Sir Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Our late Chicago friend Bob Tashman edited Sir Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, not as well known as The Satanic Verses. It captues the dilemmas faced by an author under the Ayatolla's fatwa. Bob used to tell us about his job opening packages addressed to Rushdie, hoping that he wouldn't be blown up or lose any fingers. While Rushdie enjoyed police protection--thanks to Margaret Thatcher--our friend did not. Luckily, Bob and Rushdie survived, and the book stands as a memorial both to Rushdie's courage and a legacy from our dear departed friend Bob.

In the words of the Amazon.com description, it is an allegory: "a delightful tale about a storyteller who loses his skill and a struggle against mysterious forces attempting to block the seas of inspiration from which all stories are derived." You can buy a copy here:

Rafael Medoff: Time to Honor Peter Bergson

From the New York Jewish Press, this article published in connection with a meeting of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in New York argues that it is time to recognize Peter Bergson's work to save European Jewry from Hitler during World War II:

In 1985, Wyman’s The Abandonment of the Jews reached the New York Times best-seller list. Abandonment was the first book to tell the Bergson story in depth, and to document the Bergson Group’s key role in the creation of the U.S. government’s War Refugee Board. It was also the first book about America and the Holocaust to reach a large segment of the public rather than just academic circles.

As a Christian, Wyman could not be accused of having a vested interest in one version of Jewish history over another. As a scholar, his research was impeccable and the book was soon hailed as the definitive account of the American – and American-Jewish – response to the Nazi genocide.

Other factors also contributed to changing attitudes in the Jewish community. The creation, in 1981, of a short-lived American Jewish Commission on the Holocaust, chaired by former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and charged with studying American Jewry’s response to the Shoah, stirred widespread discussion of these issues.

Films such as Laurence Jarvik’s "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die" (1982) and Martin Ostrow’s award-winning PBS documentary "America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference" (1994) made a powerful impact. Just this spring, Bernard Weinraub’s off-Broadway play about the Bergson Group, FDR, and the Holocaust, "The Accomplices," set off a whole new round of public discussion of the subject.

Some surprising new research findings have further roused the public’s interest in the Bergson Group. Some of the research has revealed the previously unknown support given to the Bergson activists by such celebrities as Walt Disney, Bob Hope, boxing champion Barney Ross, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s father, Congressman Thomas D’Alesandro.

The Silence of the Librarians...

Protesters at the American Library Association convention here in Washington, DC today question the commitment of the organization's leadership to the principle of the freedom to read when it comes to Cuba, asking: "Why does the ALA refuse to join every major human rights group in the call for the release of jailed librarians in Cuba? Why is the ALA silent about book burning in Cuba?"

It has taken 18 months for the Intellectual Freedom officials at ALA to respond to questions about book burning in Cuba? How long to they need to discuss before they acknowledge the court-ordered torching of thousands of books and the destruction of library collections?

More here.

The Unethical "Ethicist" of The New York Times and NPR

According to MSNBC post listing political contributions by journalists (ht lgf), NY Times ethics columnist and NPR contributor Randy Cohen broke the newspaper's rules--and got away with it...

(D) The New York Times, Randy Cohen, ethics columnist, $585 in three donations in August 2004 to MoveOn.org, which conducted get-out-the-vote drives to defeat President Bush. In addition to the syndicated column "The Ethicist" for the Times Magazine, Cohen answers ethics questions for listeners of NPR.

Freelancers like Cohen are covered by the Times policy, which says, "Times readers apply exacting standards to the entire paper. They do not distinguish between staff-written articles and those written by outsiders. Thus as far as possible, freelance contributors to The Times, while not its employees, will be held to the same standards as staff members when they are on Times assignments, including those for the Times Magazine. If they violate these guidelines, they will be denied further assignments."

Cohen said he thought of MoveOn.org as nonpartisan and thought the donation would be allowed even under the strict rule at the Times.

"We admire those colleagues who participate in their communities — help out at the local school, work with Little League, donate to charity," Cohen said in an e-mail. "But no such activity is or can be non-ideological. Few papers would object to a journalist donating to the Boy Scouts or joining the Catholic Church. But the former has an official policy of discriminating against gay children; the latter has views on reproductive rights far more restrictive than those of most Americans. Should reporters be forbidden to support those groups? I’d say not. Unless a group’s activities impinge on a reporter’s beat, the reporter should be free to donate to a wide range of nonprofits. Make a journalist’s charitable giving transparent, and let the readers weigh it as they will.

