The great Wafa Sultan speaks truth to power.

Do you get the virgins of Paradise for work accidents?

"Taliban militants killed while bombing school in Pakistan," from RTTNews, August 6 (thanks to Kemaste):

(RTTNews) - Two suspected pro-Taliban militants were killed while attempting to detonate explosives in an effort to blow up a school in Pakistan's northwestern valley of Swat, according to media reports quoting the police.

The police defused two more bombs planted in other parts of the school in the Kabal area, after the explosion.

As part of intensifying a campaign by militant groups to enforce strict Islamic law in their strongholds in Pakistan, scores of schools have been destroyed in the northwestern valley of Swat in recent months.

Militants set on fire the girls' high schools in Matta, Mingora, and Kanju after Monday night....

Why this matters. My column in FrontPage today:

Eid mubarak, Shelbyville! Union employees at Tyson Foods’ poultry processing plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee will enjoy a paid holiday this year on October 1, the date on which the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr falls this year. And on Labor Day, they will be hard at work, per a new agreement that the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) negotiated with Tyson.

The RWDSU explained that the new contract “implements a new holiday to accommodate the...Muslim workers at the plant.”

Since this story has gained attention on Fox News and elsewhere, some observers have called for a boycott of Tyson Foods. But what’s the big deal? The popular blogger “Allahpundit” noted at Hot Air.com that “according to Tyson, fully 80 percent of the union’s 1,000 members agreed to the new holiday arrangement. If a workforce with a huge Muslim contingent wants to make a deal with management to have their biggest religious holiday off, who cares? And why are there rumblings about boycotting Tyson when it’s the union that’s driving this?…What am I missing? Is there an anti-Eid exception to freedom of contract?”

Indeed, insofar as this was an agreement freely entered into by the union, by majority vote, no one can reasonably object to it. One does not require that 100% of the plant employees be Christians in order to give Christmas as a day off, and the same principle is operative here.

However, the reason why anyone has any problem with this decision is not because Tyson is not free to negotiate an agreement with its union -- an agreement that has apparently won the approval of the majority of plant employees. The problem is that the accommodation of Islamic holidays and practices abets, however unwittingly, an avowedly supremacist agenda that is directed toward supplanting American laws and mores and imposing Islamic law here. One notable example of this was the refusal several years ago of Muslim cabbies at the Minneapolis Airport to carry passengers who had alcohol with them.

The whole controversy began after a Muslim American Society fatwa forbidding the cabbies to carry passengers with alcohol. Yet in reality, Islam forbids drinking alcohol, but it doesn’t command one to shun those who do, or not to be anywhere near them. The Muslim American Society is a Muslim Brotherhood group, suggesting that the cab crisis was a Brotherhood-led attempt to assert the primacy of Islamic law and mores over American society and laws, in accord with what one Brotherhood operative called “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Tyson’s new holiday schedule, seen in light of the Brotherhood agenda, strikes many Americans as yet another example of how Islamic supremacists are demanding that America adapt to Islam, rather than that Muslims adapt to and assimilate into American society. And since there is indeed such an initiative going on among many Muslims today, the Tyson decision is indeed short-sighted and ill-advised.

Islamic law covers every aspect of life. Once the principle is accepted that Islamic law must be accommodated, and American customs and laws must give way in order to accommodate it, there is always more Islamic law to accommodate. If we do not draw the line somewhere, the calls for accommodation will end only with the complete Islamization of American society.

However, Stuart Appelbaum, the national president of the RWDSU, dismissed such concerns out of hand: “There’s no question,” he asserted, “that there is a lot of bigotry against Muslims and that this agreement has clearly touched a raw nerve among those who are prejudiced against them. However, the RWDSU has always understood that unions are only strong when they work to protect the dignity of workers of all faiths. That includes Muslims. Our union may be the first to negotiate this kind of agreement, but I have no doubt that others will follow our lead.”

Appelbaum issued this statement even as it came to light that while the union had asserted that 700 of the 1200 Shelbyville plant employees were Somali Muslims, Tyson itself stated that only 250 were Somalis. If Tyson’s number is correct, the supremacist character of this holiday initiative becomes even clearer. In any case, Appelbaum is no doubt correct that other unions will follow the RWDSU’s lead; unfortunately, however, it is also virtually certain that none of them will examine the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda before they do so. Yet it is that agenda, and that agenda only, that takes the Tyson plant’s decision out of the realm of simple cultural accommodation, and makes it a matter of concern for all free Americans.

James George Jatras, Director of the American Council for Kosovo, here responds to some of the allegations made about Kosovo and about himself on this LGF thread, about which I commented here.

In a recent posting by Michael Totten on Little Green Footballs (“Totten: An Israeli in Kosovo”), and particularly in a number of the comments following, questions have been raised about assertions by myself and others, such as Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer and commentator Julia Gorin, about the relevance of jihad ideology to the violence committed by Albanian Muslims in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija against other communities, notably Christian Serbs.

The comments, many of them repetitive, expand the posting to, at my last count, 84 pages, so it will be hard to address all of them. Boiled down to their essence, the criticisms can be summarized as follows:

1. The supposedly “moderate” nature of Islam among secular Kosovo Albanians, and the absence of Islam as an ideological incitement to Kosovo Albanian violence, as opposed to Albanian nationalism;

2. Indigenous Kosovo Albanian resistance to attempts by Saudi Arabia and other external forces to import Wahhabist radicalism into Kosovo;

3. The pro-U.S. (and pro-Israel) sentiments of Albanian Muslims in Kosovo and the merits of U.S. support for a moderate, pro-Western Muslim country; and

4. My purported role as a highly-paid lobbyist for Serbian interests.

To take each point in turn:

1. The supposedly “moderate” nature of Islam among secular Kosovo Albanians.

I hesitate to respond in detail to this assertion, mainly because Robert Spencer has done such a fine job of doing so in his comments on LGF. The main point to keep in mind is that there is a world of difference between asserting the existence of “moderate Islam” -- which does not now exist, never has existed, and, I suspect, never will exist -- and the unquestionable fact that many Muslims around the world are indeed cultural Muslims who are either unaware of or do not agree with Islam’s undeniable mandates of jihad, sharia, and dhimmitude. There is no doubt that many of the Albanians in Kosovo fall into the latter category. Primarily a function of the secularizing influence of communist rule following World War II, particularly in urban areas, the residue of this factor can be confirmed by the liberal attitude Mr. Totten experienced in Kosovo, the fact that many nominally Muslim Albanians in Kosovo do indeed drink the fiery local distillate rakija (but generally do not, as asserted by some, eat pork), and consider themselves Europeans, not Middle Easterners.

That tendency, however, needs to be balanced against a few others. To begin with, as has happened in other former communist areas, as well as places like Turkey, Iraq, and Pakistan where the local secularizing ideology (respectively, Kemalism, Baathism, and militaristic nationalism) has been weakened, there is a counter-tendency of a once-secularized Muslim population to return to its Islamic roots. This is reflected in Kosovo by the boom in mosque-building, which despite the massive aid poured into Kosovo from the United States, the European Union, and other sources, far outstrips other pressing needs. This has been attested to by Paul Andrew Kirk (see the last comment below the main article here), an American who served two tours with the U.S. military in Kosovo. Kirk says:

Islamic extremism is on the rise in Kosovo. KFOR [the NATO-led military mission] soldiers have been attacked in Gjilan [actual name in Serbian: Gnjilane], Ferizaj [Uroševac], and Prizren when I was there. You just won't see or hear about it in the news. More mosques have been built in Kosovo in the last five years than schools, roads, health clinics, and all other sanitation projects combined. Compliments of Muslim charities from the Middle East.

