Not Religiously Motivated

Just plain insanity:

A British Muslim has shown 'no remorse' after desecrating a town's war memorial with extremist Islamic slogans, a court has heard.

But the Crown Prosecution Service has decided that graffiti proclaiming future world domination for Islam, glorifying Osama Bin Laden and calling for the assassination of the British Prime Minister, 'was not religiously or racially motivated'.

Of course not! What are you, an Islamophobe?

Shah admitted spraying the words 'Islam will dominate the world - Osama is on his way' and 'Kill Gordon Brown' on the plinth of the East Staffordshire Borough Council-owned memorial, on December 10 last year.

He was given a two-year conditional discharge and was ordered to pay £500 compensation to the council, plus £85 costs.

That'll teach the young rapscallion!

Defending solicitor Mumtaz Chaudry dismissed any belief that Shah held extremist views.

He said: 'This is nothing to do with his religious beliefs, his family's beliefs or his cultural beliefs. He is just an ordinary guy.

'He is remorseful but, at the time of his interview, he was simply answering questions and didn't realise that was the right time to show remorse.

'He has no extremist views, his action doesn't help the bad reaction in the community.

'It was uncalled for, but we make mistakes. It was a stupid mistake and he is determined not to repeat it.'

All that hate was just a joke, you see. Give him a glass of milk and let him simmer down and he won't want Islam to dominate the world anymore.

This is modern Britain, and only UKIP can reverse its inexorable decline into dhimmitude.

Bostom: Pompous Ass

Bostom (left) and Spencer (right) - one of these men is a childish ass and a traitor

Andrew Bostom's two currently published works of scholarship, The Legacy of Jihad and the The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, are brilliant, meticulously researched additions to the vast library of Islamo-critical literature. I do not exaggerate when I say that they are two of the most precious resources on the subject that I own.

On the other hand, Bostom himself has always seemed to me to be a pompous ass, and he has demonstrated this recently in blog posts accusing another stalwart champion of freedom, Robert Spencer, of plagiarising his work.

The controversy follows on from Spencer's post here discussing the flawed argumentation of a professor that the "roots" of Islamic antisemitism come from Hitler. Spencer's article does, admittedly, lean heavily on the arguments and sources used in Bostom's work, but that does NOT make plagiarism. Bostom, in his self-righteous arrogance, seems to be ignoring the fact that the entire purpose of his book The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism is to serve as a reference work for other writers, as well as the fact that other notable writers have also "plagiarised" his work. For example, Ibn Warraq's book Defending the West contains a whole section on Islamic antisemitism, the entirety of which is based upon argumentation and sources derived from Bostom. Warraq even quotes some of Bostom's unique primary sources, without attributing them to Bostom himself. Why does Bostom not accuse him of plagiarism? Perhaps Bostom learned all this from Warraq, but this is unlikely given that none of the material about antisemitism was reference in Warraq's previous book, Why I am Not a Muslim, and in in case, this would then make Bostom the plagiarist. Elsewhere, the books of both Bostom and Bat Ye'or contain identical sections on the myth of the "Andalusian Golden Age" which use the exact same wording and facts. One of them must have plagiarised the other, and yet neither have made any kind of complaint up to now.

Bostom's definition of plagiarism is simply unreasonable and illogical. If using the same sources or making the same arguments as someone else equals plagiarism, then Bostom himself is a plagiarist, since his work is full of approving quotations of other scholars' arguments, without offering his own "take" on those arguments. Moreover, Bostom is being inconsistent and hypocritical. On numerous occasions, he has taken debate opponents to task for failing to make references to certain sources and information that are referenced in his own books. For example, during a debate on the roots of jihad and antisemitism with Matthias Kuntzel, Bostom maintained that Kuntzel "ignores copious doctrinal and historical evidence...summarized in the discussion that follows."Over the course of two rounds of debate, Bostom accused Kuntzel (correctly, I must add) around fifteen times of "ignoring" important information. And yet, what if Kuntzel had made reference to the information and sources cited by Bostom? Would Bostom have accused him of plagiarism? To do so would be absolutely absurd, and Bostom undoubtedly knew that then, so why he has chosen now to launch vicious , outright nasty attacks on Spencer for merely telling the truth is unfathomable.

