 Western intellectuals and commentators refer to the enemy's ideology as:
"Islamic Fundamentalism", "Islamic Extremism", "Totalitarian Islam", "Islamofascism", "Political Islam", "Militant Islam", "Bin Ladenism", "Islamonazism", "Radical Islam", "Islamism", etc....
The enemy calls it "Islam".
Imagine, if during past wars, we used terms such as "Radical Nazism", "Extremist Shinto" and "Militant Communism". Those who use terms other than "Islam" create the impression that it's some variant of Islam that's behind the enemy that we're facing.
A term such as "Militant Islam" is redundant, but our politicians continue praising Islam as if it were their own religion. Bush told us, "Islam means peace" -- after 2,996 Americans were murdered in its name.
He maintained that illusion throughout his two terms, and never allowed our soldiers to defeat the enemy. And now we have Obama, who tells us, from Egypt: “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." Washington's defense of Islam has trumped the defense of America and this dereliction of duty could well be called Islamgate.
Islam is a political religion; the idea of a separation of Mosque and state is unheard of in the Muslim world. Islam has a doctrine of warfare, Jihad, which is fought in order to establish Islamic ("Sharia") Law, which is, by nature, totalitarian.
Sharia Law calls for, among other things: the dehumanization of women; the flogging/stoning/killing of adulterers; and the killing of homosexuals, apostates and critics of Islam. All of this is part of orthodox Islam, not some "extremist" form of it. If jihadists were actually "perverting a great religion", Muslims would have been able to discredit them on Islamic grounds and they would have done so by now. The reason they can't is because jihadists are acting according to the words of Allah, the Muslim God. From the Koran:
"Slay the idolators wherever you find them..." Chapter 9, verse 5
"When you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads until you have made a great slaughter among them...." Ch. 47:4
Beyond the doctrine, there is the historical figure of Mohammad, who, more than anyone, defines Islam. How would you judge a man who lies, cheats, steals, rapes and murders as a way of life?
This evil man is Islam's ideal man, Mohammad. Whatever he said and did is deemed moral by virtue of the fact that he said it and did it. It's no accident that the only morality that could sanction his behavior was his own. Nor is it an accident that Muslims who model themselves after him are the most violent. For the 13 years that Mohammad failed to spread Islam by non-violent means, he was not so much peaceful as he was powerless. It was only through criminal activity that he gained power and a large gang of followers.
But he wanted his moral pretense, too, so he changed Islam to reflect the fact that the only way it could survive was through force. And so, acting on Allah's conveniently timed "revelation" that Islam can and should be spread by the sword, Mohammad led an army of Muslims across Arabia in the first jihad.
From then on, violence became Islam's way in the world. And today, acting on Mohammad's words, "War is deceit", Muslims use earlier "peaceful" verses from the Koran as a weapon against the ignorance and good will of their victims.
Those "peaceful" passages in the Koran were abrogated by later passages calling for eternal war against those who do not submit to Islam. How Mohammad spread Islam influenced the content of its doctrine and therefore tells us exactly what Islam means.
Note also that the only reason we're talking about Islam is because we've been forced to by its jihad. And where are Islam's "conscientious objectors"? Nowhere to be found, for even lax Muslims have been silent against jihad. But that doesn't stop desperate Westerners from pointing to them as representives of "Moderate Islam".
Far from being a personal faith, Islam is a collectivist ideology that rejects a live-and-let-live attitude towards non-Muslims.
And while the jihadists may not represent all Muslims, they do represent Islam.
In the end, most Muslims have proven themselves to be mere sheep to their jihadist wolves, irrelevant as allies in this war. Recovering Muslims call the enemy's ideology "Islam", and they dismiss the idea of "Moderate Islam" as they would the idea of "Moderate Evil". When, based on his actions, Mohammad would be described today as a "Muslim Extremist", then non-violent Muslims should condemn their prophet and their religion, not those who point it out.
Islam is the enemy's ideology and evading that fact only helps its agents get away with more murder than they would otherwise. Western politicians have sold us out, so it's up to the rest of us to defend our way of life by understanding Islam and telling the truth about it in whatever way we can.
