Tag Archives: Republicans

Chuck Hagel as a ‘Teachable Moment’

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Chuck HagelCenter for Security Policy

By Frank Gaffney, Jr.

The conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama dodged a politically perilous “bullet” when he declined to nominate Susan Rice as the next Secretary of State.  Had he done so, the President would have provided his critics a high-profile platform for exposing and critiquing his administration’s conduct with respect to Benghazigate and the larger, dangerous practice of “engaging” Islamists, of which it was a particularly dismal example. Yet, President Obama is reportedly intent on creating what may prove to be a similar “teachable moment” by nominating former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel to replace Leon Panetta as Secretary of Defense.  Sen. Hagel has been an outspoken champion of controversial and even radical policies firmly embraced by Mr. Obama during his first administration.  Worse yet, they are likely to be priorities for his second term now that the President has, as he put it in his overheard side-bar with Russia’s Dmitri Medvedev last March, “more flexibility.” In the event Barack Obama actually taps the former Nebraska senator, he will be inviting the sort of national debate that has long been needed, but generally missing, about his administration’s positions in several areas vital to U.S. security.  As there is no evident daylight between Sen. Hagel’s views and those of this president, the opportunity must be seized to expose both.  Consider several topics that cry out for such high-profile, critical examination:

  • A Pentagon chief who favors U.S. disarmament?  As Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon has reported, Sen. Hagel believes that, “The Defense Department, I think, in many ways has been bloated. So I think the Pentagonneeds to be pared down.”  Do Republican senators want a former colleague to give political cover to President Obama’s insistence that the United States use reductions in defense spending as a source of half the revenue given up pursuant to the Budget Control Act of 2011 – even though the Pentagon receives only twenty-percent of federal expenditures?  Do they want thus to be implicated in the inevitable, attendant dismantling of the sort of freedom-protecting presence the American military has had around the globe since the end of World War II, its ability to project power and its vital modernization programs? [While Mr. Hagel has correctly observed that "defense is not a jobs program," he - like President Obama - seems indifferent to a harsh reality:  Such draconian cuts in defense expenditures will have an adverse impact on employment.  In fact, an estimated one million jobs in the defense sector will shortly be lost as a result of the now-imminent, so-called "sequestration" round of budget reductions.  Do Republican senators share this indifference?]
  • Sen. Hagel has been defeatist about Iraq and Afghanistan.  And he seems much given to what the late Jeane Kirkpatrick called the “blame-America-first” syndrome with comments like: “Our policies are a source of significant friction not only in the region, but in the wider international community. Our purpose and power are questioned.”  A Hagel nomination would be a perfect opportunity to repudiate such sentiments and disassociate Republicans from them.
  • Of particular concern is Senator Hagel’s enthusiasm for U.S. disarmament in the nuclear arena.  His advocacy of a “world without nuclear weapons” affords a vehicle for challenging the President’s like-minded efforts to bring about the only thing that is remotely achievable – if unimaginably irresponsible: a world without U.S. nuclear weapons.  As Mr. Obama is determined not to upgrade our arsenal or to test realistically its aging weapons or tomaintain the strategic “Triad” at present levels, despite growing nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran to China and Russia, every effort must bemade to challenge and counteract such recklessness.  Again, a Hagel nomination is a good and very visible place to start.
  • Speaking of Iran, Mr. Hagel has long been an enthusiastic proponent of direct negotiations with the mullahs, professing, “Engagement is not surrender. It’s not appeasement. [Rather it is] an opportunity to better understand [others].” He has long opposed military action and meaningful economic sanctions.  He appears, in short, confident that we can live with a nuclear Iran.  Do Senate Republicans agree?  If not, are they willing to challenge a president who, despite his rhetoric to the contrary, seems to share that confidence – and oppose a Pentagon nominee who clearly would work to foreclose whatever options remain for precluding such a nightmare?
  • Last for the present purpose, but hardly least, there is the problem of Senator Hagel’s longstanding hostility towards Israel, A FACT RECOGNIZED EVEN BY IRAN’S STATE MEDIA.  He favors engaging its enemies, including terrorist groups like Hamas.  While in the Senate, Mr. Hagel declined to condemn Hezbollah.  His anti-Israel and pro-Islamist views have earned him accolades from the Muslim Brotherhood front known as the Council on American Islamic Relations.

To be sure, Sen. Hagel’s enmity towards the Jewish State tracks with that of President Obama.  The question is:  Do Republican Senators, and for that matter Democratic ones, who disagree wish to intensify the undermining of Israel in this administration by elevating someone with these credentials to the job of Secretary of Defense? It is deeply regrettable that the last campaign – which was a perfect opportunity for a teachable moment with the American electorate about the dangers posed theObama presidency to U.S. security interests – was not used for that purpose.  The next best thing may be a nomination fight over Mr. Obama’s choice as Secretary of Defense of a man who so aggressively embraces the worst of his policy proclivities.

