Your Three Choices:

Consider the following:

No less a figure than the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh, issued a statement on the official Saudi news service, defending Muslims' divine right to resort to violence: "The spread of Islam has gone through several phases, secret and then public, in Mecca and Medina. God then authorised the faithful to defend themselves and to fight against those fighting them, which amounts to a right legitimised by God. This ... is quite reasonable, and God will not hate it."

Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric also explained that war was never Islam's ancient founder, the prophet Mohammed's, first choice: "He gave three options: either accept Islam, or surrender and pay tax, and they will be allowed to remain in their land, observing their religion under the protection of Muslims." Thus, according to the Grand Mufti, the third option of violence against non-Muslims was only a last resort, if they refused to convert or surrender peacefully to the armies of Islam. (source)

And these three choices are only offered if you are a Christian or a Jew. Polytheists and others not of the Book have two choices: Convert or die.

If the time comes, which choice would be yours?

Modern examples should make you think: In Saudi, if you choose to be a Christian, you are not allowed any public worship, and getting Bibles in, is as hard as finding hen's teeth. In Pakistan, you are constantly at threat of being accused of doing things like desecrating a Koran which can be used (and often is) for dragging you into court, causing a riot, or having your church firebombed. The Copts in Egypt are often victims of riot caused because of some perceived wrong done to Islam. Being under Islamic protection, even if they don't make you pay the tax any more, is a hard path.

There is not a lot of tolerance for toleration in a lot of these places.

HT to Jihad Watch

Voices from the Resistance

If the Pope, in an academic lecture at a university, cannot cite a medieval text without being burned in effigy, and his home threatened, there isn't much hope for dialogue. The violence of the fundamentalists just seems to prove the Byzantine emperor Manuel II right. -Elizabeth Lev


The oldest hatred didn't get that way without the ability to adapt. Jews are hated for what they are — so, at any moment in history, whatever they are is what they're hated for. For centuries in Europe, they were hated for being rootless-cosmopolitan types. Now there are no rootless European Jews to hate, so they're hated for being an illegitimate Middle Eastern nation-state. If the Zionist Entity were destroyed and the survivors forced to become perpetual cruise-line stewards plying the Caribbean, they'd be hated for that, too. Mark Steyn (quoted by Caoline Glick)

Finally, it is revealing how apathetic these so-called compassionate liberals--so many of whom will fight to the death to keep a Tookie Williams or Mumia Abu Jamal from being executed--are toward the shariah court system. If their only response to news of shariah-approved executions is "Michelle Malkin is a hypocrite," it is a damning indictment of how shallow their commitment to "social justice" really is. Michelle Malkin

Is It the BBC's Fault?

Lifesite News is reporting:

Tracing the media coverage from the day of the Pope’s speech in Regensburg, Germany, a distinct shift in approach, what media analysts call a “meme,” of “Islamic outrage”, is clearly traceable starting with the BBC’s coverage three days later.

The day after the speech, Wednesday the 13th, the Pope’s lecture elicited little response from apparently bored secular journalists who had little interest in what was considered his “obscure” and “academic” points on the relationship between religious belief and the secular world.

Catholic news sources who reported the day after the lecture were also quiet. “Pope spends quiet afternoon at home with brother,” was the leading headline at Catholic World Report.

On Thursday the 14th, however, under the headline “Pope's speech stirs Muslim anger,” the BBC began with a report that police in Kashmir had seized newspapers carrying coverage of the pope’s speech in order “to prevent tension.” The BBC’s coverage did not include any quote from the Indian-administered Kashmiri police force.

It goes on to report:

Immediately after the appearance of the first BBC coverage, the Pakistani parliament issued a declaration condemning Benedict’s speech and demanding an apology.

Later the same day, the BBC published, under the headline, “Muslim anger grows at Pope speech” a report on the Pakistan government’s reaction. It quoted the head of the Islamic extremist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, saying “the Pope's remarks ‘aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world’.

The same day, the Guardian, following the BBC’s lead, ran the headline, “Muslim anger builds over Pope's speech.” From that moment, the internet was flooded with reportage from around the world on the Pope’s alleged “attack” on Islam and the predicted response from Islamic groups began.

If the BBC created this furore by creating a news story because of their dislike of Pope Benedict, or for whatever reason, upon their heads and hands lies the blood of at least two, maybe more people, a number of burned churches, people terrorized, a world more tense, a Islamic world where they are convinced ever more that the West is out to get them.

Read the whole piece here. And contemplate the evil that even the supposed "good guys" can do. Even if they weren't trying to.

Voices from the Jihadiya

"If the pope comes here we will hang him on the Cross," Hafiz Hussain Ahmed.


"The day will soon come when the green flag of La Illah Illah Allah (There is no god but Allah) and Muhammad Rasul Allah (Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah) will be raised upon the Vatican and all around the world and on the fortresses of those who want to destroy Islam, because they know that this religion obliges them to face the truth that Islam is Allah's favorite religion. And until they join Islam, hell is their last station," Abu Saqer

Is a Bridge Possible?

Ken Connor asks a very important question:

"Over and over we see a vocal segment of the Muslim population attempting to limit speech and impose religion. Indeed, Islamic religious leaders commonly issue a fatwa, or a legal decree, when someone says something they consider blasphemous. A fatwa has been issued in Iran for the deaths of Salman Rushdie and Jerry Falwell, for example. When religious leaders have the power to condemn men and women to death for statements deemed to be blasphemous, what hope is there for freedom of religion or freedom of speech?"

Is there a way to bridge the vast gap?

Our society is based on equalness before the law, putting all religions and beliefs on an equal setting before the law, and giving an openness that allows free criticism. But this year we have seen an Islamic willingness to follow the rules even within Western nations, where there were calls for the Pope's death.

Andrew G. Boston notes:

The ultimate source of the convulsive reaction to the Pope’s speech is the Islamic belief that spiritually and physically debauched infidels have no right to express opinions—least of all negative opinions—regarding Islam’s sacred text, the Koran, the Muslim prophet, Muhammad (Ecce Homo Arabicus), or the sacred Islamic Law (Shari’a).

And in the doing, threat, protest, riot, kill and burn. Today there are threats to assassinate the pope, one Pakistani saying that the pope should be crucified, that the green Islamic flag will fly over the Vatican, that England will become an Islamic nation, that all Christians will be given the chance to convert or die, that Christian throats will be slashed. Two deaths so far are probably attributable to the unrest. Churches in multiple countries have been burned. All this for a QUOTE of someone buried in an academic lecture.

What this looks like is that someone was watching and scanning data for something to protest about. And the pope kindly provided it.

