The Fruitcake That Isn't So Sweet

CJ's new look

Little has saddened me more recently than the tragic fall of Charles Johnson.

Johnson is the owner of the noted conservative blog Little Green Footballs. His story was an interesting one. The blog began as essentially a place for Johnson to post photographs he had taken while mountain biking, and to discuss geeky web design stuff. It wasn't a political blog. If anything, Johnson was a leftist before 9/11.

Then that dreadful day came, and everything changed. LGF became a much more obviously right-wing site, and Johnson did a lot of good work chronicling the War on Terror and exposing the liberal bias of the media's coverage of it. I read LGF for a couple of years and respected the work Johnson did.

But now, Johnson has reverted to the kind of mentally deficient ideologue he had formally condemned. The chief problem has been his disputes with Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs. Geller has always seemed like a bit of a nutcase to me, but Spencer is a genuinely respectable man whose website is one of the best out there covering the threat of Islamic jihad.

The downfall began when Johnson became convinced that the Belgian political party Vlaams Belang were a "fascist", neo-Nazi group, and that it would therefore be unwise for true anti-jihadists, who want nothing to do with racism or fascism, to ally with them. When certain writers disagreed with his assessment of the party, however, he turned viciously on them. From that moment on, he set out on a self-righteous crusade to destroy the reputations of all those who had once been his allies in this fight. Since this petty conflict began, he has accused Spencer and Geller not only of allying with all sorts of "fascist" groups, but also of themselves being fascists, supporters of genocide, and all manner of other absurdities. In all cases, the evidence he has presented for these claims has been far from compelling. It largely consists of photographs of two people together, as if this means that if someone is photographed with someone else, that automatically means that they endorse all their positions. The final fall-out between Johnson and Spencer eventually came when Johnson severed ties with Jihad Watch because Spencer continued to link to Gates of Vienna, a blog which has endorsed Vlaams Belang - even though there is a quite explicit disclaimer at Jihad Watch stating that the fact that a website is linked doesn't mean that Spencer endorses everything in it. Spencer has repeatedly denounced all forms of fascism and white supremacism, and has also stated that he does not endorse Vlaams Belang. But that hasn't been enough for Johnson to stop continuing to smear his name and trying to destroy his reputation.

Everyone who disagrees with Charles Johnson's depiction of Vlaams Belang and other groups is automatically labelled a "fascist" themselves, and dozens of people have been banned from his website (rather fascist-like) for disagreeing with him.

Most recently, Johnson attempted to smear Spencer once again by claiming that a group who had invited him to give a talk on jihad is another "fascist" group (poor dear must have nightmares about those "fascists"; they seem to be coming out of the walls). When Spencer pointed out not only that the group are not neo-Nazis, but that Johnson had fallen for an obvious Photoshop job which made it look as if two of his prime targets of hatred were attending a neo-Nazi march (which they weren't), Johnson simply replied by claiming that even though the picture was an obvious fake, it didn't matter because it was still true, anyway. Meanwhile, he did not address any of Spencer's points refuting the claim that this was yet another "fascist" group, all the while claiming moral and intellectual superiority.

It has been very sad to see a once-respectable right-wing blogger, who for a long time was leading the anti-jihad resistance, become such a demented, bullying fruitcake. At a time when we need to be more united than ever in order to repel the jihadist threat, Johnson has gone out of his way to be divisive and downright dishonest. Not only the anti-jihad movement, but also the very Right itself, must consign this dangerous fool to the dustbin of history and refocus its attention on matters of real importance.

What Obama Can (And Should) Learn From Pakistan

As we learn that President Obama is softening his tone on Hamas, and has approved a large Turkish arms sale to Lebanon (which has rightly disgusted Israel), it is worth having a cogent understanding of what all this short-sighted and suicidal appeasement leads to.

Back in February, the Pakistani government handed over the Swat valley region of Pakistan to the Taliban, officially recognising the implementation of Islamic law there. They did this "in an attempt to placate extremists".

But guess what - it hasn't worked. In fact, it's had the exact opposite effect.

According to the BBC: "Taleban militants operating in Pakistan's Swat region who agreed a peace deal with the government have expanded operations [emphasis added] into nearby Buner." Furthermore, "The Taleban say they will not lay down their arms until Sharia is fully implemented."

