Obama: "No god condones this terror". Except Islam does...

Obama spoke at the UN General Assembly today and said, in his best and fluent Teleprompter-ese: "No god condones this terror" (0:47' in the embedded video).
Only that's not true.  Allah, Islam's god, surely does condone terror and violence against "unbelievers""

“I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them” (Koran 8:12).

“When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful.” (Koran 9:5)

“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth.” (Koran 9:29).

I understand why Obama feels he has to speak this way. Nevertheless, it's not true.  And until that truth is faced and countered, there can be no victory in the fight against what Obama has called the "Network of Terror".

Islam and the art of denial.

A Muslim scholar speaks, courtesy of article by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times:

The Lebanese Shiite writer Hanin Ghaddar in an essay in August on Lebanon’s Now website wrote: “To fight the I.S. and other radical groups, and to prevent the rise of new autocratic rulers, we need to assume responsibility for the collective failures that have produced all of these awful tyrants and fanatics. Our media and education systems are liable for the monster we helped create. ... We need to teach our children how to learn from our mistakes instead of how to master the art of denial. When our educators and journalists start to understand the significance of individual rights, and admit that we have failed to be citizens, then we can start hoping for freedom, even if it is achieved slowly.”

The rest here.

Islamic State Atrocities: Products of ‘Grievance’ or Ideology?

For those who have criticised my statement that ISIS's actions are everything to do with Islam,  Raymond Ibrahim's work sets us straight.  The quote at the end of this article/snip is from his own book "The Al Qaeda Reader", a selection of Arabic language essays and statements by leaders of AQ, and which should be required reading of anyone making the "grievance" argument.
In short, the west could remove itself from every Muslim county, Islam could be eliminated, and still, Islam would be coming for us, for its aim, in doctrine and practice is world domination. They say it, in writings and speeches again and again....
Ibrahim is stating what's very clear; but which is not acknowledged:

While many have rightfully criticized U.S. President Obama’s recent assertion that the Islamic State “is not Islamic,” some of his other equally curious but more subtle comments pronounced in the same speech have been largely ignored.

Consider the president’s invocation of the “grievances” meme to explain the Islamic State’s success: “At this moment the greatest threats come from the Middle East and North Africa, where radical groups exploit grievances for their own gain. And one of those groups is ISIL—which calls itself the Islamic State.”

Obama’s logic, of course, is fortified by an entire apparatus of professional apologists who make the same claim. Thus Georgetown professor John Esposito—whose apologetics sometimes morph into boldfaced lies—also recently declared that “The “primary drivers [for the Islamic State’s violence] are to be found elsewhere,” that is, not in Islam but in a “long list of grievances.”

In other words and once again, it’s apparently somehow “our fault” that Islamic State Muslims are behaving savagely—crucifying, beheading, enslaving, and massacring people only on the basis that they are “infidels”: thus when IS herds and slaughters “infidel” and/or Shia men (citing the example of the prophet)—that’s because they’re angry at something America did; when IS captures “infidel” Yazidi and Christian women and children, and sells them on the sex-slave market (citing Islamic teachings)—that’s because they’re angry at something America did; when IS bombs churches, breaks their crosses, and tells Christians to convert or die (citing Islamic scriptures)—that’s because they’re angry at something America did.

Although the “grievance” meme has always flown in the face of logic, it became especially popular after the 9/11 al-Qaeda strikes on America. The mainstream media, following the Islamist propaganda network Al Jazeera’s lead, uncritically picked up and disseminated Osama bin Laden’s videotapes to the West where he claimed that al-Qaeda’s terror campaign was motivated by grievances against the West—grievances that ranged from U.S. support for Israel to U.S. failure to sign the Kyoto Agreement concerning climate change.

Of course, that was all rubbish, and I have written more times than I care to remember about how in their internal Arabic-language communiques to fellow Muslims that never get translated to English, al-Qaeda and virtually every Islamist organization make it a point to insist that jihad is an Islamic obligation that has nothing to do with grievances.

