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Posts Tagged ‘islamofascism’

Praising the jihadist murderers’ accomplices

Posted by Richard on September 12, 2012

In a “no questions” press conference this morning, President Obama “praised Libyan security forces for acting to repel the attack” and for taking Ambassador Stevens’ body to a hospital. That was about three hours after it was reported that those Libyan security forces had directed the jihadist attackers to the ambassador’s hiding place.

I suppose the President wasn’t aware of that report. Understandable, since he no doubt skipped any security briefing that may have been held (he’s skipped more than half the security briefings that have taken place since he took office; W never missed a one). Plus, he had other things on his mind, like the campaign appearances and fundraisers scheduled for later in the day.

Besides, according to some Libyan officials, the US is to blame for the attack. I expect the State Department to apologize any time now.

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Obama administration ignored warning about attacks

Posted by Richard on September 12, 2012

The Obama administration and their media lapdogs are more interested in condemning Mitt Romney than in condemning the 7th-century barbarian jihadists who attacked a US embassy and consulate, killing a US ambassador and three of his staff. They’re no doubt also making sure that their media lapdogs divert attention away from their shameful disinterest in national security leading up to these attacks, including their failure to heed a clear warning that such attacks could be expected (emphasis added):

Islamic mobs that stormed the U.S. Embassy in Egypt and the U.S. consulate in Libya on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, murdering the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, said they were doing so because they were enraged by an obscure, Internet movie that mocked Muhammed.

But a closer examination of the evidence indicates al-Qaeda orchestrated these attacks, and the movie was just a bogus excuse used to trigger the widespread violence. Even worse, it seems al-Qaeda telegraphed these attacks, and the Obama administration still got caught flat-footed, unaware of the terror group’s strength in the region, missing key signals and clues that were out in the open.

One day before September 11, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri posted a 42-minute video on Jihadist forums urging Libyans to attack Americans to avenge the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi, the terror organization’s second-in-command, whom U.S. drones killed in June of 2012 in Pakistan.

In the video, al-Zawahri said al-Libi’s “blood is calling, urging and inciting you to fight and kill the Crusaders,” leading up to a date heralded and celebrated by radical Islamists.

Another version of the video was actually posted on YouTube on September 9 and yet, President Barack Obama, who has not attended an intelligence briefing since September 5, and his administration did not beef up security at the embassy and consulate on September 11. There were no Marines present to protect Americans abroad, as the Islamic mobs overwhelmed what little security presence there was.

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Sign the petition to defund radical Islamists

Posted by Richard on September 12, 2012

From Steve Elliot, Grassfire Nation (via email; emphasis in original):

This is a sad and disturbing day. On the anniversary of 9/11, America is once again under assault by the Muslim jihad. U.S. embassies were attacked and our citizens killed by radical Islamic extremists while our own Embassy in Egypt apologized for any offense a private movie may have caused to Muslims.

Let’s be clear — these despicable attacks amount to acts of war against our nation. These coordinated attacks by radical Islamic extremists on U.S. Embassies resulted in the invasion of U.S. soil, the desecration of U.S. property including our flag, and the murder of U.S. citizens. 

Yet for hours, Obama was silent. Instead, he left it to Hillary Clinton to condemn the attacks. But even Hillary couldn’t condemn without also apologizing! She essentially re-stated the apology issued by the Embassy in Egypt that the Obama administration later disavowed!

Even in Obama’s statement today, he included a thinly-veiled apology.

But that’s not the worst of it….

+ + Our Tax Dollars Are Funding Our Attackers!

Perhaps most offensive of all is that OUR TAX DOLLARS are directly and indirectly funding these attacks on our nation.

For too many years, the U.S. government has pumped billions of dollars into countries whose leaders and people are openly hostile to our way of life. For example, this Spring the Obama regime waived “democracy requirements” to free up $1.5 BILLION in aid to the Muslim Brotherhood-led Egyptian government.

THIS WEEK’S ATTACKS ARE A “TIPPING POINT.” WE MUST DRAW A LINE. ANY AND ALL FUNDING TO EGYPT AND SYRIA (AND ANY NATION WHOSE GOVERNMENT OR PEOPLE OPENLY OPPOSE AND ATTACK THE U.S.) MUST BE STOPPED!