"Those who do not cover anything, but write a column of opinion should have even more latitude. It is such a writer’s job to make his views explicit. Those donations to nonprofits will no doubt reflect the views he or she is hired to express. In evaluating such civic engagement, it is well to remember that to have an opinion is not to have a bias. To conceal one’s political opinions is not to be without them."

After MSNBC.com checked the names of Times staff and contributors on this list with a spokesperson for the Times, Cohen sent this addendum:

"That said, Times policy does forbid my making such donations, and I will not do so in the future.""

BTW, in December, 1999 Reason Magazine published a critique of Cohen's "Ethicist" column by Jacob Levy titled The Ethicist Who Isn't. Apparently, he still isn't.

Richard Weitz: Make a Deal With Putin on Azeri Radar

From the Washington Post Think-Tank website, some advice for President Bush at the Kennebunkport summit:

Despite its concerns, the Bush administration should continue to engage the Russians on a possible joint use of the Gabala radar while keeping open the possibility of deploying BMD systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. The fact that the radar is technically inadequate is less important than the potential for Russian-American dialogue over the base to limit the negative spill-over from the BMD dispute and, ideally, expand to address other important security issues.

For example, the dialogue could generate creative thinking about how to address missile defense issues in the strategic arms accord that Russia and the United States have begun negotiating to replace the START and SORT agreements when they expire in a few years. It could also accelerate the two countries' interlocking efforts to develop more secure international civilian nuclear fuel arrangements. Moscow and Washington could thereby move from what has become a zero-sum dialogue over missile defenses to a beneficial engagement over limiting third-party nuclear proliferation threats.

In return, U.S. officials should underscore to the Russians that one way to avert the deployment of BMD systems in East Central Europe would be for Moscow to pressure Tehran more strongly to curb its nuclear and missile programs. If these and other efforts fail to change Iran's behavior, if U.S. ballistic missile technology makes much greater progress, and if the proposed host countries still want the systems, then the next U.S. administration can decide whether to deploy BMD systems in East Central Europe even at the cost of antagonizing whomever succeeds Putin as Russia's president in 2009.

CIA Declassifies "Family Jewels"

They've been posted on the web by George Washington University's National Security Archive:

Washington D.C., June 21, 2007 - The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s, according to declassified documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden announced today that the Agency is declassifying the full 693-page file amassed on CIA's illegal activities by order of then-CIA director James Schlesinger in 1973--the so-called "family jewels." Only a few dozen heavily-censored pages of this file have previously been declassified, although multiple Freedom of Information Act requests have been filed over the years for the documents. Gen. Hayden called today's release "a glimpse of a very different time and a very different Agency."

"This is the first voluntary CIA declassification of controversial material since George Tenet in 1998 reneged on the 1990s promises of greater openness at the Agency," commented Thomas Blanton, the Archive's director.

Hayden also announced the declassification of some 11,000 pages of the so-called CAESAR, POLO and ESAU papers--hard-target analyses of Soviet and Chinese leadership internal politics and Sino-Soviet relations from 1953-1973, a collection of intelligence on Warsaw Pact military programs, and hundreds of pages on the A-12 spy plane.

The National Security Archive separately obtained (and posted today) a six-page summary of the illegal CIA activities, prepared by Justice Department lawyers after a CIA briefing in December 1974, and the memorandum of conversation when the CIA first briefed President Gerald Ford on the scandal on January 3, 1975.

Then-CIA director Schlesinger commissioned the "family jewels" compilation with a May 9, 1973 directive after finding out that Watergate burglars E. Howard Hunt and James McCord (both veteran CIA officers) had cooperation from the Agency as they carried out "dirty tricks" for President Nixon. The Schlesinger directive, drafted by deputy director for operations William Colby, commanded senior CIA officials to report immediately on any current or past Agency matters that might fall outside CIA authority. By the end of May, Colby had been named to succeed Schlesinger as DCI, and his loose-leaf notebook of memos totaled 693 pages [see John Prados, Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby (Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 259-260.]

Seymour Hersh broke the story of CIA's illegal domestic operations with a front page story in the New York Times on December 22, 1974 ("Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years"), writing that "a check of the CIA's domestic files ordered last year… produced evidence of dozens of other illegal activities… beginning in the nineteen fifties, including break-ins, wiretapping, and the surreptitious inspection of mail."