Consider Osama’s own words in an internal letter to fellow Saudis:

"Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue — one that demands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice — and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually? [emphasis added]

Yes. There are only three choices in Islam: [1] either willing submission [conversion]; [2] or payment of the jizya, through physical, though not spiritual, submission to the authority of Islam; [3] or the sword — for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live. The matter is summed up for every person alive: Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die. (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 42)"

Conversion, submission, or the sword is, of course, the mission of the Islamic State—not alleviating “grievances.”

Worst of all, unlike al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, from day one of its existence, has made it very clear—in Osama’s words, “with power and determination, with one voice”—that its massacres, enslavements, crucifixions, and beheadings of “infidels” are all based on Islamic law or Sharia—not silly “grievances” against the West.  [here]

Islamic Khorasan

Who knew?  Yet another Islamic terrorist group, and this one more danger than ISIS??

Islam is Islam: it all depends on what the meaning of "IS" is...

Lovely piece by Sweetness and Light... (here)

IS/ISIS/ISIL have EVERYTHING to do with Islam

Letter to BBC:
You keep running the line that IS/ISIL has “nothing to do with Islam”. (The latest apologist being Imam Kari Aseem)

For goodness sake, have you read the Koran, the Hadith and the Sirah life of Muhammad? (The Islamic Trinity)

None of these apologists for Islam quote scripture as to why it does not have anything to do with Islam.  And the reason is that IS/ISIL is everything to do with Islam.

Until this is faced squarely, we cannot hope to prevail against the barbarism of the likes of these Jihadists.

Get real: IS/ISIL is profoundly Islamic. See, e.g., Sam Harris.

Islam: let it sort its own problems out

Thomas Friedman argues the case to stay out of it in "Take a deep breath". And excoriates one of our so-called "Allies", the horrible Kingdom of Saudi Arabia:

For decades, Saudi Arabia has been the top funder of the mosques and schools throughout the Muslim world that promote the most puritanical version of Islam, known as Salafism, which is hostile to modernity, women and religious pluralism, or even Islamic pluralism.

Islam doesn't allow separation of mosque and state

Allaa Al Aswany writes interestingly in "Is Egypt doomed to autocracy?"
He quotes a professor thus:

A professor of Middle East studies at the University of Haifa, David Bukay, argued that “the Islamic world is not ready to absorb the basic values of modernism and democracy” because “individual rights and freedoms inherent in democracy do not exist in a system where Islam is the ultimate source of law.” For his part, the Iraqi intellectual Abdel Khaleq Hussein considered that Arab-Islamic culture imposed a pattern of patriarchal relations beneath the absolute authority of the father figure, who is also the tribal chief. In this view, the Arab state was an extension of the tribe.

Quite. But then Al Aswany goes into an argument of equivalence.  That Europe also had its autocrats, but got over them.
So, we are are invited to infer, Islam could also move from dictatorship to democracy.  The (in)famous "Islamic reformation".
The fatal flaw in this argument is that Islam has no concept of separation of mosque and state.  And to even suggest it is to risk death for apostasy or blasphemy in most of the Islamic world.

Growing Concern about Rise of Islamic Extremism at Home and Abroad

About time people got "concerned"....
PEW

Sleepwalking Toward Armageddon : Sam Harris

My goodness what a good summation of the current problem!

http://m.samharris.org/blog/item/sleepwalking-toward-armageddon

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Bill Maher: To claim that Islam “is like other religions is just naive and plain wrong”

The wonderful Bill Maher nails it...
A rare man of the Left that has read the Koran and understands what it says: death to infidels and all the dreary, scary, violent rest of it.... Islam is sui generis. In a word: horrible...

