The Worldwide Jihad: The Truth About Islamic Terrorism

by Robert Spencer

  Rimsha reportedly has Down syndrome, yet was charged with blasphemy for allegedly burning some pages of the Qur’an among some trash she had collected. Even worse, a Muslim cleric has now been accused of planting the pages of the Qur’an among the remnants of the papers she burned, so as to ensure her conviction. According to Pakistan’s Dawn, a witness “said he tried to stop the cleric from tampering with the evidence, but he insisted it would strengthen the case and lead to eviction of the girl’s family from the locality.”

  The case of Rimsha Masih has thus highlighted the irrationality and cruelty of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, and how they are used against the country’s small Christian minority and other non-Muslims in Pakistan. For years, untold numbers of non-Muslims have been persecuted, harassed, deprived of property, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and even murdered under their provisions. It is widely documented that Muslims often use them as a tool to settle scores or seize the possessions of non-Muslims with whom they have some dispute. Yet up until the case of Rimsha Masih and a similar case involving another Christian woman, Asia Bibi, last year, the international human rights community has taken little notice.

  However, Barack Obama has just dealt a huge setback to any effort to compel Pakistan to drop its blasphemy laws in the interest of human rights, by effectively enforcing Islamic blasphemy laws against American military personnel. For last month, U.S. military brass announced that they were going to punish six American troops who were involved in the notorious burning of Qur’ans in Afghanistan last February.

  “The administrative punishments,” according to Reuters, “could include things like reduce rank or forfeiture of pay.” Nonetheless, these “fell short of criminal prosecution, and it was unclear whether they would satisfy Afghan demands for justice.”

  Actually, it is not unclear at all: they won’t. Huge numbers of Afghans will not be satisfied with anything less than the deaths of those involved in burning Qur’ans, for death is what Islamic law prescribes for the blasphemer. The troops meant no more malice toward the Qur’an, Islam, or Muslims than did Rimsha Masih, and in fact, only burned the Qur’ans because jihadist prisoners at the Bagram base north of Kabul were using them to pass messages to each other.

  But that doesn’t matter to the Afghans who are enraged at the troops for burning the Muslim holy book, and it apparently doesn’t matter to Obama’s politically correct military leaders, either. Burning Qur’ans is not a crime according to American law, but only under Islamic law; thus the “administrative punishments” meted out to American troops for disposing of Qur’ans that had been used by enemies of the United States to plot against American personnel represent the enforcement of Sharia by the U.S. military.

  Thus the senators who wrote to Zardari should write to Obama as well, if they want to see an end to the victimization of non-Muslims by Islamic blasphemy laws. For the United States continues to make non-Muslims suffer under unjust charges of blasphemy against this most thin-skinned of religions.

  If these American troops do indeed suffer demotion and/or a loss of pay for burning the Qur’an, they can at least take comfort in the fact that as a new Islamic state (one of the largest in the world, as Obama claimed a few years ago), the U.S. is considerably more moderate than Pakistan and Afghanistan as well; in both of those countries, they would have been torn apart by raging mobs long ago, if they hadn’t been already executed legally. In comparison to that, sacrificing a bit of money and honor to the cause of Islam is certainly a small price to pay. Above all, the sanctity of the Qur’an is preserved, and that is apparently all that matters these days.

  Russell Brand and the Degeneration of the Public Discourse

  President Obama's reelection was the result of forty years of work and more, as the hard Left took control not only of the government, but of the media, the educational system, and the entertainment industry. No one has been willing to admit it, or has much noticed, but we live now in essentially a one-party state, in which the loyal opposition hastens to assure the public that its positions are based on the same core philosophy as that of the majority, but it just has a cleverer or more effective or cheaper way of implementing the majority's will. Those who dare go so far as to question that core philosophy are immediately subjected to opprobrium designed to brand them as Enemies of the People, shunned as quickly and viciously as were the victims of Stalin's show trials.