In other words, appeasing jihadists does not work, and has in fact never worked. It only emboldens them, as it grants sharia a legitimacy that it should not have and creates an image of dhimmi weakness that they are quick to exploit.

The actual impact of sharia in Pakistan is demonstrated by the widespread concern that "[t]he Taliban takeover of Swat is likely to expand to extend to more parts of the country and will mean worsening conditions for Christians".

Todd Nettleton of Voice of the Martyrs says the Taliban seem to have taken encouragement from their success in Swat and now have a foothold from which they could expand into other parts of Pakistan.

About Swat Nettleton said, “We have had Christian workers in that area who have been kidnapped, they have been badly mistreated, and they have been beaten because of their Christian witness. Some have been killed, simply because they were known to be Christians and known to be involved in outreach to Muslims.

“This is bad, as it is, and will only worsen if sharia law spreads further than the Swat Valley. As these militants have gained standing, they have gained clout within the country that also promises more pressure against the church.”

For a bajillion examples of the persecution of Christians in Pakistan (up to August 2007, prior even to the implentation of sharia in Swat), see here.

We have a moral obligation to say no to sharia. Now that sharia courts are officially binding in Britain, don't be surprised if we see the calls for more of it very soon (in fact, we already have).

Rebuttal, Round 2

Following on from my letter printed in the Daily Mail last week, I see that today they have once again published a treacly apologetic, this time by a presumably non-Muslim useful idiot. I haven't bothered emailing in again (I doubt lightning strikes twice), but I am going to respond to some of the absurd claims made in the letter here and now.

The writer first of all claims that "Muslims are not bound by their faith to oppose Christianity. Certainly not in the Qur'an." They then quote Qur'an 2:62, which reads as follows: “Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.”

At first glance, this is a wonderfully ecumenical passage: even those not of the Islamic faith can attain salvation.

But when we read the commentaries of Muslim scholars on this verse - those scholars who are generally considered by Muslims to be the best - everything changes. Most commentators are not inclined to see this as an indication of divine pluralism, tending to restrict the universal application of this passage in several ways. The main one is to assert that it only applied until Muhammad brought Islam to the world, after which embracing Islam was the only way to attain salvation. Ibn Kathir (d.1373) quotes Muhammad's cousin Ibn Abbas (d.687), who was known for his great knowledge of Islam, to assert: “Allah does not accept any deed or work from anyone, unless it conforms to the Law of Muhammad: that is, after Allah sent Muhammad. Before that, every person who followed the guidance of his own Prophet was on the correct path, following the correct guidance and was saved.” Tabari (d.923) and Qutb (d.1966) also believe that this verse only applied before Muhammad brought Islam to the world.

This view would seem to be confirmed by a hadith:

“By Him in Whose hand is the life of Muhammad, he who amongst the community of Jews or Christians hears about me, but does not affirm his belief in that with which I have been sent and dies in this state (of disbelief), he shall be but one of the denizens of Hell-Fire.” (Muslim b.1, no.284)

Other commentators restrict their interpretations by saying that the verse means that Jews and Christians will be saved only if they convert to Islam. One final common interpretation is that 2:62 only applied to a very specific group of Jews and Christians who Muhammad was talking to when this verse was revealed. The long and short of it is that it isn't as tolerant a statement as this apologist tried to make it appear.

Anyway, they then go on to purvey the usual falsehood that Muslims take Qur'anic verses and passages from the hadith "out of context" in order to foment hatred against non-Muslims. Oh really, is that so? Let's look at a few verses they've "twisted" and "distorted":

"Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in fire of hell. They are the worst of created beings." (98:6)

"Lo! the worst of beasts in Allah's sight are the ungrateful who will not believe." (8:55)

"Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves." (48:29)

"He [Allah] loveth not the disbelievers..." (30:45)

"O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust." (5:51)

I look forward to finding out what "context" turns these words from hateful to not hateful.