+ + Emergency Petition To Stop Funding For Egypt And Syria

Grassfire Nation is launching an EMERGENCY PETITION calling for Congress and the President to CEASE AND DESIST any and all funding to Egypt or Syria. PLEASE GO HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION:

http://www.grassfire.com/277/petition.asp

We expect key votes in Congress THIS WEEK so we must have your petition immediately.

Again…. this is an OUTRAGE. We are funding countries led by radical Islamic extremists whose people are openly attacking U.S. embassies and killing U.S. citizens. And our Secretary of State is apologizing!

As a first step, we must demand that Congress STOP sending our tax dollars to Egypt and Syria.

Please sign the petition and then alert your friends.

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Islamist atrocities reported in Egypt

Posted by Richard on August 18, 2012

In Egypt, the Arab Spring is turning into a nightmare for advocates of secular democracy, Christians, and anyone else who doesn’t embrace 7th-century Sharia law:

Last week in Egypt, when Muslim Brotherhood supporters terrorized the secular media, several Arabic websites—including Arab News, Al Khabar News, Dostor Watany, and Egypt Now—reported that people were being “crucified.” The relevant excerpt follows in translation:

A Sky News Arabic correspondent in Cairo confirmed that protestors belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood crucified those opposing Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others. Likewise, Muslim Brotherhood supporters locked the doors of the media production facilities of 6-October [a major media region in Cairo], where they proceeded to attack several popular journalists.

That there were attacks and violence—both in front of Egypt’s presidential palace and at major media facilities, is well-documented. An August 9 report by El Balad, a widely read Egyptian website, gives the details:

Last Wednesday, August 8, “thousands of the Muslim Brotherhood’s supporters” attacked 6-October’s media facilities, beat Khaled Salah—chief editor of the privately-owned and secular Youm 7 newspaper—prevented Yusif al-Hassani, an On TV broadcaster, from entering the building, and generally “terrorized the employees.”

El Balad adds that the supporters of Tawfik Okasha, another vocal critic of President Morsi—the one who widely disseminated the graphic video of a Muslim apostate being slaughtered to cries of “Allahu Akbar”—gathered around the presidential palace, only to be surrounded by Brotherhood supporters, who “attacked them with sticks, knives, and Molotov cocktails, crucifying some of them on trees, leading to the deaths of two and the wounding of dozens.”

Far from condemning these terrorists, Al Azhar, Egypt’s most authoritative Islamic institution, has just issued a fatwa calling for more violence and oppression, saying that “fighting participants in anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations planned for 24 August is a religious obligation.”

Most of the aforementioned Arabic sites point out that these attacks are part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s campaign to intimidate and thus censor Egypt’s secular media from exposing the group’s Islamist agenda, which Youm 7, On TV, and Okasha do daily. [Note: the latter’s channel was recently shut down, despite Morsi’s previous reassurances that “no station or media will be shut down in my era.”]

In reality, there is little reason to doubt this crucifixion story. Militant Muslims crucifying their opponents is a regular feature of the Islamic world—recent cases coming from the Ivory Coast, where two Christian brothers were crucified, similarly by supporters of a Muslim president who ousted a Christian; Indonesia, where Islamic separatists crucified a fellow Muslim for being a military informant; and in Iraq, where Muslim militants crucified Christian children.

Finally, it is telling that only a few months ago, and for the first time in Egypt’s modern history, an Egyptian MP proposed to institutionalize Sharia’s most draconian punishments—including crucifixion.

In short, under the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the bottle has been uncorked and the Islamic Genie set loose. Expect much worse to come.

The Muslim Brotherhood, to which newly elected Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi belongs, has been courted by the Obama administration, which describes these perpetrators of crucifixion and terrorism as  “peaceful and committed to non-violence”:


[YouTube link]

Since the beginning of the Arab Spring, the Obama administration has snubbed the secular pro-democracy organizations and instead embraced the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s even sending $1.5 billion in aid to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government in defiance of a congressional ban on such aid “unless the State Department certifies that Egypt is making progress on basic freedoms and human rights.” It’s hard to certify progress on human rights when regime opponents are being crucified.

Maybe the Obama administration’s fondness for the Muslim Brotherhood is linked to the close familial ties that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, Huma Abedin, has to the organization. Or maybe it’s a consequence of the president’s anti-colonialist ideology.