  And so it was that my colleague Pamela Geller appeared recently on Russell Brand's BrandX, in an appearance that clearly Brand, who is apparently a fashionable personality of some note, had designed to use as a teaching moment, so as to warn his dimwitted followers that they must not resist the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, on pain of being read out of polite company and subjected to the ridicule and derision to which he subjected Geller.

  To be sure, ridicule is a prescribed Alinskyite tactic for dealing with ideological enemies, but it is more than that as well: it is a confession of intellectual bankruptcy. Brand had Geller on not to discuss issues with her, or to hear her out at all. He would not have a fair and open discussion with her because he could not do so; after all, he is an actor, a professional liar, and she tells the unvarnished and unwelcome truth. But even had he been as informed and committed as anyone on the Left, he could not refute her, since the facts are on her side. So her ideological deviancy, her straying from the straight path, had to be exposed in other ways.

  Brand chose to illustrate Geller's heresy by planting a Muslim heckler in the audience with a printed sign reading, "Pamela's Racism KILLS" (what race is jihad terror and Islamic supremacism again)? He lauded the heckler and even brought him up onto the stage, while agitatedly ordering that a microphone be moved away from a woman in the audience who stood up to defend Geller. Then Brand's producer, Charles Davis, published a piece that supposedly showed how Geller, when she was allowed to speak on the show at all, had contradicted positions she had taken at her blog, AtlasShrugs.com. Davis could only establish this, of course, by willfully misreading and misrepresenting what Geller actually said, but, as in the old Soviet Union, ideological deviants are not to be accorded any greater courtesy than that in any case.

  Geller fought back valiantly, challenging Brand to debate the issues rationally, explaining her positions, and responding to even the most vicious and unfair of Brand's (and the Muslim heckler's) assertions. But one gets no hint of this from the video that aired—virtually everything that she said ended up on the cutting-room floor. If Brand had any integrity (ah, but there I am already setting the bar too high), he would release the full video of the Geller interview. But it is extremely unlikely that he will do that, as it would not serve his ideological purpose.

  In this age of Obama, this is what passes for public debate: the politically incorrect one is subjected to scorn and ridicule, is not allowed to respond, and the Leftists who are doing the ridiculing then congratulate themselves on their moral and intellectual superiority. It is not debate, but rather anti-debate, the absence of discussion, the parody of discourse. The point, in fact, is not to refute the assertions and claims of the ideological deviant in question, but merely to signal to the ideologically obedient that this person is to be shunned, is not to be listened to, not to be taken seriously, and above all not to be believed or emulated.

  It is the tactic of hyenas, of totalitarians, of the Nazi brownshirts who used to show up at the lectures of dissenting professors, not to argue with them, but only to heckle them, threaten them, and demoralize them, so as to intimidate them into silence. They thought that they represented the future, the dawning of a new age of justice, when ancient wrongs would be righted and ancient evils be put down forever. They thought tomorrow belonged to them. So, certainly, do their ideological heirs today, who are not Pamela Geller and her followers, but Russell Brand and his.

  But Russell Brand will find, just as did those brownshirts, that the truth cannot forever be brutalized and ridiculed into silence. It will, one day, rise up, and put them in the place the
y deserve to be.

  Rick Perry’s Jihad Problem

  Rick Perry is woefully unfit to be president of the United States, but not because he couldn't remember a key element of his own program during a recent debate, or because he gave a speech while possibly drunk. Rick Perry is woefully unfit to be president of the United States because he is a tool of Grover Norquist, the man who may be more responsible than anyone else for enabling Muslim Brotherhood access to the highest levels of power in the U.S.

  While it is hard for any Republican candidate to avoid Norquist altogether, so all-pervasive is his influence and power, Norquist is clearly much closer to Perry than to other candidates. Perry and Grover Norquist held a joint press conference in March 2011. Perry appeared at a fundraiser for Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform group. Also, Norquistactively campaigned for Perry back in 2009. Their association is longstanding: Perry was investigated by the Texas Ethics Commission in 2004 for allegations that the governor illegally used campaign money to finance a trip to the Bahamas. The point here is not the allegations, but the fact that along on the Bahamas trip at his own expense was Grover Norquist. Perry and Norquist are clearly not just casual acquaintances.