Mr. Kirk’s comments point to another factor: that Islamic violence in Kosovo is systematically underreported because the governments, notably that of the United States, have so publicly committed themselves to the Albanian Muslim cause that they don’t want it reported -- it complicates their black and white, good (Albanian Muslim) and evil (Serbian Christian) caricature. Neither do the laptop bombadiers in the media, who, as they had in Bosnia, cheered on the great Kosovo “humanitarian intervention” in 1999 to stop a nonexistent “ethnic cleansing” of Albanians -- and which led directly to the real eradication of more than two-thirds of the Serbian community, as well as Roma (mostly Muslim, some Orthodox Christian), Croats (Roman Catholic), Jews, and others. This leaves most of the reporting of attacks on Serbs to the Serbs themselves, and as certified genocidal monsters, who cares what they say, or for that matter, what happens to them?

With respect to the nexus in Kosovo between religion (Muslim vs. Christian) and nationalism (Albanian vs. Serb), it needs to be kept in mind that sharia rule under the Ottoman Empire ended less than a century ago, in 1912, when Kosovo (then known as “Old Serbia”) was liberated during the First Balkan War. For the preceding centuries, Muslim Albanians had migrated at will over the mountains from Albania, taking over land from which Serbs had fled from reprisals following repeated unsuccessful revolts against the Ottoman caliphate. (That the Serbs are the original inhabitants in Kosovo is beyond question. There are no pre-Ottoman Albanian structures, no Albanian toponyms. There is not even an Albanian word for Kosovo itself, the Albanian term “Kosova” being merely their rendering of the Serbian name -- derived from kos, “blackbird,” in reference to the famous 1389 battle -- much as we English-speakers call München “Munich” and Roma “Rome.”) As increasing numbers of Albanians moved into Kosovo, their status as part of the umma was inseparable from their establishing mastery over the declining number of Serbian dhimmis. As was the case with conquered Christians elsewhere, Serbs in Kosovo had little ability to defend their churches, homes, and persons against Muslim abuse.

As in some other areas that were subjected to Islamic rule, over time religious identity became closely associated with nationality -- for example, Turks vs. Greeks and Armenians, or Arabs and Berbers vs. Spaniards. Even today, with respect to Israel, with the decline of the supposedly “moderate” and “secular” PLO the “Arab” cause against Jews increasingly is indistinguishable from Islamic jihad. Even Arab secular rulers regarded as apostates by many Muslims, like Saddam Hussein, did not hesitate to conflate Arabism with Islam to invoke jihad against non-Muslim enemies. As noted on a posting on muslimstudent.org.uk (since removed), “Fighting and exterminating Israel is an obligation even if the Muslims fighting are Arab armies loyal to regimes of unbelief, like the Egyptian soldiers when they fought Israel during the Sinai war.” By the same token, the prevailing attitude among Kosovo’s Albanian Muslims, even those with no discernable Islamic piety, reflects their sense of entitlement to mastery over the land and its rayah (essentially, “cattle”) inhabitants. The attitude is hardly different from those of Turks with respect to Constantinople or Arabs to “al-Quds,” no matter how secular they may be: “we” conquered it, and no one can take it back from us.

It should not be thought this is a phenomenon belonging only to the distant past. Less than three decades passed between the lifting of Muslim Albanian supremacy in Kosovo in 1912 and its restoration under Axis occupation. It is specious to compare, as some of the commentators on Mr. Totten’s essay did, the Nazi recruitment of SS units of Dutchmen, Belgians, Frenchmen, Danes, etc., to that of Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia where Islam, as opposed to National Socialist racial dogma, was a specific factor. (Note the Serbian source for the links. No doubt they forged the photos too.) The role of Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was notorious for his hostility to Israel and encouragement of the persistent Nazi-inspired leitmotif in Arab/Muslim anti-Israel propaganda, in encouraging the Muslim SS units in the Balkans as part of the jihad against the Allies is well known. Also of note is the comment of Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, who boasted that in the Nazi sponsorship of Islamic forces,

“ . . . a link is created between Islam and National-Socialism on an open, honest basis. It will be directed in terms of blood and race from the North, and in the ideological-spiritual sphere from the East.”

In the present day, all this means that implementing Albanian control in Kosovo amounts to the restoration of the rule of the umma, regardless of how secular or unobservant of Islamic practice many individual Muslims may be. This is entirely in keeping with the vision of other proponents of Islamic power seeking what is seen as the return of once Muslim-ruled lands (again, from muslimstudent.org.uk):

The uniting of Muslim [lands] includes the land that Muslims lost control of, including, Turkistan, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece and the land that Muslims had lost like Andalous (Spain) . . . Our duty as Muslims . . . [is] to kick the American, British, and Israeli forces from Hijaz (Saudi Arabia) and Palestine, and to overthrow all these non-Islamic regimes in order to establish the Islamic state on their ruins.

It is perhaps something of a digression to point out that this does not mean, as one commentator to Mr. Totten’s column accused Robert Spencer of suggesting, that “all Albanians are Nazis.” Far from it. Indeed, not in Kosovo but in Albania itself all the indigenous Jewish population was sheltered during World War II, according to information at Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial, which I recently visited. The role of those brave Albanians considered by Jews to be “Righteous Gentiles” should not be minimized. But neither should it be exaggerated at the expense of that of the Italian Army and the communist resistance in Albania, which operated as an integral part of the Yugoslav communist movement. (This historical observation should not be inferred as approval of either Italian Fascism or communism.) At the same time, given the vilification of Orthodox Serbs and, in one comment, of Greeks (I am of Greek, specifically Spartan, ethnic origin), it is worthy of note that in the wartime Balkans only those two nations maintained an overwhelming anti-Axis orientation.

Finally, as one of the litmus tests of Islamic intolerance, I would be remiss not to mention the subjugation of Albanian women in Kosovo. Marketed as near-chattels and beaten at whim (per the Qur'an, an-Nisa' 4:34), the lot of Albanian Muslim women, notably in rural areas, remains familiar to students of women’s condition in other Muslim areas. While wife-beating is hardly confined to Muslims, and while some anti-woman violence considered “Islamic” may simply reflect tribal attitudes (such as female circumcision, which does not exist in Kosovo as far as I know), its prevalence and persistence is maintained by solid Islamic authority.

2. Indigenous Kosovo Albanian resistance to attempts by Saudi Arabia and other external forces to import Wahhabist radicalism into Kosovo.

In view of the foregoing discussion, the question of Saudi-inspired Wahhabism in Kosovo is something of a red herring. As in other places in the Islamic world, there is of course a tension, and sometimes conflict, between efforts to import what locals regard as an alien and unwelcome influence by petrodollar-rich intruders and the locals’ traditional observances. However, this is a long way from proving the existence of a “moderate” peaceful Islam in Kosovo that stands in opposition to Wahhabism.