On December 31, 1974, CIA director Colby and the CIA general counsel John Warner met with the deputy attorney general, Lawrence Silberman, and his associate, James Wilderotter, to brief Justice "in connection with the recent New York Times articles" on CIA matters that "presented legal questions." Colby's list included 18 specifics:

1. Confinement of a Russian defector that "might be regarded as a violation of the kidnapping laws."
2. Wiretapping of two syndicated columnists, Robert Allen and Paul Scott.
3. Physical surveillance of muckraker Jack Anderson and his associates, including current Fox News anchor Britt Hume.
4. Physical surveillance of then Washington Post reporter Michael Getler.
5. Break-in at the home of a former CIA employee.
6. Break-in at the office of a former defector.
7. Warrantless entry into the apartment of a former CIA employee.
8. Mail opening from 1953 to 1973 of letters to and from the Soviet Union.
9. Mail opening from 1969 to 1972 of letters to and from China.
10. Behavior modification experiments on "unwitting" U.S. citizens.
11. Assassination plots against Castro, Lumumba, and Trujillo (on the latter, "no active part" but a "faint connection" to the killers).
12. Surveillance of dissident groups between 1967 and 1971.
13. Surveillance of a particular Latin American female and U.S. citizens in Detroit.
14. Surveillance of a CIA critic and former officer, Victor Marchetti.
15. Amassing of files on 9,900-plus Americans related to the antiwar movement.
16. Polygraph experiments with the San Mateo, California, sheriff.
17. Fake CIA identification documents that might violate state laws.
18. Testing of electronic equipment on US telephone circuits.

Bob Tashman, 53

Our friend Bob Tashman passed away last Saturday. The blog will be offline while we attend the funeral in Chicago. Bob was a good friend, and I'm taking the liberty of republishing his obituary from today's Chicago Tribune:

Bob Tashman, age 53, loving cousin of Barbara (David ) Weinstock, Robert (Mary Kelly) Mindell, Benjamin (Delia O'Hara) Mindell; dear friend of Nina Brodsky, Larry Jarvik, Nancy Strickland, Doron Weber, Steven Wasserstein, Nancy Heneson, Elena Brunet, Gary Gerstle, Jacob Epstein, Catherine Tice and Claude Cazzulino. Services Wednesday, 11 a.m., at Chicago Jewish Funerals Chapel, 195 N. Buffalo Grove Rd. (one block North of Lake Cook Rd.), Buffalo Grove. Interment Sunset Memorial Lawns. Memorials in his name to Pan CAN, 2141 Rosecrans Ave., Suite 7000, El Segundo, CA 90245, or the charity of your choice would be appreciated. Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals, 847-229-8822, www.cjfinfo.com

He had an illustrious early career after graduating from Brown (BA in History) and Columbia (MA in Philosophy). Bob had worked as Salman Rushdie's editor, an editor at the New York Review of Books, and an editor of Granta. He was a true "highbrow," a cultured intellectual and music lover, who took us to Shostakovich's late quartets at the Ravinia Festival, performed by the Emerson String Quartet, when we visited Chicago last year. Bob died from pancreatic cancer, a terrible disease with no known cure--I hope some readers of this blog might join in contributing to PanCan, the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, in his memory.

A Brief History of Women in Art

Someone I know sent me this fascinating animated history of Women in Art posted to YouTube by eggman913:

Daniel Pearl Film Opens June 22nd

Angelina Jolie stars as Marianne Pearl, widow of the slain Wall Street Journal reporter. You can watch a preview of Michael Winterbottom's A Mighty Heart, here.

Number 12 With A Bullet?

That's where you can find my Orbis article "NGOs: A'New Class' in International Relations" on ScienceDirect's list of Top 25 Hottest Articles...

A Short History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

From the David Horowitz Centre (ht Melanie Phillips): http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/.

Ali Allawi on Iraq

I heard an interview with Ali Allawi, former Iraqi defense minister, on NPR, as well as a National Press Club talk on C-Span. His new book, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace, sounded interesting. You can read a sample chapter here, on the Yale University Press website.

And here's a link to Ali Allawi's blog.

From Hafez Barghouti's Lips, to God's Ears...

Ken Ellingwood reports in today's Los Angeles Times reports that Gaza fighting could mean an end to the idea of an independent Palestinian state :

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK — The deadly factional fighting in the Gaza Strip between the militant Hamas movement and Fatah could doom the long-held Palestinian vision of uniting Gaza and the West Bank into a single independent state.