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/bill-maher-to-claim-that-islam-is-like-other-religions-is-just-naive-and-plain-wrong

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Islam: a victory in China

Muslims have stopped us having any food or drink at the International airport here in Kunming, capital of China's south western province of Yunnan.
How so?
Well, in response to a Muslim terrorist attack on its railway station earlier this year, the authorities reacted by banning all food and drink on the post-immigration side of the airport. That is, once you've taken off your shoes (courtesy Muslim shoe bombers) and had your water confiscated (courtesy Muslim liquid bombers), and got through all the body searching and you've then had your nail clippers confiscated (courtesy the 9/11 Muslim bombers), after all this you get to the departure area and find that all the restaurants are closed. Where's the wine or beer then? Sorry none. How about a coke? Sorry, none.
Why?
Because the authorities decided that it was a risk after the Muslim terrorist bombings here in Kunming.
But what's the connection between having some noodles with beer, and terrorism?
Well, I dunno.
I agree it's an over reaction and I wish they'd change it, say the staff, with a shrug. But what can WE do?
Meantime what an irony: no booze. A Sharia-compliant outcome. And starving the infidels! All praise to Allah!
Surely, here in the febrile and timid minds of Kunming bureaucrats, we have a victory for the Muslim terrorists.
A victory for Islam...

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The England That Is Forever Pakistan - Islam in the UK

An interesting and thoughtful article, that, for a refreshing change, does not play the victim card, but places the blame for the Rotherham grooming-rape scandal squarely on the Muslim Pakistanis who want to keep separate from British society.
For a change: blame those who are committing the crimes, not Britain for "not doing enough" for them.
Britain has done plenty....it's bent over enough.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/opinion/multiculturalism-and-rape-in-rotherham.html?referrer=

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Respecting the faith of non-Islamic terrorists | RedState

Spot on!

http://www.redstate.com/2014/09/14/respecting-faith-non-islamic-terrorists/

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Islam State DOES have a vision

One of the curious errors of Obama's speech to the nation yesterday was the assertion that ISIS/ISIL "does not have a vision".
I would have thought it was patently clear that one thing they do have is a vision.
Their vision is of a world ruled by a Sunni caliph and run by strict Sharia law.
If you want to know how a country ruled by strict Islamic Sharia law would look like you need only go to "The Reliance of the Traveller", the authorized Manual of Islamic Jurisprudence. Or you can look at Saudi Arabia.
In a word, awful.
Now you may not like the vision -- and if you have any humanity you won't -- but you can't say that they don't have a vision. They do. It's awful; but a clear vision nonetheless.

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The Uses and Abuses of Islam > Mark Gullick

For Western Muslims with an interest in the return of the Caliphate, these seem the best of times. While earlier Mohammedan hordes had to go through the onerous exertions of fighting and dying to invade the West, today's more sedentary Mussulman can simply sit back in his host country, pull up a wife, and let Western governments do the rest. In Britain, with its growing Muslim enclaves in inner city ghettoes, prisons and local councils, these micro-caliphates must surely link arms before long, Allah willing.

When it comes to the warm welcome of appeasement, nothing is too much trouble for political elites from Cyprus to Alaska. From generous welfare funding to the banning of marches and speakers critical of Islam, from blind eyes turned to grooming gangs to deaf ears cocked to inflammatory speech, Muslims merely have to post a request into the suggestion box, and a progressivist useful idiot acting in the sacred name of multiculturalism will make it so. And, thanks to what Muslims must view as mein host, being a Mohammedan means never having to be alone. Co-religionists arrive in the West daily by the plane-load, while our political gauleiters ignore jihad in favour of informing us that Islam is responsible for everything from the plough to the Large Hadron Collider.

More: http://www.newenglishreview.org/Mark_Gullick/The_Uses_and_Abuses_of_Islam/

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Spider Man > Theodore Dalrymple

Simon Leys was the pen name of Pierre Rickmans. I knew him in my China days. 

Theodore Dalrymple on spiders et al...

