Cowards
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Government officials from New Jersey and New York City, along with Department of Homeland Security leaders, met with Islamist “grievance group” leaders from CAIR and other Islamist groups in March 2012 after the Left’s unfounded attacks against the New York City Police Department’s counterterrorism programs reached a crescendo. It’s also been reported that FBI director Robert Mueller recently met with leaders from seven different ethnic or religious groups after it was revealed by Wired magazine that the FBI had used some training materials that contained Muslim stereotypes or were “anti-Muslim.” USA Today has also reported that the head of the Detroit field office met with “about 50 Arab-American and Muslim leaders in October to address their concerns about anti-Muslim training. And U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade of the Eastern District of Michigan worked on outreach, speaking on an Arab-American radio show to assuage concerns.”
These meetings convey a message that the Islamist narrative of what is and what is not anti-Muslim is somehow approved by our government. This, in turn, allows the Islamists to insulate themselves from criticism.
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Too few Americans understand how most Muslims in the Middle East view the Arab Spring events that continue to unfold. When viewed through the prism of Western logic and values it’s easy to see a democracy movement taking shape. But many Islamists in the Middle East see it much differently. They recognize it as a necessary step toward the establishment of the global caliphate, something that many Muslims around the world and throughout Islamic history have strived for. Many consider the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, a union of fifty-seven Islamic-majority nations that exerts inordinate control over the U.N., as the building block of a neo-caliphate. And for very good reasons: why else would these otherwise unrelated autocracies form a union?
The truth is that these Muslims have a very different concept of freedom than most of us. To them, the word freedom means freedom from man-made laws. Brigitte Gabriel, a Christian born in Lebanon, explains this concept in her book They Must Be Stopped by quoting Abu Abdullah, a senior member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation), a group with membership in the hundreds of thousands: “We want to free all people from being slaves of men and make them slaves to Allah.”
The group believes that this is a religious duty and an obligation that Allah has decreed for all Muslims and commanded them to fulfill. They warn Muslims of the punishment that awaits those who neglect this duty. Hizb ut-Tahrir is growing in numbers and influence, including in America, and they are convincing many followers that establishing the caliphate is their religious duty.
Historian and theologian Jim Murk explains the concept of the Islamic caliphate like this: “[D]edicated Islamists envision a military takeover of all nations of the world and restoration of a united Islamic super state—called a caliphate. This would be a theocracy with all men in subjugation to Allah and his Shariah Law. It is the primary goal and motivating force behind fundamentalist Islam.”
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Two Paths, Same Destination
All of these terms that are used to define various segments of Islam can get confusing since they’re not all interchangeable. For example, “fundamentalist Islam,” as Murk wrote, can really take two forms: militant and lawful. Militant Islamists use force to achieve their global vision of Islamist domination, while “lawful Islamists,” as dubbed by Daniel Pipes, use democratic means to rise to power and then implement Islamist systems, states, and laws (shariah) in order to dominate nations and ultimately the world. The end goals might be the same, but the means are very different.
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Other scholars agree that the establishment of a global Islamic state or Ummah (Islamic community) is the primary goal of Islamic fundamentalists who believe that the Quran mandates it in the following translated passage:
God has promised those of you who have attained to faith and do righteous deeds that, of a certainty, He will cause them to accede to power on earth, even as He caused [some of] those who lived before them to accede to it; and that, of a certainty, He will firmly establish for them the religion which He has been pleased to bestow on them; and that, of a certainty, He will cause their erstwhile state of fear to be replaced by a sense of security [seeing that] they worship Me [alone], not ascribing divine powers to aught beside Me. But all who, after [having understood] this, choose to deny the truth—it is they, they who are truly iniquitous!
Another well-known Islamic scholar, Mullah Muhammad Taqi Sabzevari, puts it this way: “Allah has promised that the day will come when the whole of mankind will be united under the banner of Islam, when the sign of the crescent, the symbol of Muhammad, will be supreme everywhere.”
If you’re not an Islamic fundamentalist, you may have been underwhelmed after you finished reading that Quran verse that provides the theological ammunition for the caliphate. You may be wondering how this obscure verse could really compel followers to want to conquer the world through jihad (holy war). I don’t blame you; I had the same reaction. But what you need to understand is that it is all a matter of interpretation over the centuries. Renowned and influential jurists, imams, and scholars have written extensively about this subject with the same view: it is doctrinal that Muslims must bring the world into submission to Allah and establish the Islamic world community or caliphate.
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Crazy Caliphate Conspiracy Critic: David Brooks
[T]here was an interesting split among the Glenn Beck types, really with delusional ravings about the caliphate coming back, and I would say the conservative establishment, which saw [the end of the Mubarak regime in Egypt] as a fulfillment of Ronald Reagan’s democracy dream. . . . And Glenn Beck, and you—for the first real time, you began to see a lot of really serious conservatives taking on Beck and people like that, and saying, you know, your theories are just wacky.
— NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST DAVID BROOKS, APPEARING ON PBS
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Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaeda, wrote a letter in 2005 to the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq confirming that the caliphate is an objective of the world’s most notorious terror network: “The establishment of a caliphate in the manner of the prophet will not be achieved except through jihad against the apostate rulers and their removal.”
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Sunni versus Shia
Both Sunni and Shia Muslims believe in an Islamic messiah or “Mahdi” (promised one) but they differ somewhat on how the Mahdi will return and what the lineage of the Mahdi will be. The two sects split early in the history of Islam (632 A.D.) over the issue of who should succeed Muhammad after he died. Sunnis believed that a pious man must be chosen by the community, while Shias insisted that the leader be a blood relative of Muhammad. That divide, with a number of additional differences in the details of the traditions, still exists today, but both sects generally believe in the coming Mahdi. The caliphate will be the Mahdi’s kingdom, over which he will rule and bring Islamic law.
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THE CALIPHATE: PAST AND FUTURE
The final caliphate was the Ottoman Empire, which conquered most of North Africa and much of the northern Mediterranean, including vast areas of southern Europe, during a time when the Iberian Peninsula was under Arab rule. The Ottomans were the great hope of most of the Islamic world for establishing the global caliphate that would ultimately be the Mahdi’s domain.
The hope of the Muslim world did not last. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk destroyed the Ottoman Empire in 1924 when, as part of his reforms, he constitutionally abolished the institution of the caliphate. The Turkish Republic was then formed, and the dreams of many Islamists throughout the world were destroyed.
In 1928, an Islamic cleric’s son in Cairo decided to resurrect that great hope by creating a new organization that would seek to bring about Islamic dominance across the world and ultimately unite the global community under a single legal system: shariah. Hassan al-Banna founded the International Muslim Brotherhood (IMB), also known
by its Arabic title, “Ikhwan al-Muslimeen.” Its express purpose was twofold: to implement shariah worldwide, and to reestablish the imperial Islamic state (caliphate). Their creed: “God is our objective; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.”
The Brotherhood has since become a global organization that has given birth to offshoot extremist groups like al-Qaeda, Hamas, and many others. The exact date that the Brotherhood came to America is not clear, but in 1963 they created their first American front organization at the University of Illinois, Urbana: the Muslim Student Association, which now has chapters at over a hundred colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada.
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I Guess He’s a Conspiracy Theorist, Too?
Magnus Ranstorp is the director of the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at Sweden’s National Defense College. In his work on “Preventing Violent Radicalization and Terrorism: The Case of Indonesia,” he wrote:
“Our research demonstrates that the Caliph imagery is a strong motivator within Muslim discourse. Pious zealots are often swept into the political expression of Jihad while attending small study groups. . . . For some Muslims, the imagery of an Islam reflective of the golden era of Muhammad is a religious value worthy of pursuit in terms of life goals, finances, and personal sacrifice ‘in the cause of Allah.’ This ideological war for the ‘hearts and minds’ for Muslims is considered a war for a ‘collective identity’ and has no shortage of patriots willing to join the struggle.”
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While the Brotherhood has created other front organizations (many of which were listed as co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial), they have not changed their objectives; they are still determined to destroy America from within and make shariah the law of the land. And they are growing exponentially in virtually every part of the world. The nations experiencing the Arab Spring are in many cases, such as Egypt, seeing the Brotherhood surface as the dominant political power. This could ultimately turn many of those nations into Islamic republics.
If history is a window into the future, then we only need to reflect on the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the late 1970s for a template as to how this “Arab Spring” may go. The Ayatollah Khomeini used eloquent terms like “democracy” and “liberty” when writing to his supporters. He even made secret audiotapes that were smuggled into Iran with messages for the people. He promised that if the people of Iran would rid themselves of the hated shah, then he would return from exile in France and bring freedom to the Iranian people.
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Crazy Caliphate Conspiracy Critic: Jeffrey Goldberg
Of course, the conspiracy goes deeper than Beck has yet revealed. I’m hoping that, in coming days, if the Freemasons, working in concert with Hezbollah and the Washington Redskins, don’t succeed in suppressing the truth, that Beck will reveal the identities of the most pernicious players in this grotesque campaign to subvert our way of life.
I can’t reveal too much here. But I think it’s fair to say that Beck will be paying a lot of attention in the coming weeks to the dastardly, pro-caliphate work of Joy Behar; the makers of Little Debbie snack cakes; the 1980s hair band Def Leppard; Omar Sharif; and the Automobile Association of America. And remember, you read it here first.
—JEFFREY GOLDBERG, WRITING IN THE ATLANTIC
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There was just one problem. His concept of “freedom” was much different than ours. He meant freedom from man-made laws.
