Yemen's government is trying to find ways to combat al-Qaeda, which has a strong presence in the country. Saana has launched several air raids in recent weeks on people suspected of belonging to the network. But as Al Jazeera's Mohammed Vall reports from Aden, with a corrupt government and untrustworthy president and with the attacks so far proving ineffective, Yemenis remain uncertain about how best to deal with al-Qaeda. Al Jazeera
 East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. ––Rudyard Kipling Nidal Hasan, Abdulmutallab and Humam al-Balawi are jihadists who were educated and came from privileged middle- and upper-class backgrounds. Hasan was an American-trained U. S. Army doctor, Abdulmutallab was a London engineering student and the son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, and double-agent Dr. Humam al-Balawi was a member of the Jordanian professional class. Many Westerners are confused by the willingness of university-educated middle-class Muslims to perpetrate barbarous acts of terrorism. It appears to be a reversal of the usual process: typically college students raised in religious households become more secularized by exposure to the humanities and sciences, and the rationalist values of the European Enlightenment.
Yet when embryonic jihadists attend Western universities they graduate with their faith intact: 9/11 terrorists Mohammed Atta and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were both beneficiaries of Western university educations.
These men, who sought to advance themselves with Western training and technical skills, ultimately turned against, and attempted to destroy, the very society that provided them with the means to that advancement. Instead of employing their newly acquired learning and knowledge to improve the lot of their fellow countrymen and co-religionists, they turned this very learning and knowledge against their Western benefactors. This phenomenon begs the question: How do jihadists reconcile such hypocrisy and ingratitude in their own minds? As the 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie proved, the list of Jihad’s grievances against the West is subtle and inventive. The exquisite sensitivities of the faithful guarantee the manufacture of injury and insult without end, providing inspiration for Islam’s perennial street theater; for no sooner does the Arab street grow tired of one threadbare grievance, e.g. Israel, than it discovers another in an irreverent Danish cartoon. The familiar explanations for the fierce hatred of Muslim extremists for the West—the presence of Western military forces in sacred Arab lands, that holy war against infidels is a duty sanctioned by the Koran, or the millennial fantasy that a supreme caliphate is destined to rule the world—are as irrational as they are implausible.
For example, before 9/11, America’s military deployment in Islamic countries, in Bosnia, Kosovo and in Kuwait, had been in the defense of Islam itself; but for the timely intervention of American forces in these three places, tens of thousands of Bosnian and Albanian Muslims would have perished in an orgy ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and Kuwait (and eventually Saudi Arabia) would have become provinces of Iraq.
(The only other time Muslims were likely to encounter the U.S. military was when a Navy relief task force arrived with aid for victims of a natural disaster in an Islamic state like Bangladesh.) And though some imams, mullahs and ayatollahs may harbor utopian dreams of world domination and of heavenly rewards for martyrdom, it is hard to believe such apocalyptic visions could motivate educated Muslims. There is evidently something else at play here. Genetic biologists tell us that the principle stages of man’s evolution, from the fish to primate, can be discerned in time-lapse photography of the human embryo.
The evolution of the educated Muslim terrorist is one of those mysteries that, like human evolution, resides in the terms of the problem itself and is only waiting to be made explicit, i.e. the very fact of the terrorist’s contact with the West.
The common strand running through the backgrounds of middle-class jihadists is prolonged and close interaction with Western society, a clue in plain sight that is too often overlooked in the search for esoteric causation, such as religion and culture. Indeed, according to British historian Arnold Toynbee, contact with the dominant universal society is always the first step in the radicalization of Third World revolutionaries and terrorists.
Here is the critical path..... Read it all at FPM William Fankboner is the author of The Triumph of Political Correctness and A Hypertext Field Guide to Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media. He runs a web site at: http://home.roadrunner.com/~lifetime. His e-mail address is: williefank@aol.com. 
 Too much innocent blood has been spilled in the name of Islam. It is time the madness came to an end, writes Aijaz Zaka Syed* Terrorism, they say, is the weapon of the weak. But in our case it has become the weapon against the weak. The use of suicide is not something invented by Muslims. It's perhaps as old as homicide. Japan's harakiri comes to mind. But perhaps no people have suffered from it, and because of it, as much as Muslims have in recent years. So what drives a suicide bomber? And what kind of cause, however noble, makes you kill innocent people peacefully going about their day-to-day business -- people who haven't harmed anyone and pose no threat to anyone? And how can these faceless men, whatever their motives, ever think they would be forgiven, let alone rewarded, in the next life for their despicable acts against the defenceless? Is this what Islam really preaches and stands for? If not -- as we all know it doesn't -- why aren't our religious scholars, leaders and wise men raising a storm and doing more to stop these mad men bent on tarnishing the image of a noble faith and its billion plus followers? I have struggled with these questions every time innocent people are killed in a terror attack or suicide bombing. And these questions have been troubling me again since the mind- numbing attacks on a Muharram procession in Karachi and a volleyball match in Pakistan's north last week. The unparalleled scale of the attack on the Ashura procession in Karachi -- Pakistan's financial/commercial capital and political nerve centre -- has shaken a country that has long been used to daily mayhem of this kind. Nearly 50 people were killed and 500 injured in the Karachi