There is a very vocal segment of the Islamic world that wants to bully the West into accepting the world as they want it.

The Islamic world has to decide which it will be: freedom or rule by religious leader. Until they decide, it will be hard to know if we can find a mutual bridge on which to build.

Stoning

...the stones should not be too large so that the person dies on being hit by one or two of them; they should not be so small either that they could not be defined as stones...
Article 104 of the Iranian Penal Code

Sharia law, which those in the jihadya are calling to become law of the land wherever they reside in numbers can be extremely harsh by modern standards of punishment. One of the harshest, cruelist punishments is that of stoning.

In Iran, the convicted person to be killed is wrapped in a sheet and buried; male convicts are buried from the waist down, female convicts are buried deeper to prevent the breasts from becoming exposed. The crowd then pelts the victim with stones small enough so that one cannot cause death by itself. Often, family members are required to watch the execution as well.

There was a video made secretly at an execution in Iran that shows how barbaric such executions can be. During this execution one person is flogged, and four people are stoned to death. It is not for the squeamish: (source).

Stoning is a punishment meted out for adultery. Male or female married people who commit adultery can have this sentence passed on them, but single women are also subjected to this punishment as well.

Lily Mazahery, president of the Legal Rights Institute, notes that almost none of the women accused of adultery and facing death by stoning have legal representation.

"And, because under the Sharia legal system their testimony is at best worth only half the value of the testimony of men, their so-called 'trials' last only a few minutes," she told WorldNetDaily, "after which they are immediately sentenced."
(source)

Here is a list of a number of executions by stoning that have taken place in Iran:

On August 10, 1994, in the city of Arak, a woman was sentenced to death by stoning. According to the ruling of the religious judge, her husband and two children were forced to attend the execution. The woman urged her husband to take the children away, but to no avail. A truck full of stones was brought in to be used during the stoning. In the middle of the stoning, although her eyes had been gouged out, the victim was able to escape from the ditch and started running away, but the regime's guards recaptured her and shot her to death.

In October 1989 in the city of Qom, a woman who was being stoned managed to pull herself out of the hole, only to be forced back into it and stoned to death. In justifying the murder, Qom's Chief Religious Judge, Mullah Karimi, elaborated to Ressalat newspaper on October 30, 1989: "Generally speaking, legal and religious decrees on someone condemned to stoning call for her stoning if her guilt was proven on the basis of witnesses' testimonies. Even if she were to escape in the middle of the administration of the sentence, she must be returned and stoned to death."

On July 13, 1997, Kayhan reported that Changiz Rahimi was sentenced to death, stoning and payment of fine for committing murder and adultery.

On October 26, 1997, six individuals were stoned in Sari, the provincial capital of Mazandaran. This was reported by Salaam daily and international news agencies. The names of the victims were given as Fatemeh Danesh, Masoumeh Eini, Marzieh Fallah, Ali Mokhtarpour, Parviz Hasanzadeh and Kheirollah Javanmard.

AFP, December 7, 1994:

Hamshahri reported that a woman and a man were recently stoned to death in Ramhormouz on murder and adultery charges.

AFP, November 16, 1994

Abrar reported on Wednesday that three Iranians including a woman were stoned in the city of Sari (northern Iran), after being found guilty of adultery and rape by the Islamic court.

AFP, 11 November 1995, quoting Jomhouri Islami reported that a man was stoned in the city of Hamedan.

AFP, June 8, 1996

Hamshahri reported on Saturday that a man and a women were stoned in the city of Oroumieh on murder and adultery charges. Shahin Soltan-Moradi had murdered her husband with the help of her lover, Mohammad Ali Hemmati in November 1994.

On July 14, 1995, Amnesty International reported that two women by the names of Saba Abdali, 30, and Zeinab Heidary, 38, were faced with stoning in the city of Ilam Gharb.

On December 7, 1994, Reuters quoted a state-controlled newspaper report by Hamshahri, on a married woman who was stoned to death in the city of Ramhormouz, southwestern Iran.

Ressalat, March 1, 1994, read: "A woman was stoned to death in the city of Qom."

Kayhan of February 1, 1994, reported that a woman named Mina Kolvat was stoned to death in Tehran for having immoral relations with her cousin.

The U.N. Special Representative on the human rights situation in Iran reported to the U.N. General Assembly in 1993: "On November 1, 1992, a woman named Fatima Bani was stoned to death in Isfahan."

Abrar reported on November 5, 1991 that a woman charged with immoral relations was stoned in the city of Qom.

According to Kayhan, August 21, 1991, a woman charged with adultery by the name of Kobra was sentenced to 70 lashes and stoning. The verdict was carried out in the presence of local people and district officials.

Jomhouri Islami wrote on March 11, 1991, that in Rasht (northern Iran), "Bamani Fekri, child of Mohammad-Issa, guilty of complicity in first-degree murder, adultery and incineration of the victim's body; was sentenced to stoning, retribution, blinding of both eyes and payment of 100 gold dinars. After the announcement of the verdict, she committed suicide in prison."

Ressalat reported on January 16, 1990, that a woman was stoned to death in the city of Bandar Anzali (northern Iran).

Ettela'at reported on January 5, 1990: "Two women were stoned publicly on Wednesday in the northern city of Lahijan."

Jomhouri Islami, January 2, 1990: "Two women were stoned in the city of Langrood (northern Iran)."

Kayhan wrote on July 31, 1989: "Six women were stoned to death publicly in Kermanshah on charges of adultery and moral corruption."

Kayhan, April 17, 1989, quoted the Religious judge and head of the Fars and Bushehr Justice Department as sentencing 10 women to stoning to death on prostitution charges which were immediately carried out.

Tehran radio, reported on March 6, 1989 that a women was stoned in Karaj for committing adultery."

Kayhan, October 4, 1986, reported that a 25-year-old woman named Nosrat was stoned to death in the city of Qom. She died after an hour of continuos stoning.

On April 17, 1986 a woman was stoned to death in the city of Qom. Prior to being stoned, she was whipped in public.

In July 1980, four women were simultaneously stoned to death in the city of Kerman.

It must be noted that the cases of stoning in small towns and cities were not included here. (source)

There is currently a woman under threat of execution for stoning.

Once again, another Iranian woman has been sentenced to death by the barbaric practice of public stoning. On June 28, 2006, a court in the northwestern Iranian city of Urmia sentenced Malak Ghorbany to death for committing "adultery." Under Iran's Penal Code, the term "adultery" is used to describe any intimate or sexual act between a man and a girl/woman who are not married. The crime of adultery is also used in cases where a girl is deemed to have committed "acts incompatible with chastity," which includes instances of rape. The punishment for "adultery" is death.