This is not going well. First, Charles Johnson decided to betray all his friends and allies in an unconscionable display of mental retardation. Now Bostom has done the same, for reasons unknown to the rational mind. If those who oppose jihad and Islamic infidel-hatred can't learn to unify despite disagreements, what is to become of the free world?

Something Missing?

At Jihad Watch today, guest poster Michael Williams makes some important observations about the recently leaked Downing Street memo mocking the Pope in the lead-up to his upcoming visit to Britain. As Williams points out:

In response, British officials quickly apologized, and announced that the responsible party had been verbally reprimanded, and shifted to other duties. Note that he wasn't fired, he isn't living in hiding under 24-hour guard, and that the streets did not fill with crowds of ranting Irish and Polish youths demanding his death. There hasn't been an international campaign of violence and intimidation aimed at Englishmen. The bigoted bureaucrat was simply shifted to another job. Hmm.... It almost makes you think that some religions operate differently than others.

Indeed. Not, of course, that I think the "responsible party" (who has been revealed to be a Pakistani, although colleagues have denied that he is a Muslim) should have been fired. Gentle mocking of the Pope, whether one agrees with it or not, falls quite comfortably under the label of legitimate self-expression. But Williams' larger point is key: there have been no death threats against Anjoum Noorani or anyone else involved in the memo's, and there isn't an atmosphere of intimidation around anyone who insults or mocks Christianity in this country, as there is around those who "offend" Muslims (stand up, Mr Rushdie). And just as importantly: while no one was fired over this memo, I do not think it is unreasonable to assume that had a Muslim leader been mocked in this way, or had Islam itself been put under the microscope, a real punishment for Mr. Noorani would have been much more likely.

Hypotheticals aside, what is clear is that our political leaders are quite happy with overt criticism of Christianity, but not at all of Islam - in fact, they tend to cosy up to the very people who pose the greatest threat against them. The reason for this lies, quite obviously, in the difference between the two religions, and our spineless leaders' unwillingness to stand up to the one causing most of the real problems.

Prepare for the Boobquake

This is one to look out for!

Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi caused outrage and raised eyebrows around the world last week when he blamed earthquakes on scantily clad women rather than the movement of the earth's tectonic plates.

Now women are being urged to put that theory to the test by donning low cut tops and short shorts on Monday April 26 to see if they can spark a tremor.

The campaign to trigger a 'Boobquake' was begun by American student Jennifer McCreight who has so far got 40,000 people to sign up to the idea on a special Facebook page (where another 150,000 have been invited) and has attracted a large following on Twitter.

All in the name of science, of course!

Election Debate #2: Summary

This was a debate about British foreign policy.

All three party leaders condemned specific Christian teachings, and their official codification by the Vatican.

None of them ever mentioned Islam.

Killing the Hydra

There are many reasons to be pleased about the recent news that two al-Qaeda leaders, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Masri, who had direct links with Osama bin Laden, were killed early on Sunday in a shootout in Iraq. These men were responsible for killing thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens as well as US and Iraqi soldiers.

But US Vice President Joe Biden is living in a fantasy world when he says, as he did yesterday, that "Their deaths are potentially devastating blows to Al-Qaeda Iraq." There has never been any evidence that killing jihadist leaders actually weakens the resolve or physical strength of their followers. In August last year, Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban leader, was killed by an American drone strike. And yet, the Taliban's influence grows still stronger in that country, and they are just as murderous as ever. Why? Because, as I wrote at the time of Mehsud's death:

The Islamic ideology of the group has been completely ignored by all opposing factions, thus ensuring that no effective method has been devised to deal with its spread and implications. This was demonstrated on the BBC news tonight when a studio "expert" claimed that the Taliban's goal was to "make Pakistan an ungovernable country", as if they were just a bunch of teenage anarchists - completely ignoring the Islamic form of governance the group actually want to implement in the country.

The mujahideen of al-Qaeda and the Taliban are not our enemies because they are just "evil men" intent on mindless destruction; they are our enemies because they have chosen to put themselves in ideological (as well as physical) conflict with the West. This ideology is their driving force, and it cannot die with the corporeal body of one man, or two, or a hundred. Attempts to deliberately deny or ignore the ideology of our enemies are thus quite obviously self-defeating.

In short, it is all very well killing terrorists, but unless something is done to kill their ideology, more will simply rise to replace them. As we suffer through the monotonous UK "election" campaign, it is worth noting that the only party that seems to understand this, and which has addressed it in any serious way (apart from the racist BNP), is UKIP, and for that reason, among many others, they will be getting my vote on May 6th.

