Obama wins the Nobel Prize for Ignorance of Islam

In "A Nobel Prize...for Ignorance of Islam?" at the History News Network, December 11, recovering college professor Timothy R. Furnish exposes some of the falsehoods about Islam and jihad that Obama retailed in his acceptance speech for his Nobel Peace Prize for Nothing:

Toward the end of his speech the President lapsed into banalities that bordered on intentional misrepresentations. His line about "those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam" has become boilerplate on the Left, invoked like a talisman every time Islam is mentioned.

But it is nonetheless pure fantasy. As I and other commentators (Ray Ibrahim, Robert Spencer, Andrew Bostom, among others) have pointed out numerous times, those who perpetrate violence in the name of Islam and Muhammad are in no wise "distorting" or "defiling" the world's second-largest religion--they are, rather, simply taking literally the violence enshrined in the Qur'an and emulating the historical example of Muhammad himself.

Obama then followed with the second axiom of American liberals when discussing Islam--be sure to adduce the Crusades: "these [Islamic] extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded."

Why, yes they are, Mr. President. But there are thousands of years of human history preceding the Crusades, many also amply recorded, and wars in the name of God long pre-date what the medieval Catholic Christians did.

In fact, one only has to go back a few hundred years prior to the First Crusade of the 11th century to see that Muslim armies violently overran Christian lands in Egypt, Anatolia, North Africa and Spain--all in the name of Allah. But of course Muslims and Islam can never be held to account, according to our President's worldview, for their invocation of Allah to kill, conquer and enslave. Those depredations must have been carried out by just a few "extremists," no doubt embittered by something one of George Bush's ancestors had done.

Obama's final bit of pro-Muslim propaganda was a line he also employed in his Cairo address earlier this year, his ahistorical claim that "one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us."

This line is actually said by Jesus in Matthew 7:12: "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets" (NASB)." Christianity, obviously, teaches this; so too does rabbinical Judaism and, in a more negative form ("don't do to others what you would not have them do to you"), Buddhism.

But Islam teaches no such doctrine! A loving attitude toward others is simply not one of the (alleged) revelations given by Allah to Muhammad in the Qur'an. And this is far more than merely some abstruse point of theology, akin to how many jinn can dance on the head of a pin.

This matters, for if our Commander-in-Chief and those who take their cue from him--miliary leaders, diplomats, intelligence analysts--get such a basic point of Islamic theology and history wrong, how on earth can we expect to win not just the military conflict but, more importantly, the ideological one against Islam?

With thanks to JihadWatch

Allen Hunt : Have Yourself a Very Jihad Christmas

President Obama's speech in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize showed great growth in his development as a leader.
He courageously set forth the principles of just war before those who had assembled to give him a peace prize.

The president boldly acknowledged America's very real enemy, Al Qaeda, in a move rarely heard from him prior in public addresses. His remarks also rectified his failure to mention any leaders besides himself in his remarks for the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In doing so, President Obama exhibited humility and grace as he noted the achievements of leaders like Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Pope John Paul II, and Lech Walesa in his Nobel address.

President Obama failed in just one key area in his otherwise impressive address. Once again, he proved himself ignorant of history and embarrassingly sycophantic when it comes to the history and nature of Islam.

In the very same week in which five American Muslim men were apprehended in Pakistan for intent to wage jihad, President Obama offered these words that so often sprinkle his messages:

“Most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan. These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded.”

President Obama loves to reference the Crusades as his one Christian parallel for the modern-day Islam of massive religiously-inspired violence. He could not be more wrong. Were Obama to read distinguished Cambridge historian Jonathan Riley-Smith's The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam, he would find an excellent account of what happens when Islam expands it reach and what is required to thwart it.

Riley-Smith helpfully counters the modern misconception that Christians attacked Muslims in the Crusades without provocation to seize their lands and forcibly convert them.