The letter-writer then stated, incredibly, that Muhammad "was very supportive of inter-faith dialogue." What incredible nonsense! I plan to write a series of posts about Muhammad's interactions with other religions soon, but until then here's a few names: The Quraysh. The Banu Qaynuqa. The Banu Nadir. The Banu Qurayza. The Byzantines. I doubt our apologist has heard of any of these people, but if they have, they'll know that Muhammad wasn't remotely tolerant with any of them. Here, for example, is the partial text of a letter written by Muhammad to the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in 631 AD:

“In the name of Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful (This letter is) from Muhammad the slave of Allah and His Apostle to Heraclius the ruler of Byzantine. Peace be upon him, who follows the right path. Furthermore I invite you to Islam, and if you become a Muslim you will be safe, and Allah will double your reward, and if you reject this invitation of Islam you will be committing a sin by misguiding your Arisiyin (peasants).” (Sahih Bukhari v.1, b.1, no.6)

"I invite you to Islam, and if you become a Muslim you will be safe..." That's not "inter-faith dialogue", that's a direct threat - a threat that Muhammad and his Companions later carried out, waging war on Byzantium and capturing Jerusalem within only seven years of the writing of this letter.

Finally, the author insisted that "there are many sects of Islam, just as there are in Christianity" - presupposing that there is at least ONE of these sects that teaches that Muslims should live peacefully with non-Muslims as equals, without ever trying to subjugate or exterminate them. But there isn't. Within Sunni Islam, all four main schools of jurisprudence teach that it is the duty of the Muslim community to wage war against non-Muslims until they submit to Islamic authority. Shi'ite jurists also agree with this doctrine. There is one sect that rejects this - the Ahmadi sect. However, they are considered unorthodox and heretical by traditional Muslims, and are often persecuted in Muslim countries - often for the very reason that they do not teach armed jihad against unbelievers. Faced with these facts, the assertion that there are "many sects" of Islam is a pointless argument when it comes to trying to explain away Islam's jihad doctrines.

Anyway, you get the picture. This apologist's presentation was not at all accurate or complete. I couldn't let it go completely unchallenged.

Re-Defining "Extremism"

Don't mind this fellow


But watch out for this fellow

You may have read recently about the US Department of Homeland Security report warning of the threat of "right-wing extremism" in America. The first thing that struck me was the utter lack of any comparable concern for the threat of Islamic jihad violence and supremacism in America and around the world. Diana West has a great piece on this today, making the same point, as well as the following important observations:

But while the DHS report is thin on specifics and devoid of sources, it nonetheless quite helpfully exposes the federal government's outrageous strategy to portray conservatism as "right-wing extremism."

The report defines the term this way: "Right-wing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."

Presto -- the federal government has just taken key conservative positions, from opposition to Islamic law to support for security along our Mexican border, and cast them as primitive, "primarily hate-oriented" pathologies that are therefore beyond civilized political discourse. So, too, is opposition to overweening federal powers and "single-issue" opposition to abortion. What we are seeing, in other words, is the most extraordinary governmental attempt in history to limit the spectrum of debate by demonizing a range of positions as "right-wing extremism." This attempt is surely not only unconstitutional but also un-American.

Pirates, Thomas Jefferson, Jihad and Pakistanis

You will have undoubtedly heard about the recent crisis involving the capture and resulting hostage crisis of an American ship's captain by Somali pirates - a crisis, by the way, which is still ongoing.

If you have been covering the events via the mainstream media, however, you will probably not have heard about the Islamic component of the whole affair.

Reuters reports that during the hostage situation, one of the pirates said: "We never kill people. We are Muslims. [emphasis added] We are marines, coastguards - not pirates." Even before this most recent flair-up, it was a known fact that the plunder from Somali piracy was being funneled to Islamic jihad groups on the mainland. Some of the pirates are even thought to have links to al-Qaeda.

Islamic piracy of this kind, directed against the US - and inspired specifically by Islamic ideals - is nothing new. In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, then serving as American ambassadors to France and Britain, respectively, met in London with the Tripolitan Ambassador to Britain. They were attempting to negotiate a peace treaty which would end piracy raids on America emanating from the Barbary States (modern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya). During their discussions, they asked the Tripolitan Ambassador why the Barbary States were directing their aggression, unprovoked, at the U.S. Jefferson and Adams later summed up the Ambassador's response in their report to the Continental Congress:

“…that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Qur'an, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Muslim who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