If we can't even call Islam by its name, how the hell are we going to defend ourselves against its true believers? One could argue that we'd be better off if the West would just choose one of the many terms currently used for the enemy's ideology. For my part, I call the enemy what they are, "Jihadists", and our response, "The War on Jihad." But behind it all, it's Islam that makes the enemy tick.
Despite my frustrations with the refusal of many to call Islam "Islam", I know that those who speak out against Jihad put themselves in danger, and I respect their courage. But it's important that we acknowledge Islam's place in the threat we face and say so without equivocation. Not saying "Islam" helps Islam and hurts us. So let's begin calling the enemy's ideology by its name.
Let's start calling Islam "Islam." Bosch Fawstin is an ex-Muslim, caricature artist and the author "Propiganda", a caricature presentation of Islam. Visit his website: http://fawstin.blogspot.com/. This article appeared in Infidel Bloggers Alliance website. Thanks to Islam Watch
 THE army psychiatrist accused of a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood military base in Texas is permanently paralysed, his lawyer has said. Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who is charged with 13 counts of pre-meditated murder, was shot several times after he allegedly opened fire on a crowd of his fellow soldiers. More than 100 bullets were fired in the troops readiness centre and 42 other people were injured. Maj Hasan's doctors told him days ago that he will never walk again, said defence attorney John Galligan, who visited with him recently. Maj Hasan does have some feeling in his hands and is in "significant pain" from his injuries, Mr Galligan said. "His medical condition is still extremely serious," he said, adding Maj Hasan appeared confused and his speech is a "little garbled". Asked whether Maj Hasan expressed remorse, Mr Galligan said: "We didn't get into that".
Abdullah Saeed | August 07 That the number of these militant extremists is small is not a good reason for the majority of Muslims to remain silent.
The ideology of these small groups has become widespread at a global level and unless the silent majority in Muslim societies wakes up to the threat these militant extremists pose to their societies, their religion and to the world, there is a danger that militant extremism could become the norm in some Muslim societies. Countering the ideology of militant extremists from 9/11 to the recent Jakarta bombings, Muslim religious leaders, theologians, academics, journalists and others have labelled such actions as anti-Islamic. Australia, home to about 400,000 Muslims, has become a target of militant extremists, as a series of arrests this week has demonstrated. The law-abiding silent majority of Muslim Australians faces a particularly important task, now more than ever: to counter the threat of militant extremism and the hate-filled ideology of the extremists, and to save the younger generation of Muslims from this ideology. This does not mean that Muslim Australians are somehow responsible for the acts of militant extremists; clearly they are not, and law-abiding Muslims should not be held responsible for the criminal acts of those who call themselves Muslim. There are several things mainstream Muslim Australians can do.
Condemning the violence in the strongest terms is naturally the starting point, but it should not be the end of the story. Mainstream Muslims have to actively counter the claims of these militant extremists, just as Muslims in the past have done so at different points throughout the history of Islam, and in doing so helped to keep the militant extremists at the margins of society. Mainstream Muslim Australians need to recognise that Koranic verses and the sayings of the prophet Mohammed can be misused and twisted to justify the most terrible acts.
Unfortunately, all religious texts are not mathematical in their precision and are open to all forms of interpretation. Therefore, to counter the militants' arguments, it is important to show that the views and interpretations of the militants ought to be rejected because they are un-Islamic and go against mainstream Muslim thinking and practice. The silent majority should strengthen its campaign of undermining the militancy and hatred advocated by the extremists.