All the Crusades met the very criteria of the just wars in which President Obama sought to ground his Nobel speech. They came about in reaction to attacks against Christians or the Church. The First Crusade was called in 1095 to defend against the recent Turksih conquest of Christian Asia Minor as well as the earlier Arab conquest of what until then had been the Christian Holy Land.

The second Crusade developed as a response to the Muslim conquest of Edessa in 1144. The third resulted from the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem and a number of other Christian lands in 1187. In each case, Christians went to war to defend Christians, to combat the attackers, and to rectify egregious wrongs.

President Obama continues to show a lack of history education as he likens the Crusaders to the Muslim jihadists. That ignorance is unacceptable. One would hope that in an Ivy League education that included undergraduate years at Columbia and law school at Harvard, the President would have had access to a non-politically correct reading of history. It appears not.

More at Townhall

Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi Explains His Objections to Muslim-Christian Interfaith Dialogue

Following are excerpts from a sermon by leading Sunni cleric Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, who heads the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS). The sermon aired on Qatar TV on October 30, 2009.

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2267.htm.

To view the MEMRI TV page on Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi, visit http://www.memritv.org/subject/en/589.htm .

"No Pope Has Ever Apologized to the Muslims for What Happened To Them in the Crusader Wars"

Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi: "We halted this Islamic-Christian dialogue. We were preparing for the third summit, when the new pope came into office and delivered his famous speech, affronting Islam, the Prophet of Islam, the Koran, the Islamic nation, and the history of Islam, without justification and without any preliminaries. He alleged that the Prophet Muhammad did not make any contribution other than spreading Islam by the sword. This is an utter lie.

"Therefore, we, in the International Union of Muslim Scholars, demanded, on more than one occasion, that he apologize, in one way or another, or else we would halt the dialogue with the Vatican. Indeed, I'm sad to say, the man did not utter a word of apology. Even if some Muslims tried to say it's enough if he says I-don't-know-what... He did not say anything straightforwardly.

"The Vatican apologized to the Jews, who said that Christ was a liar, that he was the son of a prostitute, that his mother was not a virgin, and that he was fathered by Joseph the carpenter. They absolved the Jews, who organized and took part in his killing. They exonerated the Jews of the spilling of the blood of Christ.

"No pope has ever apologized to the Muslims for what happened to them in the Crusader wars, which were hostile wars. They came to our countries from Europe, and did what they did in the nine Crusades. Therefore, we have halted our dialogue with these people, with the Vatican."

"We Recognize Christianity... But These [Christians] Do Not Recognize Us"

"Let me tell you, with regard to the Christians, in general, there is a problem, which I raised at the third conference, held in Doha, as well as at the interfaith dialogue conference in Mecca, convened by the Saudi monarch a year and a half ago.

"I said: Brothers, the problem is that [although] we recognize Christianity, and we recognize Christ, his holy book, and his religion... A Muslim's faith is not complete unless he believes in this, because it is incumbent upon him to believe in every book that was sent down and in every prophet who was sent [by God]. 'And what was given to Moses and Jesus and other prophets from their Lord - we make no distinction between any of them, and to Him do we submit.'

"But these [Christians] do not recognize us. [They say]: “Muhammad was a liar. The Koran is a fabrication. They created the Koran and attributed it to Allah.'

"These things have practical implications. We were at a conference in Cairo, called The Christians of the Middle East. I wanted to say, in the closing statement: 'The people of the divine religions agreed...' But [the Christians] said: 'Stop!' I asked: 'What is it?' They said: 'We do not recognize Islam as a divine religion. It is not a divine religion.' They agreed to say all kinds of things, but not that Islam is a divine religion. I wanted to include another sentence, about 'Godly values.' They said: 'No, we do not recognize Islamic values as being Godly. They are human values, brought by a guy who claimed to be a prophet.' I exploded and said: 'So what are we convening for? If you do not recognize our religion and our values as divine, what are we meeting for? Go away.' And I left the meeting."