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The party of victory

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By Caroline Glick

Next to the American people themselves, Israel is no doubt the biggest immediate loser in the U.S. presidential election. President Obama’s foreign policy is predicated on the false notion that the U.S. and Israel themselves are the principal causes of the Islamic world’s antipathy toward them. Consequently, Obama has cultivated the anti-American, genocidally anti-Jewish Muslim Brotherhood and facilitated the Brotherhood’s takeover of Egypt and Tunisia and its gains in strength throughout the Middle East. In addition, Obama has appeased Iran’s Islamist regime and has enabled it to reach the cusp of nuclear capability.
Obama’s policy of relying on the United Nations has placed Israel’s diplomatic viability at risk as the Palestinians and the international Left that supports and feeds on their cause use the U.N. to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist. Finally, Obama’s animosity toward Israel has strengthened the hand of anti-Israel forces within the Democratic party. In the coming years, Israel will become an increasingly partisan issue in American politics.
While Obama’s reelection clearly places Israel in jeopardy, the plain truth is that the inevitable continuation of his foreign policies places the United States at risk as well. The jihadist assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi must be viewed as a sign of things to come, just as al-Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole were precursors of the 9/11 attack on the U.S. mainland. Obama is empowering the United States’ worst enemies in the Sunni and Shiite Muslim worlds alike. Thereby emboldened, they place America at increased risk.
Israel can and must take the actions necessary to mitigate the dangers that Obama’s reelection poses to its national security and indeed its very survival. It must embrace its advantages in economic growth, the domestic support it can count on from its deeply patriotic populace, and its demographic advantages — it is the only Western country with a high and growing fertility rate. It must boldly assert its national rights. In its relationship with the U.S., it must move from being a dependent to being an ally. It must take the military steps necessary to prevent Iran from making good its promise to annihilate the Jewish state. It must deter the Muslim Brotherhood-led Egyptian military from making war against it.
As for the U.S., Israel’s allies in the Republican party and the conservative movement must now take a serious look at their own foreign policy positions and reassess them in the light of the Republican defeat in Tuesday’s elections and in the face of the growing dangers to the country that are the inevitable consequence of Obama’s reelection. This is not merely a partisan interest. It is a matter of the United States’ own national security.
For a host of reasons, Republicans have failed to make the case for an alternative to Obama’s policy of appeasement. During the election campaign, Mitt Romney embraced Obama’s support for the establishment of a Palestinian state. He refused to say that the U.S. must take military action to thwart Iran’s nuclear aspirations, despite the clear failure of the current bipartisan policy of sanctions against Tehran. Justifying Obama’s abandonment of the United States’ longtime ally Hosni Mubarak, Romney said that he would have abandoned Mubarak as well, even though Mubarak was the anchor of the United States’ alliance system in the Arab world. Romney failed to criticize Obama’s open-door policy for friends of the Muslim Brotherhood within the U.S. government.
Romney’s “me too” foreign policy was not simply a consequence of his hope to make suburban mothers in Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Ohio feel comfortable voting for him. Rather, it was a function of his political camp’s greater failure to recognize and contend with the unpleasant and hard realities of the world as it is. The conservative camp in general has been too timid to face the strategic implications of the Islamic world’s embrace of the cause of jihad and its goal, Islamic world domination.

Huma Abedin and the Republican Betrayal of Michele Bachmann

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By Steven Simpson:

On June 13th of this year, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and four other Republican House members issued a letter to the State Department’s Deputy Inspector General requesting that various Government agencies investigate charges that the Muslim Brotherhood, (MB),  has penetrated into the American government in their well known attempt “to destroy Western civilization from within.” The letter also named other Islamist organizations attempting to do the same, and alleged that Huma Abedin—Secretary of State Clinton’s deputy chief of staff—as well as her family has deep ties to the MB and other Islamist groups.

When Bachmann & Co. issued their letter alleging Islamist infiltration into the highest echelons of the American government, they might as well have thrown a firebomb or hand grenade into the gilded chambers of the Republican controlled House, as well as the Democrat controlled Senate. Indeed, it is Michele Bachmann who has suffered the most from her courageous stand, and she apparently has been designated as Enemy Number One, not only from Democrats, but from the Republican Establishment Elite. Leftists and Islamists must be laughing hysterically as they see Republicans commit verbal cannibalism against one of their own.

Instead of Rep. Bachmann – who sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence – being supported by her “colleagues” for taking such a brave stand, she was singled out with relish by 21st century versions of Brutus, Judas, and Benedict Arnold on both sides of the aisles. Rep. Bachmann seemed to be targeted especially by Republicans who verbally pulverized, pilloried and lambasted her. This even included self described “conservatives.” Even the leftist establishment media had a field day with Republicans besmirching Rep. Bachmann’s intentions to wake—and shake—this country up as to what Islamic extremism represents. Indeed, the Republican establishment did a better job than the leftist media in trying to portray Rep. Bachmann as some sort of Islamaphobic racist lunatic. (“Islamaphobe” and “racist” now being the two most dirtiest words in the English lexicon.) A country that survived a mass murder atrocity only eleven years ago seems to have forgotten who the enemy is. To these elitist Republicans, it appears that the messenger (Rep. Bachmann) and her message (Muslim infiltration) are the real enemy. And that message and especially that messenger must be silenced.