  Which other candidates have fundraised for Norquist? Which have vacationed with him?

  Then there is the whole business of the Perry/Aga Khan curriculum on Islam for Texas schools, a complete whitewash of Islam and jihad that was initiated and officially sanctioned by Perry himself. The Perry campaign obviously realized how damaging the curriculum could have been to their man's chances, and so deleted it not only from the web, but also from the Google cache. All the while, Perry's attack dogs on the web energetically spread misinformation and disinformation about the curriculum, while smearing those who called attention to the problems with it.

  The Perry love affair was a comedy. Some of the stalwart voices who had initially sounded the alarm about Norquist and his baneful influence within the Republican Party suddenly discovered that hey, an association with Grover really isn't that bad a thing, and everybody does it, so what's the big deal? Others who profess to be anti-sharia decided that Perry's sponsoring a whitewashed Islam curriculum was just fine, since his partner in doing so was the Aga Khan, a "moderate."

  The Perry onslaught became particularly virulent when individuals and websites with a reputation for intellectual and journalistic rigor uncritically repeated to large audiences the falsehoods that were being spread about the curriculum. These falsehoods originated with an obscure blogger named David Stein, who falsely claimed that one teacher's lesson plan, completed for an assignment in the teacher training program for the Perry/Aga Khan curriculum, was the official curriculum itself. Since this teacher, Ronald Wiltse, had completed a reasonably good lesson plan, this led many to claim—again, falsely—that there wasn't anything wrong with the curriculum at all.

  Yet what was most striking about the rapid spread of these false claims was their origin. David Stein's blog, CounterContempt.com, in June 2011, just before the Perry firestorm, had all of 179 visitors all month. Yet somehow blogs with tens of thousands more visitors daily found Stein's false claims about the curriculum and spread them far and wide in defense of Perry. The Iranian-American writer Amil Imani published a piece, "Governor Perry's Islam Connection," which retailed the false information about the Perry/Aga Khan curriculum on Islam for Texas schools that Stein originated. Imani relied for his information on the curriculum on a piece by Alana Goodman at Commentary. Goodman in turn relied on David Stein.

  Others relied on Stein as well. Some conservative bloggers, including erstwhile friends and allies, responded to Perry's candidacy with cult-like devotion, invoked Stein's false claims, and asked me to delink them and denounced me because I dared question their god. One anti-jihad writer of some reputation for clear thinking about the reality of jihadist teachings and tendencies across the various Islamic sects suddenly discovered, in support of Imani and Stein, an obscure historian from the 1930s whose statements supposedly proved that the misleading and politically correct Perry Islamic curriculum for Texas schools was perfectly fine.

  It was remarkable testimony to the power, as well as the anxiety, of the Perry faithful that David Stein's obscure blog, with no readership, no history, and no reputation for credibility, could publish a false claim about the curriculum that so many big blogs would be ready immediately to publicize, while publishing the most outlandish charges against those of us who published the real curriculum.

  How the big conservative blogs and even Commentary all found David Stein's tiny blog has never been explained.

  Nonetheless, all the Perry camp's chicanery appears to be for naught. Perry will probably never be president, and that's a good thing. If, however, his campaign does revive and he surges again in the polls, I hope that his followers will behave with more integrity. But I won't be holding my breath.

  Mona Eltahawy Coulda Been a Contender (Instead of a Bum, Which Is What She Is)

  In the classic movie On the Waterfront, the failed boxer Terry Malloy complains in anguish to his brother: “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” Those words apply with particular piquancy to the “journalist” Mona Eltahawy, who goes to court the Thursday after Thanksgiving to defend herself (“proudly”) against a criminal mischief charge stemming from her vandalism of one of our AFDI pro-freedom ad in the New York subways.