The tradition of Islamic violence against Christians in the Balkans and elsewhere long precedes Wahhabism. Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab cannot take the rap for the initial Islamic conquest of the Balkans and its attendant massacres, the centuries of subjugation and humiliation, the blood tax, and attempts to revive Muslim mastery during World War II and today. Fingering Wahhabism as the font of the global jihad threat is effectively a ploy to whitewash an indigenous traditions of Islamic violence and to assert a history of tolerance where none exists.

In Kosovo, it is not Wahhabism that has reduced Kosovo from once an entirely Christian Serbian province to one that is edging toward entirely Muslim Albanian. It is not Wahhabism that is responsible for the toll on the Serbian community since the 1999 NATO attack on Serbia. It is not solely Wahhabism that inspires the clearly Islamic animus that focuses on the Holy Cross and icons of Jesus Christ, His Mother, and the saints in attacks on churches, monasteries, and graves that have characterized the Albanians’ demand for an independent state. It is not Wahhabism that explains the beheadings of Kosovo Serbs, as seen in other jihad regions and which has a long pedigree in the Balkans.

This does not mean that there has not been since at least the mid-1990s a major element of outside support for the Kosovo Albanian jihad by outside forces, including the involvement of Osama bin Laden personally. There is evidence that the explosives used in the London and Madrid train bombings were networked through Kosovo. That the commentators on Mr. Totten’s essay seem to know nothing about such matters is not my problem. If they wish to educate themselves, they are welcome to peruse the numerous articles on this topic collected on the website of the American Council for Kosovo.

Finally, as with American support for the creation of a Muslim-dominated state in majority Christian (Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Catholic) Bosnia, the attempt to appease Muslim sentiment by separating Kosovo from Serbia needs to be seen for what it is: yet another step in the imposition of Muslim power over the infidel, a way-station in the third invasion of Europe. As the author of the book Hiding Genocide in Kosovo: A Crime Against God and Humanity, published by the American Council for Kosovo, relates from personal experience:

“On my last visit to Vitina in October 2006 I was accompanied by an American photo-journalist. We visited the new mosque which is called the Medina mosque after the city of Medina in Saudi Arabia which is revered by Muslims. This is the first mosque ever built in Vitina town. We met with the Imam Akram Selimi, who explained that he was the mullah of the mosque. He told us how he had studied Islam at the Azhar University in Egypt for three years and was just newly returned to preach to his flock. His new flock, he explained, were very new, as Vitina was a Serbian town up until 1999. He further explained that the Albanians had lived in the villages and only started coming into the town after June 1999. He even elaborated on this point by telling me that they had ‘taken the town from the Serbs.’ He also pointed out that all women should be covered up as this is the will of Allah.”

3. The pro-U.S. (and pro-Israel) sentiments of Albanian Muslims in Kosovo and the merits of U.S. support for a moderate, pro-Western Muslim country.

American officials of both parties who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia in order to create an independent Albanian Muslim state have made no secret that an important part of their motivation is to curry favor with the Islamic world. As part of his insistence that Islam is a “religion of peace and tolerance” and a faith that has “enriched civilization for centuries,” President Bush’s adoption of the State Department’s policy, carried over from the Clinton Administration, must be seen in the context of other pandering, such as his advocacy of for the creation of a Palestinian state (regardless of the accuracy of his claim that he is the first American president to take that position.)

In this regard, he has the support of top congressional Democrats, as well as some Republicans. As stated by the late Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in support of the State Department’s policy:

" . . . just a reminder to the predominantly Muslim-led governments in this world that here is yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe. This should be noted by both responsible leaders of Islamic governments, such as Indonesia, and also for jihadists of all color and hue. . . . the United States stands foursquare for the creation of an overwhelmingly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe.” [Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), hearing on Kosovo, April 17, 2007]

Not to be outdone, Mr. Lantos’ Senate counterpart holds the same view in support of the Bush policy:

“ . . . adroit diplomacy to secure Kosovo’s independence could yield a victory for Muslim democracy, . . . a much-needed example of a successful US-Muslim partnership . . .” [Former Presidential candidate and Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), Financial Times, 1/3/07]

The problem is that there is no evidence that any of this has worked. One can search the web in vain for Muslim commentary praising U.S. support for Muslims in Kosovo, or Bosnia for that matter. To the contrary, the one-sided narrative that underlies western support for the Kosovo Albanians actually works against us:

“Most Muslims were simply not interested in hearing that the US government had been a staunch supporter of Bosnian Muslims. By the time I added that prominent American Jews -- among them Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz -- were leading protagonists of intervention on behalf of the Bosnain Muslims, they had switched off. Bosnia and Kosovo were simply subsumed into their broader narrative of Muslim victimhood. My interlocutors were neither stupid nor insincere; it was just that they were wired in such a way that precluded them from seeing the United States as anything other than the global foe of Muslims, and the catspaw of Israel.”

The expectation that support for Muslims in Kosovo, or elsewhere, will lead to pro-U.S. attitudes -- and the uncomprehending disappointment when it doesn’t -- is simply further evidence of Washington’s (and London’s, Paris’s, etc.) utter incomprehension of the nature of the jihad ideology. For all our fawning, Kosovo instead registers in the Islamic mind alongside “Palestine,” Kashmir, Iraq, Chechnya, Mindanao, Bosnia, Xinjiang, etc., in a litany of persecution by an undifferentiated conspiracy of Jews, Americans, Russians, Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, and anybody and everybody else. The simple fact is that offering the umma a chunk of kaffir land and sacrificing its inhabitants does not assuage them. It incites them. That doesn’t mean, however, that proponents of policy of appeasement will cease trying, in a textbook case of fanaticism as “redoubling your effort after you’ve forgotten your aim.”

There is perhaps no better proof of Albanian Muslim “gratitude” than the jihad terror plot against Ft. Dix, New Jersey, by six Muslims, four of them Albanians from Kosovo and the adjoining area of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, also a target of irredentist claims. It is interesting that none of the commentators on Mr. Totten’s essay made reference to this matter.

In Kosovo, as elsewhere, the western advocates of adoption of Muslim causes as a path to “getting the Islamic world on our side” in order to defeat the “tiny handful of extremists” will not be successful. Their pursuit of “moderate Islam” and “tolerant Islamic democracy” will be as fruitless as Diogenes’ vain quest for an honest man.

4. My purported role as a highly-paid lobbyist for Serbian interests.

Guilty as charged.

This is hardly a matter for detective work. By law, all items distributed by the American Council for Kosovo include the following disclaimer:

“The American Council for Kosovo is an activity of Squire Sanders Public Advocacy, LLC, and Global Strategic Communications Group, which are registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as agents for the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija, under the spiritual guidance of His Grace, Bishop ARTEMIJE of Ras and Prizren. Additional information with respect to this matter is on file with the Foreign Agents Registration Unit of the Department of Justice in Washington DC.”

The work of the American Council for Kosovo is compensated by the Bishop and his community, reported at rates consistent with Washington lobbying activities, which are not inexpensive. At the same time, it should be understood that we are battling the full weight of the Administration, much of Congress, a well-funded Albanian lobby that has been entrenched of decades, almost all think tanks, NGOs, and the media and -- without naming names -- a lot of people who pontificate on the matter based on superficial impressions and biased information. Our job is to provide American opinion-makers and the American people the other side of the story, which we began very late, only in the spring of 2006. On behalf of Bishop Artemije and his suffering community we are grateful to stalwarts on our advisory board, including Robert Spencer and Julia Gorin, who without remuneration (as some have falsely alleged they receive) have been unafraid to stand up to the barbs directed against them by know-nothings.