The latest clashes highlight a growing schism between the two areas, raising the possibility that the power struggle will turn them into ministates, each ruled by its own faction: Hamas in the coastal strip and Fatah in the West Bank.

The violence has dimmed hopes that Palestinians and Israelis might someday reach an agreement for side-by-side nations and raised questions over how Israel responds to having Hamas, which calls for the Jewish state's destruction, indisputably in charge in Gaza.

The severity of the latest internecine fighting is driving a growing number of Palestinians to consider drastic scenarios, including dissolving the Palestinian Authority or allowing Hamas to manage Gaza more or less on its own.

"Hamas is working toward that. They want Gaza," Hafez Barghouti, a newspaper editor in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said bitterly. "They are destroying the Palestinian national project."

Richard Landes' Augean Stables

I received an email from Sliwa public relations plugging medieval historian Richard Landes' website about the Middle East, and took a look. It's interesting, so I thought I'd share the link: http://www.theaugeanstables.com/.

Giuiliani 's 12-Step Program

As published in National Review, Hizzoner's 12-step recovery program for America:

I am making 12 Commitments to the American People. They are intended to lift our vision from the rearview mirror to the road ahead. If I am elected president, I want to be held accountable for the progress we make as a nation.

1) I will keep America on offense in the Terrorists’ War on Us.

Winning the terrorists’ war on us is the greatest responsibility of the 9/11 Generation. We need to continue taking the fight to the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists by increasing the size, strength, and support of our military — beginning with ten new Army combat brigades.

2) I will end illegal immigration, secure our borders and identify every non-citizen in our nation.

We can end illegal immigration with tough but realistic laws that put security first. We need to secure the border with a physical fence and a technological fence. We need to require a tamper-proof I.D. card for all non-citizens coming into the United States and tracking their entry and exit. And we need to encourage Americanization by requiring new citizens to read, write, and speak English.

3) I will restore fiscal discipline and cut wasteful Washington spending.

Over the next two presidential terms, 42 percent of the federal civilian workforce is due to retire. We should only hire back half, replacing non-essential workers with technology. I’ll ask agency heads to identify annual budget cuts of 5 to 20 percent. With entitlement costs scheduled to explode, we need fiscal discipline to avoid passing an unsupportable burden on to the next generation.

4) I will cut taxes and reform the tax code.

Pro-growth policies lead to broader prosperity. The next president needs to simplify the tax code and keep taxes low — including the personal income tax, the capital-gains tax and the corporate tax. And we can eliminate double taxation and protect family businesses by giving the Death Tax the death penalty.

5) I will impose accountability on Washington.

We need to restore Americans’ faith that government can work again. That’s why we’ll implement the first constant measurement of government effectiveness, known as “FedStat,” and put the results online so the public can hold agencies accountable.

6) I will lead America towards energy independence.

We must decrease America’s dangerous dependence on foreign oil. We can meet this challenge through diversification of our energy portfolio, innovation, and conservation. We must increase public and private investment in nuclear power, clean coal, and alternative-energy sources across the board. America must lead the world in energy-efficient, environmentally responsible, commercially viable innovation, including wind, solar, geo-thermal, ethanol, and biofuel technologies.

7) I will give Americans more control over their health care with affordable and portable free-market solutions.

We can improve the quality of health care while decreasing costs through increased competition. Solutions can include reforming the tax treatment of health care, expanding portable health-savings accounts, encouraging state-by-state innovations, and reforming the legal system.

8) I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions, and protect the quality of life for our children.

We need to take advantage of the common ground in America to reduce abortions by increasing adoptions and assuring that individual choice is well informed. We need to measure our progress toward these goals. We need to reduce the high costs of adoption. And we need to protect our children against sexual predators and online pornography.

9) I will reform the legal system and appoint strict constructionist judges.

America must reform its legal system. We need to eliminate nuisance lawsuits through “loser-pays” provisions. Tort reform can help us reduce costs passed on to the consumer, such as higher insurance premiums. Activist judges threaten to expand the power of the courts beyond the bounds established by the Constitution; we must reassert the proper balance.

10) I will ensure that every community in America is prepared for terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

Homeland security and national security are now inseparable. We need to ensure that local first responders are trained to meet natural disasters as well as terrorist attacks. We must improve information-sharing between local, state, and federal authorities. And we need to repair vulnerable infrastructure to minimize the impact of terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

11) I will provide access to a quality education to every child in America by giving real school choice to parents.