I Cannot Find "One Practical Thing That These Conferences Have Achieved for the Benefit of the Islamic Nation"

"Brother, there is a problem with our dialogue with these people, who look at our Prophet, our Koran, and our nation this way, while we flock to them, and do not achieve a thing. Give me one practical thing that these conferences have achieved for the benefit of the Islamic nation. I cannot find a thing."

MEMRI

China: Al-Qaeda urges holy war to defend Muslims

A leading Al-Qaeda militant on Wednesday called on Muslims worldwide to defend Uighurs in China's restive northwestern region of Xinjiang.

He told Uighurs to prepare for a holy war or Jihad and urged a "vast media campaign" to raise awareness of their fate at the hands of "oppressive" China.

In the video posted to jihadist websites, Abu Yahya al-Libi appeared to launch a frontal assault against China.

"This massacre is not being carried out by criminal Crusaders or evil Jews who have committed crimes against our nation," al-Libi stated.

"Today, a new massacre is being carried out by Buddhist nationalists and communists against the Muslim population in eastern Turkestan," said al-Libi.

Islamists call Xinjiang East Turkestan. Uighurs are Muslims native to Xinjiang province, and have cultural ties to Turkic peoples in Central Asia.

"There is no way to remove injustice and oppression without a true return to their (Uighurs) religion and ... serious preparation for Jihad in the path of God the Almighty and to carry weapons in the face of those (Chinese) invaders," he said.

Read more here,,,,

Source: Adnkronos

New Threat Message Warns: Al-Qaeda Will Attack Germany on a Sunday in October

The Al-Falluja jihadist forum has posted a new threat message to Germany specifying that attacks will be carried out on one of the Sundays in October.

It is titled "To the Infidel German Nation: We Bestow on You the Kindness, for the Third Time, of Specifying the Appointed Day!"

The message, which is being heavily promoted by Al-Falluja, is the latest in a series of threats to appear on the forum [1] following the release of Al-Qaeda videos threatening attacks in Germany. [2]

This message had a strange rollout. Early on October 3, 2009, a forum member called Abu Hamza 2005 wrote a post titled "Welcome to the new member Mou10ra11bitt18oun25!" He wrote that when browsing the Al-Falluja forum he had come across this newly-registered user, and that the username reminded him of "p2l0a0g8u9e," a member on the now-defunct Al-Ekhlaas forum who, in May 2008, posted a video threatening the destruction of the U.S. in a nuclear strike.

The Al-Falluja moderators made Abu Hamza 2005's article a featured post. [3] About 12 hours later Mou10ra11bitt18oun25 posted his threat; [4] it was a featured post, and was later given a banner on the top of the Al-Falluja home page.

A jihadist media workgroup that had been formed ahead of time to distribute threats to German forums and emails [5] took the post by Mou10ra11bitt18oun25 as their go signal and began to distribute it. [6]

As with the other threats on Al-Falluja, it is difficult to know whether Mou10ra11bitt18oun25 is really privy to Al-Qaeda attack plans (if these exist), or whether the post is just meant to spread panic and/or disinformation. The circumstances of the release of his message do seem to indicate that the Al-Falluja moderators had advance knowledge of it. Al-Falluja has a direct link to Al-Fajr, the media group Al-Qaeda uses to distribute its propaganda.

Forum members have speculated that the numerals in Mou10ra11bitt18oun25's username refer to the month of October ("10") and the dates October 11, 18, and 25, all of which are Sundays. [7] One forum member voiced the opinion that the numerals in the username mean that the attack will be on October 11 at 18:25 (6:25 PM). [8]

In a video released on September 19, the German Al-Qaeda operative Abu Talha warned Muslims to stay away from public areas for two weeks after the German elections unless a government were elected that supported a withdrawal from Afghanistan. [9] The German elections were held on September 27, 2009.

Following is a translation of the new threat message:

"To the Infidel Crusader Nation of Germany... Death Be Upon You"

"In the name of Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful.

"To the Muslims in Germany and outside it we say: peace and Allah's mercy and blessings be upon you.