Michael Totten recently published a piece, "An Israeli in Kosovo," that contained this passage:

“Israelis are okay,” said a waiter named Afrim Kostrati at a cafe named Tirana. “The conflict is not our problem. We are Muslims, but not really. We have respect for Israelis because of the U.S. I have good friends from there.”

Charles posted it at LGF on Monday, and after awhile several people notified me that I was being attacked on the LGF thread. I have no quarrel with Michael Totten, but I am skeptical of the prospect of an independent Kosovo becoming a reliable anti-jihad American ally, and this was being held up as indication of an intellectual and moral failing there -- anyway, after awhile I decided to respond. You can read through the voluminous comments there if you are so inclined; a couple of pro-Kosovo activists, one of whom became quite abusive (mostly after I bowed out) and eventually began railing against "crusaders" and "jewhadists," mixed it up with me there. I have no intention of reproducing or recounting that full controversy here, or of republishing here all my comments in that LGF thread (which spilled over to an entirely unrelated post here at Jihad Watch yesterday), but I have decided to post here some of my main points in that exchange, so as to provide a context for an additional post that is to follow here this morning.

Many people see the "moderate Islam" of the Kosovars as a great sign of hope, both for the prospects of a stable, democratic Kosovo and for the prospects of a stable, peaceful Islamic world living in peace with non-Muslims. But the quote above from Totten's piece, "We are Muslims, but not really," precisely illustrates a point I have made many, many times -- about how Wahhabis and other jihadists present themselves as pure and true Muslims, and moderate Muslims do not have any effective comeback. In fact, they often, as in this case, grant the jihadists' point on that even while not following them.

My contention has always been consistent on this: that even in a secularized nominal Muslim population (eg Kosovo), granting that point leaves the door open for the radicalization of those who decide at some point that they wish to recover their faith or live it more fully. There is no Moderate Islam for such people to get into, analogous to Reform Judaism -- there is no Reformed Islamic Mosque to go to, no history of non-literal understandings of the Qur'an and Sunnah. The only Islam they can recover, should they choose to recover Islam rather than being "not really" Muslim, is the supremacist variety.

Does this mean that the secularized Kosovars cannot be depended upon as American allies? Time will tell, but their vulnerability to jihadist recruitment proceeding on the basis of the jihadist claim to Islamic purity cannot be ruled out as unappealing to them forever, precisely because their own cultural Islam lacks a theological foundation within Islamic tradition.

The statement "we are Muslims, but not really" indicates that they believe that they aren't quite true Muslims now -- and that is what makes for the vulnerability.

Anyway, more to come on the Kosovo issue, soon.

So says Steve Emerson. "Terrorism Expert: Karen Hughes Gave Money to Bad Guys," by Kenneth R. Timmerman for NewsMax, August 3 (thanks to PRCS):

A longtime adviser and close confidant of President Bush funneled millions of dollars in U.S. government grants to radical Islamist organizations, many of whose leaders have been convicted or indicted in terrorism cases in the United States, respected terrorism expert Steven Emerson told Congress last week.

“When Ms. [Karen] Hughes was appointed as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, she set the tone to continue a disastrous policy of outreach with Islamist partners,” Emerson told the House International Relations Committee.

Among the recipients of the State Department grants actively championed by Hughes was Ahmed Younes, formerly an official with the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a group that has “publicly challenged the designation of Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations” and whose leaders “have made extreme statements defending terrorist organizations,” Emerson said.

Another beneficiary of Hughes’ outreach program to American Muslims was Aly Abuzaakouk, the executive director of the American Muslim Council (AMC) and a former director of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIHT).

Actually, it's the IIIT.

The North Virginia-based IIHT “is suspected of being a pivotal cog in the Muslim Brotherhood’s high command in America," according to federal law enforcement records newly released to Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism under the Freedom of Information Act....

The IIIT was named as an allied group in the infamous Muslim Brotherhood memorandum of 1991 that emphasized that the Brothers “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Anyway, read it all.

In an entry about this story, Instapundit expresses an all-too-common assumption:

FREE SPEECH UPDATE: You still can't write about Muhammad. Will other religious groups take the lesson that violence works? Because, in a world of the spineless, it does, and at very low cost. Thanks, guys, for establishing this incentive structure.

Miss Kelly, who kindly alerted me to this, has a good post about it: "Instapundit's Odd Relativism About Religious Violence." In it she notes, correctly, that the answer to his question is: "No, other religious groups won't, because other religions aren't that intolerant and brittle, nor do their leaders sanction or incite such violence."

Reynolds' core assumption, of course, is one that he shares with innumerable others: that violence -- and supremacism -- has no more basis in Islamic texts and teachings than it does in those of Judaism or Christianity, and while there may be violent passages in the Qur'an, well, there are violent passages in the Bible as well. All religions are equal in their capacity to inspire magnanimity or fanaticism. People cling to this assumption tenaciously, and I suspect one reason why is that they are afraid that if they say that one religion has a greater likelihood of inspiring violence than another, they will fall into that sin of sins, "bigotry."

He seems also to be assuming that Muslims commit violence, and threaten violence, because they have found that it works, while others have not caught on to that yet. It has nothing to do with any imperative within Islam, or lacking within other traditions, at all.

But there is, of course, no reason why any of this should be so -- either the idea that all religions are essentially equal in their effect on their adherents, or the idea that to say otherwise would be bigoted. Religions are, among other things, sets of propositions about the world and one's rights and responsibilities in it. The propositions asserted by all religions are not all the same -- if they were, there wouldn't be religious divisions in the world. A religion is a belief-system, and there is absolutely no reason why one belief-system couldn't be more violent and supremacist than another.

Part of the Islamic belief-system is the proposition that one who insults Muhammad should be killed. That is why Muslims so easily resort to threats of violence against those who say things about Muhammad that they don't like. No sect of Christianity teaches that the one who insults Jesus should be killed. In fact, they all teach that one should be patient and charitable with opponents. That is why Christians do not generally resort to threats of violence against those who say things about Jesus that they don't like. There are nuts in every group, of course, and that's why I say "generally," but there is no sanction in the core teachings of the religion for such behavior. And that's why Reynolds's earlier assertion that "sooner or later, you know, fundamentalist Christians are going to pick up on this lesson, engage in similar behavior, and make similar demands" is almost certainly false. The most virulently fundamentalist Christian can find no sanction in Jesus' teaching for the murder of his opponents any more than anyone else can.

It does not make every Muslim a terrorist to point this out, and it isn't bigoted to do so, either. It is simply to state a series of facts -- and if anyone wishes to try to prove that the facts I have asserted here are false, I welcome the challenge. Meanwhile, the relativism of Glenn Reynolds and so many others continues to hinder our response to the jihad threat. If we assume that Islamic violence and supremacism are aberrations taught by a few marginal fanatics and abhorred by most Muslims, we will underestimate the conflict we are facing, as well as the appeal of the jihadist imperative among Muslims, and we will be ill-prepared to meet the jihadist challenge in all its dimensions.

And that is exactly the state of things in the West today.