attack. But more than the loss of lives, it is the devastation wreaked on the country's biggest city that day that will haunt Pakistan for a long time to come. Thousands of businesses, shops and commercial establishments were destroyed in no time, incurring losses worth billions of dollars. And the attack on the heavily attended volleyball match in the troubled Northwest killed 75 villagers, and left scores maimed. None of those watching the match or attending the Muharram procession had anything to do with the Western wars in Afghanistan-Pakistan or Iraq. They had no sympathy or affiliation whatsoever with the United States and the West. Then why have they been targeted? More importantly, what have the planners and perpetrators of these devastating attacks against unsuspecting bystanders achieved? But whoever said there is any higher purpose or noble objective behind all this madness? There's no method in the madness. This is an all-consuming monster that does not distinguish between friends and foes. In fact, paradoxical as it may sound, more Muslims than non-Muslims have been killed in macabre attacks carried out in the name of Islam. As regular readers would know, this humble hack has been doing his bit -- for what it's worth -- to question, critique and confront the big powers have been playing in the Middle East and Arab/Muslim world for centuries, and has gone to great lengths to point out repeatedly why US and Western policies are to blame for much of the mess you see in the Muslim world today, from Palestine to Pakistan. I have also religiously underscored the fact that groups like Al-Qaeda have been birthed and fuelled by Western double standards and unjust, callous policies in the Muslim world. And that even in the face of increasing threats from extremist groups and evidence of a clear link between cause and effect, the West has tenaciously refused to address, review and change its fundamental policies in the greater Middle East region. But that's another story altogether. Western actions cannot be an excuse for the kind of extremist violence that is being visited on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Why are innocent people -- almost all of them Muslims -- being made to pay for Western policies and sins? And how does it help the "cause" of these so-called defenders of Islam when they target innocent Muslims, and non-Muslims for that matter? This death cult is the ultimate injustice and calumny against a faith that celebrates peace, reason, moderation and justice in all spheres. Why, Islam literally means peace! So what kind of Islam do these lunatics think they believe in when they send young, impressionable 13-year-olds who haven't even experienced what life is to die? The Karachi attack and the terror strike on the volleyball match are only the most recent instances of crimes committed in the name of a great faith. Pakistan's recent history, and that of the Middle East, is replete with such vile and craven crimes against humanity. Tens of thousands of innocent Muslims -- and non-Muslims -- have died in this mindless violence targeting bazaars, mosques, schools, hospitals... you name it. True, the self-styled "coalition of the willing" has visited a great deal of horror on Iraq and Afghanistan. But we are not any less injured by nihilists who kill and murder with impunity in our name. Let's face it: Some of the worst crimes against Muslims have been committed in the name of Islam by people who claim to be our defenders and champions. In fact, they are worse than the West because they pretend to be our friends and allies before they hunt us from within. If the invaders of Iraq and Afghanistan are not our friends, the folks who live in our midst to kill us from within like a cancer are not our friends either. This is the reality Muslims have to confront, and confront it now, before it's too late. And this is the message we have to send across Muslim lands and around the world. I do not know how many people, especially Muslims, paid attention to this year's hajj sermon. Addressing the white sea of three million pilgrims from around the world in Mecca, and by extension the larger Muslim world, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Al-Sheikh used unusually strong language to draw attention to the issue that has become the bane of the Islamic world. While Islamic scholars, including those leading prayers at the most sacred mosque on the planet, have been talking about the growing cult of the suicide bomber and warning against extremism, this is the first time anyone has condemned the menace with such force and in such unequivocal terms.
Warning Muslims around the world against the extremists, the grand mufti termed the spectre of terror and suicide attacks as "the curse of Muslim lands". He singled out the extremism and the death cult of suicide attacks as the "most serious problem" facing the Muslim community today. This is the message that has to be taken far and wide with the force and conviction with which it was delivered. This is a matter of life and death, literally. Religious scholars, politicians, intellectuals, the media and ordinary Muslims have to come together, deploying all resources and means at their disposal to free ourselves of this stigma distorting the real, pristine image of Islam before the world. Too much innocent blood has been spilled and too many innocents have died in the name of our faith. It's time to say enough is enough! Please, not in our name! For God's sake, not in our name! * The writer is opinion editor of Khaleej Times . Al-Ahram Weekly
 In the ever-changing conflict between the West and Islamist radicals, one front – the Internet – has emerged as a major battlefield. And, while in many areas of this frontier the Islamists strut about unchecked, one man, code-name th3j35t3r ("The Jester"), has made it his point to strike back with (cyber) force. As first reported by the security blog ThreatChaos, "The Jester" made a different kind of New Year's resolution than most: to wage war on jihadist and pro-Islamist websites and forums by systematically disrupting their servers via denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Also unlike most, he has made good on his promise thus far – and there is no sign that he will let up. "The Jester has been documenting his attacks against www.alemarah.info, www.radicalislam.org, islamicpoint.net, www.almaghrib.org, www.as-ansar.com, www.islamicnetwork.com, www.islamicawakening.com, [and] www.ansarnet.info, since the beginning of 2010," according to the ThreatChaos report.
