under threatening skies, Bruce Springsteen brought his traveling medicine show and tent revival to the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel on Sunday night.
The second of two homecoming shows (and the final shows of the tour for now) saw Springsteen and a full comport of the Seeger Sessions Band in top form, tighter than at the tour's Asbury Park rehearsal shows a few months back.
For much of his career, Springsteen's music and stage shows have been about the political and the personal, and the two are bound together, especially when informed by faith.
And that's still the case, and it's present even when the music isn't playing. Representatives from both the Community FoodBank of New Jersey and New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty were on hand, and Springsteen exhorted the audience to check them out.
But now, with this tour, Springsteen makes history a central part of the equation by reaching back over the last two centuries for folk tunes that speak to and for this day's troubles.
The show opened with a recent addition to the set list, "American Land," a song done by Pete Seeger and rewritten by Springsteen as a song about the immigrant experience.
The gothic shadows of "Long Black Veil" and the devastation of "My City of Ruins" both had their place, alongside a big band-style "Open All Night" and a salesman-rap "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)."
The endearing corny schtick that Springsteen uses as a replacement for flashpots and laser shows has been a mainstay of many Springsteen tours, and these non-E Streeters do their part to keep the tradition going, from horn player Richie La Bamba's wild leap off his riser to the stage floor to Springsteen's Jimmy Swaggart-like exhortation that "there is no free beer in heaven — You've got to earn it!" to the tuba player having to be pulled offstage at the end of "Pay Me My Money Down."
Both PNC Bank Arts Center shows were sold out, unlike a few on the U.S. leg of this tour, and Springsteen thanked the crowd for taking a chance on this genre-bending musical history tour. With the huge Seeger Sessions Band, the whole Phil Spector "wall of sound" thing has to take on new meaning.
And the one-two punch of the Depression-era "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?" and "Jacob's Ladder," a question-and-answer pair of songs that still seem to form the emotional center of the show, seems to prove once again that song order matters in a Springsteen concert.
What fans who took a flier on this strange new direction got was a mature artist surrounded by darn fine musicians, playing music that matters to them and having a high old time doing it.
Kandra and Rob Vuono of Wall have seen Springsteen maybe a half-dozen times during the last decade or so in various incarnations. But this time was something different, something special.
"I think we had a good time because Bruce seemed to be having such a good time," said Kathy.
"Only Bruce Springsteen could get away with this," said Rob, "and make it so good."
Jeff Jacoby: In an Islamist America
Jun 26, 2006
The Boston Globe
Jeff Jacoby ( bio archive contact )
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it became a cliche that if we didn't do X, Y, or Z -- usually some normal peacetime activity -- then "the terrorists will have won." That was the claim of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which decided to proceed with the 2001 Academy Awards on the grounds that "if we give in to fear, if we aren't able to do these simple and ordinary things, the terrorists have won the war." Similarly, members of the Frank Scott Bunnell High School marching band in Stratford, Conn., insisted on accepting an invitation to the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, despite the possible risks. "I understand why some parents are worried," one student told The New York Times, "but we can't let the terrorists win."
In truth, though, most Americans have never thought about what it would mean if the terrorists really did win -- if militant Islamists were to succeed in their quest for political control of the United States. It isn't something that elites in academia, government, or the media generally like to talk about, for fear of being branded racist or "Islamophobic." American Islamists themselves are usually careful not to speak too candidly about their supremacist goals, but as Daniel Pipes has documented, the mask sometimes slips. For example, Siraj Wahaj, imam of the Taqwa Mosque in Brooklyn and board member of the Islamic Society of North America, has said that if Muslims were better organized, they could replace the American government with a Islamic caliphate: "If we were united and strong, we'd elect our own emir and give allegiance to him. . . . [T]ake my word, if 6-8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us."
Life in an Islamist United States would be largely unfree and intolerant, if the experience of countries where radical Muslims have achieved power -- Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan -- is any guide. But what would that mean in American terms? That's the question a remarkable new novel sets out to answer.
"Prayers for the Assassin", Robert Ferrigno's latest thriller, is set 35 years in the future, when most of the United States has been transformed into the Islamic Republic of America. Under the new regime, America is a country in which university professors can lose their jobs for being "insufficiently Islamic," cellphone cameras are illegal, and men can only dream of "loud music, cold beer, and coed beaches." There is still a Super Bowl, but the cheerleaders are all men. Mt. Rushmore still exists, but the presidential faces on it have been blown up.
Ferrigno has said he spent two years researching Islam, and it shows in the level of detail with which the Islamic Republic has been conceived. In one scene, for example, a cabbie tunes his radio to a popular call-in show called "What Should I Do, Imam?" As Ferrigno's heroine listens from the back seat, a caller asks whether there are any kinds of music that one can enjoy without running afoul of Muslim law.
"Good question, my daughter," the imam answers. "The Holy Qur'an is quite clear that music is forbidden. One of the messengers of Allah said, 'There will be a nation who will make music their lot, and one day, while enjoying their music and alcohol, they will awake with their faces transformed into swine.' In fact, this messenger said he was sent to destroy all musical instruments. . . . Instead of music, rather listen to the Holy Qur'an." Ferrigno invented the scene, but the severe Islamist reply has been taken almost verbatim from http://www.Ask-Imam.com, the online advice site of the South African Mufti Ebrahim Desai.
In a Muslim America, Christians are "dhimmi" -- tolerated, but only as second-class citizens, barred from the best jobs and housing. Others, especially Jews and homosexuals, are not tolerated at all; many flee for their lives along a new underground railroad into Canada.
Life is especially hard for women, who may not leave their homes without written permission from a male relative, and even then risk being whipped by the "Black Robes" -- the Sharia-enforcing religious police -- if a lock of hair slips out from beneath their head scarves, or they neglect to keep their ankles covered. Repression is at the heart of fundamentalist Islam, and Ferrigno's portrayal of that repression in American terms is a vivid reminder of what is really at stake in the war against the jihadists.
But "Prayers for the Assassin" is no screed. If its villains are Muslims, so are its heroes; Ferrigno is quite aware that moderate and liberal Muslims have the most to fear from an Islamofascist victory.
He is also quite aware of Islam's appeal. Many converts to Islam find comfort and reassurance in its moral certainty and firm standards, and Ferrigno underscores the point. "Don't tell me about the old days, girl, I lived through them," says one character, a top government official. "Drugs sold on street corners. Guns everywhere. God driven out of the schools and courthouses. Births without marriage, rich and poor, so many bastards you wouldn't believe me. A country without shame. Alcohol sold in supermarkets. Babies killed in the womb, tens of millions of them. . . . We are not perfect, not by any measure, but I would not go back to those days for anything."
The war we are in is a spiritual no less than a military one, a point too many of us are apt to ignore. "Prayers for the Assassin" -- in addition to being a great read -- is an admonition to stop ignoring it. Unless, that is, we want the terrorists to win.
Jeff Jacoby is an Op-Ed writer for the Boston Globe, a radio political commentator, and a contributing columnist for Townhall.com.
The Boston Globe
Jeff Jacoby ( bio archive contact )
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it became a cliche that if we didn't do X, Y, or Z -- usually some normal peacetime activity -- then "the terrorists will have won." That was the claim of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which decided to proceed with the 2001 Academy Awards on the grounds that "if we give in to fear, if we aren't able to do these simple and ordinary things, the terrorists have won the war." Similarly, members of the Frank Scott Bunnell High School marching band in Stratford, Conn., insisted on accepting an invitation to the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, despite the possible risks. "I understand why some parents are worried," one student told The New York Times, "but we can't let the terrorists win."
In truth, though, most Americans have never thought about what it would mean if the terrorists really did win -- if militant Islamists were to succeed in their quest for political control of the United States. It isn't something that elites in academia, government, or the media generally like to talk about, for fear of being branded racist or "Islamophobic." American Islamists themselves are usually careful not to speak too candidly about their supremacist goals, but as Daniel Pipes has documented, the mask sometimes slips. For example, Siraj Wahaj, imam of the Taqwa Mosque in Brooklyn and board member of the Islamic Society of North America, has said that if Muslims were better organized, they could replace the American government with a Islamic caliphate: "If we were united and strong, we'd elect our own emir and give allegiance to him. . . . [T]ake my word, if 6-8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us."
Life in an Islamist United States would be largely unfree and intolerant, if the experience of countries where radical Muslims have achieved power -- Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan -- is any guide. But what would that mean in American terms? That's the question a remarkable new novel sets out to answer.
"Prayers for the Assassin", Robert Ferrigno's latest thriller, is set 35 years in the future, when most of the United States has been transformed into the Islamic Republic of America. Under the new regime, America is a country in which university professors can lose their jobs for being "insufficiently Islamic," cellphone cameras are illegal, and men can only dream of "loud music, cold beer, and coed beaches." There is still a Super Bowl, but the cheerleaders are all men. Mt. Rushmore still exists, but the presidential faces on it have been blown up.
Ferrigno has said he spent two years researching Islam, and it shows in the level of detail with which the Islamic Republic has been conceived. In one scene, for example, a cabbie tunes his radio to a popular call-in show called "What Should I Do, Imam?" As Ferrigno's heroine listens from the back seat, a caller asks whether there are any kinds of music that one can enjoy without running afoul of Muslim law.
"Good question, my daughter," the imam answers. "The Holy Qur'an is quite clear that music is forbidden. One of the messengers of Allah said, 'There will be a nation who will make music their lot, and one day, while enjoying their music and alcohol, they will awake with their faces transformed into swine.' In fact, this messenger said he was sent to destroy all musical instruments. . . . Instead of music, rather listen to the Holy Qur'an." Ferrigno invented the scene, but the severe Islamist reply has been taken almost verbatim from http://www.Ask-Imam.com, the online advice site of the South African Mufti Ebrahim Desai.
In a Muslim America, Christians are "dhimmi" -- tolerated, but only as second-class citizens, barred from the best jobs and housing. Others, especially Jews and homosexuals, are not tolerated at all; many flee for their lives along a new underground railroad into Canada.
Life is especially hard for women, who may not leave their homes without written permission from a male relative, and even then risk being whipped by the "Black Robes" -- the Sharia-enforcing religious police -- if a lock of hair slips out from beneath their head scarves, or they neglect to keep their ankles covered. Repression is at the heart of fundamentalist Islam, and Ferrigno's portrayal of that repression in American terms is a vivid reminder of what is really at stake in the war against the jihadists.
But "Prayers for the Assassin" is no screed. If its villains are Muslims, so are its heroes; Ferrigno is quite aware that moderate and liberal Muslims have the most to fear from an Islamofascist victory.
He is also quite aware of Islam's appeal. Many converts to Islam find comfort and reassurance in its moral certainty and firm standards, and Ferrigno underscores the point. "Don't tell me about the old days, girl, I lived through them," says one character, a top government official. "Drugs sold on street corners. Guns everywhere. God driven out of the schools and courthouses. Births without marriage, rich and poor, so many bastards you wouldn't believe me. A country without shame. Alcohol sold in supermarkets. Babies killed in the womb, tens of millions of them. . . . We are not perfect, not by any measure, but I would not go back to those days for anything."
The war we are in is a spiritual no less than a military one, a point too many of us are apt to ignore. "Prayers for the Assassin" -- in addition to being a great read -- is an admonition to stop ignoring it. Unless, that is, we want the terrorists to win.
Jeff Jacoby is an Op-Ed writer for the Boston Globe, a radio political commentator, and a contributing columnist for Townhall.com.
Cam Edwards: Day One of the UN Gun Ban Summit
Jun 27, 2006
http://www.townhall.com
Cam Edwards ( bio archive contact )
They’ve gathered in New York City, the best and brightest minds in the global gun ban movement. Oh, they don’t want you to think for a second that they’re actually interested in your guns. Kofi Annan as much as said so yesterday, when he told the attendees of the Small Arms Review Conference, “This Review Conference is not negotiating a ‘global gun ban’, nor do we wish to deny law-abiding citizens their right to bear arms in accordance with their national laws.” Got it, gun owners? There’s nothing to fear from the UN when it comes to your guns.