It is, they say, the Islamic method of killing. I trust Ibrahim Hooper will be on the next plane to Bali to explain to these guys how they have Misunderstood Islam. "Bali bombers challenge execution, want beheading," from Reuters, August 6 (thanks to all who sent this in):

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Lawyers for three Islamic militants on death row for the 2002 Bali bombings lodged a legal challenge on Wednesday over Indonesia's method of executing convicts by firing squad, calling it inhumane.

The three men -- Imam Samudra, Amrozi and Mukhlas, also known as Ali Gufron -- face a firing squad for their roles in the nightclub bombings on the island of Bali that killed 202 people.

"We believe that execution by way of a gunfire is inhumane. It is for these reasons that the defense attorneys are applying to challenge the legislation," said lawyer Wirawan Adnan, adding that a judicial review had been lodged at the Constitutional Court.

A Bali court initially sentenced the three men to death in 2003, but their lawyers have used a number of legal avenues that have delayed the executions.

"It's not a matter for us whether or not Amrozi is to be executed. Gunfire is one way, another way of doing it is by lethal injection," Adnan said, adding that it could take more than a minute for a convict to bleed to death after being shot.

The three men would prefer an Islamic method of execution by beheading, Adnan added.

"We believe that is still more humane than by a gunfire," said the lawyer....

Just put the missiles in the trunk, will ya, Hamdan? And step on it -- Kola Boof is waiting.

"Military Jury Convicts Bin Laden's Driver on Some Charges in Guantanamo Terror Case," from FoxNews, August 6 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE — A jury of six military officers at Guantanamo Bay reached a split verdict Wednesday in the war crimes trial of a former driver for Usama bin Laden, clearing him of some charges but convicting him of others that could send him to prison for life.

The Pentagon-selected jury deliberated for about eight hours over three days before convicting Salim Hamdan of supporting terrorism. He was cleared of the conspiracy charge.

Hamdan, who faces a maximum life sentence, held his head in his hands and wept at the defense table after a Navy captain presiding over the jury read the sentence in a hilltop courtroom on this U.S. Navy base....

Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in southern Afghanistan in November 2001 and taken to Guantanamo in May 2002.

The military accused him of transporting missiles for Al Qaeda and helping bin Laden escape U.S. retribution following the Sept. 11 attacks by driving him around Afghanistan. Defense attorneys said he was merely a low-level bin Laden employee.

More children being brainwashed into committing suicide by craven jihadis. "Child suicide bombers ready to strike across Pakistan," by Qaiser Felix for Asia News, August 6:

Karachi (AsiaNews) – Leaders of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan have warned that their boys and girls aged 10 to 20 are ready for a “Jihad against the infidels.” Addressing a press conference on Tuesday in Anayat Kalley, a few kilometres from the headquarters of the Bajaur Agency, a tribal area near the Afghan border, Tehrik’s deputy chief Maulana Faqir Mohammad and spokesman Maulvi Omar said that “a ‘fidayeen squad’(suicide bomber squad) comprising 10- to 20-year-old boys and girls, was ready to carry out attacks if the government did not immediately stop its operations in the Swat Valley and reverse its decision to launch military operation in other tribal areas.

In the meantime arrangements have been made to effectively wage a “Jihad against the infidels”.

Maulvi Omar said that Tehrik’s chief, Baitullah Mehsud, held consultations with key Taliban commanders and they agreed that the only way to effectively counter the government’s plans was to launch massive terror attacks.

Suicide attacks involving minors are set for Peshawar, Mardan, Dir and other sensitive districts.

That's what he said. Yet Muslim spokesmen in the mainstream media (both liberal and conservative) are routinely allowed to get away with bland denials that honor killing has anything to do with Islam.

A manual of Islamic law certified by Al-Azhar as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2).

In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law.

Why does this stipulation appear in a manual of Islamic law if this has nothing to do with Islam?

American officials and the mainstream media should be calling upon Muslims in America to institute transparent and inspectable programs that teach against the attitudes that lead to honor killing. Instead, they allow Muslim leaders to disclaim any responsibility. And that means that there will be more Chaudhry Rashids, and more Sandeela Kanwals.

"'Honor' Killing for God: Dad's Sick 'Confession,'" by Austin Fenner and Hasani Gittens for the New York Post, August 6 (thanks to Writer Mom):

A Muslim father accused of murdering his daughter in a so-called "honor killing" told cops God would look out for him, as he confessed to the grisly strangulation, authorities said yesterday.

"God will protect me. God is watching," Pakistani immigrant Chaudhry Rashid allegedly confessed to cops. "I strangled my daughter."

At a preliminary hearing yesterday, Detective Mike Christian told a judge Rashid copped to killing his daughter on July 6 with a bungee cord because she had filed divorce papers and was having an extramarital affair.

Christian said Rashid was found sitting in his driveway smoking a cigarette when cops arrested him.

Rashid, 56, waddled into a Georgia courtroom yesterday in shackles to fight murder charges in the death of his only daughter, Sandeela Kanwal, 25, at his home in Jonesboro, an Atlanta suburb.

Kanwal, who worked at a Wal-Mart, wanted to escape her loveless six-year marriage to a Chicago man, Majid Latif, cops said.

Rashid went into a murderous rage after apparently growing tired of numerous arguments with his daughter, concerned that their clashing cultural values would reflect poorly on him and his family, said the detective....

Hanny Lightfoot-Klein, who has worked in the Middle East and Africa and written books on honor killings and genital mutilation in the Muslim world, had another view.

"They do not leave their customs behind when they cross borders, the customs come right with them," she said.

"If any woman in the family in any way does something that dishonors the family, the whole family is dishonored, they are the laughingstock of the whole community, because they 'don't know how to control their women.'

"And the only way this blight on their honor can be eradicated is to kill the one who has committed the crime."

Aafia Siddiqui Update: "Terrorist Suspect Denies She Tried To Kill Americans," by Ross Goldberg for the New York Sun, August 6 (thanks to Ruth King):

An American-educated Pakistani neuroscientist is denying charges that she tried to murder Americans in Afghanistan.

Federal prosecutors in a New York court accused the defendant, Aafia Siddiqui, of attempting to shoot a group of Americans after seizing one of their rifles while she was detained at an Afghan police station. Her attorneys said the idea that a 90-pound woman could get the better of six trained soldiers and FBI agents is "ridiculous." Her attorneys also claimed that America has secretly kept Ms. Siddiqui in custody for the last five years.

According to a complaint released Monday, Ms. Siddiqui, who has alleged ties to Al Qaeda, was arrested in Afghanistan last month after officers observed her loitering near a governor's compound. The complaint said a search of her handbag uncovered documents describing the production of explosives as well as chemical, biological, and radiological weapons. The papers also included descriptions of American landmarks, including some in New York City.

The complaint states that an American soldier put his rifle on the floor next to him, unaware that Ms. Siddiqui was being held behind a curtain nearby. Ms. Siddiqui allegedly grabbed the gun and tried to kill the Americans in the room, but missed as they wrestled it away and shot her in the torso.

Her attorney, Elizabeth Fink, said in court today that the prosecution's account is hard to swallow.

"They put a gun down by their feet, and they didn't realize when the weapon is not there?" she asked at a press conference held outside the courthouse. "Why was an alleged terrorist put behind curtains and not behind bars?"...