Research and reports by the Investigative Project on Terrorism have verified the radical nature of some of The Jester's targets. In one article posted on the Islamic Awakening website, author Abuz-Zubair drafts an introduction to a piece by Osama bin Laden spiritual mentor, Abdullah Azzam, in which he chastises those who assert that jihad can mean anything other than armed conflict. Zubair writes: "[O]ne cannot perform Jihad by giving lectures, feeding the family or serving the parents, rather Jihad can only be performed in the field of al-Qitaal (lit. fighting), as the sharee'ah dictates. Therefore when the word Jihad is used in the Qur'an and the Sunnah, in a general sense then it means Qitaal, and when it is mentioned in its linguistic sense (as in to strive with your parents and family etc.) then that is regarded to be Muqayyid (restricted) by the rules of Usoolul-Fiqh. […] Unfortunately, whenever Allah guides the Muslim youth to get up and fulfil [sic.] the obligation and the Sunnah of Qitaal in the way of Allah, we find some people amongst the Muslims hindering the youth away from the legal Jihaad to linguistic Jihaad, which is what lead me to translate this piece of work, so that it may be beneficial to the Muslims in general and a final blow to the obstacles in the path of the youths seeking martyrdom in the way of Allah..." [emphasis added] Similarly, the Al Maghrib Institute and its leadership have shown a long and radical history of support for violence. In one posting on islamicawakening.com, Al Maghrib Director Muhammad Ash-Shareef espoused attacks against those in the Russian army and their families: "O Allah! destroy the Russian army. O Allah! Make the ground shake in an earthquake from under them. O Allah, they do not glorify you, show them the blackest day of their lives, as you showed the People of Aad and Thamud. O Allah, destroy them all, not leaving anyone to escape. O Allah make their wives widows, their children orphans. O Allah! Grant victory to our brothers and sisters in Chechnya and everywhere in the world, Yaa Allah!" Al Maghrib officials are also on record making calls to dominate all others throughout the world. So, while The Jester's targets may indeed be troubling, should this cyber vigilante be given free rein to wage a one-man war against jihadists and extremists? Is he possibly doing more harm than good? One commenter (alias: danstermeister) on the popular social news website, Reddit, argues just that point: • "Using exploits means uncovering them. He's going to use up the ace-in-the-hole moves counter-intelligence already knows about these sites but were not using until those moments they felt they needed to be used (like interrupting comms [communications] about/during an impending attack). By using the exploits, the bad guys now have something to review about their systems and fix. Now counter-intel can't use that tool in the future when they need it. Bad guys:1, Counter-Intel:0. • Attacking sites drives bad guys back into the shadows. They already know they're being watched on these sites (at least, the guys that matter), but if they are now harassed, they won't even both on those sites, and they'll move to more inconspicuous locations on the web. • Attacking anything just creates more complexities for the actual people tasked to fight this. As has been mentioned already by others, this guy is making things more difficult for the officially tasked people that may be losing inside contacts, methods of access, and even their own identities (as things are reviewed post-attack by the bad guys). By stirring the hornet's nest, all he's done is wake up the hornets, not cause them one bit of actual anguish or real delay." On the other side of the argument, there are those who might make the case that such targets are not within the explicit domain of governments to monitor and disrupt. Moreover, governments often times are overwhelmed and, simply put, will fall short in the cyber-tug-of-war. The impact of such vigilante attacks in rendering radical Islamist websites impotent serves a purpose of its own in sending a message that not everyone will tolerate the hateful, and often times pro-violence, message. Wherever one may stand on the issue of cyber-vigilantism – independent citizens taking matters into their own hands without the requisite knowledge of ongoing investigations utilizing that open-source data – it is clear that matters are shaping up just as Dorothy Denning predicted in an August 2008 article in Scientific American: "Soon, every interstate conflict, however minor, may be accompanied by some form of hacker war that is beyond the control of ruling governments." IPT
 The French are enjoying a debate about their cultural identity. Obviously the word “enjoying” is a euphemism, since the focus of the debate, whether or not to ban the burqa — full female coverage with an eye screen — in public, has riven the population of France, and by no means along the obvious fault line of Muslim vs. non-Muslim. Algerian-born Fadela Amara, France’s cities minister, reinforced her view in an interview with the Financial Times: “The vast majority of Muslims are against the burqa. It is obvious why. Those who have struggled for women’s rights back home in their own countries — I’m thinking particularly of Algeria — we know what it represents and what the obscurantist political project is that lies behind it, to confiscate the most fundamental liberties.” President Nicolas Sarkozy had called for a ban on the public wearing of the burqa altogether. But as of this writing, apparently a compromise has been struck and the burqa will be banned in public buildings only. A partial ban is better than nothing, though, and may hopefully serve to inject some steel into the spine of other European nations who feel threatened by the rise of anti-Western radicalization amongst their own growing Muslim populations. Some pundits argue that the numbers of women in France in full coverage are small — in the low hundreds. But more recent estimates run much higher. A report by the minister of the interior conservatively estimates there are at least 2,000, not a nugatory figure, considering that 15 years ago there were virtually no niqabs or burqas in France. If they are not banned now, it may be impossible to do so when there are critical masses of them, as there surely will be as radicalization rates trend upward, if not checked. Critics will claim that these garments do no harm to others and nobody has the right to interfere with women’s religious choices in a free society. But President Sarkozy got it right last June in explaining to Parliament why the burqa is “not welcome in the French Republic”: “The burqa is not a sign of religion; it is a sign of subservience.” Sarkozy understands what most people refuse to acknowledge. Full coverage is not about religion; it is about ideology. Full face coverage is an ideological symbol of hatred for democracy, particularly the democratic value of gender equality. While some converts wear full cover as a badge of religious commitment and some educated Muslim young women wear it as a political gesture, by and large full cover goes hand in hand with women leading lives of grim physical and mental deprivation, and often routine, unchallenged, lifelong abuse. Most women wearing the niqab or burqa can never aspire to a Western model of citizenship. They have not been provided with the kind of education or upbringing that would allow them to understand the meaning of freedom as we know it. It is insulting to the intellect to speak of women in these “walking coffins” in the same breath with the words “choice” or “rights.” But to hold such rational views is to beat against a strong current of political correctness. As is now the norm whenever hypersensitive Muslim nerves are brushed by political decisions involving perceived insults to Islam, the French debate on cover as well as the recent referendum-driven ban on the further construction of minarets in Switzerland have provoked a great deal of hand-wringing anxiety amongst Islamophobia-phobic liberals. Unwillingness to criticize the burqa, implying a corollary willingness to abandon these imprisoned women to their fate, even within Western borders, is morally tantamount to depraved indifference to voiceless suffering. Liberals hide behind the iron rubric of non-judgmentalism of other “cultures,” but that strain of logic would have absolved slave owners in the “culture” of pre-Civil War America. Yet even conservatives who agree that fully covered women are chattel and a walking insult to American values struggle with the issue of legislative bans against what is misleadingly considered a garment. It seems draconian to prescribe what any individual can or cannot wear in public. They must first understand that the burqa and niqab are not articles of clothing. They are tents thrown over clothing. In their intention and their effect, they perform the function of a ball and chain. Full cover is worn as a reminder to the wearer that she is not free and to remind the observer that the wearer is a possession, something less than a full human being. More at Pajamas Media
 From the Daily Mail (UK): The Christmas Day airline bomber invited a radical cleric who has advocated dying while 'fighting jihad' to address British students.