This campaign should begin at Friday sermons, in mosques, at homes, through lesson at Muslim weekend and day schools, in study circles and youth camps. This is no doubt happening but more needs to be done in view of the present situation. Read more here... Abdullah Saeed is the director of the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne. Source: The Australian
 (Alessandro Della Bella/EPA) Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent Tony Blair has said he does not regret leading Britain to war in Iraq when he was Prime Minister and has called on the world to take on and defeat Islamic extremists. He believes that, without intervention, the problem will continue to grow in countries such as Afghanistan. He called for a battle to be waged against militant Islam similar to that fought against revolutionary communism. In an address last night to a forum on religion and politics in Chicago, Mr Blair said that the world today faced a struggle posed by "an extreme and misguided form of Islam", which threatened the majority of Muslims as well as non-Muslims. "Our job is simple: it is to support and partner those Muslims who believe deeply in Islam but also who believe in peaceful co-existence, in taking on and defeating the extremists who don't." Mr Blair was speaking almost ten years to the day since he gave an address in Chicago at the height of the Kosovo crisis when he set out what he described as a "doctrine of international community" that sought to justify intervention, including military intervention, not only when a nation's interests are directly engaged but also where there exists a humanitarian crisis or gross oppression of a civilian population. The speech was criticised widely at the time as hopelessly idealistic and even dangerous. "Probably, in the light of events since then, some would feel vindicated," Mr Blair said last night, but he stood by his stance. 'I still believe that those who oppress and brutalise their citizens are better put out of power than kept in it,' he said. Defending his intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said the argument that Britain should revert to a more traditional, cautious foreign policy should be resisted. "The case for the doctrine I advocated ten years ago remains as strong now as it was then," he said, arguing that there was a link between the murders in Mumbai, the terror attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempts to destabilise countries such as Yemen, and the training camps of insurgents in Somalia. "It is not one movement. There is no defined command and control. But there is a shared ideology. There are many links criss-crossing the map of Jihadist extremism. And there are elements in the leadership of a major country, namely Iran, that can support and succour its practitioners." Defending the Obama Administration's attempts to engage with Iran, Mr Blair said: "The Iranian Government should not be able to claim that we have refused the opportunity for constructive dialogue, and the stature and importance of such an ancient and extraordinary civilisation means that as a nation, Iran should command respect and be accorded its proper place in the world's affairs." I hope this engagement succeeds. More... Source: Times Online
 By John Armor It was just a minor story on a Friday about a Dutch politician being denied entry to Britain at a London airport. You might well have missed it. But it was an extremely important event for its broader meaning. Geert Wilders, a member of the Netherlands parliament, was invited to Britain by a member of the House of Lords. The invitation asked Wilders to show his 17-minute film Fitna, which he made last year. Fitna juxtaposes quotes from the Koran with images of Islamofascists attacking and murdering various non-Muslims. Last year there were riots around the world by Muslims against this “anti-Islamic” film. None of the protesters claimed that the quotes from the Koran were inaccurate, nor did they claim that the murders and assaults depicted were in any way inaccurate. The day before Wilders was to fly to London, British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told Wilders not to come because “his opinions would threaten security.” Wilders made the trip anyway, and was arrested at the airport in London and put on another flight back to Amsterdam. While he was on the ground in London, he condemned Britain for stopping him. He called the British government “the biggest bunch of cowards in Europe.” Read more ...Source: Family Security MattersBritish Government
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 By Benjamin Netanyahu Hamas rockets have the same terror goal as Hitler's blitz. Imagine a siren that gives you 30 seconds to find shelter before a Kassam rocket falls from the sky and explodes, spraying its lethal shrapnel in all directions. Now imagine this happens day after day, month after month, year after year. If you can imagine that, you can begin to understand the terror to which hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been subjected. Three years ago Israel withdrew from every square inch of Gaza. And since that withdrawal, our civilians have been targeted by more than 6,000 rockets and mortars fired from Gaza. In the face of this relentless bombardment, Israel has acted with a restraint that other countries, faced with a similar threat, would find hard to fathom. Israel's government has finally decided to respond. For this action to succeed, we must first have moral clarity. There is no moral equivalence between Israel, a democracy which seeks peace and targets the terrorists, and Hamas, an Iranian-backed terror organization that seeks Israel's destruction and targets the innocent. Read more ...Source: WSJ H/T: Europe News
 Aijaz Zaka Syed | December 01, 2008
Watching the terror nightmare unfold in Mumbai over the past three days on TV, my children have repeatedly asked me: “Who are these terrorists and why are they doing this?” And every time I wished I could offer them a convincing answer. I was clueless why these people had taken over Mumbai and were targeting people who had nothing to do with them. I was also ashamed to tell them that the terrorists were Muslims and came from a country that was created in the name of Islam.