The defense is self-contradictory. "Her attorneys said the idea that a 90-pound woman could get the better of six trained soldiers and FBI agents is 'ridiculous.'" But maybe that's just what the soldiers and agents were thinking, and why they were careless. And if a 90-pound woman got hold of a gun, it wouldn't be hard for her to get the better of six trained soldiers and FBI agents.

The families of the four wounded Muslim police officers might beg to differ. "Algeria: Al-Qaeda claims responsibility for suicide attacks" from Adnkronos, August 6:

Algiers, 6 August (AKI) - Al-Qaeda's branch in North Africa has claimed responsibility for two recent suicide attacks that wounded 25 people including four police officers, according to a statement posted on Islamist forums on Wednesday.[...]

According to the web statement, the suicide attack in Tizi Ouzou was carried out by a young man named Abu Mariam (photo).

"He drove a truck laden with 600 kilogrammes of explosives and hit two important targets: the headquarters of the secret services and local police", said the statement.

"The Tizi Ouzou attacker Abu Mariam is the son of one of the tribes in the area, and was very careful to avoid spilling the blood of even one Muslim."

"We tell the sons of France , the slaves of America, and their masters too, that our finger is on the trigger and the convoys of martyrs are longing to rampage your bastions in defence of our Islamic nation," said the statement.

The previous attack on the town of Lakhdariya, east of Algiers, was reportedly carried out by Abdel Malik Abdel Mara.

He reportedly blew himself up as he drove a motorbike laden with 70 kilogrammes of explosives into a military convoy, wounding at least 13 soldiers.

Phenomenon of female suicide bombers becoming more endemic to Iraq. "Iraq nets three women would-be bombers in anti-Qaeda sweep" from AFP August 6:

BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) — Iraqi forces have arrested three women who were plotting suicide bombing missions against soldiers and police involved in a vast offensive against Al-Qaeda, officials said on Wednesday.

In all, Iraqi forces have netted 483 suspects since the start of the operation in the troubled central province of Diyala against Al-Qaeda and Shiite rebels which was launched in late July, an official said.

"Acting on information received, our forces uncovered three women in a house in Al-Saada who were preparing to carry out suicide attacks against our forces in the region," interior ministry spokesman General Abdel Karim Khalaf told AFP.[...]

The number of attacks carried out by women bombers has dramatically increased in 2008, many of them carried out in Baquba.

A woman believed to have been responsible for recruiting female suicide bombers was among four Al-Qaeda-linked suspects arrested in Diyala at the weekend, according to the Iraqi military.

In one of the deadliest recent attacks believed to be perpetrated by women, three suicide bombers believed to be women blew themselves up among Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad last month, killing at least 25 and wounding around 75.

The Muslim Brotherhood “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” — Mohamed Akram, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” May 22, 1991

"Obama's Muslim-Outreach Adviser Resigns," by Glenn R. Simpson and Amy Chozick for the Wall Street Journal, August 6 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Muslim-outreach coordinator to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama has resigned amid questions about his involvement in an Islamic investment fund and various Islamic groups.

Mr. Asbahi said he did not want to distract Obama's campaign.

Chicago lawyer Mazen Asbahi, who was appointed volunteer national coordinator for Muslim American affairs by the Obama campaign on July 26, stepped down Monday after an Internet newsletter wrote about his brief stint on the fund's board, which also included a fundamentalist imam.

"Mr. Asbahi has informed the campaign that he no longer wishes to serve in his volunteer position, and we are in the process of searching for a new national Arab American and Muslim American outreach coordinator," spokesman Ben LaBolt said in a statement.

A corporate lawyer at the firm of Schiff Hardin LLP, Mr. Asbahi tendered his resignation after he and the Obama campaign received emailed inquiries about his background from The Wall Street Journal. He did not respond to the email or a message left at his law office; the campaign released a letter in which Mr. Asbahi said he did not want to be a distraction....

In 2000, Mr. Asbahi briefly served on the board of Allied Assets Advisors Fund, a Delaware-registered trust. Its other board members at the time included Jamal Said, the imam at a fundamentalist-controlled mosque in Illinois.

"I served on that board for only a few weeks before resigning as soon as I became aware of public allegations against another member of the board," Mr. Asbahi said in his resignation letter. "Since concerns have been raised about that brief time, I am stepping down...to avoid distracting from Barack Obama's message of change."

The eight-year-old connection between Mr. Asbahi and Mr. Said was raised last week by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, which is published by a Washington think tank and chronicles the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, a world-wide fundamentalist group based in Egypt. Other Web sites, some pro-Republican and others critical of fundamentalist Islam, also have reported on the background of Mr. Asbahi. He is a frequent speaker before several groups in the U.S. that scholars have associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Justice Department named Mr. Said an unindicted co-conspirator in the racketeering trial last year of several alleged Hamas fundraisers, which ended in a mistrial. He has also been identified as a leading member of the group in news reports going back to 1993....

Allied Asset Advisors is a subsidiary of the North American Islamic Trust. The trust, which is supported financially by the government of Saudi Arabia, holds title to many mosques in the U.S. and promotes a conservative brand of Islam compatible with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and also akin to the fundamentalist style predominant in Saudi Arabia. Allied executives did not respond to inquiries.

NAIT was listed by the Brotherhood operative Akram, in that same memorandum, as a group allied with the Brotherhood's program.

Ninety-nine, to be exact (though a few of these, well, may not be considered "virtuous" by some peoples). "Islamic Superheroes Going Global" by Camille Agon for Time, August 5:

Like other kids the world over, Middle Eastern children have long fantasized about superheroes battling injustice in American cities or fighting beasts in Japan. Five years ago, they got some champions of their own to cheer on when Kuwait-born businessman Naif Al-Mutawa created a new breed of superheroes endowed with Muslim traits and virtues. Now Mutawa is on an even greater mission: taking those same Islamic characters around the world.

"The 99", a comic-book series based on characters that each personify one of the 99 qualities that the Koran attributes to God, met early resistance in places like Saudi Arabia. Local authorities worried that the series might mock Islam. But after Mutawa guaranteed that he would remain respectful of religion and won backing from a major Islamic bank, the series took off around the Gulf. Initially given away for free with Arabic versions of Marvel comics (the license for which Mutawa owns in the region), The 99 is now a stand-alone success, with some 500,000 copies given away and sold across the region in the past two years. [...]

The 99 is based on a pivotal moment in Islamic history: the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258. In Mutawa's series, 99 gemstones encrypted with Baghdad's wisdom and power were scattered around the world, left for superheroes such as "Jabbar the Powerful" and "Noora the Light" to find before their archnemesis Rughal does. [...]

Yet the 99 do try to teach virtues valued by Islam, such as working as a team and combining your strengths with those of others. "The goal is to teach children that there are 99 ways to solve a problem," says Mutawa.

The characters in The 99 include Muslims from all over the world: Fatah, from Indonesia, can open and close gateways at any location; Daar, from the U.S., can inflict pain; and Mumita, with unparalleled agility, is Portuguese. This year, a burqa-wearing character from Yemen named Batina the Hidden will make an appearance. "Even though there are approximately 50 female superheroes, only five will be covered in that way," says Mutawa. "I want to send the message out that there is not only one way to be Muslim."