Whatever the reason, this administration is on the side of the 7th-century barbarians.

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Saudi clerics combat Islamist extremism — sort of

Posted by Richard on June 16, 2012

Steven Miller of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies posted some interesting information from a 2011 study the foundation commissioned to collect and analyze what Saudi clerics are saying online. It’s at best a mixed bag.

To a large extent, the campaign to undercut al Qaeda in Saudi religious discourse appears to have worked, according to the FDD study. Calls for violence accounted for just a small portion of the total content of the social media data — only 5 percent.

You knew there was a “but” coming, didn’t you?

But apparent success of the Saudi campaign, as suggested by the data above, obfuscates a key point: the clerics do not condemn jihad per se, just al Qaeda’s jihad.

The Grand Mufti, highest Saudi religious authority, teaches that individuals should wage jihad against the infidels only when told to do so by the royal family. Other clerics still teach that “jihad means fighting the infidels” (not some self-improvement quest, as the propagandists at CAIR and their sympathizers claim) “until they become Muslim or agree to live under Muslim protection,” and that waging jihad or supporting those who do so is the duty of Muslims.

The bottom line:

The data from the FDD study suggests that the Saudi government’s efforts to restrict or reduce the amount of militant online content have been somewhat effective. This indicates that when the Saudis are sufficiently motivated, they can temper the radicalism that has long percolated in the kingdom. But the data also shows that the Saudi campaign has not been able to eliminate radicalism, even, and perhaps most significantly, at the highest levels of the Saudi religious establishment.

For some reason, I’m not surprised.

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Obama administration supporting Islamists in the Middle East

Posted by Richard on February 21, 2012

The Investigative Project on Terrorism has posted a disturbing essay by Dr. Essam Abdallah, an Egyptian liberal intellectual and college professor, outlining how the Islamist lobby in the U.S., led by the Muslim Brotherhood front group CAIR, has shaped the Obama administration’s policies regarding the Arab Spring (emphasis added):

The most dramatic oppression of the region’s civil societies and the Arab Spring is not by means of weapons, or in the Middle East. It is not led by Gaddafi, Mubarak, Bin Ali, Saleh, or Assad. It is led by the powerful Islamist lobbies in Washington DC. People may find my words curious if not provocative. But my arguments are sharp and well understood by many Arab and middle eastern liberals and freedom fighters. Indeed, we in the region, who are struggling for real democracy, not for the one time election type of democracy have been asking ourselves since January 2011 as the winds of Arab spring started blowing, why isn’t the West in general and the United States Administration in particular clearly and forcefully supporting our civil societies and particularly the secular democrats of the region? Why were the bureaucracies in Washington and in Brussels partnering with Islamists in the region and not with their natural allies the democracy promoting political forces?

Months into the Arab Spring, we realized that the Western powers, and the Obama Administration have put their support behind the new authoritarians, those who are claiming they will be brought to power via the votes of the people. Well, it is not quite so.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Nahda of Tunisia, the Justice Party of Morocco and the Islamist militias in Libya’s Transitional National Council have been systematically supported by Washington at the expense of real liberal and secular forces. We saw day by day how the White House guided carefully the statements and the actions of the US and the State Department followed through to give all the chances to the Islamists and almost no chances to the secular and revolutionary youth. We will come back to detail these diplomatic and financial maneuvers which are giving victory to the fundamentalists while the seculars and progressives are going to be smashed by the forthcoming regimes.

Read the whole thing.

To understand the disgusting behavior with regard to the Arab Spring by the Obama administration (and the left in general), take note of three things.

First, the old saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Second, Barack Obama’s 2001 remarks dissing the U.S. Constitution (emphasis added):

But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

Third, Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg’s recent advice to Egypt not to emulate the U.S. Constitution (and its “negative liberties”), but instead to emulate constitutions that are modeled after the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights — a collection of “positive rights” (to a decent job, a nice place to live, plenty of food, free health care, etc.) creating a powerful government capable of redistributing anything and everything “equitably.”

The enemies of the Obama administration and leftists in general are those who embrace Lockean “negative rights,” individualism, limited government, and free markets.

The enemies of the Islamofascists in the Middle East are those who embrace Lockean “negative rights,” individualism, limited government, and free markets.