Help us spread the news about Malak Ghorbany! Tell your family, friends and others who might be interested. Direct them to this web page and ask them to take the actions listed here. (source)

This is life under Sharia. This is the sorts of things that was estabilished in Iran, was practiced for a time in Afghanistan, and is the sorts of law that the Jihadiya thinks of as the correct and appropriate way of justice.

Why aren't we speaking out more and more on this?

More info:

http://www.ishr.org/ page on stoning

Muslims against Stoning

Taliban Stone Woman for Adultery

Voices from the Resistance

"You can't just hope for the best," he said. "You've got to assume that the leader, when he says that he would like to destroy Israel, means what he says. If you say, 'Well, gosh, maybe he doesn't mean it,' and you turn out to be wrong, you have not done your duty as a world leader."

George W. Bush


The kinder we are to terrorists, the harsher we are to their potential victims. Richard Miniter

"Either we bring them freedom, or they destroy us." Bernard Lewis

Baiting and destruction in the name of God.

Amid calls for people to stop defaming Islam, we often see Islam attacking Christianity with impunity.

Another example recently happened in Dutse, Nigeria. It started between a Moslem youth and a Christian woman. "The Moslem youth then blasphemed Jesus Christ following a heated argument between them in which the female Christian retaliated, [by saying something bad about Muhammed] thus sparked off the protest."

As a result, the young Moslem men went on a rampage, looting and burning 10 churches of different denominations, and the local Christians took refuge at the police barracks to save their lives (source).

It is behavior like this that is part of what the West will be up against, if we don't take a firm stand against the imposition of Dhimmitude attitudes about talking about Islam.

Political Apologetics and the American Way of Guilt

"We're fighting a war for civilization against an enemy bent on destroying it and creating an Islamic world based on a warped view of what true Islam is." Mary Laney

Will our openness to outsiders, our democratic system and our Christian compassion, precisely the values that we cherish the most, render the West incapable of withstanding Jihad? Fjordman

“Multiculturalism has seemed to imply...let other cultures be allowed to express themselves but do not let the majority culture at all tell us its glories, its struggles, its joys, its pains,” John Sentamu, Archbishop of York.

Beginning in the 1960s, in part because of our longstanding alliance with Israel, the US was dragged into the growing Salafi Jihadist and Shia conflict against the West. We have undergone multiple attacks, both on our territory and on our embassies and on our nationals in other countries, acts committed by shadowy groups not officially sponsored by any one government, but given aid and support by multiple governments, a media that chooses to portray us as the villain.

In return, we have poured billions of dollars out in foreign aid, protected the rights of Moslems in the former Yugoslavia, helped to rescue Kuwait after it was overrun by a fellow Moslem country, seen our personnel butchered in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, heard ourselves blamed for everything that could possibly go wrong in the Moslem sphere, including being accused of causing the tsunami, yet were there with open hands at times of disaster and need.

Yet still, even after 9/11 should have driven home the realization that the Jihadiya was not just talking, that they actually wanted to do just what they said, bring down our country, our economy, our way of life, and spread their vision of Islam over a world that did not ask for it, what do we find ourselves doing? Apologizing. Compromising our safety. Backing down when people say mean things about us, as if WE were the aggressor, as if WE started this conflict.

We are not the aggressor. Even if they wear their victimhood like a scarlet robe, flaunting it in their faces, WE DID NOT CREATE THE PROBLEM. We did not go out of our way to be morally reprehensible. We have worked for policies and strategies that are in our best interest, but this is a universal. We have often foregone acting in our own defense, because we wanted to do the morally upright thing. It was they who brought the conflict home to us. It was Islamic countries that kept those who fled their homeland in what is now Israel in refugee camps, refusing to let them be integrated into the countries they fled to, so that they could be a tool against Israel, a country that was created by the UN, not by England, not by the US, but by UN vote. Yet too many of us act guilty as if we did it.

Look at the outrage that goes on about Gitmo. This is a place where people who have fought against us are taken. People who have done atrocities, or who have chosen to fight in open battle, not criminals picked up off of the street. Mary Laney reminds us:

We are at war. Our soldiers are following the rules of war -- but their opposition is not.

CIA counterterrorism officers are buying private insurance to cover legal costs in case they are charged with a crime, as is being hinted at by some members of Congress who feel their interrogation techniques might be too "tough."

In Iraq, Americans have been kidnapped, tortured, beheaded, burned, hanged from bridges, dragged through streets. But the CIA's method of questioning a terrorist in a cold room while playing loud music is too "tough"? (source)

These are our ENEMIES who have tried to kill us, who have organized to attack us, who spread the gospel of Jihad against us. They are not innocents, or street gangsters, or kids who light fireworks. The rules are different for them, and we do have a right to question them. Yet the PC fingers have poked their way here, making the job hard.

"The politically correct regulations are unbelievable. Detainees are entitled to a full eight hours sleep and can't be woken up for interrogations. They enjoy three meals and five prayers per day, without interruption. They are entitled to a minimum of two hours of outdoor recreation per day. Interrogations are limited to four hours, usually running two - and (of course) are interrupted for prayers. One interrogator actually bakes cookies for detainees, while another serves them Subway or McDonald's sandwiches. Both are available on base. (Filet o' Fish is an al Qaeda favorite.) " (source)

Yet the word on the street has it in people's minds that it is as harsh and unbearable as the Nazi camps. Why do we accept this guilt? Is there something about us that deserves punishment? Are our lives and culture not worth preserving?

The interrogation techniques that the CIA uses should not come near to bringing up mental images of electric shock torture or beatings:

The techniques sought by the CIA are: induced hypothermia; forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods; sleep deprivation; a technique called “the attention grab” where a suspect’s shirt is forcefully seized; the “attention slap” or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage; the “belly slap”; and sound and light manipulation. (source)

Compare this to the experience of Amnon Sharon, a retired IDF major, who was a prisoner of war in Syria:

...during his eight months in prison, he underwent extreme physical and mental torture. He describes his five months in solitary confinement, first in a detention center and later in Al-Mazeh prison near Damascus. He describes the unbearable torture, which included random beatings in his tiny cell and daily interrogations in which he would simply pass out from the pain.

"Each time the door opened, my body shook in fear, for I did not know in what condition I would return to my cell," writes Sharon, as he recalls being whipped on the soles of his feet because that is where many nerve endings are located, electric shocks and spinnings, where he was put in a tire and beaten from all angles by the prison guards.

"The beating continued, and I felt as if my body were dripping downwards. It boiled from the blows while the contact with the cold floor gave me chills," he describes in the book. "They cut me like a steak before it goes on the grill, and I felt my body ripping."