An update on this story. "Former Presidential Candidate Urges Crowd to Stalk Federal Prosecutor" from Fox News, August 5:

Former Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel was caught on tape last week telling a crowd in Washington, D.C., that they should harass a federal prosecutor who helped bring criminal contempt charges against a Palestinian activist.

In the tape, Gravel can be heard telling people to pressure Gordon Kromberg, an assistant U.S. attorney in the eastern district of Virginia, to drop the charges against Sami Al-Arian.

“Find out where he lives, find out where his kids go to school, find out where his office is, picket him all the time,” Gravel said, in an audio tape obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism and provided to FOX News.

“Call him a racist in signs if you see him. Call him an injustice. Call him whatever you want to call him, but in his face all the time.”

Al-Arian is a former Florida professor who in 2006 pleaded guilty to providing goods and services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Prosecutors had tried him on more serious charges, but that ended in a hung jury, so Al-Arian took a plea.

He later was charged with contempt for refusing to testify before a grand jury in Virginia.

Gravel told FOX News that he doesn’t want people to break the law and that he personally wouldn’t do the things he’s recommended — but that it could be an effective way to change the behavior of U.S. officials.
[...]

“The question is whether he crossed the line in saying ‘find out where his kids go to school,’” said counter-terrorism expert Steve Emerson. “That to my mind and to government officials including those in the FBI crosses the line into a direct veiled threat.”

He said the evidence at the Al-Arian trial “overwhelming showed and incontrovertibly demonstrated that he was head of the Islamic Jihad network in the United States.”

Kromberg’s boss, U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg, wouldn’t comment on Gravel’s statement, but he lauded Kromberg’s record in a statement.

“Gordon Kromberg is a dedicated, talented and scrupulously fair prosecutor. Further, when we decide to prosecute an individual, that decision is based strictly on the facts and the law, and in the pursuit of justice, period,” he said.

Al-Arian is still sitting in a Virginia jail. He’s also been ordered deported, but the United States still is searching for a country that will take him.

In Human Events today I discuss Obama's pretensions to a special understanding of the Islamic world:

As the Iranian nuclear crisis continues to simmer, the question grows more urgent: would a President Obama really be able to wring concessions from the Iranian mullahs? Some think so -- and point to a largely forgotten incident during the Iranian hostage crisis as proof.

When Iranian jihadists seized the American Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, they took sixty-six hostages. Fifty-two of these were held captive for fourteen grim months. Of the remaining fourteen, one was released in July 1980 after falling ill, but thirteen were released just two weeks after they were taken hostage: on November 19 and 20, 1979, the Iranians released thirteen black Americans and women. Blacks were oppressed in America, they said, and they were sympathetic to “oppressed minorities” -- and as pious Muslims they did not fight against women.

Some are now actually arguing that Obama could succeed in negotiations with Tehran just because he is black. But the hard fact is that the Iranians released the black hostages to manipulate the press and gain political advantage. Obama’s race will give him no advantage in talks with the ayatollahs.

Obama has long claimed that he would bring an insight to international relations that other American Presidents have not had. He explained last February: “As somebody who has family living overseas, who myself have lived overseas for a time, I would be able to -- I think the world would see me as a different kind of President, somebody who could see the world through their eyes….If I convened a meeting with Muslim leaders around the world, to discuss how they can align themselves in our battle against terrorism, but also put our, the relationship between the West and the Islamic world on a more productive footing, I do so with the credibility of somebody who actually lived in a Muslim country for a number of years.” And indeed, majority-Muslim countries have greeted his candidacy with immense enthusiasm. One Indonesian Christian leader even said: “We are praying for Obama because we feel he can help reduce the widespread stigma and misperception that Muslims in Indonesia are fundamentalists.”

So maybe President Obama would carry two advantages into a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As one who has lived among Muslims, he would know how they feel, and perhaps they would believe that he, as a black man in America, would understand their grievances against the West. Perhaps the mullahs in Tehran would even be disposed to grant concessions to him, given their solicitude to the “oppressed minorities” among the hostages in 1979.

But how much hope can we really place upon an affirmative action program in Tehran? After all, the Iranian regime is not a champion of the oppressed, and Barack Obama has never been oppressed. Iran is constantly trying to portray itself as the victim of American and Israeli machinations, and these attempts are transparently dishonest. Recently it complained to the UN Security Council about Israel’s threat to its nuclear program – while never mentioning, of course, the oft-repeated Iranian saber-rattling against Israel. Iran’s Foreign Minister has called on Muslim nations to “erase” Israel, and Ahmadinejad himself has frequently indulged in genocidal rhetoric against Israel. He declared at the notorious “World Without Zionism” conference in Tehran in 2005 that “there is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma [Israel] from the face of the Islamic world….Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury, Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury.”

This violent rhetoric belies the victim status the Iranians are trying to claim, and places Obama’s claimed advantage in a vastly different light. Iran has been cloaking its belligerence as a strike against oppression ever since it took those hostages back in the Carter years, and the Khomeini regime’s release of the black hostages was nothing more than a ham-handed endeavor to portray an act of naked aggression as something that soft-hearted and soft-headed Leftists could support. Obama, entering Tehran for talks with all the good will his background and race would afford him, would only reinforce the Iranian regime’s hollow attempts to claim victim status -- and thereby win a platform for concessions. And since Obama would really bring to the table only warmed-over Carterism, those concessions would most likely start flowing copiously -- to the detriment of American interests and those of our allies.

Barack Obama’s naivete would make Jimmy Carter look like Winston Churchill. Any actual “credibility” he would actually have in Tehran would be based not on his experience in a Muslim country or the color of his skin, but on his readiness to grant concessions. And that readiness could put us all at grave risk.

"A cup from a gushing spring is brought round for them, white, delicious to the drinkers, wherein there is no headache nor are they made mad thereby"

The latest in my Blogging the Qur'an series at Hot Air:

“The Messenger of Allah,” said `Abdullah bin `Umar, “used to command us to make our prayers short and he used to recite As-Saffat [“The Ranks,” i.e., this sura] when he led us in prayer.” This Meccan sura begins (verses 1-11) with a heavenly vision: the angels “ranged about in ranks” (v. 1), repelling evil (v. 2) and thus proclaiming Allah’s message (v. 3). That message, of course, is that Allah is one (v. 4) and is Lord of all (v. 5).

The angels are apparently ranged in ranks in order to keep the rebellious demons from listening in to the Exalted Assembly (vv. 7-8) – that is, says Ibn Kathir, “they cannot reach the higher group — which refers to the heavens and the angels in them — when they speak of what has been revealed by Allah of His Laws and decrees.” Some devils, however, do manage to hear and snatch away a bit of Allah’s revelation (v. 10); Ibn Abbas explains that “when they heard the revelation, they would come down to earth and to every word they would add nine of their own.” This may be the cosmic derivation of the Scriptural corruptions that the Jews (5:13) and the Christians (5:14) engaged in.

Verses 12-39 return to the very familiar themes of the scorn of the unbelievers for Muhammad’s message, which they dismiss again as “mere magic” (v. 15) while they dismiss the messenger himself as a “poet possessed” (v. 36). They again deny the resurrection of the dead (vv. 16-17). They will accuse each other of leading them all astray as they realize that Allah’s word was true (vv. 28-32). For Muhammad’s message is true and confirms the messages of the earlier prophets (v. 37) – a statement which, as we have seen, requires the idea that the earlier prophets who are listed in the Qur’an, including Biblical figures such as Abraham, Moses, Jesus, etc., taught Islam — until their messages were corrupted by their venal followers.