This reminds me of an essay, titled Cigarettes Are Sublime, by Simon Leys, the wonderful Belgian sinologist and literary essayist who lived most of his adult life in Australia and who has just died (he was my hero). 'Every time I see one of those threatening labels on a packet of cigarettes,' he wrote, 'I feel seriously tempted to start smoking again.'

http://www.newenglishreview.org/Theodore_Dalrymple/Spider_Man/

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The Nice ISIS Jihadist Next Door | FrontPage Magazine

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/the-nice-isis-jihadist-next-door/

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EVERYTHING to do with Islam

Further to my post immediately before this one, Sam Harris excoriates the fallacy that what ISIS is doing is "nothing to do with Islam"

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From: Sam Harris <contact@samharris.org>
Date: 11 September, 2014 9:09:10 pm HKT
To: <fu.saisee@gmail.com>
Subject: Sleepwalking Toward Armageddon
Reply-To: Sam Harris <contact@samharris.org>

New Article Sleepwalking Toward Armageddon   In his speech responding to the horrific murder of journalist James Foley by a British jihadist, President Obama delivered the following rebuke (using an alternate name for ISIS): ISIL speaks for no religion… and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just God would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day. ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings. Their ideology is bankrupt…. we will do everything that we can to protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for. May God bless and keep Jim's memory. And may God bless the United States of America. In his subsequent remarks outlining a strategy to defeat ISIS, the President declared: Now let's make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL's victims have been Muslim…. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way…. May God bless our troops, and may God bless the United States of America. As an atheist, I cannot help wondering when this scrim of pretense and delusion will be finally burned away—either by the clear light of reason or by a surfeit of horror meted out to innocents by the parties of God. Which will come first, flying cars and vacations to Mars, or a simple acknowledgment that beliefs guide behavior and that certain religious ideas—jihad, martyrdom, blasphemy, apostasy—reliably lead to oppression and murder? It may be true that no faith teaches people to massacre innocents exactly—but innocence, as the President surely knows, is in the eye of the beholder. Are apostates "innocent"? Blasphemers? Polytheists? Islam has the answer, and the answer is "no." More British Muslims have joined the ranks of ISIS than have volunteered to serve in the British armed forces. In fact, this group has managed to attract thousands of recruits from free societies throughout the world to help build a paradise of repression and sectarian slaughter in Syria and Iraq. This is an astonishing phenomenon, and it reveals some very uncomfortable truths about the failures of multiculturalism, the inherent vulnerability of open societies, and the terrifying power of bad ideas. Continue reading at Samharris.org   | |   © 2014 Sam Harris | Unsubscribe from this list | Update subscription preferences

"Islam has nothing to do with it". Really?

Obama gave his speech on how to confront ISIS.
He said what they do "has nothing to do with Islam". For "no religion allows the killings of innocents". And most of those killed by ISIS are Muslims.
But ISIS is not killing "innocents". At least not according to the Koran.
If those killed are Shia, they are "hypocrites" and if non-Muslim they are "infidels".
In both cases, the Koran mandates death.
Now, I understand why Obama has to avoid saying this is a battle with core Islam.
But he doesn't have to say its direct opposite.
Nothing will be gained until this truth is faced head on.

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Islam in the Philippines

A typical picture of Muslims: screaming...

But what will happen to the remaining Christians in this "predominantly Muslim autonomous region"?

MANILA — President Benigno S. Aquino III on Wednesday submitted a draft law to the Philippine Congress that would create a self-governed, predominantly Muslim autonomous region in the country’s south, a key step in peace talks meant to end more than four decades of fighting with Muslim rebels.
“This law is for the children who wish to run across school grounds instead of running for their lives,” Mujiv S. Hataman, a politician in the southern Philippines, said in a statement Wednesday. “This law is for families who want to put life into the earth through crops and produce, no longer to dig graves for their fathers and sons who have fallen in war. This law is what will help them realize their wishes and dreams.”

More at the New York Times.

Swiss Parliamentarian talks in Berlin: Islam for what it is

Oskar Freysinger is spot on...