It’s too bad for Kofi that many of the countries attending the summit didn’t get his memo. Yesterday’s speeches were full of calls for expanding the current agenda to include the civilian possession of firearms. Hans Winkler, speaking on behalf of the European Union, called the current Program of Action “the key starting point for further action on small arms”. The ambassador from Australia, Robert Hill, spoke glowingly of his country’s gun laws that “require the registration and licensing of all firearms owners, prohibit a range of automatic and semi-automatic long arms and handguns, and mandate minimum firearms safety training and storage requirements.”
The statement from Indonesia’s representative was perhaps the clearest example of what these countries are aiming for.
“We believe that no armed group outside of the State should be allowed to bear weapons. We also believe that regulating civilian possession of Small Arms/Light Weapons will enhance our efforts to prevent its misuse. In our view, the issue of ammunition should also be addressed in the context of the Program of Action because in the absence of ammunition, small arms and light weapons pose no danger.”
Not every country is as transparent as Indonesia. When looking at the statements of the various representatives, what isn’t said is just as important as the words we actually hear. Take, for example, the comments by Brazilian representative Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg. He told the summit, “this Review Conference should not limit ourselves to renewing our commitment to the full implementation of the Program of Action. It should rather be taken as an opportunity to address the Program’s shortcomings, by means of the adoption of substantive aimed at strengthening and complementing its mechanisms.” In other words, what we’ve got right now doesn’t go far enough. This comes from a country that tried to ban civilian ownership of firearms outright (the referendum failed last fall).
The anti-gun summit continues for the next two weeks, and you can get daily updates from http://www.NRAnews.com Executive Editor Ginny Simone every afternoon on “Cam and Company”, heard on the aforementioned NRAnews.com and Sirius Satellite Radio. Coming up on Tuesday, the United States issues its opening statement.
Cam Edwards is the host of “Cam and Company” on www.nranews.com and Sirius Satellite Radio. A veteran talk show host and political analyst, he blogs at www.camedwards.com in addition to his daily talk show. Cam lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and five children.
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
http://www.townhall.com
Cam Edwards ( bio archive contact )
They’ve gathered in New York City, the best and brightest minds in the global gun ban movement. Oh, they don’t want you to think for a second that they’re actually interested in your guns. Kofi Annan as much as said so yesterday, when he told the attendees of the Small Arms Review Conference, “This Review Conference is not negotiating a ‘global gun ban’, nor do we wish to deny law-abiding citizens their right to bear arms in accordance with their national laws.” Got it, gun owners? There’s nothing to fear from the UN when it comes to your guns.
It’s too bad for Kofi that many of the countries attending the summit didn’t get his memo. Yesterday’s speeches were full of calls for expanding the current agenda to include the civilian possession of firearms. Hans Winkler, speaking on behalf of the European Union, called the current Program of Action “the key starting point for further action on small arms”. The ambassador from Australia, Robert Hill, spoke glowingly of his country’s gun laws that “require the registration and licensing of all firearms owners, prohibit a range of automatic and semi-automatic long arms and handguns, and mandate minimum firearms safety training and storage requirements.”
The statement from Indonesia’s representative was perhaps the clearest example of what these countries are aiming for.
“We believe that no armed group outside of the State should be allowed to bear weapons. We also believe that regulating civilian possession of Small Arms/Light Weapons will enhance our efforts to prevent its misuse. In our view, the issue of ammunition should also be addressed in the context of the Program of Action because in the absence of ammunition, small arms and light weapons pose no danger.”
Not every country is as transparent as Indonesia. When looking at the statements of the various representatives, what isn’t said is just as important as the words we actually hear. Take, for example, the comments by Brazilian representative Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg. He told the summit, “this Review Conference should not limit ourselves to renewing our commitment to the full implementation of the Program of Action. It should rather be taken as an opportunity to address the Program’s shortcomings, by means of the adoption of substantive aimed at strengthening and complementing its mechanisms.” In other words, what we’ve got right now doesn’t go far enough. This comes from a country that tried to ban civilian ownership of firearms outright (the referendum failed last fall).
The anti-gun summit continues for the next two weeks, and you can get daily updates from http://www.NRAnews.com Executive Editor Ginny Simone every afternoon on “Cam and Company”, heard on the aforementioned NRAnews.com and Sirius Satellite Radio. Coming up on Tuesday, the United States issues its opening statement.
Cam Edwards is the host of “Cam and Company” on www.nranews.com and Sirius Satellite Radio. A veteran talk show host and political analyst, he blogs at www.camedwards.com in addition to his daily talk show. Cam lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and five children.
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
CAIR Fifth Columnists and Multiculturalists
By Joe Kaufman
FrontPageMagazine.com
June 27, 2006
In the realm of terrorism, the threat to America is not just concerning dirty bombs and terror cells. It’s not just about planes flying into buildings or suicide vests. No, the threat is a lot greater than that – a solid infrastructure finely cultivated into our society, paid for, at least in part, by Saudi royalty. It was created not to promote the values of our nation, but, instead, to impose Islamic law. A large part of that infrastructure is the Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR. On one fine spring day this month, two institutions that we as Americans rely on – one from each of America’s coasts – gave CAIR the things that it so ardently craves and needs to survive -- cover and legitimization.
The date was June 5, 2006. A South Florida Sun-Sentinel editorial that morning, entitled ‘Muslims: Group encourages volunteer work,’ began as follows: “To their great credit, many Muslim organizations in the United States have been working to counteract negative views of their religion resulting from the terrorism of Islamic extremists. One of the foremost of these groups is the Council on American-Islamic Relations…”
The piece was attributed to the Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board. The Board is made up of eleven individuals, the majority of which are accomplished writers with a vast amount of knowledge and experience in the widest range of subjects. That being the case, why would this distinguished group lavish praise on such an insidious organization as CAIR?
Was the Sun-Sentinel aware of the fact that CAIR, since its inception in 1994, had lost four of its officials, all linked to al-Qaeda and/or Hamas, all of which who’ve been either convicted or deported for their crimes? Or that one of its national advisory board members, Siraj Wahhaj, found his name placed on the list of potential co-conspirators to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center?
Did the newspaper know that, just prior to 9/11, CAIR had solicited funds for two terrorist charities related to Al-Qaeda and Hamas, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Global Relief Foundation, both shut down after 9/11?
Did the Sentinel recognize the fact that CAIR’s Executive Director, Nihad Awad, in March of 1994, had publicly stated his support for Hamas, saying that “after I researched the situation inside and outside Palestine, I am in support of the Hamas movement…”?
Did the paper realize that CAIR had criticized the prosecution of the spiritual leader of the ’93 bombing, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, listing the trial as an “incident of anti-Muslim bias and violence”?
It seems none of this was taken into account, when the Board sat down to write its literary illusion. And anyway, it was only two weeks earlier that the Sentinel printed an op-ed written by the Executive Director of CAIR-Florida, Altaf Ali. Ali, exactly one month after 9/11, on a local radio show, derided this author for being Jewish and repeatedly refused to answer the question of whether he believed the people that perished during the World Trade Center attacks were innocent. Ali’s op-ed was about Daniel Wultz, the American boy that was murdered by a suicide bomber in Israel. The attacker was from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the terrorist groups that CAIR has its roots in.
The same day the Editorial Board put out its puff piece, CAIR received another unwarranted stroke of good fortune, as a representative from the FBI showed up to take part in one of the group’s events.
On June 5th, the Los Angeles chapter of CAIR sponsored a community town hall meeting at the Islamic Center of Irvine (ICOI), a mosque that propagates venomously anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric. In a Khutbah (sermon) given at the ICOI last month, entitled ‘The Abuse of a Religion to sustain a Racist State,’ the ICOI’s Director of Religious Affairs, Sadullah Khan, stated, “Jews who came [to Israel] brought with them a Western arrogance…” In the sermon, which is found on the ICOI website, Khan liberally quoted alleged neo-Nazi William Baker and described Zionism as “racist,” “diabolical” and “sinister.”
Participating at the CAIR event was CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush. Ayloush’s appearance at ICOI makes sense, as he, himself, has been known to exhibit an extreme hatred towards the state of Israel. According to Dr. Daniel Pipes, whom Ayloush has likened to “a KKK person,” he (Ayloush) has repeatedly used the term “Zionazi,” when discussing Israelis. He has referred to Zionism as “a political ideology whose tentacles are rooted in racism,” and he has stated that the violent Intifada (Uprising) that was twice perpetrated by the Palestinians against the Israelis “really indicates standing up against injustice.”
Ayloush has complained of the United States’ treatment of the terrorist group Hamas, who recently had members voted into power in the “Palestinian territories.” During a Khutbah speech he gave at the Islamic Institute of Orange County (IIOC), last May, entitled “Don’t Be Pessimistic,” Ayloush stated: “Compare your situation to the situation of our brothers and sisters in Palestine… They were starved, they were pressured and threatened with embargo, if they don’t have democratic elections. And then, when they have the democratic elections, because we don’t like the results, now they are being starved again, embargoed and punished.”
In addition, Ayloush has jumped to defend the likes of Wagdy Ghoneim, a radical Egyptian imam from IIOC. Ghoneim, who was deported from the United States, had been videotaped calling for suicide bombings and had referred to Jews, at a 1998 CAIR co-sponsored Brooklyn rally, as “descendants of the apes.” Ayloush lauded Ghoneim as a “highly regarded religious scholar” and a “worldwide, well known scholar.”
Ayloush has also defended the terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay. On June 15, 2006, CAIR placed on its national website an “ISLAM-OPED” written by Ayloush, calling for the Guantanamo Bay prison’s closure, entitled ‘Shut Down the Gitmo Gulog.’ The next day, the article was published by the Al Jazeerah Peace Information Center, a website that acts as a propaganda machine for Hamas. In the piece, Ayloush suggests that at least some of the individuals being detained are “innocent.” However, according to a statement issued by the United States military just prior to the op-ed’s release, the inmates “are enemy combatants being detained because they have waged war against our nation and they continue to pose a threat.”
Accompanying Hussam Ayloush as a participant at the June 5th CAIR event was the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI field office in Los Angeles, Stephen Tidwell. Tidwell, apparently, was there to quell concerns that the FBI was actively eavesdropping on local Muslims.
Like the Sun-Sentinel and its printing of Altaf Ali’s op-ed, the Los Angeles FBI had been down this road before. In fact, the L.A. FBI even created an entity, the Multi-Cultural Advisory Committee (MCAC), in which CAIR is one of the sitting members.
Did Assistant Director Tidwell, in joining the event, take into account that CAIR was created by a front for overseas terrorist organizations called the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), whose founders include the number two leader in Hamas today, Mousa Abu Marzook, and the former North American head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian?
Did he understand that this front, the IAP, had been found liable for the murder of a young American boy, David Boim, whose life was taken during a Hamas terror operation in Israel?
Did Tidwell recognize that CAIR, itself, is currently the defendant in a lawsuit charging that the group played a role in the murder of former chief of the FBI’s counter-terrorism section, John O’Neill, on September 11th? One of his own. Or that Steven Pomerantz, former FBI assistant director and chief of the FBI's Counter-Terrorism Section, has stated, “CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups”?
None of the above can be disputed, yet many have chosen to ignore it. Unfortunately, those ignoring the information are also responsible for supplying us with our daily take on the news and providing us with our safety and security here at home. June 5, 2006 was indeed a great day for CAIR; but for all those that worry about the future of the United States, it will be yet another day that will live on in infamy.
Nearly five years after 9/11, we still don’t get it.
Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.
Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate and the host of The Politics of Terrorism radio show.
FrontPageMagazine.com
June 27, 2006
In the realm of terrorism, the threat to America is not just concerning dirty bombs and terror cells. It’s not just about planes flying into buildings or suicide vests. No, the threat is a lot greater than that – a solid infrastructure finely cultivated into our society, paid for, at least in part, by Saudi royalty. It was created not to promote the values of our nation, but, instead, to impose Islamic law. A large part of that infrastructure is the Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR. On one fine spring day this month, two institutions that we as Americans rely on – one from each of America’s coasts – gave CAIR the things that it so ardently craves and needs to survive -- cover and legitimization.