While president of the Islamic Society at University College London, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab helped arrange for Abdur Raheem Green to speak.
The cleric, who converted to Islam from Roman Catholicism, has written that conflict between Islam and the West is 'ordered in the Koran', and that Muslims and Westerners ' cannot live peaceably together'.
He has also claimed: 'Dying while fighting jihad is one of the surest ways to paradise and Allah's good pleasure'.
In 2005, shortly before Abdulmutallab arranged for him to address UCL, Green was barred from entering Australia after opposition leader Kim Beazley accused him of 'spreading hate'.
The revelation adds weight to the belief that Abdulmutallab was radicalised during his time studying in London, where he read mechanical engineering and business at UCL between 2005 and 2008.
The 23-year-old spent most of his spare time with the university's Islamic Society, for which he served as president between 2006 and 2007.
He organised a week-long conference under the banner War on Terror Week in January 2007 with advertised speakers including former Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Security sources are concerned that the picture emerging of his undergraduate years suggests that he was recruited by Al Qaeda in London. They added that Islamic radicalisation was rife on university campuses, especially in London.
But Qasim Rafiq, a close friend who was president of the UCL Islamic Society the year before Abdulmutallab, insists his radicalisation did not happen until after he left university.
'There was nothing to suggest he would do what he has done when I knew him,' said Mr Rafiq. 'He was not quick to anger and didn't discuss politics. It came as a complete shock to me when I heard what he had done.'
He added: 'He was very religious. He prayed regularly, usually five times a day, and didn't have a girlfriend, drink or go to nightclubs.'
Mr Rafiq, who is now studying for a PhD, said Abdulmutallab, the son of a millionaire Nigerian banker, never spoke about his family background while at university. After university Abdulmutallab' 'vanished'.
Green, 44, was born Anthony Green, the son of a colonial administrator in Tanzania. He was brought up a Roman Catholic but converted to Islam in 1987.
He works at the London Central Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre as the Visits and English Dawa Co-ordinator.
In 2005, Green was prevented from boarding a flight with a stopover in Brisbane because he appeared on an Australian government ' movement alert list' due to his inflammatory comments.
In an interview with Australian radio afterwards, Green said he had long renounced the extremist views, adding that he has consistently condemned terrorist acts and the killing of women and children.
 TEHRAN, Iran — Iran on Tuesday accused Western countries of fomenting deadly anti-government protests in the capital this week and said it was summoning Britain's ambassador to file a complaint. The comments by Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mahmanparast added to growing tensions between Iran and the West, which is threatening to impose tough new sanctions over Iran's suspect nuclear program and has criticized the violent crackdown on anti-government protesters in Tehran. Iran has said as many as eight people were killed in Sunday's clashes in Tehran. There was no serious violence reported Tuesday, but opposition Web sites said several activists were arrested, including a prominent journalist and the sister of Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi. Speaking to reporters, Mehmanparast said the deadly clashes in Tehran were the work of a tiny minority, and he accused outside countries, including the U.S. and Britain, of "miscalculating" by siding with the protesters. "Some Western countries are supporting this sort of activities. This is intervention in our internal affairs. We strongly condemn it," he said. "In this regard, the British ambassador will be summoned today." He gave no further details, and there was no immediate reaction from Britain. Britain, France, Germany and the U.S. have all criticized Iran's violent response to the protests, the bloodiest confrontations between the government and reformist activists since June's disputed presidential election. On Monday, President Barack Obama praised "the courage and the conviction of the Iranian people" while condemning Iran's Islamic government for attacking demonstrators with "the iron fist of brutality." Traveling with Obama in Hawaii, U.S. National Security Council chief of staff Denis McDonough also said the White House is reaching out to international partners to build support for a new round of sanctions against Iran. He said the U.S. was exploring both unilateral or U.N. sanctions. The sanctions are to punish Iran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment and accept a U.S.-backed plan to curb its nuclear program. The West suspects Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb — a charge Tehran denies. More at Foxnews
 Coming on the heels of the killing spree by Maj. Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, the latest terrorist "incident," involving Abdul Mutallab on Northwest Flight 253, is yet another isolated but tell-tale sign that we must learn from: 1) If solidly middle-class Westernized Muslims mouth the al-Qaeda line of radical Islamic, anti-American boilerplate, please take them seriously — i.e., worry less about their feelings and more about the lives of innocents they may in the future seek to annihilate. The more upscale and the more the Western exposure, the more there is to worry about. 2) For the last eight years, many have patiently tried to suggest that the answer to "Why do they hate us?" does not entail poverty, Western imperialism or colonialism, support for Israel, past provocations, etc.
Rather, radical Islam encourages in an Hasan or Mutallab age-old passions like pride, envy, and a sense of inferiority — all accelerated by instantaneous communications and abetted by continual Western apologetics that on a global level blame Westerners for self-induced misery in many Islamic countries. "They did it" is far easier than looking inward to address tribalism, gender apartheid, statism, autocracy, religious intolerance, and fundamentalism, which in perfect-storm fashion ensure an impoverished — and resentful and angry — radical Islamic community while the rest of the world moves merrily on. 3) I think the year-long mantra of "Bush destroyed the Constitution" is now almost over, and we will begin again worrying about our collective safety rather than scoring partisan points by citing supposed excesses in our anti-terrorism efforts.
With the delay in closing Guantanamo (from the promised shuttering on Jan. 20, 2010 to . . . sometime in 2011?), Obama's quiet copy-catting of Bush security protocols (such as wiretaps, intercepts, tribunals, and renditions), and the popular outcry against the upcoming show trial of KSM in New York, a public consensus is growing that radical Muslims like Hasan and Mutallab will continue to attempt to kill Americans.