Thus the enemies of the Obama administration and leftists in general are also the enemies of the Islamofascists. Ipso facto, the Islamofascists are friends of the Obama administration and the left in general.

Politically, the Islamofascists are both authoritarians and egalitarians. Members of the Obama administration and leftists in general are both authoritarians and egalitarians. Authoritarians and egalitarians are inevitably drawn to each other. This is not news to anyone who’s read David Horowitz’s Unholy Alliance.

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Self-censorship

Posted by Richard on February 8, 2012

Nick Cohen writing in Literary Review:

The grand posture of writers in liberal democracies is that they are the moral equivalents of dissidents in repressive regimes. Loud-mouthed newspaper columnists claim to ‘speak truth to power’. Novelists, artists, playwrights and comedians announce their willingness to transgress boundaries. Their publishers look for controversy like boozers look for brawls because they know that few marketing strategies beat the claim that a courageous iconoclast is challenging establishments and shattering taboos.

To maintain the illusion that they are part of some kind of radical underground, intellectuals must practise a deceit. They can never admit to their audience that fear of violent reprisals, ostracism or crippling financial penalties keeps them away from subjects that ought to concern them – and their fellow citizens.

Although it is impossible to count the books authors have abandoned, radical Islam is probably the greatest cause of self-censorship in the West today. …

Read the whole thing. Cohen is mistaken in one respect, however. He states that:

… It is a mistake to think of repression as repression by the state alone. In much of the world it still is, but in Britain, America and most of continental Europe the age of globalisation has done its work, and it is privatised rather than state forces that threaten freedom of speech.

That may be true of the fear of having your throat slit by some random Islamofascist. But state forces are clearly at work in his other example, Britain’s egregious libel laws (which he correctly describes as “(c)ontrary to common law and natural justice”).

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Ron Paul duped by CAIR collaborator

Posted by Richard on January 10, 2012

Ron Paul argues that the rise of radical Islamism and its terror war on America and the West are a consequence of our intervention in and occupation of Muslim lands, not their politico-religious beliefs. And he cites published research that supposedly proves it:

Though it is hard for many to believe, honest studies show that the real motivation behind the September 11 attacks and the vast majority of other instances of suicide terrorism is not that our enemies are bothered by our way of life.  Neither is it our religion, or our wealth.  Rather, it is primarily occupation.  If you were to imagine for a moment how you would feel if another country forcibly occupied the United States, had military bases and armed soldiers present in our hometowns, you might begin to understand why foreign occupation upsets people so much.  Robert Pape has extensively researched this issue and goes in depth in his book “Cutting the Fuse:  The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It”.  In fact, of 2,200 incidents of suicide attacks he has studied worldwide since 1980, 95% were in response to foreign occupation.

But there are a couple of problems with Rep. Paul’s source, as Joel Richardson reveals:

It is essential to take note of the fact that the primary support for Paul’s belief concerning blowback comes from Robert Pape. The problem for Paul here is that by most accounts, Pape is an agenda-driven pseudo-scholar whose works and “studies” have been thoroughly debunked by several other scholars. I appeal to all supporters of Paul to read the following articles debunking Robert Pape’s, and thus Ron Paul’s, claims:

But not only are Pape’s claims based on manufactured data, he has also been caught red-handed conspiring with the Hamas-linked group Council on American-Islamic Relations.

How many Ron Paul supporters can honestly say that they feel comfortable knowing that this is the man Paul looks to as one of his primary guides concerning foreign policy?

Richardson goes on to argue that the radical Islamists’ desire to kill the Jews didn’t stem from the creation of Israel and its “occupation,” as Rep. Paul, the Palestinians, and the American left contend, but from the words of Muhammad himself more than 1300 years ago. That’s true, to a degree.

But modern Islamofascism arose out of Wahhabism in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Two of its chief architects were Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood, and Grand Mufti Muhammad al-Husseini, the “Arab Fuehrer” who created Muslim Nazi divisions for Hitler and later helped found and set the ideological direction of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

Rep. Paul and those who agree with him need some serious educating regarding the politico-religious beliefs that he seems to know little or nothing about and dismisses as irrelevant. Here are some places to start:

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Never forget

Posted by Richard on September 11, 2011

Ten years ago this morning, we watched in horror as people jumped a thousand feet to their deaths because it was better than the alternative. Later that day, we learned that the heroic passengers of United Flight 93, knowing the fate that awaited them, had fought and died to prevent their plane from crashing into the White House or Capitol. In the ensuing days, we learned the details of that brave struggle, and "Let's roll!" became a phrase that brought goosebumps to me whenever I heard it. 