The date was June 5, 2006. A South Florida Sun-Sentinel editorial that morning, entitled ‘Muslims: Group encourages volunteer work,’ began as follows: “To their great credit, many Muslim organizations in the United States have been working to counteract negative views of their religion resulting from the terrorism of Islamic extremists. One of the foremost of these groups is the Council on American-Islamic Relations…”
The piece was attributed to the Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board. The Board is made up of eleven individuals, the majority of which are accomplished writers with a vast amount of knowledge and experience in the widest range of subjects. That being the case, why would this distinguished group lavish praise on such an insidious organization as CAIR?
Was the Sun-Sentinel aware of the fact that CAIR, since its inception in 1994, had lost four of its officials, all linked to al-Qaeda and/or Hamas, all of which who’ve been either convicted or deported for their crimes? Or that one of its national advisory board members, Siraj Wahhaj, found his name placed on the list of potential co-conspirators to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center?
Did the newspaper know that, just prior to 9/11, CAIR had solicited funds for two terrorist charities related to Al-Qaeda and Hamas, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Global Relief Foundation, both shut down after 9/11?
Did the Sentinel recognize the fact that CAIR’s Executive Director, Nihad Awad, in March of 1994, had publicly stated his support for Hamas, saying that “after I researched the situation inside and outside Palestine, I am in support of the Hamas movement…”?
Did the paper realize that CAIR had criticized the prosecution of the spiritual leader of the ’93 bombing, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, listing the trial as an “incident of anti-Muslim bias and violence”?
It seems none of this was taken into account, when the Board sat down to write its literary illusion. And anyway, it was only two weeks earlier that the Sentinel printed an op-ed written by the Executive Director of CAIR-Florida, Altaf Ali. Ali, exactly one month after 9/11, on a local radio show, derided this author for being Jewish and repeatedly refused to answer the question of whether he believed the people that perished during the World Trade Center attacks were innocent. Ali’s op-ed was about Daniel Wultz, the American boy that was murdered by a suicide bomber in Israel. The attacker was from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the terrorist groups that CAIR has its roots in.
The same day the Editorial Board put out its puff piece, CAIR received another unwarranted stroke of good fortune, as a representative from the FBI showed up to take part in one of the group’s events.
On June 5th, the Los Angeles chapter of CAIR sponsored a community town hall meeting at the Islamic Center of Irvine (ICOI), a mosque that propagates venomously anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric. In a Khutbah (sermon) given at the ICOI last month, entitled ‘The Abuse of a Religion to sustain a Racist State,’ the ICOI’s Director of Religious Affairs, Sadullah Khan, stated, “Jews who came [to Israel] brought with them a Western arrogance…” In the sermon, which is found on the ICOI website, Khan liberally quoted alleged neo-Nazi William Baker and described Zionism as “racist,” “diabolical” and “sinister.”
Participating at the CAIR event was CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush. Ayloush’s appearance at ICOI makes sense, as he, himself, has been known to exhibit an extreme hatred towards the state of Israel. According to Dr. Daniel Pipes, whom Ayloush has likened to “a KKK person,” he (Ayloush) has repeatedly used the term “Zionazi,” when discussing Israelis. He has referred to Zionism as “a political ideology whose tentacles are rooted in racism,” and he has stated that the violent Intifada (Uprising) that was twice perpetrated by the Palestinians against the Israelis “really indicates standing up against injustice.”
Ayloush has complained of the United States’ treatment of the terrorist group Hamas, who recently had members voted into power in the “Palestinian territories.” During a Khutbah speech he gave at the Islamic Institute of Orange County (IIOC), last May, entitled “Don’t Be Pessimistic,” Ayloush stated: “Compare your situation to the situation of our brothers and sisters in Palestine… They were starved, they were pressured and threatened with embargo, if they don’t have democratic elections. And then, when they have the democratic elections, because we don’t like the results, now they are being starved again, embargoed and punished.”
In addition, Ayloush has jumped to defend the likes of Wagdy Ghoneim, a radical Egyptian imam from IIOC. Ghoneim, who was deported from the United States, had been videotaped calling for suicide bombings and had referred to Jews, at a 1998 CAIR co-sponsored Brooklyn rally, as “descendants of the apes.” Ayloush lauded Ghoneim as a “highly regarded religious scholar” and a “worldwide, well known scholar.”
Ayloush has also defended the terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay. On June 15, 2006, CAIR placed on its national website an “ISLAM-OPED” written by Ayloush, calling for the Guantanamo Bay prison’s closure, entitled ‘Shut Down the Gitmo Gulog.’ The next day, the article was published by the Al Jazeerah Peace Information Center, a website that acts as a propaganda machine for Hamas. In the piece, Ayloush suggests that at least some of the individuals being detained are “innocent.” However, according to a statement issued by the United States military just prior to the op-ed’s release, the inmates “are enemy combatants being detained because they have waged war against our nation and they continue to pose a threat.”
Accompanying Hussam Ayloush as a participant at the June 5th CAIR event was the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI field office in Los Angeles, Stephen Tidwell. Tidwell, apparently, was there to quell concerns that the FBI was actively eavesdropping on local Muslims.
Like the Sun-Sentinel and its printing of Altaf Ali’s op-ed, the Los Angeles FBI had been down this road before. In fact, the L.A. FBI even created an entity, the Multi-Cultural Advisory Committee (MCAC), in which CAIR is one of the sitting members.
Did Assistant Director Tidwell, in joining the event, take into account that CAIR was created by a front for overseas terrorist organizations called the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), whose founders include the number two leader in Hamas today, Mousa Abu Marzook, and the former North American head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian?
Did he understand that this front, the IAP, had been found liable for the murder of a young American boy, David Boim, whose life was taken during a Hamas terror operation in Israel?
Did Tidwell recognize that CAIR, itself, is currently the defendant in a lawsuit charging that the group played a role in the murder of former chief of the FBI’s counter-terrorism section, John O’Neill, on September 11th? One of his own. Or that Steven Pomerantz, former FBI assistant director and chief of the FBI's Counter-Terrorism Section, has stated, “CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups”?
None of the above can be disputed, yet many have chosen to ignore it. Unfortunately, those ignoring the information are also responsible for supplying us with our daily take on the news and providing us with our safety and security here at home. June 5, 2006 was indeed a great day for CAIR; but for all those that worry about the future of the United States, it will be yet another day that will live on in infamy.
Nearly five years after 9/11, we still don’t get it.
Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.
Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate and the host of The Politics of Terrorism radio show.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Pat Buchanan: An idea whose time has come?
I would like to hear what Mr. Buchanan might suggest for a 'new policy' concerning the current struggle between 'radical' Islam and the West but the continuing rise in popularity of 'pure' Islamic movements all around the world is alarming. Our 'Johnny Appleseed' approach to Middle Eastern democracy and the Iraq War does not appeal to me because I don't believe it will work. I am much more comfortable with the 'shock and awe' approach to military endeavors and have no use for the 'nation building' that is currently underway in Iraq. I also favor the widespread use of Special Forces and 'Black Ops' in hunting terrorists wherever they choose to hide. I believe that it is quite difficult to finance and promote terror around the globe when one is forced to duck and cover in some cave in Afghanistan for fear of getting vaporized. For all I care, they can practice their 'pure' brand of Islam in the wastelands and caves of the Middle East...just don't try to bring it out into the light of day. - JTF
Jun 23, 2006
http://www.townhall.com
Pat Buchanan ( bio archive contact )
In 1938, the year of Anschluss and Munich, a perceptive British Catholic looked beyond the continent over which war clouds hung and saw another cloud forming. "It has always seemed to me ... probable," wrote Hilaire Belloc, "that there would be a resurrection of Islam and that our sons or our grandsons would see the renewal of that tremendous struggle between the Christian culture and what has been for more than a thousand years its greatest opponent."
Belloc was prophetic. Even as Christianity seems to be dying in Europe, Islam is rising to shake the 21st century as it did so many previous centuries.
Indeed, as one watches U.S. armed forces struggle against Sunni insurgents, Shia militias and Jihadists in Iraq, and a resurgent Taliban, all invoking Allah, Victor Hugo's words return to mind: No army is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
The idea for which our many of our adversaries fight is a compelling one. They believe there is but one God, Allah, that Muhammad is his prophet, that Islam, or submission to the Quran, is the only path to paradise and that a Godly society should be governed according to the Sharia, the law of Islam. Having tried other ways and failed, they are coming home to Islam.
What idea do we have to offer? Americans believe that freedom comports with human dignity, that only a democratic and free-market system can ensure the good life for all, as it has done in the West and is doing in Asia.
From Ataturk on, millions of Islamic peoples have embraced this Western alternative. But today, tens of millions of Muslims appear to be rejecting it, returning to their roots in a more pure Islam.
Indeed, the endurance of the Islamic faith is astonishing.
Islam survived two centuries of defeats and humiliations of the Ottoman Empire and Ataturk's abolition of the caliphate. It endured generations of Western rule. It outlasted the pro-Western monarchs in Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Ethiopia and Iran. Islam easily fended off communism, survived the rout of Nasserism in 1967 and has proven more enduring than the nationalism of Arafat or Saddam. Now, it is resisting the world's last superpower.
What occasioned this column was a jolting report in the June 20 Washington Times, by James Brandon, alerting us to a new front.
"Arrests Spark Fear of Armed Islamist Takeover" headlined the story about the arrest, since May, of 500 militants who had allegedly plotted the overthrow of the king of Morocco and establishment of an Islamic state that would sever all ties to the infidel West -- to end the poverty and corruption they blame on the West.
The arrests raised fears that Al Adl wa al Ihsane, or Justice and Charity, was preparing to take up arms to fulfill the predictions of the group's mystics that the monarchy would fall in 2006. Though illegal, Al Adl wa al Ihsane is Morocco's largest Islamic movement, which boycotts elections, but has hundreds of thousands of followers and has taken over the universities and is radicalizing the young.
Its founder is Sheik Abdessalam Yassine, who has declared its purpose is to reunite mosque and state: "Politics and spirituality have been kept apart by the Arab elites. And we have been able to reconnect these two aspects of Islam -- and that is why people fear us."
And, one might add, why people embrace them.
If Morocco is now in play in the struggle between militant Islam and the West, how looks the correlation of forces in June 2006?
Islamists are taking over in Somalia. They are in power in Sudan. The Muslim Brotherhood won 60 percent of the races it contested in Egypt. Hezbollah swept the board in southern Lebanon.
Hamas seized power from Fatah on the West Bank and Gaza. The Shia parties who hearken to Ayatollah Sistani brushed aside our favorites, Chalabi and Iyad Allawi, in the Iraqi elections. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the most admired Iranian leader since Khomeini. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is staging a comeback.
This has all happened in the last year. And where are we winning?
What is the appeal of militant Islam? It is, first, its message: As all else has failed us, why not live the faith and law God gave us?
Second, it is the Muslim rage at the present condition where pro-Western regimes are seen as corruptly enriching themselves, while the poor suffer.
Third, it is a vast U.S. presence that Islamic peoples are taught is designed to steal their God-given resources and assist the Israelis in humiliating them and persecuting the Palestinians.
Lastly, Islamic militants are gaining credibility because they show a willingness to share the poverty of the poor and fight the Americans.
What America needs to understand is something unusual for us: From Morocco to Pakistan, we are no longer seen by the majority as the good guys.
If Islamic rule is an idea taking hold among the Islamic masses, how does even the best army on earth stop it? Do we not need a new policy?
Pat Buchanan is a founding editor of The American Conservative magazine, and the author of books such as The Great Betrayal, A Republic, Not an Empire, Neo-Conned, and Where the Right Went Wrong.
Jun 23, 2006
http://www.townhall.com
Pat Buchanan ( bio archive contact )
In 1938, the year of Anschluss and Munich, a perceptive British Catholic looked beyond the continent over which war clouds hung and saw another cloud forming. "It has always seemed to me ... probable," wrote Hilaire Belloc, "that there would be a resurrection of Islam and that our sons or our grandsons would see the renewal of that tremendous struggle between the Christian culture and what has been for more than a thousand years its greatest opponent."
Belloc was prophetic. Even as Christianity seems to be dying in Europe, Islam is rising to shake the 21st century as it did so many previous centuries.