At work, while my colleagues went about covering the madness in Mumbai and laying out pages with the images of the Taj Hotel with its Islamic arches and domes go up in smoke, I find it hard to look at them in the eye.
This happens all the time. Every time innocents are targeted in the name of Islam around the world, one can’t face one’s non-Muslim friends and colleagues.
A distraught friend who has devoted her life to speaking and fighting on behalf of Arabs and Muslims wrote: “I’ve had it with the Arabs and Muslims and Islamic militancy. Forgive me but I am throwing in the towel.”
I couldn’t write back to her. She grew up in Mumbai and is upset. She went on to say: “The Muslims and Islam have a problem and only they can solve it. If they do not, the whole world will turn against them.”
If this is how our most loyal friends feel, imagine the sentiments and reactions of the rest of the world.
Can you blame the world if it’s turning against Muslims? What do you expect when not a day passes without the name of our faith being dragged through the mud by fellow believers around the world?
I know that Muslim leaders, including those in the highest echelons of power, have lately started speaking out against the extremists. The Darul Uloom Deoband in India, one of the oldest and most respected centres of learning in the Muslim world, issued a fatwa against terrorism at a large gathering of Islamic scholars in June. Last month, nearly 5,000 scholars backed the edict at a huge congregation in Hyderabad. The Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), and Saudi Arabia have, of late, been vehement in condemning these repulsive acts of violence targeting innocents. But clearly, we need to do more to be heard.
The great irony of the Mumbai attacks is the killing of ATS chief Hemant Karkare, a brave officer trying to establish the link between Hindu extremists and the Malegaon blasts. He was killed outside the Cama hospital on Wednesday night. Obviously, some Muslims do not know their friends from their enemies.
It’s all very well for us to say Islam has nothing to do with extremism and terrorism. We can go on deluding ourselves that these psychopaths do not represent us. However, the world finds it hard to accept this line of argument as it sees the extremists increasingly assert themselves and take the centrestage while mainstream Islam turns into a moderate fringe.
Aijaz Syed is Opinion Editor, Khaleej Times Source: Hindustan Times H/T: LGF2
 By Jason Burke Europe's anti-terror chief has launched a stinging attack on the political correctness that he says is hampering the campaign against militant Islam. Gilles de Kerchove, the EU counter-terrorism co-ordinator, said last week that concern about stigmatising Muslim populations was hampering policy-making and thus prevention. 'One of the problems ... is that some member states are extremely reluctant to be explicit about the link with religion,' said de Kerchove. 'Religion has been hijacked and distorted for political ends.' De Kerchove's statement comes against a background of infighting within the EU over counter-terrorism policy. The European Commission has been working for several years on a paper analysing militancy in Europe and outlining policy to combat radicalisation. The Council of Ministers is still waiting for the now long-overdue paper, on which future policy will be based. EU officials claimed last week the delay was because Jacques Barrot, the French Commissioner for justice, freedom and security, had grave reservations about the definition of terrorism in the commission's policy paper and had delayed signing the policy document as it 'went too far in blaming Muslim communities'. Read more ...Source: The ObserverGilles de Kerchove
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
 Self-delusion reaches new heights when clueless Westerners defend Sharia, the "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood, and "mild" Islamism.
By Youssef M. Ibrahim
Somewhere during Lawrence of Arabia's blockbuster career, his bosses wondered if he was becoming "more Arab" in the desert to which they sent him to lead a revolt against the Ottoman Empire. In an endearing cue to imperial haughtiness, Field Marshal Lord Allenby asks if his man had "gone native."
Indeed the spymaster and legendary British officer became quickly enmeshed in the tangled web he weaved back at the turn of the last century.