Education reform is a civil-rights struggle and the key to improving America’s competitiveness in the global economy. We need to empower parents and children by expanding school choice. We need to promote math and science, while ending the digital divide.

12) I will expand America's involvement in the global economy and strengthen our reputation around the world.

We need to strengthen our country by engaging aggressively the global economy. The mission of the State Department needs to be focused on acting first and foremost as an advocate for America. Fostering trade and educational and cultural exchange will promote the expansion of freedom.

These 12 Commitments offer an action plan to focus America on the future. Over the course of this campaign, I’m going to present each policy in greater detail. And when we get to Washington, we’re going to put these ideas into action. Guided by these 12 Commitments, we will hand our nation over to the next generation far better than it was handed to us.

An Iranian Solidarity Movement?

France gave the Ayatollah to Iran in the 1970s, and now, according to this article by Pooya Dayanim in National Review, may give Iran a movement to end Islamist Theocracy:

This week Paris will host the largest gathering of Iran’s pro-democracy forces ever assembled to overthrow the Islamic Regime through a nonviolent civil disobedience movement.

The Iran Solidarity Assembly (Hambastegi Melli in Persian) of Paris has been an enormous undertaking that has been three years in the making. Over 200 political luminaries will attend the invitation-only event. Millions of Iranians, however, will be following the proceedings with the help of Voice of America, Radio Farda, Radio Israel, BBC, and independent Iranian broadcasters such as Channel One, Pars TV, and Radio Sedaye Iran.

The Iran Solidarity Assembly includes representatives of virtually all of Iran’s various political, ethnic, social, and economic groups who have assembled together for the first time ever to ask the free world to stand in solidarity with them as they begin to coordinate the efforts of pro-democracy forces inside Iran to over throw the Islamic regime.

Robert Spencer on Immigration and Islamism

From JihadWatch:

With President Bush lobbying Congress to revive the defeated and disastrous immigration bill, authorities have a chance to recast the bill in a way that takes adequate measure of the national security implications of the immigration issue. And now, Lebanon, a nation currently under attack from al-Qaeda-linked terrorists, has shown the way with a measure that the President and Congress would do well to consider adapting for the United States. In an attempt to prevent jihadists from entering Lebanon from neighboring countries, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry and the General Security Department may stop giving entrants from Arab countries automatic entry visas; instead, they would have to apply at Lebanese missions in their native countries – allowing Lebanese officials time to scrutinize their applications and try to determine whether they are involved in jihad activity.

Such a proposal has a great deal to recommend it. Lebanon is treating immigration as a national security issue, as it manifestly is not only for Lebanon, but for the U.S. as well. With refreshing directness, Lebanese officials are considering heading off the problem at its source, or one of its sources, by restricting entry into the country from Arab countries from which jihadists come. Likewise the U.S. also could, and should, institute restrictions on immigration from Muslim countries. This issue has been clouded by national traumas about “racism,” but in fact it has nothing to do with racism, as jihadists with blonde hair and blue eyes are just as lethal, and should be just as unwelcome, as jihadists with dark skin, this is about taking prudent steps to protect ourselves and defend our nation. It is only a matter of common sense to recognize where the great majority of jihadists come from, and act accordingly.

Officials should proclaim a moratorium on all visa applications from Muslim countries, since there is no reliable way for American authorities to distinguish jihadists and potential jihadists from peaceful Muslims. Because this is not a racial issue, these restrictions should not apply to Christians and other non-Muslim citizens of those countries, although all should be subjected to reasonable scrutiny. Those who claim that such a measure is “Islamophobic” should be prepared to provide a workable way for immigration officials to distinguish jihadists from peaceful Muslims, or, if they cannot do so, should not impede basic steps the U.S. should take to protect itself. And Muslims entering from anywhere -- Britain, France -- should be questioned as to their adherence to Sharia and Islamic supremacism. This is not because anyone will expect honest answers, but so that answers proven false by the applicant’s subsequent activity can become grounds for deportation.

Meanwhile, this is not just an immigration problem. The Fort Dix and JFK Airport jihad terror plots uncovered in recent weeks not only underscore the need to fix our broken immigration policies, but they show the need also to deal with the fact that jihadists are already in the country. When twenty-six percent of Muslims in the United States who are under the age of thirty approve of suicide attacks in some circumstances, and two such attacks are uncovered in the last month, this is not an abstract problem. Islamic organizations in the U.S. who refuse to renounce and teach against political Islam should be reclassified as political organizations and made subject to all the controls and scrutiny to which political organizations are subject. And here again, words must be backed by deeds, or can justly be regarded with suspicion.