Indeed, as one watches U.S. armed forces struggle against Sunni insurgents, Shia militias and Jihadists in Iraq, and a resurgent Taliban, all invoking Allah, Victor Hugo's words return to mind: No army is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
The idea for which our many of our adversaries fight is a compelling one. They believe there is but one God, Allah, that Muhammad is his prophet, that Islam, or submission to the Quran, is the only path to paradise and that a Godly society should be governed according to the Sharia, the law of Islam. Having tried other ways and failed, they are coming home to Islam.
What idea do we have to offer? Americans believe that freedom comports with human dignity, that only a democratic and free-market system can ensure the good life for all, as it has done in the West and is doing in Asia.
From Ataturk on, millions of Islamic peoples have embraced this Western alternative. But today, tens of millions of Muslims appear to be rejecting it, returning to their roots in a more pure Islam.
Indeed, the endurance of the Islamic faith is astonishing.
Islam survived two centuries of defeats and humiliations of the Ottoman Empire and Ataturk's abolition of the caliphate. It endured generations of Western rule. It outlasted the pro-Western monarchs in Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Ethiopia and Iran. Islam easily fended off communism, survived the rout of Nasserism in 1967 and has proven more enduring than the nationalism of Arafat or Saddam. Now, it is resisting the world's last superpower.
What occasioned this column was a jolting report in the June 20 Washington Times, by James Brandon, alerting us to a new front.
"Arrests Spark Fear of Armed Islamist Takeover" headlined the story about the arrest, since May, of 500 militants who had allegedly plotted the overthrow of the king of Morocco and establishment of an Islamic state that would sever all ties to the infidel West -- to end the poverty and corruption they blame on the West.
The arrests raised fears that Al Adl wa al Ihsane, or Justice and Charity, was preparing to take up arms to fulfill the predictions of the group's mystics that the monarchy would fall in 2006. Though illegal, Al Adl wa al Ihsane is Morocco's largest Islamic movement, which boycotts elections, but has hundreds of thousands of followers and has taken over the universities and is radicalizing the young.
Its founder is Sheik Abdessalam Yassine, who has declared its purpose is to reunite mosque and state: "Politics and spirituality have been kept apart by the Arab elites. And we have been able to reconnect these two aspects of Islam -- and that is why people fear us."
And, one might add, why people embrace them.
If Morocco is now in play in the struggle between militant Islam and the West, how looks the correlation of forces in June 2006?
Islamists are taking over in Somalia. They are in power in Sudan. The Muslim Brotherhood won 60 percent of the races it contested in Egypt. Hezbollah swept the board in southern Lebanon.
Hamas seized power from Fatah on the West Bank and Gaza. The Shia parties who hearken to Ayatollah Sistani brushed aside our favorites, Chalabi and Iyad Allawi, in the Iraqi elections. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the most admired Iranian leader since Khomeini. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is staging a comeback.
This has all happened in the last year. And where are we winning?
What is the appeal of militant Islam? It is, first, its message: As all else has failed us, why not live the faith and law God gave us?
Second, it is the Muslim rage at the present condition where pro-Western regimes are seen as corruptly enriching themselves, while the poor suffer.
Third, it is a vast U.S. presence that Islamic peoples are taught is designed to steal their God-given resources and assist the Israelis in humiliating them and persecuting the Palestinians.
Lastly, Islamic militants are gaining credibility because they show a willingness to share the poverty of the poor and fight the Americans.
What America needs to understand is something unusual for us: From Morocco to Pakistan, we are no longer seen by the majority as the good guys.
If Islamic rule is an idea taking hold among the Islamic masses, how does even the best army on earth stop it? Do we not need a new policy?
Pat Buchanan is a founding editor of The American Conservative magazine, and the author of books such as The Great Betrayal, A Republic, Not an Empire, Neo-Conned, and Where the Right Went Wrong.
Center for Security Policy: Bush Didn't Lie About WMD
Center for Security Policy
June 23, 2006
(Washington, D.C.): Earlier today, supporters of a free, stable and prosperous Iraq claimed a small victory in the Senate's 60-39 vote to reject a Democratic proposal to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from the country. However, set against the backdrop of recent, noticeable progress toward securing Iraq - including the formation of a government and elimination of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - the vote was far from a thorough rejection of the cut-and-run mentality encouraged by opponents of the war.
The anti-war proclivities of nearly two-fifths of the Senate on display today is even more astonishing in light of yesterday's release of declassified portions of an intelligence report which found that U.S. forces have discovered hundreds of chemical weapons munitions in Iraq over the past three years, and that even more weapons of mass destruction have yet to be uncovered.
According to the report by the National Ground Intelligence Center - a Defense Department intelligence unit: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."
The discovery of such massive quantities of chemical weapons munitions proves conclusively that Saddam Hussein was lying when he claimed, prior to the U.S.-led invasion, to have destroyed all weapons of mass destruction, and lends support to the Bush Administration's position that such weapons in the Iraqi dictator's hands presented an intolerable threat to the United States. Moreover, the continued existence of loose WMD is further evidence that abandoning Iraq now would be tremendously irresponsible - perhaps fatally so.
As Center President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. observes in his latest Washington Times column, however, opponents of the war have "embraced arguments or 'facts' that frequently do not stand up to scrutiny." Given this, it is not surprising that the mainstream media and its anti-war cohorts in the government have thus far attempted to ignore the NGIC's findings. If forced to confront the report, moreover, expect that crowd to simply "move the goalposts" by claiming these are not the weapons the United States went to war to eliminate.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has thus far conceded the WMD debate, perhaps believing that it must remain forward-looking if Iraq is to be secured. It must be understood, however, that public support for staying the course in Iraq is greatly diminished when opponents of the war are allowed to undermine with impunity one of the primary justifications for the invasion. It behooves the President to publicize the findings of the NGIC report in order to dispel anti-war mythology and, as Gaffney notes, "serve the public's need to understand the true nature of this conflict and its stakes."
.
June 23, 2006
(Washington, D.C.): Earlier today, supporters of a free, stable and prosperous Iraq claimed a small victory in the Senate's 60-39 vote to reject a Democratic proposal to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from the country. However, set against the backdrop of recent, noticeable progress toward securing Iraq - including the formation of a government and elimination of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - the vote was far from a thorough rejection of the cut-and-run mentality encouraged by opponents of the war.
The anti-war proclivities of nearly two-fifths of the Senate on display today is even more astonishing in light of yesterday's release of declassified portions of an intelligence report which found that U.S. forces have discovered hundreds of chemical weapons munitions in Iraq over the past three years, and that even more weapons of mass destruction have yet to be uncovered.
According to the report by the National Ground Intelligence Center - a Defense Department intelligence unit: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."
The discovery of such massive quantities of chemical weapons munitions proves conclusively that Saddam Hussein was lying when he claimed, prior to the U.S.-led invasion, to have destroyed all weapons of mass destruction, and lends support to the Bush Administration's position that such weapons in the Iraqi dictator's hands presented an intolerable threat to the United States. Moreover, the continued existence of loose WMD is further evidence that abandoning Iraq now would be tremendously irresponsible - perhaps fatally so.
As Center President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. observes in his latest Washington Times column, however, opponents of the war have "embraced arguments or 'facts' that frequently do not stand up to scrutiny." Given this, it is not surprising that the mainstream media and its anti-war cohorts in the government have thus far attempted to ignore the NGIC's findings. If forced to confront the report, moreover, expect that crowd to simply "move the goalposts" by claiming these are not the weapons the United States went to war to eliminate.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has thus far conceded the WMD debate, perhaps believing that it must remain forward-looking if Iraq is to be secured. It must be understood, however, that public support for staying the course in Iraq is greatly diminished when opponents of the war are allowed to undermine with impunity one of the primary justifications for the invasion. It behooves the President to publicize the findings of the NGIC report in order to dispel anti-war mythology and, as Gaffney notes, "serve the public's need to understand the true nature of this conflict and its stakes."
.
'Broken Trail', a Tale of Roping in Cattle and Rounding Up Girls
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
The New York Times
Published: June 23, 2006
"BROKEN TRAIL" is a western that begins in the Far East.
In a dark, dank and crowded cellar, young Chinese women are rounded up and sold to an American intent on transporting them to the frontier to serve as prostitutes — a 19th-century chattel drive.
Somewhere near the point where East meets West, five of them end up in the custody of two flinty cowboys who are taking a herd of wild horses across the wilderness to Wyoming. It's a majestic, lawless landscape that sets men free and immures women, and that clash is the crux of the two-part movie on AMC starring Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church that begins on Sunday.
Railroads forever changed the Wild West, and "Lonesome Dove," the 1989 mini-series based on Larry McMurtry's best-selling novel and that starred Mr. Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, forever changed the television western; every cowboy drama since has been held up against "Lonesome Dove" and fallen a little short. Only "Deadwood," on HBO, has set its own standard as an anti-western where almost all the conventions of the genre are turned upside down.
"Broken Trail," which has Mr. Duvall once again in the role of a crusty, worn-out cowboy, here called Print Ritter, is much more in the debt of "Lonesome Dove," probably a little too much, since it too cannot live up to that legendary epic. But this AMC film — which was directed by Walter Hill, whose work includes "The Long Riders," "Geronimo: An American Legend" and the pilot of "Deadwood" — has a subtle charm of its own.
The heart of the story is the renewed bond — forged in death, dirt and an unspoken code of honor — between Uncle Print and his estranged nephew, Tom Harte (Mr. Church), who reunite to transport and sell the horses. Greta Scacchi, who plays Nola, a battered prostitute on the run, forms an attachment to Print, but the film's real love story is the one between Print and the Chinese girls he grudgingly takes in, and feels bound to protect. "We didn't go looking to save no Orientals and a broken-nosed whore," Print says to Tom. "But sometimes you got to roll with what's thrown at you."
The people who imported the girls and want a return on their investment are not as fatalistic. As inevitable as sunrise, whiskey and horseflies, there comes a showdown between decent, chivalrous men and the bad and brutal.
Mr. Duvall has played this kind of character before, most recently in Kevin Costner's 2003 movie "Open Range." But with barks, squints and shakings of his head, he always squeezes a few new tics into the role. "Broken Trail" is not as well written or compelling as "Lonesome Dove," but Mr. Duvall brings an earthy believability to even the most plodding lines ("Never use money to measure wealth, son," he says to Tom).
Mr. Church ("Sideways") seems at first an odd choice for the role of the strong, silent cowhand; there is something comical about his jutting ears and the goofy planes of his face. But the actor quickly takes on the aspect of a simple, somewhat passive man who can be roused to icily efficient vengeance — with a rope, his fists or a rifle — when wronged.
The camera lingers on the horses galloping unharnessed through rivers and beneath snow-topped mountain ranges. (The film was shot in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada, the same location as "Brokeback Mountain" and "Unforgiven.") The film contrasts their easy freedom with the Chinese girls' fearful confinement in a mangy, horse-drawn wagon. They are virgins selected because deflowerment fetches a higher price. They speak no English, and have no idea why they were sold by their families. The youngest one has bound feet and can barely walk. The eldest tells the others they were sold to be servants. Instead, they discover that rape is a far more likely chore.
Rescue arrives when their captor, a drunken horse thief hired to bring the women to the mining town of Cariboo, Idaho, tries to rob Print and Tom and ends up dead, leaving his cargo unclaimed and terrified. The men have no choice but to bring the women along, shadowed by the evil men who want revenge and a crack at them.
A generation ago, back in the days of "Rawhide" and "The High Chaparral," westerns were so plentiful on television that it was easy to be picky. These days they are more like Yiddish theater, a fading tradition that relies on good will and preservationists to survive. AMC, like TNT, the cable network that put "Monte Walsh" on the air in 2003, is doing its part to keep the western alive. "Broken Trail" may not be great, but it's good enough.
Broken Trail
AMC, Sunday and Monday at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time.
Robert Duvall, Stanley M. Brooks and Rob Carliner, executive producers; Chad J. Oakes and Mike Frislev, producers; Walter Hill, director; Alan Geoffrion, screenwriter. Produced by Mr. Duvall's Butchers Run Films and Once Upon a Time Films, in association with Sony Pictures Television.