The Barbary jihadists' understanding of Islam was perfectly in line with traditional Qur'anic exegesis and Islamic jurisprudence. Moreover, the recent hostage situation, in which the Somali jihadists demanded a ransom in exchange for Captain Richard Phillips' release, was also perfectly in line with Islamic law. For example, according to the great Muslim philosopher Averroes (d.1198), who was also an important legal theorist: “Most scholars are agreed that, in his dealings with captives, various policies are open to the Imam [Muslim leader]. He may pardon them, kill them, or release them...on ransom. [emphasis added]”

Finally, as I followed this story via the mainstream news wires, I was struck by their utter ignorance not only of the ideology of the Somali pirates, but also of the fact that they may well have shared this ideology with another group that was also in the news at the same time - the twelve Pakistanis arrested in Manchester on suspicion of plotting acts of terror against British citizens. These alleged terrorists are undoubtedly motivated by Islamic concepts of jihad, just as the Somali pirates are. The BBC news ran both stories one after another on TV, without ever consciously making the connection between the two.

How long can such ignorance continue?

UPDATE: Confirming the above observations, we have this from an MSNBC report on the piracy affair today:

Sometime Thursday, a desperate Phillips jumped from the lifeboat in an attempt to swim to the USS Bainbridge, only to be hauled back on board after the pirates opened fire. From then on, Phillips was tied up.

One pirate radioed the Navy destroyer and demanded to know how far they were from the sanctuary of Somalia's coast.

"Very far," came the reply from the Bainbridge.

"Thank you," the pirate negotiator responded, according to a U.S. military timeline, his politeness masking menace. "If we cannot [reach the] Somali coast, we will kill the infidel. [emphasis added]"

Rise, My Servant

“The jizya is taken from the dhimmi while his neck is being hung low.” ~ Muslim scholar al-Baydawi (d.1316)

Raymond Ibrahim has another insightful piece at Pajamas Media on the recent incident in which Barack Obama bowed to the Saudi king. Ibrahim points out that in Eastern culture, holding or kissing hands is considered a symbol of equal rank - while bowing is a sign of subservience.

Although US Presidents have long cosied up to Saudi royalty, they have never bowed before, and in this Obama has made bad move in what is in my opinion a string of bad moves vis a vis the War on Terror.

A Ray of Sunshine to Penetrate the Gloom of the Mainstream Media?

I have had a letter published today in the Daily Mail.

I wrote it in response to "Imam Hussein" of Brighton (I think), who last week wrote a letter to the Mail espousing the usual sanitised version of Islam which we have come to expect in the mainstream media. These days, even the so-called "right-wing" Daily Mail is terrified of publishing more critical views of Islam. That's why I'm really surprised - and somewhat delighted - that my response to Imam Hussein was published.

There is no online version of the Mail's letters page that I'm aware of, so below I've reproduced the letter. In the paper itself, they cut a few things out, and anglicized some of the Arabic words (e.g. "Qur'an" became "Koran", etc), but since that version isn't available online I'm going to reproduce the exact text of the original email I sent them.

Let's hope this isn't the last time the politically correct an deceitful tropes of "moderate" Muslims are challenged in the mainstream media.

Imam Hussein's letter (Mail, April 8) presents a dishonest and whitewashed picture of the religion of Islam which, in these times, needs to be challenged if we are to have serious debate on these issues.

He states that the Prophet Muhammad would disapprove of honour killings, but does not mention that the Qur'an denies women equality of rights when it comes to inheritance and legal testimony, and even encourages Muslim men to beat their disobediant wives (sura 4:34). He also does not mention that the Qur'an's peaceful verses are seen by traditional Islamic authorities as having been abrogated by its more warlike verses, which command eternal warfare against Jews and Christians until they submit to Islamic authority.

Moreover, he makes reference to the so-called "greater jihad", but does not mention that the theological basis for this concept is weak, as it does not appear in any of the collections of Muhammad's sayings that are generally considered most reliable by Muslim scholars.

I am glad that Mr. Hussein subscribes to a peaceful understanding of Islam. However, there will never be any success with the kind of honest debate he is calling for until peaceful Muslims begin to acknowledge that what they call "radical" Islam is actually supported by orthodox Muslim authorities, and is the version of Islam that has been taught for centuries by many of the greatest Muslim scholars and thinkers throughout history, including the modern era.

Until Muslims begin to be a bit more honest with themselves and others, violence and oppression in the name of Islam will continue.