The Syrian interrogators also tried to break his spirit mentally, by telling him that Israel had been captured or that his mother, Esther, had died. (source)

Jimmy Carter claims because of the CIA techniques, “We’ve lost the support and trust and confidence and admiration that we’ve had for generations,” Carter said, adding the administration “has stonewalled so they can continue to perpetrate this illegal punishment.” (source) If we have, it's because we were willing to apologize for it, and seeing a weakness in our armour, our enemies attacked.

And now, because of the PC attitude that we are bad, and have to be constrained, lest someone think we are monsterous, we are having a bill in the Senate that, if it passes, will make it virtually impossible to do interrogation, for national security reasons and the fact that interrogators will be at too high a liability to do their job, and thus, the squeamish who have pushed us into reaching this place by acting in a self destructive mode, put us all at risk.

Why are we apologizing? Do we really want to lose?

Voices from the Resistance

"The Muslim uproar has a goal — to prohibit criticism of Islam by Christians and thereby to impose Shariah norms on the West. Should Westerners accept this central tenet of Islamic law, others will surely follow. Retaining free speech about Islam, therefore, represents a critical defense against the imposition of an Islamic order." Daniel Pipes

At what point does a society become simply too genteel to wage war? We’re like those apocryphal Victorian matrons who covered the legs of their pianos. Acts of war against America have to be draped in bathetic music and uncomprehending reflections and crescents of embrace.

We fight tastefully, too. Last week one of America’s unmanned drones could have killed 200 Taliban bigshots but they were attending a funeral and we apparently have a policy of not killing anybody near cemeteries out of sensitivity.

So even our unmanned drones are obliged to behave with sensitivity. But then these days the very soundtrack to our society is, so to speak, an unmanned drone. -- Mark Steyn

It blows the mind that those who tremble at the slightest perception of a crack in their imagined wall between church and state, should continuously alibi for the bloody supporters of Sharia, which advocates death for those who choose to follow man-made law. --Lisa Fabrizio

Defamation and Discrimination

"We also need to bridge, through dialogue and understanding, the growing divide between the Islamic and Western worlds," Musharraf told the 192-member assembly. "It is imperative to end racial and religious discrimination against Muslims and to prohibit the defamation of Islam."

Pervez Musharraf

So what about defamation and discrimination when it comes to Christianity? Or Buddhism? Or Hinduism?

In a recent speech, Muammar Qaddafi, president of Libya, insulted Christians by saying that "Christians should put photos of naked women next to Jesus". There were no Christian demonstrations in Europe or the United States or elsewhere in the world to protest his statement. The Libyan Embassies were not attacked anywhere in the world. Yet not a single Muslim leader or religious authority voiced an objection to Qaddafi's statement. (source)

"We tell the worshipper of the cross (the Pope) that you and the West will be defeated, as is the case in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya," said a web statement by the Mujahideen Shura Council. "We shall break the cross and spill the wine ... God will (help) Muslims to conquer Rome ... (May) God enable us to slit their throats, and make their money and descendants the bounty of the mujahideen," said the statement, posted on Sunday on an Internet site often used by al-Qaida and other militant groups. (source)

"We began to comb the site looking for infidels. We found Filipino Christians. We cut their throats and dedicated them to our brothers the Mujahideen in the Philippines. [Likewise], we found Hindu engineers and we cut their throats too, Allah be praised. That same day, we purged Muhammad's land of many Christians and polytheists. -Fawwaz bin Muhammad Al-Nashami, commander of the Al-Quds Brigade that took responsibility for the May 29 attack at Khobar, Saudi Arabia (source)

The Uses of "Islamophobia"

We kill in the name of Allah, blow up cars in the name of Allah, and slit throats in the name of Allah and Islam, and then we protest when others depict the Muslims as terrorists. We indiscriminately kill doctors who went to provide medical care to Afghans, and then we protest when the world describes these acts as acts of terror. We blow up embassies and trains [and consequently] children, women, and citizens with no connection to our cause are killed, and then we protest when the world describes these extremists, who view themselves as Muslims, as terrorists.

--Amr Isma'il

Two things have been happening a lot lately. There has been a lot of activity by the Jihadists and fellow-sympathizers world-wide, and there has been a growing cry about the spread of "Islamophobia."

I will not downplay the fact that it is wrong to brand everyone who practices Islam as a terrorist and a threat, because it is not true. And there really is a growing tendency among some who, in the human way we simplify the "us vs. them" grouping, want to do just that.

Yet in the West we are tiptoeing and sometimes compromising our values to avoid the lable "Islamophobia," and there are those with agendas happy to make political points with our reluctance to be seen non-tolerant. In the east, it is used to bolster the meme of western persecution as the reason for the ills in Islamic lands. "Iran's former president has decried a wave of "Islamophobia" being spread in the United States by fear and hatred of Islam in response to terror carried out by Muslims. (source)" is a typical statement, one which the tolerance police are happy to run with.

Tony Blair was told he was fueling racial stereotyping after the 7/7 bombings. "He called upon moderate Muslims to challenge the ideological beliefs that were fuelling extremists. "You cannot defeat this extremism through what the government does. You can only defeat it within a community," he said." (source) This was seen as singling out the Muslim community and therefore opening them up to more prejudice. The fact that almost all terrorism nowadays comes from Islamic communities is beyond consideration.

The reality is, it is Muslim extremist who are doing the action, and they are doing it in the name of their religion, and they are doing it with the aid and encouragement of Islamic religious leaders. And they are hiding behind calls of Islamophobia to do it, and they are using those calls to further their claims that we are out to get them. It has been noticed that:

Every time Islamists somewhere in the world blow up civilians, kill innocent babies or church goers, behead people, or organize threatening protest mobs -- which is now every day -- Islamic groups in America warn about and scold us for any backlashes that might occur against Muslims or mosques. They forewarn us against criticizing Islam. They even indict us when we wonder why there is no public outcry by Islamic "civil rights" groups or imams against what is being done in the name of Islam as well as the selected teachings in the Koran that justify all this violence. Any criticism is labeled Islamophobia and racist. (source)

Jonah Goldberg explains how this is being used this way:

The best book for illuminating what's going on in the Muslim "street" isn't some weighty treatise on Islam; it's a short little tract called "White Guilt" by Shelby Steele. The book isn't even about Islam. Steele focuses on white liberals and the black radicals who've been gaming them ever since the 1960s. Whites, he argues, have internalized their own demonization. Deep down they fear that maybe they are imperialistic, racist bastards, and they are desperate to prove otherwise. In America, black radicals figured this out a while ago and have been dunning liberal whites ever since.