WITH: Robert Duvall (Print Ritter), Thomas Haden Church (Tom Harte), Greta Scacchi (Nola Johns), Rusty Schwimmer (Kate Becker), Olivia Cheng (Ye Fung), Gwendoline Yeo (Sun Foy), Caroline Chan (Mai Ling), Jadyn Wong (Ghee Moon), Valerie Tian (Ging Wa), Scott Cooper (Henry Gilpin), James Russo (Capt. Billy Fender), Donald Fong (Lung Hay) and Chris Mulkey (Ed Bywater).
Jon Pareles: Springsteen Takes Folk Tradition for a Spin
The New York Times
Published: June 23, 2006
Every so often during his concert with his Seeger Sessions band at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, Bruce Springsteen footnoted his songs like the authenticity-obsessed characters who made the folk revival so easy to ridicule.
Before he sang "Jesse James," he credited the originator, Billy Gashade, and mentioned Woody Guthrie's rewrite; he said he'd be following the original. With a smile, he added, "It holds to the maxim, `When the legend becomes fact, write the legend.'" And then he led his band in a version like a tall tale.
It started with banjo picking, picked up a hoedown beat, tossed in a Tex-Mex accordion and a Western-swing fiddle, and wound up with some razzing Dixieland-style horns. It was tough-minded and fun; it was also about as authentic as a covered wagon with chrome wheels.
The Seeger Sessions band is Mr. Springsteen's uninhibited take on the folk revival, spearheaded by Pete Seeger and others, that peaked in the 1950's and 1960's. They wanted to let America and the world hear the music made by ordinary people in out-of-the-way places.
In hindsight, they were about half right. The folkies understood that the old songs are a trove of melody, history, poetry and anonymous genius; they also were, for a few decades, good tools for organizing the labor movement and the civil-rights movement. But the folkies' garbled notions of authenticity - rewriting lyrics as agitprop was fine, using an electric guitar was not - led the folk revival to self-parody and obsolescence when rock started taking itself just as seriously.
Mr. Springsteen's album "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" (Columbia), revisits songs Mr. Seeger recorded. He chose them, as Mr. Seeger had, for their visions of working Americans ("John Henry," "Pay Me My Money Down") and hard times ("My Oklahoma Home"), for a spirit of resistance ("We Shall Overcome" and "Eyes on the Prize," an old song rewritten for the civil-rights movement) and for antiwar conviction (the 19th-century Irish song, "Mrs. McGrath," which says, "All foreign wars I do proclaim/Live on blood and a mother's pain.") The album doesn't include any of Mr. Seeger's own topical songs. But the concert did, when Mr. Springsteen performed "Bring 'Em Home," which Mr. Seeger wrote during the Vietnam war. (It's available free on www.brucespringsteen.net/site.html.)
Mr. Springsteen's band grew to 19 members during the concert, including a six-member horn section. Nearly all the instruments were acoustic. The band didn't simply strum and pick in the hootenanny style of folk-revival acts like the New Christy Minstrels (although a 1960's group, the Village Stompers, had some similar string-band-to-Dixieland arrangements). The Seeger Sessions band played a boisterous kaleidoscope of styles, never sticking to just one per song: Appalachian music, gospel, jump-blues, Irish reels, New Orleans R&B, mariachi, Cajun music, even some acoustic funk for a version of Mr. Springsteen's own "Johnny 99." Credit the lasting impact of the folk revival for letting Mr. Springsteen find musicians in New York who are adept in so many regional styles.
Mr. Springsteen, as always, had serious intentions. He sang the version of Blind Alfred Reed's "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live" that he rewrote with New Orleans in mind, as well as his hymnlike version of "When the Saints Go Marching In." He introduced "We Shall Overcome" as a song about issues that have still not been resolved, and played it in a slow-building version that moved deliberatly from solitude to camaraderie.
But the concert never bogged down in self-righteousness. There was always another turn in the arrangements, another startlingly timely old lyric, another happy anachronism. "What can a poor boy do, 'cept play in a ragtime band?" Mr. Springsteen rasped as the band played "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)" with a zydeco rubboard ratcheting away.
And if the spirit of the folk revival was in its singalongs, then Mr. Springsteen was definitely carrying it on. His fans have long filled arenas with verse-and-chorus singalongs on his songs, and they had already learned the material on the new album. Now they were raising their voices to sing old songs revived one more time.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Set to face Twins, Clemens has already won over 1 of their fans
June 22, 2006, 12:21AM
By DAVID BARRON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
On his final day as a member of the Astros' minor-league set, Roger Clemens gave a 15-year-old leukemia survivor and his family more than they expected Wednesday in their first visit to Minute Maid Park.
Tonight, Clemens will attempt to put the same charge into a crowd of 42,000 fans in his return to the Astros' major-league roster at age 43.
After a three-week road trip through the minor leagues, Clemens will open his 23rd major-league season against the Minnesota Twins before a packed house hoping and expecting to see one of baseball's greatest pitchers in top form — which is what Clemens expects, eventually, from himself.
"They should expect that. I expect to do well," he said this week. "I know I'm going to have some bumps in the road, but like I've told you all along, I wouldn't have started this if I didn't feel I could come back and help.
"I have the same expectations (as Astros fans). I want to come back and perform — and perform well."
Tonight's game is a sellout, although scalpers were offering tickets at $20 to $85 Wednesday afternoon and a few enterprising ticket holders were trying to top that price on eBay. The first 30,000 fans who walk through the turnstiles will receive commemorative Clemens posters.
$12 million and change
Clemens, who agreed to a minor-league contract with the Astros on May 31, will be added to the big-league roster today and will begin earning the pro-rated portion of a $22,000,022 salary that will equate to about $12 million and change for the balance of the season.
He already has given a substantial chunk of his paycheck to charity, having pledged Tuesday with his wife, Debbie, to donate $3 million to Memorial Hermann Hospital for a pediatric unit.
And on a day when most baseball starting pitchers are notoriously standoffish as they prepare for their next turn on the mound, Clemens on Wednesday gave an hour of his time and a few tips from his vast trove of baseball knowledge to Matthew Vosejpka, 15, a high school sophomore from Lonsdale, Minn., who visited Minute Maid Park with his family as part of a visit arranged by the Make-A-Wish Foundation in conjunction with ESPN.
Such visits are standard fare for major leaguers in all sports, and Vosejpka, who was diagnosed last July with leukemia and underwent a bone marrow transplant last November, expected the standard treatment.
"They told me to expect maybe five minutes and a handshake and maybe an autograph," he said.
Vosejpka, who pitches on three summer-league teams in his hometown, south of Minneapolis, got a good deal more than that after arriving at the park with his parents, Larry and Shelly, and younger siblings Caite, 12, and Mitchell, 11.
A few tips from the master
Indeed, Clemens shook hands all around when he emerged from the dugout at about 4:30 p.m., then signed a few autographs. But then he turned to Vosejpka, looked toward the Astros bullpen and said, "Let's go see if we can learn a few things."
So off they went, stopping along the way during batting practice to chat with Craig Biggio, Brad Ausmus, Lance Berkman and other Astros.
Having arrived at the bullpen, they got down to work with catcher Javier Bracamonte. Clemens threw a few pitches, talked to Vosejpka for a few moments, then gave him a glove and pointed toward the mound.
The kid threw a few pitches, then Clemens jumped up to put his shoulder and left leg into proper power pitching positions. Vosejpka let one fly, and Clemens said, "That was a good one right there."
Lesson completed, Clemens talked with Matthew's father, who coaches his son's Babe Ruth League team.
"We talked about throwing that four-seamer (fastball) a little different way and maybe a different grip on the (breaking ball), too," Clemens said.
Father, son and family were, of course, delighted with the attention Clemens gave their son, including a tour of the Astros' clubhouse and some private conversation away from the television cameras.
Vosejpka was diagnosed last July with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and also was found to have the "Philadelphia chromosome," a genetic condition that produces the disease.
Two months later, he signed on with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and told organizers of his desire to meet Clemens, who has been his favorite pitcher since he watched Clemens pitch for the New York Yankees in the 2000 World Series.
In November, Vosejpka was transfused with bone marrow from his younger brother and, after more than a month in the hospital and 10 days on a ventilator because of post-operative complications, began the long, slow trip toward recovery.
"He's never gotten down," said Shelly Vosejpka. "He never says no and never complains. Baseball has been his motivation. That was the first thing he said (after the transplant): 'I'm going to play ball this spring, right?' "
His parents estimate that Vosejpka is at 50 percent to 70 percent of full strength, and that number probably got a boost when he heard Clemens would return to the Astros.
"The day he signed, he called us both at work and said Roger was going to pitch against the Twins, and, 'Mom, I think we'll be there,' " Shelly said. "We're a baseball family, and for this to happen for us is just amazing."
Hope high for Astros fans
Amazing events, however, have become routine for the Rocket. Wednesday's agenda, sharing his time with a young man whom he had never met, certainly falls into that category. And Astros fans certainly hope that things follow suit today, although Berkman joked that the team was going to make Clemens work for his money.
"He's going to have to win a 2-1, 1-0 type game," Berkman said. "We've got to get our money's worth out of the guy. To me, he's got to throw a shutout."
That could be what the Astros need, since Minnesota will throw one of its top young pitchers, Francisco Liriano, against Houston tonight. Clemens expects to throw about 105 to 110 pitches, and he's realistic about his first start.
"I think I've been pretty honest about this," he said last Friday after his final minor-league start in Round Rock. "I don't know if I need to do this. I don't know that I want to do this. But I'm committed to it."
Tonight, tens of thousands of Astros fans — and a family of Twins fans who will be rooting just this night for the men in the brick-red and white uniforms — will find out if Roger Clemens is up to the challenge.
david.barron@chron.com
By DAVID BARRON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
On his final day as a member of the Astros' minor-league set, Roger Clemens gave a 15-year-old leukemia survivor and his family more than they expected Wednesday in their first visit to Minute Maid Park.
Tonight, Clemens will attempt to put the same charge into a crowd of 42,000 fans in his return to the Astros' major-league roster at age 43.
After a three-week road trip through the minor leagues, Clemens will open his 23rd major-league season against the Minnesota Twins before a packed house hoping and expecting to see one of baseball's greatest pitchers in top form — which is what Clemens expects, eventually, from himself.
"They should expect that. I expect to do well," he said this week. "I know I'm going to have some bumps in the road, but like I've told you all along, I wouldn't have started this if I didn't feel I could come back and help.
"I have the same expectations (as Astros fans). I want to come back and perform — and perform well."
Tonight's game is a sellout, although scalpers were offering tickets at $20 to $85 Wednesday afternoon and a few enterprising ticket holders were trying to top that price on eBay. The first 30,000 fans who walk through the turnstiles will receive commemorative Clemens posters.
$12 million and change
Clemens, who agreed to a minor-league contract with the Astros on May 31, will be added to the big-league roster today and will begin earning the pro-rated portion of a $22,000,022 salary that will equate to about $12 million and change for the balance of the season.
He already has given a substantial chunk of his paycheck to charity, having pledged Tuesday with his wife, Debbie, to donate $3 million to Memorial Hermann Hospital for a pediatric unit.
And on a day when most baseball starting pitchers are notoriously standoffish as they prepare for their next turn on the mound, Clemens on Wednesday gave an hour of his time and a few tips from his vast trove of baseball knowledge to Matthew Vosejpka, 15, a high school sophomore from Lonsdale, Minn., who visited Minute Maid Park with his family as part of a visit arranged by the Make-A-Wish Foundation in conjunction with ESPN.
Such visits are standard fare for major leaguers in all sports, and Vosejpka, who was diagnosed last July with leukemia and underwent a bone marrow transplant last November, expected the standard treatment.
"They told me to expect maybe five minutes and a handshake and maybe an autograph," he said.
Vosejpka, who pitches on three summer-league teams in his hometown, south of Minneapolis, got a good deal more than that after arriving at the park with his parents, Larry and Shelly, and younger siblings Caite, 12, and Mitchell, 11.