If national security were our priority, these proposals would not even be controversial. Nor would Islamic advocacy groups in the U.S., if national security were their priority, oppose them either. In fact, they might spur those groups to become more energetic in rooting out jihadists from among their ranks, and from among the Muslim community in America in general. Instead of the platitudes and half-measures we have seen up to now, along with active opposition to anti-terror efforts, we might see them take genuine steps to declare the ideology of jihad and Islamic supremacism beyond the pale of American Islam, and renounce political Islam and any intention, now or in the future, to replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic Sharia law.

Melanie Phillips on Gaza Fighting

From MelaniePhillips.com:

And meanwhile the elephant in the room remains Iran, which is funding and arming Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Syria, not to mention waging war against the west by proxy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Israel remains caught in a lethal trap, because it is trying to solve a problem that it cannot solve since it did not create it. The real architects of this impasse are the countries of the free world, which have failed utterly to grasp that the Israel/Palestine conflict is but one theatre of a global struggle; not a conflict over the division of a piece of land but rather one front in a global onslaught against the west. While trying vainly to solve Israel /Palestine in the hope this will calm everything else down, the free world fails to grasp that it is only by dealing with regional and global aggression that Israel/Palestine will ever be resolved. Backing the Big Lie of the justice of Palestinian statehood, which has meant in fact that a country that was victorious at its rebirth against forces that tried to wipe it out has uniquely been expected ever since to make reparations to its attackers who continue to try to destroy it and to provide them with a state from which they can finish the job, has been the biggest single incentive to terror and war in the Middle East. Only when this is acknowledged, and the free world locates the moral compass which has been absent from its dealings for decades, will there be any prospect of justice in the Middle East and peace for the world.

Amil Imani on the Islamist Threat

From AmilImani.com:

Islam with its rule of Sharia presents an imminent threat to subvert and replace the Constitution that governs our lives. Unlike Muslims who practice Taqiyya —lying or dissimulation—I proudly speak the truth. Truth should never be sacrificed at the altar of any goal. I firmly believe that truthfulness is indeed the foundation of all virtues.

Faithful Muslims believe that sovereignty belongs to Allah. They believe the only important “constitution” is the Quran, and before allegiance to a nation comes fidelity to Allah. Islam of all sects demands obedience to Islamic law, not the laws of men or political institutions. A Muslim will never abide by an oath of office when Islamic principles are at stake. When they swear an oath on the Quran, it is to show Islamic supremacy, not to prove they are telling the truth.

Please understand that Islamic principles cover every conceivable action and interaction of people living under Islamic law.
"It is not fitting for a Muslim man or woman to have any choice in their affairs when a matter has been decided for them by Allah and His Messenger. They have no option." Qur'an 33:36

So our Constitution and even State and local laws are essentially meaningless to a Muslim, and the Bill of Rights, once its usefulness as a means to perpetuate Islam in America is no longer necessary, will certainly be disparaged and ignored.
In fact, Islam is incompatible with democracy and subversive of the way of life that blesses this nation. It is fascist and evil by its very definition. Thus, it is imperative that we fight Islamofascisim with the same determination that we fought other enemies of freedom such as Nazism , Fascism, and Communism. And that imperative starts with our lawmakers constitutionally reevaluating the definition of religion. Islam must be curbed or it will curb us.

How are Islamists taking control?

They do it first by establishing Mosques in every town and city. These meeting places are perfect warehouses of not only indoctrination, but future terrorists, who are made to read and understand the principles of Jihad, martyrdom and Dar ul Harb (“land of war”—anyplace not Islamacized.) Mosques cost money, and the money for these warehouses of hate is coming straight from Saudi Arabia . These mosques are being infused with an activist strain of Islam, Wahabism. If you have to ask where the Saudis are getting their money, you are not paying attention...its coming from you. According to a National Portrait, a survey released in April 2001, there are at least 1,209 of mosques in the US and numbers are increasing.

Mosque elders tend to be sent to the US with one clear mission: Make Islamic religion, laws, and life supreme within the United States, using any and all tactics necessary. Next, from within the safety of their local mosques, they begin to use their revolting practices, riotous youth, and wild sermonizing to force the genteel Americans to relocate to safer, less threatening neighborhoods and cities. Of course, not all Americans will move or can afford to do so. And to take control of a town, Muslims will not need to evict everyone. They probably need about 25% in order to make life very unpleasant for those who do not go along with their demands.