The West is caught in a similarly dysfunctional cycle of extortion and intimidation with Islam, but on a grander and far more violent scale. Whether it's the pope's comments or some Danish cartoons, self-appointed spokesmen for the Islamic street say, "You have offended a billion Muslims," which really means, "There are so many of us, you should watch out." And if you didn't get the message, just look around for the burning embassies and murdered infidels. They're not hard to find.

In response, the West apologizes and apologizes. Radical Muslims, who are not stupid, take note and become emboldened by these displays of weakness and capitulation. And the next time, they demand two pounds of flesh. Meanwhile, the entire global conversation starts from the assumption that the West is doing something wrong by tolerating freedom of speech, among other things. (source)

One way out of the trap is to call those who are dong the actions by names that don't lump the entire Islamic community with the same brush. The Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu, himself of a Ugandan background says this:

He said it was unhelpful to call Muslim terrorists Islamic fundamentalists or fascists as these were Christian and political terms that "further alienate those who commit these crimes".

He said they should be called Salafi Jihadists, after the Islamic concept of struggle, which has been bent into the pursuit of murder and mass destruction by members of the Salafi movement.

The Salafi - or Wahabi - branch of Islam, which is dominant in Saudi Arabia, has many peaceful followers who aim to return to the purity of early Islam.

Dr Sentamu said: "For the modern day Salafi Jihadist who defines themselves through acts of mass destruction and terror, Jihad has taken on a whole new meaning.

"There is always a danger when making comments about Jihadists that the charge of Islamophobia follows close behind.

"So let me be clear. I am not by any means talking about all of Islam or all Muslims here." (source)

Breaking the label of calling people Islamofascists buys a space that could be used to help change the "us vs. them" balance, he hopes because it is, for the most part, the Salafi Jihadiya who are fighting the West. Would it work?

We won't know unless it become adopted. But it is something to think about.

Remembering

Terror bombing in Bali

Voices from the Resistance

Nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them -- simultaneously?

Anne Applebaum


The ensuing controversy demonstrates the spread of what could be called "Clash of Civilizations" thinking that serves the interests of violent extremists, experts say, as it provides an opportunity to advocate for their worldview. Central to the thinking of Al Qaeda is their claim that jihad is a response to what they consider 1,000 years of Christian persecution that poses an existential threat to all Muslims.

With extremists successfully exploiting popular anger over comments like the pope's or at cartoons critical of Islam, this fringe view has moved closer to the center, often undermining more-moderate views, analysts say.

Dan Murphy

We are at war. Our soldiers are following the rules of war -- but their opposition is not.

CIA counterterrorism officers are buying private insurance to cover legal costs in case they are charged with a crime, as is being hinted at by some members of Congress who feel their interrogation techniques might be too "tough."

In Iraq, Americans have been kidnapped, tortured, beheaded, burned, hanged from bridges, dragged through streets. But the CIA's method of questioning a terrorist in a cold room while playing loud music is too "tough"?

We're fighting a war for civilization against an enemy bent on destroying it and creating an Islamic world based on a warped view of what true Islam is -- yet where are the voices of American Muslims condemning this enemy?

Something's wrong.

Mary Laney

A Bedrock Issue

"Whoever insults the message of Mohammed is going to be subject to capital punishment." - Anjem Choudary (source)

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (1st Amendment)

"Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of the EU's values, as is respect for all religions, Christianity, Islam, Judaism or laicism," said commission spokesman Johannes Laitenberger in a press conference today. (source)

The last few days as the Islamic world has tried to shout down the mere quoting of a 14th century author quoted by the Pope, and in doing so, proved the point the long dead writer had tried to make, that Islam uses violence and coercion to get its point across, and we see they also use it to keep people in line.

Over the last few years we have seen Islam used as a blungeon by those who follow various Salafist groups: rage unleased over a group of cartoons, made worse by an Islamist preacher sneaking in a particuarly vile one in the messages that swept around the world at the spead of the internet to make his case louder. We've seen people gunned down, like Theo Van Gogh, because they've been outspoken.

In the last few days, we've seen plenty of rage stirred up by the pope's quoted words:

• In Britain, while leading a rally outside Westminster Cathedral, Anjem Choudary of Al-Ghurabaa called for the pope "to be subject to capital punishment," the Daily Mail reported.

• In Iraq, the Mujahideen's Army threatened to "smash the crosses in the house of the dog from Rome," the Jerusalem Post reported, and other groups made blood-curdling threats.

• In Kuwait, an important Web site called for violent retribution against Catholics.

• In Somalia, the religious leader Abubukar Hassan Malin urged Muslims to "hunt down" the pope and kill him "on the spot," the Age reported.

• In India, a leading imam, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, called on Muslims to "respond in a manner which forces the pope to apologise," according to the Daily Telegraph.

• A top Al Qaeda figure announced that "the infidelity and tyranny of the pope will only be stopped by a major attack," the Times of London reported. (source)

A nun was killed, churches bombed, the pope hung in effigy and the cross burned in various protests. Evidently for some, the only way they know how to refute the accusation that Islam is violent is to act violently.

But the real aim of this is to inflict their values upon the West, a region that has long had a history of freedom of speech, religion, expression, and the press. As one writer notes in the WSJ Opinion Journal article today, "As with Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses," which millions of outraged Muslims didn't bother to read (including Ayatollah Khomeini, who put the bounty on the novelist's life), what Benedict XVI meant or even said isn't the issue. Once again, many Muslim leaders are inciting their faithful against perceived slights and trying to proscribe how free societies discuss one of the world's major religions."

We have here an attempt, through threat, violence, temper tantrum, and intimidation to inflict Salafy style Sharia rules about how you can talk about Islam on the West. If we give into this, an attack on some of our most bedrock ideas, freedom of expression and freedom of belief, we will be opening a pandora's box, because there will be more to follow.

This is an issue that affects both the right and the left - the right to discourse, to analyze, to disagree, in that give and take that marks our culture. This is an attack by people who want to bully us into silence. If this is truly who we are, what we believe in, it's time to speak up for it. We need more of us to say, "This attack on our right to speech will not pass," and we need to mean it. We will pay the consequences if we don't.

Faces of Love and Hate

Sister Leonella who spent her time helping Moslems,
and was killed because she was a Christian doing that,
and who died saying "I forgive him."







Protesters who see nothing ironic about using violence and defaming another religion
to say their faith is not violent and it is wrong to defame it.