A few tips from the master
Indeed, Clemens shook hands all around when he emerged from the dugout at about 4:30 p.m., then signed a few autographs. But then he turned to Vosejpka, looked toward the Astros bullpen and said, "Let's go see if we can learn a few things."
So off they went, stopping along the way during batting practice to chat with Craig Biggio, Brad Ausmus, Lance Berkman and other Astros.
Having arrived at the bullpen, they got down to work with catcher Javier Bracamonte. Clemens threw a few pitches, talked to Vosejpka for a few moments, then gave him a glove and pointed toward the mound.
The kid threw a few pitches, then Clemens jumped up to put his shoulder and left leg into proper power pitching positions. Vosejpka let one fly, and Clemens said, "That was a good one right there."
Lesson completed, Clemens talked with Matthew's father, who coaches his son's Babe Ruth League team.
"We talked about throwing that four-seamer (fastball) a little different way and maybe a different grip on the (breaking ball), too," Clemens said.
Father, son and family were, of course, delighted with the attention Clemens gave their son, including a tour of the Astros' clubhouse and some private conversation away from the television cameras.
Vosejpka was diagnosed last July with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and also was found to have the "Philadelphia chromosome," a genetic condition that produces the disease.
Two months later, he signed on with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and told organizers of his desire to meet Clemens, who has been his favorite pitcher since he watched Clemens pitch for the New York Yankees in the 2000 World Series.
In November, Vosejpka was transfused with bone marrow from his younger brother and, after more than a month in the hospital and 10 days on a ventilator because of post-operative complications, began the long, slow trip toward recovery.
"He's never gotten down," said Shelly Vosejpka. "He never says no and never complains. Baseball has been his motivation. That was the first thing he said (after the transplant): 'I'm going to play ball this spring, right?' "
His parents estimate that Vosejpka is at 50 percent to 70 percent of full strength, and that number probably got a boost when he heard Clemens would return to the Astros.
"The day he signed, he called us both at work and said Roger was going to pitch against the Twins, and, 'Mom, I think we'll be there,' " Shelly said. "We're a baseball family, and for this to happen for us is just amazing."
Hope high for Astros fans
Amazing events, however, have become routine for the Rocket. Wednesday's agenda, sharing his time with a young man whom he had never met, certainly falls into that category. And Astros fans certainly hope that things follow suit today, although Berkman joked that the team was going to make Clemens work for his money.
"He's going to have to win a 2-1, 1-0 type game," Berkman said. "We've got to get our money's worth out of the guy. To me, he's got to throw a shutout."
That could be what the Astros need, since Minnesota will throw one of its top young pitchers, Francisco Liriano, against Houston tonight. Clemens expects to throw about 105 to 110 pitches, and he's realistic about his first start.
"I think I've been pretty honest about this," he said last Friday after his final minor-league start in Round Rock. "I don't know if I need to do this. I don't know that I want to do this. But I'm committed to it."
Tonight, tens of thousands of Astros fans — and a family of Twins fans who will be rooting just this night for the men in the brick-red and white uniforms — will find out if Roger Clemens is up to the challenge.
david.barron@chron.com
Robert Spencer: The Complicity of Muslim Silence
Robert Spencer
http://www.FrontPageMag.com
June 22, 2006
We have heard many times that the vast majority of Muslims in the West are decent, law-abiding citizens who do not engage in jihad terrorism. That is manifestly true: most Muslims in the West are not engaging in terrorist activity. Many no doubt have no intention of ever doing so. But the recent arrests in Canada have raised questions about to what extent Muslims in Canada and other Western countries who are not engaging in terrorist plotting actually disapprove of such plotting – and how many passively allow it to continue under their noses either out of fear or because the ideological kinship between them and the plotters is closer than most Western authorities would like to believe.
In a meeting with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police just after the arrests, one Canadian Muslim leader asked Canadian officials why they hadn’t informed Muslim leaders about the plot, so that those leaders could have stopped it.
But there is mounting evidence that many Canadian Muslims did know – and yet did nothing to notify Canadian authorities of the plot. The Toronto Star reports that another suspect, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, actively spread the jihad ideology at the Ar-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education in southern Ontario. Indeed, his “outspoken Wahhabist views” had “alarmed” some of the directors of the Islamic center. But by the account of mosque officials, because Jamal unlocked the mosque for daily prayers and they valued his services as a caretaker, they did nothing to stop his preaching. The Washington Post reports unironically: “He cleaned the rugs and took out the trash at the mosque. For those services, the directors tolerated his vitriolic speeches that portrayed Muslims as oppressed by the West, according to people familiar with the mosque.” No mainstream media outlet seems to have asked Ar-Rahman Islamic Center officials why they thought taking out the trash was a sufficient counterbalance to preaching hatred and violence. Sidestepping the fact that Jamal had been allowed to preach freely, Center Imam Qamrul Khanson said of those arrested: “I will say that they were steadfast, religious people. There’s no doubt about it. But here we always preach peace and moderation.”
Yet another imam in Toronto, Sayyid Ahmed Amiruddin, noted that three of the plotters, Saad Khalid, Zakaria Amara and Fahim Ahmad, “would enter into the mosque to pray, and they would pray in a very aggressive manner, and they would come in military fatigues and military touques and stuff. It looked to me that they were watching a lot of those Chechnyan jihad videos online and stuff.” Amiruddin said that they were influenced by jihadist material from Saudi Arabia, including Qur’ans with inflammatory explanatory notes: “In the back of these Qur'ans that are being published in Saudi Arabia, you have basically essays on the need for offensive jihad and the legitimacy of offensive jihad and things like that. Very alarming stuff."
According to the CBC, “Amiruddin said many mainstream Muslim organizations in Canada are really part of the problem, standing by as extremist propaganda spreads in the mosques.” But while Amiruddin points out that these young men would attempt to win others over to their point of view, he says nothing about having done anything to stop them, or about resisting jihadist recruitment in general -- much less working with authorities to help them apprehend jihadists.
Also according to the Star, some of the plotters belonged to a school Muslim association in which they “discussed at an association gathering whether suicide bombing was permissible in Islam. Their views were so violent that the other association members threatened to have them banned.” But they apparently did not actually have them banned, or alert anyone to their violent views.
Likewise another Toronto Muslim, Mohammed Robert Heft. Heft said that one of the plotters, Fahim Ahmad, “believed the 19 people involved in the World Trade Center bombings were martyrs and he was handing out DVDs openly of wills and testimonies of those 19 people suggesting what they did was right.” According to the CBC, Heft asserted that “a lot of young Muslims are angry and extremism is prevalent in the Toronto area.” Heft claimed that he was dedicated to combating this “extremism”: “For the last two years I’ve been involved in this mentality. I was dealing with it on a grassroots level. All it takes is a little education and sorting out who to take religion from.” Yet he too apparently did nothing to alert Canadian authorities to Ahmad’s views.
And after all this, Canadian Muslim leaders complain that authorities did not go to them.
Canadian authorities, and officials in all Western countries, have been supine in the face of all this kind of thing for far too long. The jihad arrests in Canada should focus scrutiny not on the alleged misbehavior of Canadian law enforcement officials, but on the Muslim communities tolerance of the jihadist evil they profess to abhor. Law enforcement authorities in the West should call Muslim communities in their countries to account on this, and quickly -- or risk the successful execution of a jihad plot planned and executed under the noses of silent and supposedly moderate Western Muslims.
Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.
Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of five books, seven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). He is also an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation.
http://www.FrontPageMag.com
June 22, 2006
We have heard many times that the vast majority of Muslims in the West are decent, law-abiding citizens who do not engage in jihad terrorism. That is manifestly true: most Muslims in the West are not engaging in terrorist activity. Many no doubt have no intention of ever doing so. But the recent arrests in Canada have raised questions about to what extent Muslims in Canada and other Western countries who are not engaging in terrorist plotting actually disapprove of such plotting – and how many passively allow it to continue under their noses either out of fear or because the ideological kinship between them and the plotters is closer than most Western authorities would like to believe.
In a meeting with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police just after the arrests, one Canadian Muslim leader asked Canadian officials why they hadn’t informed Muslim leaders about the plot, so that those leaders could have stopped it.
But there is mounting evidence that many Canadian Muslims did know – and yet did nothing to notify Canadian authorities of the plot. The Toronto Star reports that another suspect, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, actively spread the jihad ideology at the Ar-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education in southern Ontario. Indeed, his “outspoken Wahhabist views” had “alarmed” some of the directors of the Islamic center. But by the account of mosque officials, because Jamal unlocked the mosque for daily prayers and they valued his services as a caretaker, they did nothing to stop his preaching. The Washington Post reports unironically: “He cleaned the rugs and took out the trash at the mosque. For those services, the directors tolerated his vitriolic speeches that portrayed Muslims as oppressed by the West, according to people familiar with the mosque.” No mainstream media outlet seems to have asked Ar-Rahman Islamic Center officials why they thought taking out the trash was a sufficient counterbalance to preaching hatred and violence. Sidestepping the fact that Jamal had been allowed to preach freely, Center Imam Qamrul Khanson said of those arrested: “I will say that they were steadfast, religious people. There’s no doubt about it. But here we always preach peace and moderation.”
Yet another imam in Toronto, Sayyid Ahmed Amiruddin, noted that three of the plotters, Saad Khalid, Zakaria Amara and Fahim Ahmad, “would enter into the mosque to pray, and they would pray in a very aggressive manner, and they would come in military fatigues and military touques and stuff. It looked to me that they were watching a lot of those Chechnyan jihad videos online and stuff.” Amiruddin said that they were influenced by jihadist material from Saudi Arabia, including Qur’ans with inflammatory explanatory notes: “In the back of these Qur'ans that are being published in Saudi Arabia, you have basically essays on the need for offensive jihad and the legitimacy of offensive jihad and things like that. Very alarming stuff."
According to the CBC, “Amiruddin said many mainstream Muslim organizations in Canada are really part of the problem, standing by as extremist propaganda spreads in the mosques.” But while Amiruddin points out that these young men would attempt to win others over to their point of view, he says nothing about having done anything to stop them, or about resisting jihadist recruitment in general -- much less working with authorities to help them apprehend jihadists.
Also according to the Star, some of the plotters belonged to a school Muslim association in which they “discussed at an association gathering whether suicide bombing was permissible in Islam. Their views were so violent that the other association members threatened to have them banned.” But they apparently did not actually have them banned, or alert anyone to their violent views.
Likewise another Toronto Muslim, Mohammed Robert Heft. Heft said that one of the plotters, Fahim Ahmad, “believed the 19 people involved in the World Trade Center bombings were martyrs and he was handing out DVDs openly of wills and testimonies of those 19 people suggesting what they did was right.” According to the CBC, Heft asserted that “a lot of young Muslims are angry and extremism is prevalent in the Toronto area.” Heft claimed that he was dedicated to combating this “extremism”: “For the last two years I’ve been involved in this mentality. I was dealing with it on a grassroots level. All it takes is a little education and sorting out who to take religion from.” Yet he too apparently did nothing to alert Canadian authorities to Ahmad’s views.
And after all this, Canadian Muslim leaders complain that authorities did not go to them.
Canadian authorities, and officials in all Western countries, have been supine in the face of all this kind of thing for far too long. The jihad arrests in Canada should focus scrutiny not on the alleged misbehavior of Canadian law enforcement officials, but on the Muslim communities tolerance of the jihadist evil they profess to abhor. Law enforcement authorities in the West should call Muslim communities in their countries to account on this, and quickly -- or risk the successful execution of a jihad plot planned and executed under the noses of silent and supposedly moderate Western Muslims.
Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.
Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of five books, seven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). He is also an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation.
Cal Thomas: Church Lite
Jun 22, 2006
http://www.townhall.com
Cal Thomas ( bio archive contact )
The new leader of the Episcopal Church in America, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, says she does not believe homosexuality is a sin and that homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender.
As the Episcopal leadership continues to huff and puff to catch up with the world, it would be helpful if it could tell its members what it regards as sinful behavior, or will the very concept of sin soon be up for negotiation in order to avoid giving offense to anyone?
Truly what Paul, the Apostle, warned would happen in the "end times" is coming true in our day: "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine, instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn away from the truth and turn aside to myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4 NIV).