The Day The Music Died

And the Lord said......"Let there be rock!"

Last week, the majority of radio stations in southern and central Somalia stopped playing music and jingles, to comply with a ban by Islamic jihadists.

Hizbul Islam, one of the two main jihadist forces in Somalia, issued the order on April 3rd, saying music broadcasts violated Islamic principles. It gave FM radio stations – the main form of news and entertainment in the country – 10 days to comply or be shut down.

This is hardly the first time jihadists have tried - and succeeded - to ban music, and that's because they are simply following their Prophet's teachings, and the prescriptions of Islamic law.

Reliance of the Traveller, an authoritative Islamic legal manual, says that there is "explicit and compelling textual evidence that musical instruments of all types are unlawful". It quotes Muhammad saying things like the following:

"Allah Mighty and Majestic sent me as a guidance and mercy to believers and commanded me to do away with musical instruments, flutes, strings, crucifixes, and the affair of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance."

"On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress."

"Song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does herbage."

"'This Community will experience the swallowing up of some people by the earth, metamorposis of some into animals, and being rained upon with stones.' Someone asked, 'When will this be, O messenger of Allah?' and he said, 'When songstresses and musical instruments appear and wine is held to be lawful."

The manual repeats: "It is unlawful to use musical instruments - such as those which drinkers are known for, like the mandolin, lute, cymbals and flute - or to listen to them." The only exception is that the tambourine may be played at weddings and circumcisions.

The issue here is that Islam is a totalitarian belief system that seeks to outlaw all spontaneous acts of "fun" and unregulated emotion, such as that generated by music. After all, as the Bard once wrote: "If music be the food of love, play on." It is no coincidence that Lenin also disliked music because it distracted people from the priority of violent revolution, just as the Ayatollah Khomeini once famously said: "Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious."

Now obviously, there are many Muslims around the world who do listen to music. When I went to Morocco a few years ago, we were treated to a concert by our hosts (I say "concert", but I couldn't really tell where one song ended and the next began), which even featured a belly dancer - can you think of anything less Islamic? In many areas, Western values have entered the lives of ordinary Muslims, but as long as a seventh-century Arabian warlord remains the eternal example of conduct for those who follow him, there is always the danger that progress of this kind can be rolled back and rigid orthodoxy imposed. After all, the "extremists" clearly have their Prophet on their side, and they know this.

Classic Islamophobia

"The Mahometan [Muslim] inhabitants [of Iraq] are treacherous and unprincipled. According to their doctrine, whatever is stolen or plundered from others of a different faith, is properly taken, and the theft is no crime; whilst those who suffer death or injury by the hands of Christians, are considered as martyrs. If, therefore, they were not prohibited and restrained by the powers who now govern them, they would commit many outrages. These principles are common to all Saracens." ~ Marco Polo

"Why So Serious"?

Ali Khameini rehearsing for his upcoming world tour

Ayatollah Khomeini once famously said that "Allah did not create mankind so that he could have fun", but that hasn't stopped his near-namesake of the modern day, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khameini, from practising his stand-up routine today.

Khameini believes that Barack Obama has "implicitly threatened" his country with nuclear weapons in a newly outlined U.S. policy and Tehran said it intends to file a formal complaint with the U.N.

Obama announced a new U.S. nuclear strategy last week, which seems to have been designed to deliberately weaken America's capacity to defend itself against hostile enemies, but which also included a vow not to use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them. Iran and North Korea were pointedly excepted from that pledge because Washington accuses them of not cooperating with the international community on nonproliferation standards.

"The U.S. president has implicitly threatened the Iranian nation with nuclear weapons. These remarks are very strange," Khamenei said on state television. "The world should not ignore it because in the 21st century....the head of a state is threatening a nuclear attack.

"The U.S. president's remarks are disgraceful," he added. "These remarks mean the U.S. government is a villain government that can't be trusted."

What a funny guy! It is strange that Khameini would be brimming with righteous indignation at these "implicit threats", while ignoring the very real threats of antisemitic genocide emanating from the leadership of his own country. And in any case, this "villainous" President is the same Obama who doesn't really seem to mind all that much whether Iran gets nukes or not. That Khameini would present this obsequious dhimmi as somehow hostile to Iranian ambitions is especially comical. It seems Khameni has imbibed the mantra of Heath Ledger's Joker: "Why so serious?"