They will elect Muslims to all positions of local influence, who will create and enforce policy according to the Quran. Once they have control over a town, they will begin to establish informal Sharia, and there’s nothing the government can (or will want to) do about it. Sharia is the brutal means by which Islam controls its populations by force, intimidation, and punishments for offenses to Allah. Already in many European countries, national governments have out of fear, given Islamic fascists the right to establish their own shadow governments within the borders of countries like Sweden and England, where they can control their own populations without accountability. Proposals for Sharia are being taken seriously by Canada.
This is an admission that Islam is not just a religion. It is a cult. It seeks total control over a person’s mind and body. And, as such, our Constitution is totally incompatible with it. They will push politicians for local control and self-determination of their own laws. In this way, America will become two nations; a weakened traditional one, and a growing, menacing Islamacized one.

At the same time, Muslims will ally with Leftist politicians who will gladly cede some of their power to this group of enforcers, so conservative politicians and Christians who advocate self defense and sane social policies are kept out of office. Money that was once used to build mosques will now be used to buy politicians. On university campuses, Islam will be portrayed as righteous and peaceful, while Christianity will be associated with evil Western and American values. The rebellious American youth will eat it up.

There will be increasing local and regional incidents of crimes and threats against Christians, Jews, and anybody who speaks out against the religion of hate. Terrorism is a completely legitimate tool of Islam, and was widely practiced and advocated by Muhammad. Remember, all words in the Quran are perfect, immutable laws defining an eternal ethic:

“Against them (the unbelievers) make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly.” Quran 8.06.

Leftist politicians will continue to hold the Bill of Rights over anyone who dares to accuse this religion of wrongdoing. While crime and threats skyrocket, Islamacized citizens will ignore the wrongdoing, just like in Iraq. They will look the other way for fear of retribution, honor killings, and punishments from those who uphold the Islamic requirement to seek revenge on anyone who dishonors or disagrees with Islam.

Eventually, America will become weakened and politicians will allow the Muslims to do whatever they want, as long as the infidels are allowed to be free of terrorist threats. As Christianity wanes, people will reject it as an anachronism that is irrelevant to modern trends. Islamic ethics will prevail and Muslim sects will gain members, money, and influence. As government policies lean toward Islamic ideals, the Bill of Rights will be seen as archaic and out of touch with contemporary values and the new direction of the country. It will be just a piece of parchment in a museum, lacking anyone who would so bold and revolutionary as to fight against a religion, even a religion of hate.

The first problem is that we don’t have centuries to wait for reform. But more to the point, Islam does not tolerate revisionism in its beliefs or practices over time. Reform is not at play, because one cannot point to Jihadists or terrorists and say Muhammad did not advocate it. He most certainly did, and he delighted in his evil thoughts.

Islam is a literal religion, taking unabrogated scripture as eternal and absolute. Moreover, there are no compensating scriptures that can be used to substitute for the barbaric avocations. There are no calls in Islam for compassion, forgiveness, non-violence, and brotherly love. Instead there are specific prescriptions for “an eye for an eye”, eternal warfare, religious hegemony, slavery, killing Jews, taxing nonbelievers, stoning, promulgating terror, establishing a caste social system, and the perpetuating discrimination against women. The only way to reform it is to censor vast sections of the Quran and Hadith, which would be absurd.

This is why there is truly no such thing as a “moderate” Muslim. Moderate Muslims or in other words “non-practicing Muslims”, like millions of Iranians, are Muslims by default, who were born into a faith they did not choose, a faith that was “inflicted” upon them by invaders of a foreign culture, a faith that forbids them to leave or revert to their pre-Islamic heritage and religions. Therefore, vast majority of Iranians remain Muslims in name only.

The other type of moderate Muslim is the “ignorant” Muslim who does not understand the Qur’anic “requirement” to wage war and submit to the Sharia, thereby “unknowingly” violating Qur’anic law. This latter type of Muslim is found in the rest of the Muslim countries. Hence, there is no such thing as “radical Islam”, since by its true definition Islam is nothing but radical. Those who espouse a “liberal” view of Islam should be forced to back up their nouveau interpretation with unabrogated scriptural facts. Unless such would-be “reformists” can categorically denounce Islamofascisim based on sound evidence from the Qur’an, they prove to be the true radicals, which is why we never see the Islamic apologists point to scriptural arguments against jihad. They simply cannot, because there is none, and they simply disguise and distort the truth.