  As the court date draws near, the mystery remains: why would a renowned and respected journalist resort to a juvenile act of vandalism and persist even when confronted? Here’s a clue: reading this ABC News report on the arrest, these lines leapt out at me:

  “This is non-violent protest, see this America” Eltahawy said in the video as police officers were arresting her. “I’m an Egyptian-American and I refuse hate.”

  She refuses “hate.” Now, on the surface, it isn’t at all surprising that a journalist who is regularly featured on the likes of CNN would identify support for Israel against the relentless and bloody Palestinian jihad with “hate.” But for a time, and not all that long ago, it looked as if Mona Eltahawy was breaking out of the ideological lockstep in which Leftist and Islamic supremacist mainstream media journalists invariably march.

  For example, her article in the May/June issue of Foreign Policy criticized a series of practices that are justified in Islamic law, including child marriage, wife-beating, and female genital mutilation. Counter-jihadist activists and writers have been calling attention to these human rights abuses for years, but Eltahawy’s piece was singular in that she is a Muslim journalist. Muslims for the most part don’t criticize Muslim practices, particularly those that are rooted in Islam, and mainstream media journalists do so even less often.

  However, the reaction to Eltahawy’s article among her fellow Muslim women is even more striking than her article itself. If the mainstream media narrative about “extremists” making up only a tiny minority of Muslims, the vast majority of which are “moderate,” were true, Eltahawy’s article should have won applause from Muslim spokesmen in the U.S., and particularly Muslim women. But instead, Harvard Leila Ahmed confronted Eltahawy on MSNBC:

  Mona, I appreciate what you do. I would love it if—I understand if you want to get your message across. It’s an important message. But if possible [you should not] give fuel, fodder to people who simply hate Arabs and Muslims in this climate of our day.

  Eltahawy, you see, told unwelcome truths about Islam and was accused of spreading “hate”—which is exactly what the Left and the Islamic supremacists do to those of us who have been telling those truths for years. But this was something new for Eltahaway, who had reliably been on the Left’s media reservation throughout her career. Now she was suddenly being criticized by her old friends, probably not invited to the best parties, etc.

  So instead of having the courage of her convictions, Eltahawy folded, and cast about for a way to distance herself from counter-jihad freedom activists and prove that she
was on the right (Left) side and would not make waves again. What better way than to vandalize our pro-freedom message, all the while accusing Pamela Geller and her allies of the “hate” she was accused of when she told the truth about Islam?

  The arrest, even if she didn’t expect it or plan it, was icing on the cake: because of it, she was immediately lionized as a hero and martyr by the very people who were shunning her for her Foreign Policy piece: the hate-filled Leftist totalitarians who despise free speech anyway, such as Hamas-linked CAIR’s Cyrus McGoldrick and Islamic Republic of Iran apologist Reza Aslan.

  Mona Eltahawy could have been a journalist of integrity, and almost was, for a brief moment. Instead, she is a fascist brownshirt. She coulda been a contender, instead of a bum, which is what she is.

  Domestic Jihad Victims Deserve Purple Heart

  The Purple Heart, a United States military honor awarded for military merit, is specifically to be given, according to U.S. Army regulations, for “wounds received as a result of hostile action,” including fatal wounds. It can be awarded in peacetime “to military personnel wounded by terrorists or while members of a peacekeeping force.” Yet the twelve U.S. military personnel (plus one civilian) murdered by Islamic jihadist Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood in Texas on November 5, 2009 have not been awarded the Purple Heart, and neither has Army Private William Long, who was murdered by Islamic jihadist Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad in Little Rock, Arkansas on June 1, 2009.

  The reason for this is obvious: the Obama administration has not recognized either the Fort Hood or the Little Rock jihad attack as an act of terrorism. Thus the military personnel killed at Fort Hood and Private Long were not “wounded by terrorists”; hence no Purple Heart. Thus they become casualties not only of the global and domestic jihad, but of the politically correct refusal of official Washington to call that jihad what it is, and to recognize its full dimensions.