Ex-Muslim and son of imam: Islamic State following “steps of Islam’s prophet Muhammad to the letter”

As opposed to the "nothing to do with Islam" crowd, who claim that the carnage and mayhem being done in the name of Islam by groups like ISIS, Boko Haram and the myriad other Islamic terrorist groups have "nothing to do with Islam" or are "perverting Islam" (e.g., and Obama and John Kerry and Cameron), in contrast to all those apologists,  here is a clear rebuttal of that nonsensical proposition.
H/t to JW.
Later: link to White House tweet: "Obama: ISIL speaks for no religion"

Misdirected Anger at Israel

And another good letter, related to the one in the preceding post:

Re “A hero of Israel condemns its actions” (News, Aug. 16): I was saddened to read of Henk Zanoli’s decision to return the coveted Righteous Among the Nations medal that he received from Israel for his family’s brave efforts to save a Dutch Jewish child’s life during the Holocaust. Mr. Zanoli is clearly saddened by the recent death in Gaza of his relatives by marriage. But his anger at Israel is based on factual error. The Gaza war was not launched by Israel, but by the Hamas militants who control Gaza, are sworn to destroy Israel, and to that purpose fired thousands of rockets at Israel and its people — most from rocket-launching bases in civilian Gazan neighborhoods. Israel simply responded — making unusual but sadly not always possible efforts to avoid Gazan civilians.

Moreover, while Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, nearly 25 percent of its citizens are non-Jews — including more than 20 percent who are Israeli Muslim and Christian Arab. Unlike most people in the Arab world, Israel’s Arabs enjoy the full democratic rights that are the basis of the Jewish state. Perhaps when the Palestinians and Israelis finally make peace, the Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank will have their own state and their own democracy.

Richard Z. Chesnoff, New York

The writer is a former executive editor of Newsweek International and former chief correspondent for U.S. News & World Report.

Blame for Gaza import restrictions lies with Hamas, not Israel

Palestinian militants from Islamic Jihad take part in a military parade following a ceasefire in Gaza City.
Photo: Xinhua

A sensible letter:

I refer to the letter by Dr Mego Terzian, president of Doctors Without Borders ("Lift blockade on Gaza to facilitate urgently needed reconstruction", August 22).

Dr Terzian notes the devastation in Gaza due to the current war (which Hamas started and repeatedly renewed by breaking 11 ceasefires) but blames it on "the deleterious effects of the Israeli blockade that began in 2006". Dr Terzian incorrectly describes Gaza as "occupied territory".

Israel left every inch of Gaza in the summer of 2005, forcibly evicting 9,000 Israelis who occupied 21 settlements in an experiment (which failed miserably) in order to see what the Palestinians would do in the interests of peace if they had their own territory with no Israeli occupation or citizens.

The Palestinians responded by destroying all 21 settlements, including US$13 million of greenhouses donated to them by several New York-based Jewish philanthropists.

One year later Hamas was elected to rule Gaza. It attacked and eliminated the "moderate" Palestinian Authority and began attacking Israel, which is why both Israel and Egypt control their borders with Gaza.

Every day, Israel allows more than 100 trucks loaded with food and other civilian products into Gaza, but inspects them to ensure that no military weapons or contraband are brought in. This has continued without interruption all summer during the current conflict.

Incredibly, Hamas leaders and soldiers in Gaza have consumed food and used civilian products brought in from Israel while launching 6,000 missiles at non-military Israeli town and city targets. Israel's actions hardly constitute a "blockade", as Dr Terzian wrongly alleges.

Dr Terzian's plea to Israel is misdirected: instead, it should be addressed to Hamas, which occupies Gaza and is only interested in war. Hamas has turned Gaza into a missile launching pad, using civilian homes, schools, mosques and hospitals. It constructed 32 underground tunnels leading into Israel for a murderous invasion planned for September to slay Israeli civilians in their settlements close to the border.

These tunnels were lined with cement intended for use in the building of civilian homes, schools and hospitals, but which instead was misappropriated by Hamas to attack Israel.

Hamas' incessant attacks have necessitated Israeli and Egyptian monitoring of goods brought into Gaza. There is no Israeli blockade and all blame for import restrictions into Gaza is on Hamas.

Robert L. Meyer, Mid-Levels