The shah was deposed in January 1979. Within two months after returning to Iran, Khomeini declared the country to be an Islamic republic that would be ruled under Islamic law. The same thing is now happening in many of these “Arab Spring” countries.
THE WAY OUT
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser (full disclosure: he’s a good friend of mine) is a devout Muslim whose family has helped build a number of mosques across the United States, including one he helped found in his current hometown in Arizona in 2001. The son of Syrian immigrants who fled Baathist oppression for American freedom, Dr. Jasser is a Wisconsin native who served eleven years in the U.S. Navy as a medical officer. He’s also the founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a prodemocracy Muslim group that rejects Islamism and shariah in government, and he’s written a great book, The Battle for the Soul of Islam, that I cannot recommend highly enough.
Dr. Jasser has dedicated his life to encouraging other Muslims to be bold and outspoken in their rejection of political Islam and its shariah, as defined by groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. His reward for his work on behalf of his fellow Muslims has been isolation and criticism from many Muslim communities and threats from radical Islamists in America and abroad.
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Crazy Caliphate Conspiracy Critic: Chris Matthews
This is, and I do not use the term lightly, looney tunes.
—CHRIS MATTHEWS, ON MY EXPLANATION OF THE CALIPHATE
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Dr. Jasser believes that most Muslims in America enjoy the liberties offered here and reject the fundamentalist view of shariah, but that they are too intimidated to speak out. When radical Islamists encouraged Muslims in America not to speak to police, Dr. Jasser countered with encouragement to Muslims to help police and to engage and cooperate with law enforcement as an issue of civic duty. He has even testified multiple times at congressional hearings to be an example for other Muslims in America who reject shariah.
Dr. Jasser is not alone in his efforts. There are other groups in America who are working with Muslim communities to help them to have a voice in the U.S. dialogue on shariah. He has, in fact, brought many of them together in an emerging coalition called the American Islamic Leadership Coalition, a diverse group of over twenty anti–Muslim Brotherhood (anti-Islamist) American Muslim leaders. The problem is that most Muslims are still so frightened by the hard-core, radical Islamists that they are afraid to speak candidly for fear of retaliation by elements of the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates.
At nearly every level, politicians and the mainstream media go to great lengths to appease and mollify the groups who are trying to, at best, circumvent and, at worst, destroy, our Constitution. When U.S. government “outreach” programs focus on the radical Islamist elements of the Muslim community, it sends a very discouraging message to the likes of Dr. Jasser and his group. No one seems to be making a serious effort to find and engage those Muslims who reject the teachings of shariah.
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May Your Prayer Be Ignored
Jasser was recently called the “devil” by a poster on an al-Qaeda website in the Middle East. They also prayed that “Allah tear his organs asunder.”
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Americans should be encouraging and supporting these people, and the media should not be ignoring them. We must help them find their voice. Then again, it’s absolutely true that the squeaky wheel gets the grease—and there is no wheel making more noise in the world today than those who are passionately promoting their cause of worldwide Islamic law.
Muslims who support the U.S. Constitution and love their country are the natural allies of all free Americans, yet they remain relatively silent. They are discouraged by what they see in the American government and by the American media. We cannot turn our backs on them.
“Osama Bin Laden is not going to come here and destroy America. Our education system is doing that just fine.”
—Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone
IT’S NO coincidence that America has been debating how to “improve” the quality of education for as long as the government’s been involved in it. While we’re one of the top nations in the world in terms of per capita education spending, we’re nowhere near the top in terms of student performance. Out of 34 civilized countries, American kids rank 25th in math, 14th in reading, and 17th in science.
There’s something wrong here. And somebody’s making an awful lot of money off the status quo.
Ideas and proposals for reform have come and gone over the decades. Some, like “No Child Left Behind,” have actually been implemented, only for the public to quickly realize that those kinds of programs often just make things worse. It’s too bad that it takes failing federal regulations for people to realize that the federal government itself is the problem.
This may be painful to read, but I think it’s important to be reminded of all the political rhetoric and broken promises over the years. If you’re like me, you’ll feel your blood start to boil as you read these quotes and think about all of the time we’ve wasted and all of the kids we’ve let down as a result.
Let’s go back to President George H. W. Bush’s administration. During his 1992 State of the Union address, Bush explained, “We must be the world’s leader in education. And we must revolutionize America’s schools. My America 2000 strategy will help us reach that goal.”
Except, nothing really changed. By 1993, it was President Clinton’s turn to echo that same message. “We’ll push innovative education reform to improve learning, not just spend more money,” he said.
The following year he took a page out of the Bush playbook: “Our Goals 2000 proposal will empower individual school districts to experiment with ideas like chartering their schools to be run by private corporations, or having more public school choice. . . .”