Citizens increasingly understand that the last eight years of relative safety following 9/11 were due only to heightened security at home and proactive use of force abroad, that we should cease trying to appease radical Islam by dreaming up new euphemisms ("overseas contingency operations," "man made disasters," etc.), and that it is time to stop the apologetics and kowtowing, and grudgingly accept that thousands of radical Islamic fundamentalists worldwide want to kill Americans — and dozens of governments, at least on the sly, hope that they do.
Such venom has nothing to do with past American behavior or George Bush's strut, nor can it be ameliorated on the cheap by Barack Obama's Nobel Prize, middle name, or reset-button diplomacy. 4) As we learned on 9/11, it is often the unsung heroes among us that come out of the shadows to aid us, and not necessarily large bureaucracies entrusted with our safety. Individuals acting on their own so often make the difference between salvation and mass murder. 5) After the embarrassing debate about Hasan (e.g., "Was he a terrorist?"; second-hand post-traumatic stress syndrome, etc.), I don't think the public will put up with similar contextualization about Mutallab.
6) The politics of anti-terrorism in this administration will insidiously begin to change, given that there was no repeat of 9/11 between 2001 and 2009 — and that thereafter, signs began to emerge that radical Muslims were reenergized and eager to trump their feat of eight years ago.
In such a climate, one must worry more about the passengers on Flight 253 and less about whether self-confessed mass murderer and beheader KSM is given a public venue to explain his hatred of the United States, and is granted rights usually not accorded to such out-of-uniform and self-proclaimed terrorist enemies.
So a little more "Beware of radical Muslim terrorists who want to murder us — and won't!" and a little less chest-thumping about dropping the supposedly retrograde "War on Terror."
 by Daniel Greenfield The seeming suddenness with which Islamic terrorism went from a problem happening “out there” in the hinterlands to a problem happening across the street can be credited as much to the Islamists themselves, as to their enablers.
What the backwardness of the Muslim world and the collapse of its empires of conquered regions into colonies themselves, ruled over by European powers achieved to break down Pan-Islamism, seemingly for good, was swiftly undone.
And it was undone by the fact that virtually every major power in the 20th century fostered Pan-Islamism as a tool against its enemies. Certainly the worst example of this phenomenon was the Cold War during which the US and the USSR helped create modern Islamic terrorism, by alternately training, arming and turning Muslim guerrillas and terrorists into weapons against each other.
While the USSR helped create the modern Middle Eastern terrorist, the US helped create the Asian Muslim terrorist.
And together, from the PLO to the Mujadeen, from Al Queda to the PFLP, from the Madrassas to the Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University, the beast grew and swelled to fill a vacuum that the end of the Cold War created. And as the modern Muslim terrorist was created out of the Cold War, so were the two major arguments used by conservative and liberal Westerners for supporting or tolerating Islamic terrorism.
The Soviet Union crafted the core argument used by liberals who defend the sort of headchopping Islamist barbarians who would be happy enough to nail them to a wall simply for not having a beard, when it differentiated between “ancient” Pan-Islamism as a tool of religious repression and “modern” Pan-Islamism as a means by which oppressed people revolt against imperialist tyranny. To understand just how far back this goes, consider this defense of Pan-Islamism by the Chairman of the Communist Party of Indonesia in 1922. But now one must first understand what the word Pan-Islamism really means. Once, it had a historical significance and meant that Islam must conquer the whole world, sword in hand, and that this must take place under the leadership of the Caliph, and the Caliph must be of Arabian origin. About 400 years after the death of Mohammed the Muslims split into three great states and thus the Holy War lost its significance for the entire Muslim world… So Pan-Islamism no longer has its original meaning, but now has in practice an entirely different meaning.
Today, Pan-Islamism signifies the national liberation struggle, because for the Muslims Islam is everything: not only religion, but also the state, the economy, food, and everything else. And so Pan-Islamism now means the brotherhood of all Muslim peoples, and the liberation struggle not only of the Arab but also of the Indian, the Javanese and all the oppressed Muslim peoples.
This brotherhood means the practical liberation struggle not only against Dutch but also against English, French and Italian capitalism, therefore against world capitalism as a whole. That is what Pan-Islamism now means in Indonesia among the oppressed colonial peoples, according to their secret propaganda – the liberation struggle against the different imperialist powers of the world. This is a new task for us. Just as we want to support the national struggle, we also want to support the liberation struggle of the very combative, very active 250 million Muslims living under the imperialist powers. Therefore I ask once again: Should we support Pan-Islamism, in this sense?
The speech in question may date back to 1922 but its sentiments are very modern and commonplace among liberals in the West today. Their view is that Islamism is a people’s liberation struggle against Western imperialism and capitalism because it serves as a common bridge between Islam and the Left today in 2009, just as it did then in 1922.
This reinterpretation of Islamism as an expression of economic and political discontent today tends to be described under labels such as resistance to Globalization or to corrupt Western “puppet regimes”, but it is in fact a carbon copy of the Soviet approach to Pan-Islamism.