We must not  forget the events of September 11, 2001. We must keep the images fresh in our memories. It's necessary, I believe, if we're to retain the resolve we need to understand, oppose, and defeat the ongoing Islamofascist effort to destroy our way of life, of which the attacks of 9/11 were a part. 

We must not forget that there is a large, powerful, well-financed international movement dedicated to destroying Western Civilization.

On September 11, 2001, barbarians with box cutters — primitive 7th-century savages who could never build a World Trade Center or a 747, but whose insane ideology is dedicated to making the building of such things impossible — murdered 2,996 innocent people and changed Lower Manhattan from this: 

Lady Liberty watching over the twin towers before 9/11

to this:

1st tower falls

Fleeing as the tower falls

Fleeing through the choking dust

Falling to his death

 

Some people have forgotten now
It was many years ago
And peaceful here at home since then
So just let the memory go
But I close my eyes and see it still
Like it was yesterday — Oh no!
People jumping from a hundred-story building!
I can still see those Americans
Jumping from a hundred-story building …

© 2009 Richard G. Combs. All rights reserved.


 

Never forget.

Flag still stands

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NPR lied

Posted by Richard on March 11, 2011

From the beginning of the NPR-gate story, it bugged me that NPR's critics were so focused on what Ron Schiller said about the Tea Party and Jews controlling the media. To me, the big story was that NPR executives were eager to schmooze with and accept funding from a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Hamas. (Although I can certainly understand why ADL is upset and demanding an apology. I don't know if Tea Party Patriots has asked for an apology.)

NPR, of course, insisted that they'd repeatedly turned down the $5 million contribution. But now that Project Veritas has released its second NPR-gate video, that claim has been shown to be a lie. And the focus is now where I think it belongs — on NPR's knowing collaboration with a Muslim Brotherhood front group, the fictitious Muslim Education Action Center, and its willingness to not only accept the donation, but help make sure the source remains anonymous.

In her conversations with MEAC's "Ibrahim Kasaam," Betsy Liley, Senior Director of Institutional Giving, suggested more than once that the donation could be directed to a specific purpose, such as supporting NPR's foreign desk or religious coverage. And she revealed that she had checked out the MEAC website, which states that the organization is dedicated to spreading Sharia "across the world."

Big Journalism's Larry O'Connor thinks it's time for a Congressional investigation: 

While taking great pains to isolate Mr Schiller (who had already tendered his resignation to the publicly-funded broadcaster) NPR also suggested to the American public that they had no intention of accepting the proposed donation from MEAC and had, in fact, “repeatedly refused” the donation.  Only later in the day did NPR reveal that they had been vetting the group as recently as last week with hopes of obtaining their 501(c)(3) credentials.  We continue to ask:  Why vet a group you have repeatedly refused to take money from?

What we are witnessing is NPR’s ‘Modified Limited Hangout’ made famous by the engineers of the Watergate cover-up.  NPR is attempting to admit guilt and beg forgiveness for the lesser “crime” of making intolerant remarks about conservatives and supporters of Israel as a means to misdirect from the much larger and odious crime of being willing to accept blood money from a Muslim Brotherhood front group.

These two conflicting accounts could very well have paved the way for CEO Vivian Schiller’s ouster as her forced resignation was announced twelve hours after our article exposing the contradiction.  Now, with today’s video showing an active engagement from the NPR development team with the journalists posing as Shariah advocates and “All Things Considered” aficionados, NPR’s attempt at deception is clear for all tax payers to see.

MEAC: “It sounded like you were saying NPR would be able to shield us from a government audit, is that correct?”

Liley: “I think that is the case, especially if you are anonymous. I can inquire about that.”

And in a subsequent e-mail from Liley to MEAC, Liley wrote that she’s “awaiting a draft of a gift agreement from our legal counsel and will share it when I have it.”  That sure is a funny way of “repeatedly refusing” a donation.