"To the infidel Crusader nation of Germany, we say: Before the elections Sheikh Osama, may Allah protect him, and the brother Abu Talha, [10] may Allah grant him success, said to you: peace be upon those who follow the guidance. [Now,] after the elections, we say: death be upon you! [11] Death be upon those who want war!

"Perhaps many among you Germans saw on your [TV] screens the black days that passed over London, Madrid, New York, and Washington.

"The entire world still remembers the black Tuesday in New York and Washington. Everyone remembers the black Tuesday in Madrid. Everyone remembers the black Thursday in London.

"To be sure, these arrogant peoples were not warned about these attacks, and [were not told] the days [on which they would occur], in contrast with you. You were extremely lucky that we did you a good deed [and gave you the choice], and you chose blood, body parts, and destruction. We specified the time period [in which the attacks will take place]; this is a kindness over which your brothers in Madrid and London will envy you.

"We will bestow on you a third [kindness] and specify the day [of the week]!

"We would allow you the choice in specifying it, but we preferred to choose it for you with care and precision! How do you feel about Sunday? That is a good day, and is a holiday for you, as it is for others of your coreligionists.

"After we chose Thursday for London, and Tuesday for New York and Washington, and Tuesday for Madrid, here we choose Sunday for you.

"Would it be good [for the attacks to be] on Sunday, October xx, 2009? Or Sunday, October xx, 2009? Or Sunday, October xx, 2009? [12]

"Sorry, we won't bestow on you the kindness of telling you a fourth time, but we have definitely specified it.

"There remains [the matter of] the city! Will Berlin wear the same garb as New York? Or will other cities win this honor, such as Bonn, Frankfurt, Hamburg, or perhaps: [-----------------]

"Angela Merkel, you certainly drank the victory toast! But we promise you that you will be drinking it again and again, but this time it will have a different taste and a different color, because the cup will be filled with the blood of your people, who elected you and chose war!

"Oh, by the way we heard that you are good at cooking, and that you cook regularly! Sunday is a good day for this hobby, is it not? How do you feel about making your dish that day 'shoulder of German citizen', or their head?

"We have a date on *******

"Important note to the helpers [of Al-Qaeda]: This is your day. Do not spurn anything that is of good. Take it and put it on the German forums and send it by email. Don't take the trouble of translating, they have many in their brigade and who work under their banner that are from among our countrymen [i.e. Arabs] - they will take care of translating it for their masters.

"The end.*.

"*Mou10ra11bitt18oun25*"

Source: MEMRI

Propagandists of terror prevailing

Sally Neighbour | April 22

IN July 2005, al-Qa'ida's chief strategist Ayman al-Zawahiri outlined a critical element of his organisation's war against the West.

"We are in a battle and more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. We are in a media battle for the hearts and minds of our umma (community)."

Al-Qa'ida has made "the media battle" a key front in its war, a strategy that helps explain why the jihadist movement continues to flourish. Yet intelligence and security agencies engaged in the so-called war on terror have been slow to seize this imperative, choosing instead to remain in the shadows, avoiding the vigorous media and public debate about terrorism and how it should be combated. Their reluctance has allowed the jihadists to gain the upper hand in the crucial battle for hearts and minds.

Al-Qa'ida's media strategy was deliberate and targeted from the outset, in keeping with an earlier directive from Zawahiri: "We must get our message across to the masses of the nation and break the media siege."

Osama bin Laden's first television interview in May 1997 was with CNN. The launch of his World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders in 1998 was announced at a press conference, where invited journalists were treated to a show staged by his entourage of mujaheddin, firing their AK47s and rocket-propelled grenades at the mountains. In 2004 bin Laden's videotaped "Message to America" was released for broadcast just before the US elections.

From its inception, al-Qa'ida established a media committee to run its propaganda offensive and a media production company, Al-Sahab, to film and distribute professionally produced videos, DVDs and other propaganda. Its activity has escalated markedly in recent years. In 2006, Al-Sahab released 58 videos, one every six days. In 2007 it issued 97, one every four days.

The trend has continued. More.....

Source: The Australian