This ideological approach enables the left to co-opt Islam in the struggle against Western hegemony. Meanwhile Islamists have long since learned to put forward economic and political grievances in order to make common cause with the left. Meanwhile on the right, the American approach to Islam, as exemplified by the Green Belt strategy or the current War on Terror (but not on Islam) is that Muslims were potentially valuable allies whose religion would help create common ground against Communism and other evils. Disastrous incarnations of this approach included Carter’s backing for the Ayatollah Khomeni that resulted in the totalitarian Shiite Iran we know today and America’s longstanding with the Saudi royal family, which has exported Sunni terrorism almost as assiduously as its oil. More at CFP
 In a recent article in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa, Saudi liberal Muhammad Jamil Kutbi wrote that the Arabs and Muslims are unjustified in regarding themselves as morally superior to the West. He argued that although Islam champions values such as equality, justice and charity, the West actually surpasses the Muslim world at implementing these values. Following are excerpts from the article. [1] "We Falsely Accuse the Westerners... of Being Liars, Forgers, and Criminals" "...We Arabs and Muslims see the Jews and Christians as people who do not acknowledge or fear Allah, and are not ashamed before Him. We also falsely accuse the Westerners, the Christians, and the Jews of being liars, forgers, criminals, and money lenders who charge usurious interest rates. "But when we look reality in the face and follow the developments [in the world], when we examine the facts as they are and investigate the Muslim and Arab reality in which we live - including all the exaggerations, [empty] statements, faults, flaws and problems - we discover that, though we are called Muslims, we do not truly embody the qualities, values and principles of Islam... "We claim that the Westerners love money and material things, while we Muslims are better than they are: we are ascetic, pious and charitable. As an example, we present one of the Prophet's companions, 'Abd Al-Rahman bin 'Awf, who was known to possess great wealth but donated half of it to the cause of jihad for the sake of Allah. We Muslims take great pride in his example. "But today there is a Westerner named Bill Gates, owner of the world's richest and most powerful computer company, who gave away all his wealth, leaving only $3 billion for himself. [The rest] he donated to the poor and the needy, and to social organizations.
Now, in the Arab and Muslim world there are hundreds of wealthy people like him, who appear on the list of the world's billionaires. But we never heard of them performing a humanitarian act like that of Bill Gates. Where are these wealthy Muslims [when it comes to performing] human, Islamic and civilized acts of this kind? "The Arabs accuse the West of loving the [pleasures] of this world and of pursuing power, but that is not true. It is we Arabs who love and sanctify power. It is we who invented the concept of hereditary rule. Mu'awiyah Ibn Abi Sufyan, the first Caliph of the Ummayad Dynasty, was the first who created and shaped [this concept]. This Arab greed [for power] is insatiable and is the cause of internal conflicts, wars and problems. "Let me point out incidentally that [in 1945,] the British people did not [reelect] their famous leader [Winston Churchill], who was prime minister during World War II, even though he had brought them victory [in that war]." The Arab and Muslim Judiciary System [That] Regards Itself as the Purest, Noblest and Best in the World - [Is] Nothing But Deception and Fraud, and Is Controlled by the Regimes and Their Associates" "We Arabs claim to be a nation that does not cheat, lie or deceive, but the Arab leadership, which regards itself as a model for emulation, [certainly] lies and deceives. [The late Egyptian] president Gamal Abdel Nasser was the first Arab leader to invent the concept of forging elections, giving himself 99.9% [of the votes]... "The Arab and Muslim judiciary system regards itself as the purest, noblest and best in the world. But in reality it is just the opposite. [This system] is nothing but deception and fraud, and it is controlled by the regimes and their associates. "The Western judiciary system is better. A Paris court [recently] rejected a lawsuit by French President [Nicolas] Sarkozy, and [the latter], despite his authority and clout as president, was not able to force the court to rule in his favor and according to his will. "The Prophet Muhammad said, 'By Allah, if [my own daughter] Fatima bint Muhammad had stolen, I would have cut off her hand.' This is the nature of a just and equal society according to Islam, and these are the values and principles of Muslim rule." The Jews... Are Better Than We Arabs and Muslims" in Implementing Justice And Equality "But the Muslim nation does not implement these values and principles of justice and equality between the rulers and the ruled. [In today's Muslim world,] the ruler does whatever he pleases, however he pleases, and whenever he pleases. "The Jews, on the other hand, are better than we Arabs and Muslims [in this respect]. [Former] Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert was indicted and tried for accepting bribes and for abusing his political office, and was forced to resign from his party and from his post as prime minister, in a political scandal that ended his career. This is the lexicon of justice and equality." "We Are a Nation Without an Identity or Future, and Without Essence, Power, Opinion, Morality, Values or Principles" "What would have happened in our Arab and Muslim countries if some leaders were brought to trial? Think about it, and don't be too angry when you realize the answer. You will eventually arrive at the realization that we are a nation without an identity or future, and without essence, power, opinion, morality, values or principles..." MEMRI
 RIYADH,Saudi Arabia — Increasing numbers of English-language Web sites are spreading Al Qaeda's message to Muslims in the West. They translate writings and sermons once largely out of reach of English readers and often feature charismatic clerics like Anwar al-Awlaki, who exchanged dozens of e-mails with the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood shootings. The U.S.-born al-Awlaki has been an inspiration to several militants arrested in the United States and Canada in recent years, with his Web-based sermons often turning up on their computers. "The point is you don't have to be an official part of Al Qaeda to spread hatred and sectarian views," said Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator for the New York-based NEFA Foundation, which researches Islamic militants. "If you look at the most influential documents in terms of homegrown terrorism cases, it's not training manuals on building bombs," Kohlmann said. "The most influential documents are the ones that are written by theological advisers, some of whom are not even official Al Qaeda members." Most of the radical Islamic sites are not run or directed by Al Qaeda, but they provide a powerful tool for recruiting sympathizers to its cause of jihad, or holy war, against the United States, experts who track the activity said. The number of English-language sites sympathetic to Al Qaeda has risen from about 30 seven years ago to more than 200 recently, said Abdulmanam Almushawah, head of a Saudi government program called Assakeena, which works to combat militant Islamic Web sites. In contrast, Arabic-language radical sites have dropped to around 50, down from 1,000 seven years ago, because of efforts by governments around the world to shut them down, he said. Al Qaeda has long tried to reach a Western audience. Videotaped messages from its leader, Usama bin Laden, and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri usually have English subtitles.
But translations of writings and sermons that form the theological grounding for Al Qaeda's ideology, along with preachers like al-Awlaki, mostly eliminate the language barrier. More at Foxnews
 A RISING number of Western recruits are travelling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to attend paramilitary training camps for militant Islamists.