Likewise, when communism dawned in the 1920s, Vladimir Lenin ordered a strategy of nurturing "useful idiots" - by which he meant a contingent of communist Lawrences in the West. It worked, spawning hundreds of thousands of enamored scholars, intellectuals, experts, and dreamy romantics waving the red flags of Bolsheviks over the 70 years of the Cold War.
Today’s Islamist Lawrences are being cultivated among a broad swath of political analysts, scholars, anthropologists, pundits, missionaries, and even spies dissecting militant Islam and Islamofascism. While most carry out illuminating and necessary work, the fish they bait ends up ensnaring many.
A few recent catches: the archbishop of Canterbury urging the introduction of Sharia law in Britain; Harvard University, a bastion of secular scholarship, shutting its gym to men to accommodate Muslim women; authorities at Minneapolis’s international airport negotiating for months with 700 Somali Muslim taxi drivers who refused to pick up passengers carrying liquor or depending on guide dogs.
Then there was President George Bush launching his Muslim initiative last June from the Islamic Center of Washington, a Saudi institution distributing educational material instructing Muslims to segregate themselves from other Americans.
Among other things, the Saudi-funded publications admonish Muslims in America "to dissociate from infidels, hate them for their religion, never to rely on them for support, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law." The question: how was it that among the estimated five million Muslim Americans with hugely varied institutions, the president's advisors picked a Saudi Islamofascist ghetto as a venue?
This cluelessness is spreading into the academy and the arts too.
Witness the Guggenheim Museum of New York and the Louvre of Paris, along with Carnegie Mellon, Texas A&M, and multiple U.S. institutions, rushing to open branches in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, where laws institutionalize bigotry against women, Sharia bans images, and the government condones grievous violations of human rights for millions of expatriates of other religions.
Imagine the contortions of folks at Yale, Stanford, or Oxford when they have to explain founding campuses in Riyadh where women are not allowed or can participate only via closed circuit TV.
Useful idiocy reaches a higher plane among Western pundits who propagate the Saudi view of reverse progress, namely that Islamic societies have "particular requirements" and are evolving as "different models," of which we should not be "judgmental."
Fundamentalist creep is engulfing bastions of respectability in Western media too. At the start of Turkey's slide away from secularism last May, the Wall Street Journal glossed over Prime Minister Erdogan's aggressive Islamization, criticizing his secular opponents instead. The Economist argued his policy is tolerable, "even if it means enduring a bad, ineffective, corrupt, or mildly Islamist government."
Last April a major New York Times Magazine article by James Traub argued fervently on behalf of "Islamic democrats" singing the praises of a reborn Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This was followed by a major essay in Foreign Affairs, a weighty establishment publication, by Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke titled "The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood." The piece declared the fundamentalist group acceptable, among other things, as some of its leaders were interviewed in English, appeared reasonable, listened to classical music, and knew of Shakespeare. The article was so lacking in inquisitiveness it merited being posted on the Muslim Brotherhood website - ikhwanonline.com - as part of their propaganda.
The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century, a recent book authored by respected Mideast analyst of the New Yorker Steve Coll, presents the human side of Osama bin Laden, who adopted modern technology in his terror and whose wealthy contracting father employed Christians and other infidels in his business.
We should come back to reality.
Mild Islamism is an oxymoron. Sharia law, which sanctions beating of wives and stoning for adultery, is irreconcilable with human rights. The Muslim Brotherhood founded Hamas, calls suicide bombings a good thing, and is the 21st-century version of the organized fascism of Hitler and Mussolini in the last century.
Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former Middle East correspondent for the New York Times and Energy Editor of the Wall Street Journal, is a freelance writer and Mideast political risk consultant based in New York. Source: Pajamas MediaH/T: Gramfan
By Magdi Abdlehadi Saudi Arabia is to retrain its 40,000 prayer leaders - also known as imams - in an effort to counter militant Islam. Details of the plan were revealed in the influential Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat. The plan is part of a wider programme launched by the Saudi monarch a few years ago to encourage moderation and tolerance in Saudi society. The ministry of religious affairs and new centre for national dialogue will carry out the training, the paper said. Read more ...Source: BBC
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Western intellectuals and commentators refer to the enemy's ideology as:
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