Voices from the Resistance

Our enemies include all the Muslims who dream of knocking Western Civilization off its perch atop humanity’s dung heap. Islam is fractured into any number of sects, tribes and ethnic groups, but the dream of destroying us cuts across all the fault lines. Islamic terrorists are merely the tip of a very large spear.

J. Peter Mulhern, the American Thinker, September 18


For pointing out that Christianity is based on reason, while the persuasive power of Islam can be found only at the point of a sword, the Pope signed his own death warrant -- and it's quite certain he knew it too.

GWOYKW

Aside from the obvious irony, it seems that no one is surprised that a Muslim would gun down an elderly woman who dedicated her life to helping poor Muslims, merely because she is a Christian.

TROP

The Witness and the Sword

As for the murdered Nun, it shows that Christian martyrs die defending and caring for the innocent...while muslim martyrs die killing the innocent. (anonymous commenter on Joee Blogs)

In the Christian tradition, martyrs are witnesses, those who take their witness of following the way of Christ to its final destination, a life given up out of love, to stand to the last moment saying, "Jesus is Lord," because someone else has decided that they were worthy of death because they were Christian. They were respected because they thought love of the Lord was worth more than mere life.

My favorite modern martyr has been St. Maximillian Kolbe.

After a very busy life of work as a catholic priest, missionary, writer and publisher, his friary was closed and he was arrested in 1941 for aiding and sheltering Jews and other offensives, and eventually ended in Auschwitz. And then came his martyrdom:

In July 1941 a man from Kolbe's bunker escaped. The dreadful irony of the story is that the escaped prisoner was later found drowned in a camp latrine, so the terrible reprisals had been exercised without cause. But the remaining men of the bunker were led out.

'The fugitive has not been found!' the commandant Karl Fritsch screamed. 'You will all pay for this. Ten of you will be locked in the starvation bunker without food or water until they die.' The prisoners trembled in terror. A few days in this bunker without food and water, and a man's intestines dried up and his brain turned to fire.

The ten were selected, including Franciszek Gajowniczek, imprisoned for helping the Polish Resistance. He couldn't help a cry of anguish. 'My poor wife!' he sobbed. 'My poor children! What will they do?' When he uttered this cry of dismay, Maximilian stepped silently forward, took off his cap, and stood before the commandant and said, 'I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children.'

Astounded, the icy-faced Nazi commandant asked, 'What does this Polish pig want?'

Father Kolbe pointed with his hand to the condemned Franciszek Gajowniczek and repeated 'I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place, because he has a wife and children.'

'I could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what was going on. The immensity of it: I, the condemned, am to live and someone else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me - a stranger. Is this some dream?

I was put back into my place without having had time to say anything to Maximilian Kolbe. I was saved. And I owe to him the fact that I could tell you all this. The news quickly spread all round the camp. It was the first and the last time that such an incident happened in the whole history of Auschwitz.

For a long time I felt remorse when I thought of Maximilian. By allowing myself to be saved, I had signed his death warrant. But now, on reflection, I understood that a man like him could not have done otherwise. Perhaps he thought that as a priest his place was beside the condemned men to help them keep hope. In fact he was with them to the last.'‘

Father Kolbe was thrown down the stairs of Building 13 along with the other victims and simply left there to starve. Hunger and thirst soon gnawed at the men. Some drank their own urine, others licked moisture on the dank walls. Maximilian Kolbe encouraged the others with prayers, psalms, and meditations on the Passion of Christ. After two weeks, only four were alive. The cell was needed for more victims, and the camp executioner, a common criminal called Bock, came in and injected a lethal dose of cabolic acid into the left arm of each of the four dying men. Kolbe was the only one still fully conscious and with a prayer on his lips, the last prisoner raised his arm for the executioner. His wait was over ...

A personal testimony about the way Maximilian Kolbe met death is given by Bruno Borgowiec, one of the few Poles who were assigned to render service to the starvation bunker. He told it to his parish priest before he died in 1947:

'The ten condemned to death went through terrible days. From the underground cell in which they were shut up there continually arose the echo of prayers and canticles. The man in-charge of emptying the buckets of urine found them always empty. Thirst drove the prisoners to drink the contents. Since they had grown very weak, prayers were now only whispered. At every inspection, when almost all the others were now lying on the floor, Father Kolbe was seen kneeling or standing in the centre as he looked cheerfully in the face of the SS men.

Father Kolbe never asked for anything and did not complain, rather he encouraged the others, saying that the fugitive might be found and then they would all be freed. One of the SS guards remarked: this priest is really a great man. We have never seen anyone like him ..

Two weeks passed in this way. Meanwhile one after another they died, until only Father Kolbe was left. This the authorities felt was too long. The cell was needed for new victims. So one day they brought in the head of the sick-quarters, a German named Bock, who gave Father Kolbe an injection of carbolic acid in the vein of his left arm. Father Kolbe, with a prayer on his lips, himself gave his arm to the executioner. Unable to watch this I left under the pretext of work to be done. Immediately after the SS men had left I returned to the cell, where I found Father Kolbe leaning in a sitting position against the back wall with his eyes open and his head drooping sideways. His face was calm and radiant ..'

So it was that Father Maximilian Kolbe was executed on 14 August, 1941 at the age of forty-seven years, a martyr of charity. The death certificate, as always made out with German precision, indicated the hour of death 12.30. (Source)

In comparison, martyrdom is Islam is different, much more proactive.

"In the Koran… it is written that anyone who dies for the sake of Allah is a martyr. When the Prophet Muhammad was asked about the meaning of 'for the sake of Allah,' he said, 'Anyone who fights so that the words of Allah will be supreme.' " Saudi Ambassador to London Ghazi Al-Qusaibi. (source)

There is a lot of honor involved in this. One martyr's mother expressed it this way, ""If I'm in the company of others, I can sense the respect and the pride. They say, 'She's a martyr's mother.' What does this name mean? For me, it's very meaningful. I walk about with my head high. Allah be praised, Allah be praised, every hour and every minute." (source)

In some circles, particularly in the Palestinian areas it is highly encouraged from a young age: The concept of educating children to become martyrs occurs regularly in PA sermons. Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi, one of the most popular Imams, is especially vocal on this issue. During one sermon, he repeats the following discussion he had with a child who approached him about becoming a suicide bomber: " A young man said to me: 'I am 14 years old, and I have four years left before I blow myself up'… We, the Muslims on this good and blessed land, are all - each one of us - seekers of Martyrdom… The Koran is very clear on this: The greatest enemies of the Islamic nation are the Jews, may Allah fight them… Blessings for whoever assaulted a soldier… Blessings for whoever has raised his sons on the education of Jihad and Martyrdom; blessings for whoever has saved a bullet in order to stick it in a Jew's head…"On another occasion, Madhi stated, " Shame and remorse on whoever refrained from raising his children on Jihad… Blessings to whoever waged Jihad for the sake of Allah; blessings to whoever raided for the sake of Allah; blessings to whoever put a belt of explosives on his body or on his sons' and plunged into the midst of the Jews, crying 'Allahu Akbar, praise to Allah, There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger'… Allah, show us a black day for the Jews, like the day of 'Aad and Thamud. Allah, turn them into pillage for us. Allah, we strive for martyrdom for your sake..." (source)

Muslim martyrs are tools. Islamic martyrdom is pro-active, not as a sign of a witness of the glory of God, for Christianity is much about one's own relationship with God, but as a religious/political device, like an ied or sword or rocket.