Citing unnamed US and European counterterrorism officials, The Washington Post said the flow of recruits has continued unabated in spite of an intensified campaign over the past year by the CIA to eliminate Al-Qa'ida and Taliban commanders in drone missile attacks.
Since January, at least 30 recruits from Germany have travelled to Pakistan for training, said the report, which cited German security sources.
About 10 people have returned to Germany this year, fuelling concerns that fresh plots are in the works against European targets, the paper said.
“We think this is sufficient to show how serious the threat is,” The Post quotes a senior German counterterrorism official as saying.
German security services have been on high alert since last month, when groups affiliated with the Taliban and al-Qa'ida issued several videos warning that an attack on German targets was imminent if the government did not bring home its forces from Afghanistan, the paper noted.
There are about 3800 German troops in the country, the third-largest NATO contingent after those of the United States and Britain.
German officials say Taliban and Al-Qa'ida leaders are trying to exploit domestic opposition in Germany to the war, The Post noted.
 Islamists are sworn to make war on the West, to drive out freedom and democracy, replacing them with the mandated tyranny of Islamic law.They declare all laws and all nations that do not originate or abide by Islamic law to be invalid. And they reserve the right to make war on them by any means necessary, from the political to the economic to the terroristic. And yet it might surprise many people to realize that most Islamists are not haggard fanatics living off dried goat meat in caves.
Instead many of them are doctors and lawyers working in major American and European cities, they serve as advisors to Western politicians and write newspaper columns. Their organizations are treated with respect and given veto power over the policies of governments whose existence they reject.
And that in a nutshell is the trouble of it all. Because Islamism should carry a price, instead it only carries rewards.
Islamists in Europe and America do not actually have to be isolated hermits working out of a few ghettos. Instead they are able to gain all the benefits of the West, from advanced degrees to high paying jobs to political recognition, while maintaining their hatred for the West.
The results are inevitable. The investigation of a CERN physicist for contacts with Al Queda, and a Glasgow doctor and dentist attempt to carry out an airport car bombing. These are not the alienated or disenfranchised immigrants, a description that the press routinely uses to try and turn the perpetrators into victims.
No, some are even European born. Rather what they are are Islamists who blended successful lives in the society of the infidels, with their own religious fanaticism. And they were able to do that because tolerance for Islam eliminated any barriers and obstacles to being both Islamists and middle class professionals.
The question is not a casual one, because in reality most terrorism stems from the sons of the middle and upper class.
The immigrants in the ghettos may riot, toss molotov cocktails at the police and rob and rape-- but it tends to be the university graduates who actually join up with international Muslim terrorist groups and begin planning attacks.
Traditionally the middle class has always provided the upper ranks of terrorist groups, and it is no different with Islamist terrorists.
H/T: gramfan
 Larry Auster The following is only a part of a speech, “A Real Islam Policy for a Real America”, that Lawrence Auster gave at the Preserving Western Civilization conference earlier this year. It has been recently published in a book:
To deal with the crisis facing our civilization, we must be both realistic and imaginative. The realism part consists in recognizing how bad our situation is. The entire Western world is at present under the grip of the modern liberal ideology that targets every normal and familiar aspect of human life, and our entire historical way of being as a society.
The key to this liberal ideology is the belief in tolerance or non-discrimination as the ruling principle of society, the principle to which all other principles must yield. We see this belief at work in every area of modern life.
The principle of non-discrimination must, if followed consistently, destroy every human society and institution. A society that cannot discriminate between itself and other societies will go out of existence, just as an elm tree that cannot discriminate between itself and a linden tree must go out of existence. To be, we must be able to say that we are us, which means that we are different from others. If we are not allowed to distinguish between ourselves and Muslims, if we must open ourselves to everyone and everything in the world that is different from us, and if the more different and threatening the Other is, the more we must open ourselves to it, then we go out of existence.
This liberal principle of destruction is utterly simple and radically extreme. Yet very, very few people, even self-described hard-line conservatives, are aware of this principle and the hold it has over our society. Instead of opposing non-discrimination, they oppose multiculturalism and political correctness.
But let's say that we got rid of multiculturalism and political correctness. Would that end Muslim immigration? No. Multiculturalism is not the source of Muslim immigration.
The source of it is our belief that we must not discriminate against other people on the basis of their culture, their ethnicity, their nationality, their religion.
This is the idea of the 1965 Immigration Act, which was the idea of the 1964 Civil Rights Act applied to all of humanity: all discrimination is wrong, period. No one in today's society, including conservatives, feels comfortable identifying this utterly simple idea, because that would mean opposing it.
To see how powerful the belief in non-discrimination is, consider this: Prior to World War II, would any Western country have considered admitting significant numbers of Muslim immigrants? Of course not; it would have been out of the question.
The West had a concrete identity. It saw itself as white and in large part as Christian, and there was still active in the Western mind the knowledge that Islam was our historic adversary, as it has been for a thousand years, and radically alien.
But today, the very notion of stopping Muslim immigration is out of the question, it can’t even be thought.
H/T: David F.
 US and British offensives in recent months had been a failure, Mullah Omar says. Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar issued a statement on Saturday telling people of the West not to listen to US President Barack Obama's justifications of war and vowing to defeat NATO troops like other invaders of history. In a statement posted in English on a Taliban website, shahamat.org, marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and attributed to the reclusive Taliban leader, Omar said US and British offensives in recent months had been a failure. "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan calls on the public of the West not to be deceived by the assertions of Obama, who says the war in Afghanistan, is a war of necessity. The West does not have to wage this war," the statement said. "The public of the West should also not be deceived by the assertions of the General Secretary of NATO and British prime minister who claim the war in Afghanistan is for the defense of the West. Such deceiving and baseless utterances must not confuse you."