Meeting at the Episcopal General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, the denomination passed a resolution expressing "regret" for consecrating a homosexual bishop three years ago, but it declined to repent of its action. On Tuesday, they voted to continue consecrating homosexual bishops and to permit same-sex unions. But, just 24 hours later, they reversed themselves yet again and adopted a resolution to avoid consecrating additional gay bishops. Apparently, they are so wishy-washy; they are even wishy-washy about their wishy-washiness.
Bishop Schori, a former oceanographer for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle, says, "The Bible tells us about how to treat other human beings and that's certainly the great message of Jesus - to include the unincluded."
This is so outside orthodox Christianity that only biblical illiterates or those who deny the supreme authority of the only book that gives foundation to the faith will accept it.
Anglicanism has suffered from probably irreversible corruption since the days of the late C.S. Lewis and John Stott, who is still with us. These men combined intellectual heft with orthodox belief and had little regard for trends, fads or cultural diversions. They have been replaced by theological dim bulbs that are less concerned about proclaiming truth and conversion than in not offending anyone.
Maybe the question for Bishop Schori and her fellow heretics should be: if homosexual practice is not sin, what is? And how do we know? Or is it a matter of "thus saith the opinion polls" and lobbying groups, rather than "thus saith the Lord"? With the bishop's "doctrine" of inclusion, why exclude anyone? How about applying the religious equivalent of "open borders" and let everyone into the church, including unrepentant prostitutes, murderers, liars, thieves and atheists. If the Episcopal Church denies what is clearly taught in scripture about important matters like sexual behavior, why expect its leaders to have any convictions about anything, including directions to Heaven? How can anyone be sure, if the guidebook is so full of errors?
The leader of Anglicanism, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has promoted this doctrinal wishy-washiness. Williams, who has acknowledged ordaining a priest who is a homosexual, says he opposes cohabitation by heterosexuals because it has a harmful impact on family stability. But the same book that speaks against what we used to call "fornication" before such words died along with the accompanying doctrines, also speaks against the "sin" of homosexual practice. So how can anyone be sure one is true and the other not true, or the reverse, or neither, or both? And who is to say if the church leaders don't know or are afraid to say because they might be criticized as "exclusive."
The Episcopal Church isn't the only denomination having trouble deciding what it believes. The Presbyterian Church (USA) has voted to "receive" a policy paper on sex-inclusive language for the Trinity. Instead of the traditional (and biblical) Father, Son and Holy Spirit, these liberal Presbyterians will consider using "Mother, Child and Womb," or "Rock, Redeemer, Friend," among others. Never mind what God calls Himself. These people want a name change without asking permission.
No wonder liberal denominations are losing members while the conservative ones are growing. The liberal ones don't seem to care. Seeking only to be "relevant" they face condemnation from the One they are supposed to represent, whose attitude about such things is anything but "inclusive."
Conservative Episcopalians are too few in number to stop the theological drift. If they intend to preserve their congregations without further theological seepage, they should "come out from among them and be separate."
Cal Thomas is the co-author of Blinded By Might.
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
http://www.townhall.com
Cal Thomas ( bio archive contact )
The new leader of the Episcopal Church in America, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, says she does not believe homosexuality is a sin and that homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender.
As the Episcopal leadership continues to huff and puff to catch up with the world, it would be helpful if it could tell its members what it regards as sinful behavior, or will the very concept of sin soon be up for negotiation in order to avoid giving offense to anyone?
Truly what Paul, the Apostle, warned would happen in the "end times" is coming true in our day: "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine, instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn away from the truth and turn aside to myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4 NIV).
Meeting at the Episcopal General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, the denomination passed a resolution expressing "regret" for consecrating a homosexual bishop three years ago, but it declined to repent of its action. On Tuesday, they voted to continue consecrating homosexual bishops and to permit same-sex unions. But, just 24 hours later, they reversed themselves yet again and adopted a resolution to avoid consecrating additional gay bishops. Apparently, they are so wishy-washy; they are even wishy-washy about their wishy-washiness.
Bishop Schori, a former oceanographer for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle, says, "The Bible tells us about how to treat other human beings and that's certainly the great message of Jesus - to include the unincluded."
This is so outside orthodox Christianity that only biblical illiterates or those who deny the supreme authority of the only book that gives foundation to the faith will accept it.
Anglicanism has suffered from probably irreversible corruption since the days of the late C.S. Lewis and John Stott, who is still with us. These men combined intellectual heft with orthodox belief and had little regard for trends, fads or cultural diversions. They have been replaced by theological dim bulbs that are less concerned about proclaiming truth and conversion than in not offending anyone.
Maybe the question for Bishop Schori and her fellow heretics should be: if homosexual practice is not sin, what is? And how do we know? Or is it a matter of "thus saith the opinion polls" and lobbying groups, rather than "thus saith the Lord"? With the bishop's "doctrine" of inclusion, why exclude anyone? How about applying the religious equivalent of "open borders" and let everyone into the church, including unrepentant prostitutes, murderers, liars, thieves and atheists. If the Episcopal Church denies what is clearly taught in scripture about important matters like sexual behavior, why expect its leaders to have any convictions about anything, including directions to Heaven? How can anyone be sure, if the guidebook is so full of errors?
The leader of Anglicanism, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has promoted this doctrinal wishy-washiness. Williams, who has acknowledged ordaining a priest who is a homosexual, says he opposes cohabitation by heterosexuals because it has a harmful impact on family stability. But the same book that speaks against what we used to call "fornication" before such words died along with the accompanying doctrines, also speaks against the "sin" of homosexual practice. So how can anyone be sure one is true and the other not true, or the reverse, or neither, or both? And who is to say if the church leaders don't know or are afraid to say because they might be criticized as "exclusive."
The Episcopal Church isn't the only denomination having trouble deciding what it believes. The Presbyterian Church (USA) has voted to "receive" a policy paper on sex-inclusive language for the Trinity. Instead of the traditional (and biblical) Father, Son and Holy Spirit, these liberal Presbyterians will consider using "Mother, Child and Womb," or "Rock, Redeemer, Friend," among others. Never mind what God calls Himself. These people want a name change without asking permission.
No wonder liberal denominations are losing members while the conservative ones are growing. The liberal ones don't seem to care. Seeking only to be "relevant" they face condemnation from the One they are supposed to represent, whose attitude about such things is anything but "inclusive."
Conservative Episcopalians are too few in number to stop the theological drift. If they intend to preserve their congregations without further theological seepage, they should "come out from among them and be separate."
Cal Thomas is the co-author of Blinded By Might.
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
THN AT THE CUP: SWEET HOME CAROLINA
by Mike Brophy
The Hockey News
June 20, 2006
RALEIGH, N.C. - Nothing like a little home ice advantage for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final.
"That's why you play an 82-game regular season," said Carolina defenseman Aaron Ward, now a three-time Cup winner, the first two coming with the Detroit Red Wings. "You want home ice in a game like this."
Carolina defeated Edmonton 3-1 Monday night to win its first Stanley Cup. The former Hartford Whalers made the final in 2003, but were beaten in five games by Detroit.
The RBC Center seemed to bring the Hurricanes back from the dead. After losing at home in overtime in Game 5, the demoralized Hurricanes were pathetic in Game 6, dropping a 4-0 decision to the Oilers in Edmonton.
Though the Oilers had momentum in their favor entering the one-game showdown, the Hurricanes had history on their side. There were 118 rounds that went seven games since the NHL introduced the best-of-seven format in 1939 and the home team won 74 (63 per cent) of those series. In the final, 13 series advanced to the seventh game with the home side winning 11.
Make that 14 and 12 now.
"This is still a little surreal to me," said 18-year veteran Glen Wesley, who won his first Cup in his third trip to the final. "In my first few years with Boston, I was surrounded by some great players; some great leaders who taught me about the game. Guys like Cam Neely, Rick Middleton - even Terry O'Reilly taught me a lot about the game - how to play with hunger and intensity every night."
The final had its share of magical moments, from the Hurricanes overcoming a 3-0 deficit to win Game 1, to Edmonton defenseman Chris Pronger becoming the first player to score on a penalty shot in the final series, to the Oilers Fernando Pisani deciding Game 5 with a shorthanded goal in overtime in Raleigh.
Game 7 of this year's final was everything the NHL hoped it would be when it decided, once and for all, to eliminate obstruction. It was end-to-end action from the drop of the first puck until the final buzzer. Those who don't like the way NHL hockey is played today should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch Game 7 over and over until they admit the game is better.
Although the Oilers held a territorial edge in play in the first period, and produced a few good scoring chances, Carolina got the only goal of the period with Aaron Ward scoring at 1:26 on a blast from the right point.
The Hurricanes appeared to take a 2-0 lead with 4.1 seconds remaining in the opening period, but after a long review, the goal was waved off. Craig Adams directed the puck toward the Edmonton net, beating Markkanen. However, Oilers defenseman Steve Staios got in behind his keeper and stopped the puck from going in. It looked as though Staios covered the puck with his hand and referee Brad Watson, who was close to the net, pointed to center, which is usually the indication a penalty shot has been called. While replays on CBC showed Staios shovelled the puck under Markkanen, a different angle on the NBC telecast clearly showed the puck crossed the goal line before Staios came to his team's defense. NBC's replay was not discovered until the period ended.
The Oilers made a game of it when Pisani added to his playoff-leading goal total with his 14th, connecting on a rebound at 1:03 of the third. But despite Edmonton pressing, the Hurricanes iced the game with an empty net goal by Justin Williams at 18:59.
• Cam Ward opened the playoff on the bench as the backup to Martin Gerber, but ended it as the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as post-season MVP. The 22-year-old is the first rookie to win the Conn Smythe since Montreal goalie Patrick Roy in 1986.
• The 2005-06 final marked the third consecutive season the Stanley Cup series has gone the distance. New Jersey defeated Anaheim 3-0 in Game 7 in 2003, perhaps the most boring seven-game final of all-time, and Tampa Bay used home ice advantage to defeat the Calgary Flames in 2004, the year before the lockout.
• There were those who felt Chris Pronger would have difficulty adapting to the way games are called in the NHL now. Pronger has a long history of not only being one of the league orneriest players, but one who would break his grandmother's wrist with a slash to get a free puck. But, after a slow start to the year, he has played remarkably and with plenty of discipline. Although he is not a finalist for the Norris Trophy this season, his playoff performance left no doubt he is the league's most effective two-way defenseman, and arguably the most complete skater in the game.
• One of the most engaging stories of the final belongs to Edmonton goalie Jussi Markkanen. Earlier this season the Oilers elected to play Ty Conklin and Mike Morrison, summoned from the ECHL, ahead of Markkanen. But when Dwayne Roloson was injured in Game 1 of the final, Markkanen came in played very solid. In fact, goaltending was never an issue for the Oilers.
The Hockey News 3 Stars of Game 7 are:
1. Cam Ward, Carolina. Capped his Conn Smythe-winning performance by allowing only a single goal on 22 shots. In 23 post-season appearances, Ward allowed two goals or less 12 times.
2. Fernando Pisani, Edmonton. Scored the Oilers’ lone goal – his playoff-leading 14th – and could have had a couple more had bounces gone his way.
3. Aaron Ward, Carolina. Opened the scoring early and was a physical presence in his own end throughout Game 7.
The Hockey News
June 20, 2006
RALEIGH, N.C. - Nothing like a little home ice advantage for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final.
"That's why you play an 82-game regular season," said Carolina defenseman Aaron Ward, now a three-time Cup winner, the first two coming with the Detroit Red Wings. "You want home ice in a game like this."
Carolina defeated Edmonton 3-1 Monday night to win its first Stanley Cup. The former Hartford Whalers made the final in 2003, but were beaten in five games by Detroit.
The RBC Center seemed to bring the Hurricanes back from the dead. After losing at home in overtime in Game 5, the demoralized Hurricanes were pathetic in Game 6, dropping a 4-0 decision to the Oilers in Edmonton.
Though the Oilers had momentum in their favor entering the one-game showdown, the Hurricanes had history on their side. There were 118 rounds that went seven games since the NHL introduced the best-of-seven format in 1939 and the home team won 74 (63 per cent) of those series. In the final, 13 series advanced to the seventh game with the home side winning 11.