This should be the long-overdue death knell for taxpayer funding of NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which amounts to about half a billion dollars a year.

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Is it cluelessness, or part of a pattern?

Posted by Richard on February 8, 2011

On Thursday, the Obama administration's Director of National Intelligence assured Congress that the Muslim Brotherhood is a "largely secular" organization that has "eschewed violence" (a "spokesman" is now backing away from those words in the most weasely way). Dr. Zudhi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy strongly denounced this nonsense:

"The Muslim Brotherhood is the antithesis of a secular organization as asserted today by James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence. Clapper's statement presents a significant concern that our primary Intelligence officer has a complete lack of understanding of an organization that presents the greatest threat to the security of the United States. The Director of Intelligence is either grossly naïve or covering up for an ideology that is in an ideological war with the United States and western society.

The Muslim Brotherhood is built on the ideology of political Islam which adheres to a belief in Islamic Supremacy. To be a secular organization the Brotherhood would have to completely disavow the very beliefs that define the organization.

Further, the Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to the political process in a post-Mubarak Egypt and throughout the middle-east. Thugs like Mubarak have created an atmosphere that has allowed the Brotherhood to thrive. The United States needs to be active within the country of Egypt countering the ideology of the Brotherhood helping the people of Egypt develop liberty-minded, democratic infrastructure to secure the country's future. We need to demonstrate to Egyptians that freedom does not come in the form of Islamic law or in the rule of theocratic clerics.

Our Intelligence community cannot afford to allow political correctness or this severally mistaken understanding of the Brotherhood to enter the conversation of how we will confront the changes in Egypt."

Last Saturday, I shared Natan Sharansky's cautious optimism about events in Egypt. Today, much of my optimism has evaporated. It's become clear to me that the Obama administration, rather than supporting the forces of liberty and democracy, is either flailing cluelessly or deliberately aiding the Muslim Brotherhood's efforts to hijack this revolt against tyranny for the purpose of imposing their own Islamist tyranny.

Jamie Glazov noted that this isn't the first time that Obama has cozied up to the Muslim Brotherhood, and he argued that it's no surprise coming from America's "radical in chief":

The list of examples of the leftists engaging in political romances with tyrants is infinite: Noam Chomsky traveling to Lebanon in May 2006 to embrace Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah; Academic Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish leftist, venerating Hamas and Hezbollah; Naomi Klein calling out in a column in The Nation for Muqtada al-Sadr's killing fields to come to New York; Tom Hayden reaching the next stage of his totalitarian high by meeting Klein's hero, al-Sadr, in London; and British Member of Parliament George Galloway visiting Syria in November 2005, prostrating himself before its despot and giving a speech at Damascus University in which he denounced America and Israel and extended his support to every possible enemy of the United States – from the terrorists in Iraq to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez.

What Obama is pursuing with the Muslim Brotherhood, therefore, is simply to be expected. And in typical fashion, the left is clamoring behind him to indulge in its own romance with the Egyptian jihadist entity.

The deranged and delusional leftist support for the Muslim Brotherhood today is a replay of how the left supported the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in 1979. And without doubt, the left's love affair with the Khomeini revolution, a well-known tragic – and grotesque – story, documented in works like David Horowitz's "Unholy Alliance" and in my own "United in Hate," served as a revealing – and horrifying – example of this progressive impulse to worship tyranny.

David Solway provided additional examples of "Useful Jihadiots" of the left and their Islamist allies who are assuring us that the Muslim Brotherhood is a benign force. And back in June of 2009, Chris Carter examined Obama's "troubling history" with the Muslim Brotherhood and provided a damning look at that organization.
 
Our government is in the hands of a group of people who at least tolerate, and perhaps admire and support, practically anyone or anything that's anti-American and anti-Western. They are at least benignly acquiescent to and perhaps aiding and abetting the Muslim Brotherhood's efforts to take over what began as a pro-freedom movement.

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Never forget

Posted by Richard on September 11, 2010

Nine years ago this morning, we watched in horror as people jumped a thousand feet to their deaths because it was better than the alternative. Later that day, we learned that the heroic passengers of United Flight 93, knowing the fate that awaited them, had fought and died to prevent their plane from crashing into the White House or Capitol. In the ensuing days, we learned the details of that brave struggle, and "Let's roll!" became a phrase that brought goosebumps to me whenever I heard it. 