Christian martyrdom is about love, Islamic martyrdom is about conquest. And in this, is the great divide that Pope Benedict pointed out.

Witnessing

In yet another furore to grip the Christian community, the head of the Orthodox Church of Greece has joined the Pope controversy by attacking what he calls Islamic fanaticism in Africa.

In a scathing attack, barely 48 hours after a Somali Islamic cleric called for Muslims to kill the Pope for his Tuesday utterances, Archbishop Christodoulos told a sermon in Athens that Christians in Africa were suffering at the hands of ‘fanatic Islamists'.

"Many Christians on the Black Continent (Africa) suffer from fanatic Islamists. The example of Roman Catholic monks who were slaughtered last year... because they wore the cross and believed in our crucified Lord is still recent,” said Christodoulos.

(source)

Cardinal George Pell says "the violent reactions in many parts of the Islamic world" to a speech by Pope Benedict justified one of the very fears expressed in that address. "They showed the link for many Islamists between religion and violence, their refusal to respond to criticism with rational arguments, but only with demonstrations, threats and actual violence," Cardinal Pell said in a statement yesterday.

(source)

NAIROBI, Kenya An elderly nun shot four times at the Somali hospital where she worked forgave her killers as she lay dying, colleagues said Monday in the wake of a murder that has focused attention on Islamic radicalism in the Horn of Africa country.

Sister Leonella, 65, muttered the words 'I forgive, I forgive' in Italian after being shot three times in the back by gunmen in an apparent execution-style killing, father Maloba Wesonga told The Associated Press at the nun's memorial mass in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Monday.

(source)

The death of Roland

Long ago, as the poets tell it, the emperor Charlemange had a nephew named Roland. In an evil deal cooked up between Ganelon, Roland's evil stepfather, and the moslem king of Sargossa, the king would fake a false surrender, and head north with Roland and his party to return to France.

Ganelon made sure that Roland and his other brave companions would bring up the reargard. The reargard was attacked by an overwhelming force in the pass of Roncevaux, and wiped out.

Roland and his companions did not lose because they were less capable fighters - they lost because of treachery within their own ranks, because people who ought to have been trustworthy made common cause with the enemy.

Today, for some reason, we find many people in our culture making common cause with an enemy who has declared war on the West, and on America, right and left. We see this with the New York times gleefully outing state secrets that may have critical repercusions in the not too distant future. We see it when a movie about the (fantasied) death of a sitting president makes big news and wins awards. We see it when senators call the US military terrorists.

Will we hear the forlorn sounds of our own horn Olifant winding through the hills, sounded too late to save us because the treachery is done?

The Problem

Worshippers were coming out of church. A protest was going on.

People were holding up anti-Catholic and anti-Christian signs with slogans, saying things like "Pope go to Hell" and "Jesus is a Slave of Allah." Speakers were saying things like "Those that insult Islam would be subject to capital punishment."

A Scotland Yard spokesman said of his comments: "We have had no complaints about this. "

Here lies the problem: the world is aflame with protests because an elderly scholar quoted a 14th century man who said some things about Islam that were harsh. He wasn't even saying "I beieve what this man believed," he was merely using it as a contrast.

And yet, Islam protesters can say the rudest things about the Christian faith and leaders and holy people, and there is no problem. Don't make a fuss, go on about your business. Even if they attack things you hold dear, like freedom of religion and expression, it's OK, long as you don't do it to.

This is truly a sorry point in the world's history, that the West is letting itself be rolled over by bully boys, as if it doesn't matter.

(Newstory)

Terror on the Cheap

According to sources in the UK, the British Airplane bomb plot would have cost something in the neighborhood of $13,000 (£7000) to carry out, instead of the expensive plot that earlier news stories talked about. The explosive mixture evidently is inexpensive to buy, the "martyrdom videos" would have cost about $28 (£15) to produce, the computers and related supplies would have been worth less than $1000 (£500), two members of the group who needed passports could have gotten them for around $375 (£200). Beyond that they needed a small supply of equipment: scales, batteries, buckets, drink bottles, etc.

The most expensive part of the plot would have been the cost of airline tickets (I am guestimating in the range of $1000 (£500) each).

People hear of plots and think of the need for major Al Qaeda backing. But funds like this could be raised in an area that had enough sympathizers without a lot of trouble...This is why homegrown terrorism is something that is not out of the question. It really isn't that expensive, or that hard to do if people have a mind for it.

This is why security is important...it's really not that hard to do. There have been a couple of experiments with buying large amounts of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil in the news lately, and it is easy to do. Loners, as was the case of the Unibomber, and the bomb set off during the Atlanta Olympics can do it even easier than small groups.

But in an open society, we are also open to the possibility that if people want to, they can hurt us, and it really isn't that hard, or that expensive, doesn't need international connections, just the determination to harm.

(source for figures)

Voices of the Jihadiya

How can Malaysia sign a free trade agreement with America and Japan? Are these not kafir countries? And America today is an enemy of Muslim states and the supporter of Israel. In Islam that makes America a kafirharbi (enemy) state, and we Muslims are obliged to cut off all ties, diplomatic and economic with such an enemy state.

Abu Bakar Bashir, August 21, 2006

If I were asked about destroying the facilities and interests of the enemies - America and Israel - in the various countries... Does the religious law allow us to do this? Yes, as long as innocent people are not killed in the process.

Muhammad Said Ramadhan Al-Bouti, August 6, 2006

"There can be neither an agreement nor a meeting point between the people of Islam and the Jewish and Christian People of the Book… How can we permit the Catholic Pope's talk of a need to find meeting points and agreement between Islam and Christianity, so that there will be peaceful coexistence between the two religions and harmony between the two communities? Is it conceivable that there should be agreement and a meeting point with those who fabricate terrible falsehoods about Allah … claiming that Jesus, peace be upon him, is his son?!…"

Sheikh Adnan Ahmad Siyami, May 11, 2001

Voices of the Resistance

If you pay attention to the legacy media, the culture of the West seems almost suicidal in its determination to submit to the Great Islamic Jihad. The élites of the Anointed are secure in their bastions in Scarsdale or Ann Arbor or Hollywood, and don’t have to fear for their own skins any time soon. They watch the tide coming in and knocking down the sand castles in Europe, but their little castles are secure.