The terrorists are not radicals from their interpretation of their doctrine--they are only doing exactly what Muhammad demanded of them, and his demands were not suggestions and they where not ephemeral. They were “perfect”, eternal ultimata. The terrorist are faithful and true to what is written in the holy Qur’an. A Muslim is forbidden to think critically about the Qur'an. He must blindly obey it and accept it passively and should memorize all of it. Being thus filled with the spirit of Islam (literally meaning “submission”), he instinctively walks in accordance with Allah's law in his daily life in a state of disempowered stupor.

It would be wonderful to believe that if only a quiet reform could mend the hearts of Muslims, and that much of their sacred writings could be overlooked and forgotten, or perhaps just re-interpreted, then all of the Islamic world could join the community of modern, civilized humankind. Unfortunately, this plan can never work. It might work for a while, but then some Muslims might take to reading, and the whole jihad, terror, coercion, Sharia trend would start over. You cannot reform that which is central to a religion.

Regretfully, a vast ignorance prevails in this sphere. Academic pundits, leftist journalists, and hired Islamic apologists, better known as “Useful Idiots”, proclaim that Islam is a religion of peace and that the great majority of Muslims are not party to any plans and actions of the radicals.

So how do we stop this sequence of events? How can our government, which has so effectively protected the rights of peaceful religions, protect us from an aggressive one?

America, with a long history of protecting religious freedom, still clings to the “hands off” practice of leaving alone any doctrine or practice billed as a religion. Deciding what constitutes a religion and who is to make that call is a thorny problem. The dictionary supplies a sociologically useless definition of religion: “The expression of man’s belief in and reverence for a superhuman power recognized as the creator and governor of the universe.” Just about anyone or any group under this definition can start a religion, and they indeed do—and some do so at a significant cost to others.

Perhaps it is time to realize that not all religions are the same. If a religion is evil, it must lose its right to exist under First Amendment protections. If it advocates that which is wrong and immoral, and it seeks to control all aspects of your life by force and fraud; if it seeks exemption from national laws protecting constitutional rights, then it must not be considered a religion.

It must be called something else, and it cannot be recognized as a protected ideology under the First Amendment. We have hate-crime laws. How about admitting that there is a hate religion, and its name is Islam, cult of fascism?

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

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Bible (Matthew 5:44)

Any religion that seeks to create its own “State” and its own legal system and seeks to mobilize its own militia is itself not interested in separation of church and State, and has no right to use that separation to create hegemony.

In fact, such a doctrine is not even a religion at all. It is a totalitarian regime, and must be considered the enemy of everything Americans believe in.

It’s time to shut down juggernaut Islam. This begins by removing First Amendment protections and revealing Islam’s beliefs to America, including its thoroughly anti-American ideology. It begins by admitting that no matter how many recruits it has acquired by force and fraud, that Islam is a cult, not a religion. I’d welcome an inspection of other religions to determine if they are truly peaceful, and I am confident all other doctrines will remain protected and unaffected, because religions are by definition peaceful. Cults are not. Let’s single out the cause of our problems. Let’s remove the tumor of Islam from our country before it is further metastasized.

Germany Protests Lantos' Schroeder Jibe

From the LA Times:

WASHINGTON -- A leading Democratic lawmaker lashed out at the former leaders of Germany and France, calling former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder a `political prostitute.'

Germany denounced the remarks by Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as an insult to its people.

Lantos' comments about Schroeder and former French President Jacques Chirac, both opponents of the Iraq war, came in a speech Tuesday at the dedication of a monument to victims of communism. President Bush spoke at the same event, but did not arrive until after Lantos spoke.

"I am so glad that the era of Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder in Germany is now gone," Lantos said to applause.

He said when the United States asked Schroeder to support its decision to go to war in Iraq "he told us where to go."

"I referred to him as a political prostitute, now that he's taking big checks from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. But the sex workers in my district objected, so I will no longer use that phrase," Lantos said.

After leaving office in 2005 Schroeder became chairman of the North Europe Gas Pipeline, which is 51 percent owned by the Russian state natural gas company Gazprom.

Lantos' remark prompted scattered laughter and applause from the audience.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, once Schroeder's chief of staff, said Lantos' comments overstepped "the limits of political decency."