 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that the Holocaust was "a myth" is "totally unacceptable," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement Saturday. "Such statements, wherever they come from, contradict the truth and are totally unacceptable," ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said in the statement. "Attempts to rewrite history, especially as the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II is being marked this year, are an offence to the memory of all victims and all those who fought fascism," he added. Nesterenko said Ahmadinejad's comment "does not contribute to creating an international atmosphere that would foster a fruitful dialogue on issues concerning Iran." Ahmadinejad made the statement as he addressed the annual Quds Day rally in Tehran on Friday, reiterating earlier comments that had sparked outrage around the world. "The very existence of this regime is an insult to the dignity of the people Ahmadinejad said of Israel. "They (the Western powers) launched the myth of the Holocaust. They lied, they put on a show and then they support the Jews. "If as you claim the Holocaust is true, why can a study not be allowed?" he said to chants of "Death to Israel" from the crowd gathered for the annual display of solidarity with the Palestinians. Washington condemned Ahmadinejad's comments as ignorant and hateful. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband branded the comments "abhorrent as well as ignorant," and said they were "not worthy of the leader of Iran." "The coincidence of today's comments with the start of Jewish New Year only adds to the insult," he added. French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero called the remarks "unacceptable and shocking. We resolutely condemn them." In Berlin German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said they shamed Iran. Source: Ynet
 By Vijay Kumar On September 11, 2001, a war was brought to our shores by a band of men, bound by a militant ideology, in an act of mass murder. The response by the United States was a so-called “War on Terror,” a reflex that has proved to be as ineffective as it has been costly. We have spent more than a trillion dollars on invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. More than 5,000 American soldiers have died in the last eight years, and tens of thousands of American soldiers have been wounded. What has this flood of blood and money bought us? There has been no sustainable victory for the United States. There is no strategic victory; there is no political victory; there is no moral victory. And there is no peace. Islamic terrorism continues around the globe unabated. The Obama administration lately wants to avoid any taint by the phrase “War on Terror,” papering it over with even more ambiguity, calling it now an “Overseas Contingency Operation.” It’s still the same losing war, just as costly, just as ineffective. The Bush and Obama administrations’ “War on Terror”-by any name-has failed for a simple reason. It is because there is no such a thing as war on terror. Terrorism is a technique, a method, a weapon, a means to an end. Terrorism is not an enemy that can be named or identified, much less fought effectively. A “War on Terror” is a war on shadows, a war on nothing and on no one. It is a fool’s errand. Yet there is a war raging. It is a war that already had raged for 1,400 years before it was brought to our shores, a war that has laid waste to entire nations, cultures, and civilizations. The war is Universal Jihad: the eternal worldwide war on all infidel nations. Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt were Christian nations before Christianity was supplanted by Political Islam. Afghanistan was Buddhist, Iran was Zoroastrian, and Pakistan was Hindu before Radical Islam consumed their civilizations and cultures. The long-running Israeli and Palestinian conflict is not some unique standalone dispute over real estate or factionalism or any of the other wrong reasons given for it. It is simply another front in Universal Jihad’s imperialistic war for the minds and souls of man. There has never been a lasting peace there because Political Islam has no interest in making peace with infidels-and every man, woman, or child anywhere in the world who is not Muslim is branded as infidel. The crisis in the Middle East never ends because Political Islam never yields to another ideology. It does not believe in or permit of peaceful co-existence. The problem is not Jews or Israel. The only thing keeping the conflict in endless, irresolvable foment is a universal supremacist ideology that demands the conquest of Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Chinese, the West and sub-Saharan Africa. The purpose of Universal Jihad, its mandate, its raison d’etre is conquest of the infidels and their nations-all of them-whether by conversion, domination, or death. In Political Islam, there is no fourth choice. It does not countenance any form of permanent peace with infidels.
Read more here,,,,
Source: Western Front America H/T: DF
Islamic Leader’s Anti-West Messages Are Lies
Friday, September 11, 2009 7:49 AM - Tawfik Hamid An open letter to Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri Dr. al-Zawahiri, many years ago, as a student at University of Cairo Medical School Mosque, when I joined Jammaa Islamia, I sat in front of you, and listened fervently to your sermons. At that time, I looked up to you as my mentor who was going to guide me through the correct path to the divine. I cannot forget your fiery speeches, enthusiastic, extraordinary charisma and your dedication to the cause of Islam. Once, I remember you placing your hand over my shoulder, telling me that my generation is the hope for Islam. I was truly captivated; I was so young and mislead by your appealing charm as many others were. As I looked deeply into your eyes, I hoped that you would lead me to find my path to spirituality. Instead, you led me into the corridor of hatred and violence. I was deceived by your sharp authoritative look and your powerful speeches, but after all, I was fortunate to recognize early enough that I was on the wrong course. You taught me and other members of the JI that the West is evil because it does not implement Shariah law. You explained that it allows women to dress as they wish, and provide them full freedom. Back then, I was deceived by your statements. But let me ask you now, which is preferable; the western system that respects basic values of freedom for women or the Salafi Islamic system that you follow that suppresses and justifies beating women, allows polygamy, permits slavery, and still promotes stoning women to death for adultery? Dr. al-Zawahiri, after all these years, I discovered that the values that you promoted for “modesty” of our Muslim women are not sincerely values of modesty as you claimed, but rather immoral means to enslave them. According to our Shariah system, a Muslim woman engaged sexually with a man on her free will, should be punished by death, yet if a man sold the same woman as a slave to the same man to engage in sex with him — against her free will — it is until now acceptable in our Islamic laws. Do you consider that moral or just? Obviously, the entire issue is not modesty for Muslim women as you claimed but rather a way to control them. Read All here. http://www.newsmax.com/tawfik_hamid/zawahiri_muslims_qaida/2009/09/11/258846.html
 |
|
|
Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
|
|
|
Posts