Or so they think. But there’s no place on earth that’s above the high tide line of Islam.

In 1918, the fall of the Ottomans was the low tide of Islam. The Greek castles were way down the shore near the ebb, and they were the first to go when the tide turned. The castles in Nigeria, Kosovo, Kashmir, and Indonesia are falling now, and those in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Britain will topple soon.

But none of our castles is safe. Ours may not fall in Dan Rather’s lifetime, or in mine. But some cohort of those alive today — people now in their 20s, or 30s, or 40s — will have to face this tide at its flood. It will be no use to emulate Canute and order it to turn back.

The only way the West will be victorious is for us to take back the culture.

We need to empower our heirs by driving pilings deep into the cultural foreshore so that our revered institutions will be strong enough to withstand the pounding of the coming tide.

Baron Bodissey, Gates of Vienna



I do not agree with Rabbi Shlomo Amar, who last week told an interfaith conference in Kazakhstan that these days the tendency is to tie events to religious matters. Israel's war mustn't be tied to the Jewish and Muslim religions, he said. I assume that his motives for saying that, as are the motives of most objectors, is the fear of fanning the flames and a desire to escape from the truth in the hopes it would not chase them.

And I, the little one, from where I sit at Gush Etzion, am standing up and yelling out, and to my regret I must rely on the words of the…Pope: The entire world is facing existential danger! We're in the midst of a one-sided religious war. As opposed to the days of the crusades, where Christianity and Islam fought for control of the Holy Land, this time around Islam's fundamentalist faction is resorting to murderous religious zeal in order to fight the West's hedonistic culture.

Any denial of this reality, even if its motives are clear, will lead to destruction and surrender.

Yisrael Rosen

“The Jews have come from that tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling . . . We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people . . . Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.”

Wafa Sultan

It's a conspiracy!

Evidently, all bad things in the world that happen to Moslem areas are the fault of a cabal between the Americans and the Zionists.

The Indonesian tsunami was caused by American, Israeli, and Indian nuclear testing, acording to the Egyptian weekly Al-Usbu'. On January 1, 2005, they reported that nuclear testing was destabilizing the tectonic plates, and and the earthquake followed after a series of recent Indian tests "The three most recent tests appeared to be genuine American and Israeli preparations to act together with India to test a way to liquidate humanity. In the[ir] most recent test, they began destroying entire cities over extensive areas. Although the nuclear explosions were carried out in desert lands, tens of thousands of kilometers away from populated areas, they had a direct effect on these areas." [1]

Bin Laden works for the Americans! Or so some conspiracy theorists in the Middle East believe.

Iraqi political analyst Kazem Al-Qurayshi spoke on the Iranian channel Sahar1 TV about September 11 and terrorism on July 18, 2004: " Al-Zarqawi, bin-Laden, and Mullah Omar, and all the leaders of the Salafi movement, are tools created by the British Freemason movement 200 years ago. With these tools they wanted to create a new religion for us, to confront Islam. They filled this new religion with Jewish poison, the Masonic poison. Their religion is manifested by a long beard, a short garment, and killing Muslims.

And it's not just the Shiites talking this way. On April 28, 2004, Lebanese Druze leader and Parliamentarian Walid Jumblatt gave an interview to Al-Arabiyya TV, and detailed how the U.S. was really behind September 11: "Who invented Osama bin Laden?! The Americans, the CIA invented him so they could fight the Soviets in Afghanistan together with some of the Arab regimes. I am of the opinion that somewhere, someplace, there is an intelligence agency profiting from Al-Qa'ida and Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden is like a ghost, popping up when needed. This is my opinion." [2]

Many believe that the only reason Saddam Hussein was captured without a fight is because he was drugged. [3] The terrorist attacks at Taba which were an Al Qaeda operation were said to have been carried out instead by the Mossad, the US, a combination of the two, or a terrorist Jewish group that wanted to do in non-religious Jews and blame it on the Arabs. [4]

And today, another conspiracy rises to the top: Now we learn that Pope Benedict is controlled the the Zionists, too!

The AFP is reporting: Iranian hardline newspapers said there were signs of an Israeli-US plot behind remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that linked Islam to violence and created a wave of anger across the Muslim world.

The daily Jomhuri Islami said Israel and the United States -- the Islamic republic's two arch-enemies -- could have dictated the comments to distract attention from the resistance of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah to Israel's offensive on Lebanon. [5]

Amazing how the Zionists and Americans control everything, even the Catholic Church.

Hat tip to Jihad Watch for the story about the Vatican conspiracy theory.



[1]MEMRI special dispatch 842
[2]MEMRI special report 33
[3]MEMRI inquiry and analysis 155
[4]MEMRI special dispatch 801
[5] AFP

Link to MEMRI

Pope's Statement

'Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Pastoral Visit which I recently made to Bavaria was a deep spiritual experience, bringing together personal memories linked to places well known to me and pastoral initiatives towards an effective proclamation of the Gospel for today. I thank God for the interior joy which he made possible, and I am also grateful to all those who worked hard for the success of this Pastoral Visit. As is the custom, I will speak more of this during next Wednesday’s General Audience. At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought. Yesterday, the Cardinal Secretary of State published a statement in this regard in which he explained the true meaning of my words. I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect.

Violence in the name of God

Somali Christian sources report Ali Mustaf Maka'il, a 22-year-old college student and cloth merchant who converted from Islam to Christianity 11 months ago, was shot and killed in the Manabolyo quarter of Mogadishu.

According to a report from the Barnabas Fund, quoting a Christian source inside Somalia, the gunman was loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts, the Islamist organization that took power in Mogadishu in early June and now controls much of southern Somalia.

The report states the gunman shot Ali in the back Sept. 7 after he refused to join a crowd chanting Quran verses in honor of the lunar eclipse. Solar and lunar eclipses are significant in Islam and are accompanied by special congregational prayers. The Union of Islamic Courts confiscated Ali's body for 24 hours before delivering it to the grieving family, the report said.
(source)

"Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim," Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin (source)

The killing of an Italian Catholic nun in Mogadishu on Sunday may well be linked to anger among Muslims about Pope Benedict's recent remarks on Islam, a senior source among Somalia's Islamists said. (source)