(P.S. Whatever happened to the secret earthquake weapon?)

Obama: National Security Menace

President Obama's commitment to making the United States an easier target for terrorists, even as it becomes more Islam/sharia-friendly, apparently knows no bounds. In his latest master-stroke, the President's advisers plan to remove terms such as "Islamic radicalism" from a document outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasise that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism, counterterrorism officials say.

This initiative is stupid and damaging for a number of reasons. First of all, how does referring to "Islamic radicalism" in any way give out the impression that the US "views Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism"? If I say that I do not like, and will not eat, prawn cocktail flavoured crisps, does that mean that I view all crisps "through the lens" of prawn cocktail? No. If I am organising a campaign to eradicate racism from schools, does that mean that I view all schools "through the lens" of racism? Of course not. The very fact that the previous National Security Strategy referred to "Islamic radicalism" demonstrates precisely in itself that no one was viewing all Islamic countries, or all Muslims, "through the lens of terrorism".

But even aside from this, the new strategy is damaging to American interests and security because, as I have written before, the Islamic identity of those who wish to destroy our societies and way of life is intimately connected to their actions. In other words, they are fighting us because of their interpretation of certain Islamic texts and teachings. Even if it was the case that they were twisting and misunderstanding Islam, their views still constitute a comprehensive practical ideology which amounts to a global movement. The first step towards understanding their motives and goals is to understand what they believe, and where those beliefs derive from. This cannot be done without referring to Islam. If all reference to Islam is taken off the table, the likelihood of implementing accurate knowledge and effective strategies will evanesce, also.

As he has demonstrated many times since he took office, such as during his speech in Cairo last year, Obama's entire foreign policy revolves around the misplaced assumption that Islamic terrorism is our fault, and that everything can be easily fixed if we just try really, really hard to stop getting on Muslims' nerves with our capitalism and Islamophobia. This completely ignores the jihad doctrine, which is an inherent part of orthodox Islam, and mandates perpetual, total warfare against unbelievers merely for the crime of their unbelief.

This wilful blindness can be deadly, because as much as Obama wants to ignore Islamic jihad, there are others who aren't ignoring it - the Islamic jihadists themselves. And they will continue to pursue that jihad, taking lives in the process, regardless of whether Obama wants to talk about it or not.

Just What Israel Needs

Is the spirit of Menachim Begin still alive in Israel...

...or will the bully win the day?

As evidence of President Obama's hardline anti-Israel bias becomes more apparent every day, Daniel Pipes provides some interesting historical background which highlights the need for the Jewish state to show strong leadership, and to stand up against the Borat Administration's moral inversion and bullying.

Following former Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin's decision to make the Golan Heights part of Israel in 1981, in reaction to Syrian dictator Hafiz al-Asad's statements that Syria would not make peace with Israel "even in a hundred years", the Reagan Administration, in apparent disgust, suspended the recently-signed Strategic Cooperation Agreement with Israel.

Appalled, Begin summoned Samuel Lewis, the U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv, for a dressing-down. “Three times during the past six months, the U.S. Government has ‘punished’ Israel,” Begin thundered. He enumerated those three occasions: the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor, the bombing of the PLO headquarters in Beirut, and now the Golan Heights law. Throughout this exposition, Lewis kept interjecting: “Not punishing you, Mr. Prime Minister, merely suspending …”; “Excuse me, Mr. Prime Minister, it was not …”; “Mr. Prime Minister, I must correct you …”; and “This is not a punishment, Mr. Prime Minister, it’s merely a suspension until …”

But Begin was having none of it. He launched into a passionate and courageous defence of Israel's dignity:

What kind of expression is this – “punishing Israel”? Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic? Are we youths of fourteen who, if they don’t behave properly, are slapped across the fingers? Let me tell you who this government is composed of. It is composed of people whose lives were spent in resistance, in fighting and in suffering. You will not frighten us with “punishments.” He who threatens us will find us deaf to his threats. We are only prepared to listen to rational arguments. You have no right to “punish” Israel – and I protest at the very use of this term.

Today, Obama is engaging in similar punishment of Israel, turning America's only reliable ally in the Middle East into an enemy, even as he tries to convince himself that his enemies are friends. It is time that Binyamin Netanyahu followed Menachim Begin's example, and told him in no uncertain terms where to get off.