Last night, I watched a compelling one-hour retrospective by Fox News that refreshed my memories of that day. It will be shown again later today (see my previous post), and I'll watch it again, and this time record it. It refreshed my memory in disturbing, but valuable, ways. No, those weren't bodies falling from the towers — they were living human beings with their arms and legs flailing as they fell. It's important, I think, that these details remain clear.

We must not let ourselves forget the events of September 11, 2001. We must keep the images fresh in our memories. It's necessary, I believe, if we're to retain the resolve we need to understand, oppose, and defeat the ongoing Islamofascist effort to destroy our way of life, of which the attacks of 9/11 were a part. 

I have nothing more to add to last year's 9/11 post, so with one minor edit, it appears again below.

Never forget that there is a large, powerful, well-financed international movement dedicated to destroying Western Civilization.

On September 11, 2001, barbarians with box cutters — primitive 7th-century savages who could never build a World Trade Center or a 747, but whose insane ideology is dedicated to making the building of such things impossible — murdered 2,996 innocent people and changed Lower Manhattan from this: 

Lady Liberty watching over the twin towers before 9/11

to this:

1st tower falls

Fleeing as the tower falls

Fleeing through the choking dust

Falling to his death

 

Some people have forgotten now
It was many years ago
And peaceful here at home since then
So just let the memory go
But I close my eyes and see it still
Like it was yesterday — Oh no!
People jumping from a hundred-story building!
I can still see those Americans
Jumping from a hundred-story building …

© 2009 Richard G. Combs. All rights reserved.


 

As I have on previous September 11ths, I offer you passage from Gerard Van der Leun's Of a Fire in a Field — a passage that moves me beyond words every time I read it — in which he recalled 9/11 and its aftermath, when he lived in New York:

Inside the wire under the hole in the sky was, in time, a growing hole in the ground as the rubble was cleared away and, after many months, the last fire was put out. Often at first, but with slowly diminishing frequency, all the work to clear out the rubble and the wreckage would come to a halt.

The machinery would be shut down and it would become quiet. Across the site, tools would be laid down and the workers would straighten up and stand still. Then, from somewhere in the pile or the pit, a group of men would emerge carrying a stretcher covered with an American flag and holding, if they were fortunate, a body. If they were not so fortunate the flag covering over the stretcher would be lumpy, holding only portions of a body from which, across the river on the Jersey shore, a forensic lab would try to make an identification and then pass on to the victim's survivors something that they could bury.

I'm not sure anymore about the final count, but I am pretty sure that most families, in the end, got nothing. Their loved ones had all gone into the smoke and the dust that covered the end of the island and blew, mostly, across the river into Brooklyn where I lived. What happened to most of the three thousand killed by the animals on that day? It is simple and ghastly. We breathed them until the rains came and washed clean what would never be clean again.

. . .

Read the whole thing — and think about the question he asks you at the end. 

And never forget.

Flag still stands

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9/11: Timeline of Terror

Posted by Richard on September 11, 2010

I just finished watching "9/11: Timeline of Terror" on Fox News, an uninterrupted hour-long recap of the events of September 11, 2001. I'm emotionally drained. But I'm so very glad I watched it. It will be shown again on Saturday at 3 PM and 9 PM Eastern (1 PM and 7 PM Mountain). I strongly encourage you to watch this powerful, moving program.

Nine years have passed. Memories have started to fade. Some of you reading this today may have been too young then to fully understand. Some of you may have never seen much of what is chronicled in this hour. The horrific scenes, the reactions of the people as they happened, the recollections of the survivors — this is compelling viewing. We owe it to ourselves to see this, whether it's again or for the first time. We owe it to ourselves to keep this fresh in our memories.  

Saturday at 3 PM and 9 PM Eastern (1 PM and 7 PM Mountain), the Fox News Channel. Watch it. Record it. Remember. 

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Location matters

Posted by Richard on August 14, 2010

Now that the President has come out strongly in favor of the building of the "Ground Zero mosque," I suppose it's my turn to weigh in again (I contend that my previous post in support of the Ground Zero gay bar only half-counts).