Make that 14 and 12 now.
"This is still a little surreal to me," said 18-year veteran Glen Wesley, who won his first Cup in his third trip to the final. "In my first few years with Boston, I was surrounded by some great players; some great leaders who taught me about the game. Guys like Cam Neely, Rick Middleton - even Terry O'Reilly taught me a lot about the game - how to play with hunger and intensity every night."
The final had its share of magical moments, from the Hurricanes overcoming a 3-0 deficit to win Game 1, to Edmonton defenseman Chris Pronger becoming the first player to score on a penalty shot in the final series, to the Oilers Fernando Pisani deciding Game 5 with a shorthanded goal in overtime in Raleigh.
Game 7 of this year's final was everything the NHL hoped it would be when it decided, once and for all, to eliminate obstruction. It was end-to-end action from the drop of the first puck until the final buzzer. Those who don't like the way NHL hockey is played today should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch Game 7 over and over until they admit the game is better.
Although the Oilers held a territorial edge in play in the first period, and produced a few good scoring chances, Carolina got the only goal of the period with Aaron Ward scoring at 1:26 on a blast from the right point.
The Hurricanes appeared to take a 2-0 lead with 4.1 seconds remaining in the opening period, but after a long review, the goal was waved off. Craig Adams directed the puck toward the Edmonton net, beating Markkanen. However, Oilers defenseman Steve Staios got in behind his keeper and stopped the puck from going in. It looked as though Staios covered the puck with his hand and referee Brad Watson, who was close to the net, pointed to center, which is usually the indication a penalty shot has been called. While replays on CBC showed Staios shovelled the puck under Markkanen, a different angle on the NBC telecast clearly showed the puck crossed the goal line before Staios came to his team's defense. NBC's replay was not discovered until the period ended.
The Oilers made a game of it when Pisani added to his playoff-leading goal total with his 14th, connecting on a rebound at 1:03 of the third. But despite Edmonton pressing, the Hurricanes iced the game with an empty net goal by Justin Williams at 18:59.
• Cam Ward opened the playoff on the bench as the backup to Martin Gerber, but ended it as the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as post-season MVP. The 22-year-old is the first rookie to win the Conn Smythe since Montreal goalie Patrick Roy in 1986.
• The 2005-06 final marked the third consecutive season the Stanley Cup series has gone the distance. New Jersey defeated Anaheim 3-0 in Game 7 in 2003, perhaps the most boring seven-game final of all-time, and Tampa Bay used home ice advantage to defeat the Calgary Flames in 2004, the year before the lockout.
• There were those who felt Chris Pronger would have difficulty adapting to the way games are called in the NHL now. Pronger has a long history of not only being one of the league orneriest players, but one who would break his grandmother's wrist with a slash to get a free puck. But, after a slow start to the year, he has played remarkably and with plenty of discipline. Although he is not a finalist for the Norris Trophy this season, his playoff performance left no doubt he is the league's most effective two-way defenseman, and arguably the most complete skater in the game.
• One of the most engaging stories of the final belongs to Edmonton goalie Jussi Markkanen. Earlier this season the Oilers elected to play Ty Conklin and Mike Morrison, summoned from the ECHL, ahead of Markkanen. But when Dwayne Roloson was injured in Game 1 of the final, Markkanen came in played very solid. In fact, goaltending was never an issue for the Oilers.
The Hockey News 3 Stars of Game 7 are:
1. Cam Ward, Carolina. Capped his Conn Smythe-winning performance by allowing only a single goal on 22 shots. In 23 post-season appearances, Ward allowed two goals or less 12 times.
2. Fernando Pisani, Edmonton. Scored the Oilers’ lone goal – his playoff-leading 14th – and could have had a couple more had bounces gone his way.
3. Aaron Ward, Carolina. Opened the scoring early and was a physical presence in his own end throughout Game 7.
Daniel Pipes: What Jewish Ties to Jerusalem?
Daniel Pipes
http://www.FrontPageMag.com
June 21, 2006
Historically, the religious standing of Jerusalem for Muslims waxed and waned with political circumstances; in a consistent and predictable cycle repeated six times through fourteen centuries, Muslims focused on the city when it served their needs and ignored it when it did not.
This contrast was especially obvious during the past century. British rule over the city, 1917-48, galvanized a passion for Jerusalem that had been absent during the four hundred years of Ottoman control. Throughout the Jordanian control of the walled city, 1948-67, however, Arabs largely ignored it. For example, Jordan’s radio broadcast Friday prayers not from Al-Aqsa mosque but from a minor mosque in Amman. The PLO’s founding document dating from 1964, the Palestinian National Covenant, mentioned Jerusalem not once.
Muslim interest in the city revived only with the Israeli conquest of Jerusalem in 1967. Jerusalem then became the focal point of Arab politics, serving to unify fractious elements. In 1968, the PLO amended its covenant to call Jerusalem “the seat of the Palestine Liberation Organization.” The king of Saudi Arabia himself declared the city religiously “just like” Mecca – a novel, if not a blasphemous idea.
By 1990, the Islamic focus on Jerusalem reached such surreal intensity that Palestinians evolved from celebrating Jerusalem to denying the city’s sacred and historical importance to Jews. The Palestinian establishment – scholars, clerics, and politicians – promoted this unlikely claim by constructing a revisionist edifice made up in equal parts of fabrication, falsehood, fiction, and fraud. It erases all Jewish connections to the Land of Israel, replacing them with a specious Palestinian-Arab connection.
Palestinians now claim that Canaanites built Solomon’s Temple, that the ancient Hebrews were Bedouin tribesmen, the Bible came from Arabia, the Jewish Temple “was in Nablus or perhaps Bethlehem,” the Jewish presence in Palestine ended in C.E. 70, and today’s Jews are descendants from the Khazar Turks. Yasir Arafat himself created a non-existent Canaanite king, Salem, out of thin air, speaking movingly about this fantasy Palestinian “forefather.”
Palestinian Media Watch sums up this process: By turning Canaanites and Israelites into Arabs and the Judaism of ancient Israel into Islam, the Palestinian Authority “takes authentic Jewish history, documented by thousands of years of continuous literature, and crosses out the word ‘Jewish’ and replaces it with the word ‘Arab’.”
The political implication is clear: Jews lack any rights to Jerusalem. As a street banner puts it: “Jerusalem is Arab.” Jews are unwelcome.
Three key events, Yitzhak Reiter of the Hebrew University argues, transformed this self-indulgent mythology into official ideology:
* The Temple Mount Faithful incident of October 1990 saw a Jewish group’s unsuccessful effort to lay the cornerstone for the Third Temple leading to a Muslim riot in which 17 rioters lost their lives. This episode increased Palestinian apprehensions about the demolishing of Islamic sanctities, prompting a drive to prove that Jerusalem has always been a Muslim and Palestinian city.
* The Oslo accord of September 1993 placed Jerusalem, for the first time, on the table for negotiation. Palestinians responded by attempting to discredit Jewish connections to the city.
* The Camp David summit of July 2000 saw the Israeli government, again for the first time, put forward its demands for sovereignty over parts of the Temple Mount.. As Dennis Ross, a U.S. diplomat present at the summit, astringently puts it, Arafat “never offered any substantive ideas, not once” at the talks. However, “He did offer one new idea, which was that the Temple didn’t exist in Jerusalem, that it was in Nablus.” With this, Jerusalem’s pseudo-history became formal PA policy.
Palestinian denial of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem has two likely long-term implications. First, it suggests that the Palestinian focus on Jerusalem has reached such a fervor that it might now sustain itself regardless of politics, thereby breaking a fourteen-century pattern. Jerusalem appears to have developed into an abiding Muslim interest, one generating feelings of entitlement no longer related to utilitarian considerations.
Second, this denial severely diminishes the prospect of a diplomatic resolution. The Palestinians’ self-evidently false history alienates their Israeli interlocutors even as it lays claim to sole rights over the entire city. As a result, future negotiations over Jerusalem are bound to be yet more emotional, askew, and difficult than past ones.
Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.
Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).
http://www.FrontPageMag.com
June 21, 2006
Historically, the religious standing of Jerusalem for Muslims waxed and waned with political circumstances; in a consistent and predictable cycle repeated six times through fourteen centuries, Muslims focused on the city when it served their needs and ignored it when it did not.
This contrast was especially obvious during the past century. British rule over the city, 1917-48, galvanized a passion for Jerusalem that had been absent during the four hundred years of Ottoman control. Throughout the Jordanian control of the walled city, 1948-67, however, Arabs largely ignored it. For example, Jordan’s radio broadcast Friday prayers not from Al-Aqsa mosque but from a minor mosque in Amman. The PLO’s founding document dating from 1964, the Palestinian National Covenant, mentioned Jerusalem not once.
Muslim interest in the city revived only with the Israeli conquest of Jerusalem in 1967. Jerusalem then became the focal point of Arab politics, serving to unify fractious elements. In 1968, the PLO amended its covenant to call Jerusalem “the seat of the Palestine Liberation Organization.” The king of Saudi Arabia himself declared the city religiously “just like” Mecca – a novel, if not a blasphemous idea.
By 1990, the Islamic focus on Jerusalem reached such surreal intensity that Palestinians evolved from celebrating Jerusalem to denying the city’s sacred and historical importance to Jews. The Palestinian establishment – scholars, clerics, and politicians – promoted this unlikely claim by constructing a revisionist edifice made up in equal parts of fabrication, falsehood, fiction, and fraud. It erases all Jewish connections to the Land of Israel, replacing them with a specious Palestinian-Arab connection.
Palestinians now claim that Canaanites built Solomon’s Temple, that the ancient Hebrews were Bedouin tribesmen, the Bible came from Arabia, the Jewish Temple “was in Nablus or perhaps Bethlehem,” the Jewish presence in Palestine ended in C.E. 70, and today’s Jews are descendants from the Khazar Turks. Yasir Arafat himself created a non-existent Canaanite king, Salem, out of thin air, speaking movingly about this fantasy Palestinian “forefather.”
Palestinian Media Watch sums up this process: By turning Canaanites and Israelites into Arabs and the Judaism of ancient Israel into Islam, the Palestinian Authority “takes authentic Jewish history, documented by thousands of years of continuous literature, and crosses out the word ‘Jewish’ and replaces it with the word ‘Arab’.”
The political implication is clear: Jews lack any rights to Jerusalem. As a street banner puts it: “Jerusalem is Arab.” Jews are unwelcome.
Three key events, Yitzhak Reiter of the Hebrew University argues, transformed this self-indulgent mythology into official ideology:
* The Temple Mount Faithful incident of October 1990 saw a Jewish group’s unsuccessful effort to lay the cornerstone for the Third Temple leading to a Muslim riot in which 17 rioters lost their lives. This episode increased Palestinian apprehensions about the demolishing of Islamic sanctities, prompting a drive to prove that Jerusalem has always been a Muslim and Palestinian city.
* The Oslo accord of September 1993 placed Jerusalem, for the first time, on the table for negotiation. Palestinians responded by attempting to discredit Jewish connections to the city.
* The Camp David summit of July 2000 saw the Israeli government, again for the first time, put forward its demands for sovereignty over parts of the Temple Mount.. As Dennis Ross, a U.S. diplomat present at the summit, astringently puts it, Arafat “never offered any substantive ideas, not once” at the talks. However, “He did offer one new idea, which was that the Temple didn’t exist in Jerusalem, that it was in Nablus.” With this, Jerusalem’s pseudo-history became formal PA policy.
Palestinian denial of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem has two likely long-term implications. First, it suggests that the Palestinian focus on Jerusalem has reached such a fervor that it might now sustain itself regardless of politics, thereby breaking a fourteen-century pattern. Jerusalem appears to have developed into an abiding Muslim interest, one generating feelings of entitlement no longer related to utilitarian considerations.
Second, this denial severely diminishes the prospect of a diplomatic resolution. The Palestinians’ self-evidently false history alienates their Israeli interlocutors even as it lays claim to sole rights over the entire city. As a result, future negotiations over Jerusalem are bound to be yet more emotional, askew, and difficult than past ones.
Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.
Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).
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