Then verses 40-49 turn to the blessed in Paradise. They will drink from a “clear-flowing fountain” (v. 45), which will, says the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, be filled with “wine that flows along the ground like streams of water, white, whiter than milk, delicious to the drinkers, in contrast to the wine of this world which is distasteful to drink.” Ibn Kathir adds that “Zayd bin Aslam said, ‘White flowing wine,’ meaning, with a bright, shining color, unlike the wine of this earth with its ugly, repulsive colors of red, black, yellow and turbid shades, and other features which are repugnant to anyone of a sound nature.” This wine won’t even cause drunkenness (v. 47). They will also enjoy the company of chaste, beautiful women (v. 48), like “eggs closely guarded” (v. 49) – that is, according to the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, “in terms of [the starkness of their white] colour, hidden eggs, of ostriches, sheltered by their feathers from dust, the colour being that whiteness with a hint of pallor, which is the most beautiful of female complexions.” These are the fabled virgins of Paradise, in search of whom Muslims have fought against unbelievers and sought death throughout history, knowing that Paradise is guaranteed to those who “kill and are killed” for Allah (9:111).

In verses 50-59 one of the blessed will turn to another in Paradise and start telling him about his friend who scoffed at Islam (vv. 51-53). Then a voice will direct him to look down and see his old friend suffering in hellfire, whereupon he will chastise him for almost getting him sent to hell also (vv. 54-59). Verses 60-73 dwell on the torments of the damned. At the heart of hell they will find the Zaqqum tree, with its fruit like devils’ heads (v. 65), and they will drink boiling water (v. 67). Allah sent messengers to the people who were ultimately damned (v. 72), but they did not heed (v. 73).

Verses 74-148 then hail Allah’s believing servants: Noah (vv. 75-82); Abraham (vv. 83-111); Isaac (vv. 112-113); Moses and Aaron (vv. 114-122); Elijah (vv. 123-132); Lot (vv. 133-138); Jonah (vv. 139-148).

Abraham sees in a dream that he must sacrifice his son (v. 102) but Allah stops him just before he is about to do it (vv. 104-105); it was all a test (v. 106). The son is not named in the Qur’anic text, but Isaac’s birth follows (v. 112), which strongly implies that he was Ishmael. Ibn Kathir explains the view of virtually all Islamic scholars: the sacrificial son was Ishmael, and the Jews and Christians corrupted the text of their Scriptures to make the claim that he was Isaac:

According to their Book, Allah commanded Ibrahim to sacrifice his only son, and in another text it says his firstborn son. But here they falsely inserted the name of Ishaq [Isaac]. This is not right because it goes against what their own Scripture says. They inserted the name of Ishaq because he is their ancestor, while Isma’il is the ancestor of the Arabs. They were jealous of them, so they added this idea and changed the meaning of the phrase ‘only son’ to mean ‘the only son who is with you,’ because Isma’il had been taken with his mother to Makkah [Mecca]. But this is a case of falsification and distortion, because the words ‘only son’ cannot be said except in the case of one who has no other son. Furthermore, the firstborn son has a special status that is not shared by subsequent children, so the command to sacrifice him is a more exquisite test.

As in the Bible, Jonah is swallowed by the big fish (v. 142). He is spat out onto a shore (v. 145), preaches to a hundred thousand people (v. 147), and they believe, whereupon Allah “permitted them to enjoy their life for a while” (v. 148). In the Bible, they “repent,” but here, they “believe” – which is the all-important act in the Qur’an, that of accepting the message.

The story of Jonah then segues neatly in verses 149-182 into a polemic against the pagan Arabs who worshipped “daughters of Allah.” Allah instructs his prophet to ask them if they really think that Allah has daughters while they themselves have sons (v. 149) – because everyone knows, of course, that sons are superior to daughters, and so this would be attributing an inferiority to Allah. Those who say Allah has begotten children are liars (v. 152). Those who claim otherwise should produce their proof from Scripture (v. 157). In reality those whom people worship besides Allah are powerless (vv. 161-163). But those ranged in ranks (whose return is a nice bit of poetic rounding) declare Allah’s glory (vv. 164-166). Allah’s forces will be victorious (v. 173) – as the Tafsir al-Jalalayn explains: “assuredly Our hosts, namely, the believers, they will indeed be the victors, over the disbelievers by [their being given] the definitive proofs and assistance against them in this world. And if some of these [believers] are not victorious over them in this world, then assuredly in the Hereafter [they will be so].”

Next week: Sura 38, “Sad”: “the unbelievers are steeped in self-glory and separatism.”

Yes, that Mullah Krekar: The same one who has been a leader of a jihadist group responsible for suicide bombings in Iraq, convicted of terrorism in Jordan, and ordered bombings from Oslo. And it isn't his first lawsuit against Norway.

"Iraqi Islamist leader sues Norway over human rights," from Agence France-Presse, August 5:

OSLO (AFP) Mullah Krekar, founder of radical Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, has filed charges with Europe's human rights court against Norway, where he lives, for "inhuman treatment," his lawyer said Tuesday.

Ironic, considering that he has avoided deportation due to Norway's reservations about his possibly being ill-treated elsewhere.

"We lodged a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in April," Brynjar Meling told AFP, confirming a report in the Verdens Gang daily. "The complaint is currently being handled," he added.

Kurdish-born Krekar has lived in Norway as a refugee since 1991, but has been under threat of deportation since Norwegian media revealed he was the founder of Ansar al-Islam, which figures on the United States' list of terrorist groups.

Norway's Supreme Court on November 8 upheld previous court rulings and a 2003 decision by Norwegian authorities to expel Krekar from the Scandinavian country, claiming he was a threat to national security.

Norwegian law however prevents Krekar, whose real name is Fateh Najmeddin Faraj, from being deported to his homeland until the situation in Iraq improves.

And he had been working so hard to make it a better place...

The Iraqi Kurd, who himself figures on a United Nations list of terrorist groups or individuals and has repeatedly expressed admiration for Osama bin Laden and called for jihad in Iraq, admits that he founded the group but insists he has not headed it since May 2002.

"For nearly six years, my client has not been able to work, travel, or even pick up a package at the post office or open a bank account since he lacks any form of identification papers," said Meling.

Because of this, Krekar's wife has been forced to support him, he added.

Meling maintains that Norway has violated three articles of the European Convention on Human Rights: Article 3 banning "inhuman or degrading treatment," Article 8 demanding respect for "private and family life," and Article 13 providing the right to defend one's human rights before a national court.

The European court cannot reverse the verdicts handed down by the Norwegian judiciary but it can criticise the way the case has been handled and it will then "be up to the state to draw any potential conclusions," the lawyer said.

"The government has a strong wish to carry out the expulsion as quickly as possible, but this will have to happen within the boundaries of Norway's international human rights obligations," Libe Rieber-Mohn, a state secretary at the Labour and Social Inclusion Ministry, told AFP in an email.

She stressed that in accordance with the European human rights convention, Norway would not send anyone "to an area where they risk being the victims of torture".