While I very much disapprove of the idea, I'm a strong proponent of property rights, and I wouldn't want the government to stop the project. Even though the history and previous statements of Imam Rauf make me very skeptical of the claim that this is an effort at "bridge building" or intended to promote tolerance.

Instead, I'm inclined to agree with those who point to the long history of Islam building mosques as symbols of triumph at the sites of their victories over unbelievers. I suspect that this edifice is intended to poke a sharp stick in the eyes of us infidels. 

I don't care for zoning laws and land use planning either, but I'd like to see some consistency on that subject from the defenders of the mosque. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that some of the people who argue that the imam's right to build the mosque is absolute have fought to stop some mega-church project in their community because it was "out of place in the neighborhood," an imposition on the local residents, or an inappropriate use of the land. 

And while we're questioning the consistency of the liberal intelligentsia, let's find out what these people who scream "separation of church and state" at the slightest provocation think of the US State Department picking up the tab for what is clearly the Imam's fundraising trip for the mosque to the petro-dollar capitals of the Middle East.  

In Friday's column, Charles Krauthammer brought up the "protecting sacred places" argument made first and more fully by Hugh Hewitt. I'd like to hear the defenders of the mosque explain why Gettysburg and Manassas deserve government protection from inappropriate adjacent development, but Ground Zero doesn't. 

Krauthammer also brought up the story of the Carmelite convent adjacent to Auschwitz, a story more fully told by William McGurn, which you really should read. In the context of this controversy, it's a valuable lesson in comparative religion. 

You should read the entire Krauthammer column, too, but here's one of the key take-aways for me (emphasis added): 

Location matters. Especially this location. Ground Zero is the site of the greatest mass murder in American history — perpetrated by Muslims of a particular Islamist orthodoxy in whose cause they died and in whose name they killed.

Of course that strain represents only a minority of Muslims. Islam is no more intrinsically Islamist than present-day Germany is Nazi — yet despite contemporary Germany’s innocence, no German of good will would even think of proposing a German cultural center at, say, Treblinka.

Which makes you wonder about the good will behind Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s proposal. … 

Exactly, my friends, exactly. Imam Rauf has the right to build his mosque there, but that doesn't make it right. And the fact that he persists in the face of the misgivings, discomfit, and anger of the vast majority of New Yorkers (and Americans in general) puts the lie to his claims of good will. He is scum. I don't want to send the police to stop him — but I hope he fails.

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Three cheers for the Ground Zero Muslim gay bar!

Posted by Richard on August 10, 2010

I've refrained until now from commenting on the Ground Zero mosque (a.k.a. Cordoba House) controversy because I believe the owners of the property have a right to do as they please with it, but I'm also convinced by the available evidence that the imam behind this scheme is an Islamofascist whose goal is to poke America in the eye with a sharp stick. Aside from his radical Islamist history and statements, just consider his choice of "Cordoba House" as the name (if you have any knowledge of Andalusian history) and Sept. 11, 2011, as the dedication date. 

I wish Feisal Abdul Rauf would die a painful death and his plan would die with him, but I concede that there is no legitimate basis for government (local, state, or federal) to impede his plan. 

I comment now because Greg Gutfeld of Fox News's Redeye has come up with what I think is a deliciously wicked plan: 

So, the Muslim investors championing the construction of the new mosque near Ground Zero claim it's all about strengthening the relationship between the Muslim and non-Muslim world.

As an American, I believe they have every right to build the mosque – after all, if they buy the land and they follow the law – who can stop them?

Which is, why, in the spirit of outreach, I've decided to do the same thing.

I'm announcing tonight, that I am planning to build and open the first gay bar that caters not only to the west, but also Islamic gay men. To best express my sincere desire for dialogue, the bar will be situated next to the mosque Park51, in an available commercial space.

This is not a joke. I've already spoken to a number of investors, who have pledged their support in this bipartisan bid for understanding and tolerance.

Awesome! You go, Greg! I hope Gutfeld and his investors are serious.

This is how you deal with these 7th-century barbarians: you challenge their crappy, primitive, mysogynistic, homophobic (there should be a stronger word, but I can't find one) world-view, you make them uncomfortable, you make fun of them — and if they try to impose their barbaric beliefs by force, why then and only then, you kill them. Any questions?

HT: Liberty Pundits, via Instapundit

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