The other four signers to the “Bachmann letter” are: Rep. Thomas Rooney (R-FL),  Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), who like Rep. Bachmann both serve on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence;  Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ),  who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX), who sits on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security (a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee). These officials hold very sensitive positions and are privy to intelligence reports that the public rarely, if ever, hears about. It would seem absurd for such officials to jeopardize their own careers if they thought that their allegations were somehow “crazy,” “lunatic,” or nothing but lies or hearsay.

The allegations against Abedin, the Brotherhood, and other Muslim “organizations” appear to be air tight. Attempts to Islamize America through peaceful methods were already thoroughly documented in such books as Infiltration written by Paul Sperry back in 2005. Sperry was also co-author with P. David Gaubiz of the 2009 book Muslim Mafia which continues where Infiltration left off. Another 2005 book that talks about Hezbollah cells in America as early as the 1990’s is Lightning out of Lebanon by Tom Diaz and Barbara Newman.. The books are shocking, disturbing and infuriating as the reader realizes just how inept, callous, ignorant, and arrogant the American government is to Islamist terrorists and extremists in our own backyard.

More recently, experts on Islamist extremism—both domestic and foreign—like Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy and Andrew McCarthy, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, have thoroughly documented how deeply embedded Islamists have become in the Government and intelligence agencies of the United States.

Another individual who has been trying to wake the American people up from their decades of slumber has been Walid Shoebat. Mr. Shoebat, perhaps more than anyone else should know about Islamist supremacism. A Palestinian Muslim by birth and a radical Muslim at that, Mr. Shoebat became a born-again Christian in the 1990’s and went from being virulently anti-American and anti-Israeli, to embracing both America and Israel. His website has kept up an almost daily account of the “Abedin affair” and those Republicans and “conservatives” who have acted more like collaborators of the Islamists, than American patriots.

It has been eleven years since 9/11 and it appears that Americans—from politicians to plebeians—have gone back to sleep in the face of the Islamist menace. Perhaps most unforgiving is the fact that politicians—particularly Republicans and “conservatives” have tried at every level to stymie Rep. Bachman and her few brave colleagues from making the American people aware of how lethal the Islamist hydra is. Indeed if another 9/11 type atrocity were to take place in America, there is no doubt that Americans would be asking the very politicians who are flaying Rep. Bachmann as to what they have been doing in trying to keep America safe.

But who are these Republicans and “conservatives” who have skewered Rep. Bachmann over the coals and shamelessly played to the leftists and Islamists? Well, they are establishment and elitist Republicans like the 2008 stain of the Republican Party, John McCain, and the vanilla Republican who is House Speaker, John Boehner. Perhaps even more disturbing have been so-called “conservatives” like Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), and the new conservative “kid on the block” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). The above politicians, who apparently are terrified and terrorized of being labeled “Islamophobes” have called Rep. Bachmann’s allegations everything from “ugly” and “sinister” (McCain) to “pretty dangerous” (Boehner), to “the wrong thing to do” (Sensenbrenner), and finally to “I don’t share those feelings” (Rubio). Not satisfied with verbally crucifying Rep. Bachmann, each of the above issued their own panegyrics and odes to the character of Abedin. Indeed, how well do they know Abedin and her “character?” All the while, these craven and cowardly politicians ignore the call for an investigation into undue Islamist influence that grows like a contagion by the day in America. What are they afraid of? And why?

If there is one positive sign from Congress, it is that Congressman and former Lt. Col. Allen West (R-FL) has backed up the claims of Rep. Bachmann. Colonel West gave the American people an excellent and concise history lesson on Islam and Islamic extremism. Indeed, if anyone knows what Islamist supremacism and expansionism is all about, it is Col. West who heroically and valiantly fought against Jihadis in Iraq and Afghanistan up close. Also recently backing up Rep. Bachmann has been Rep. Steve King (R-IA).

Though this story may sound old, it is not going to go away, because Islamist expansionism appears to be in America to stay. From the White House to local governments, the call for “religious tolerance” and literal prostration to the practitioners of the religion of Muhammad grows stronger by the day.

Those who laugh and scorn at Rep. Bachmann today, may yet come to rue the day in the future. Islamist extremism may not be going away, but neither is the intrepid Congresswoman from Minnesota. Indeed, it is only true conservatives like Michele Bachmann and Allen West who will be able to have the intestinal fortitude to take on the Herculean task of taming the Islamist menace to American society. Unfortunately, it appears that it will be a long struggle.

Steven Simpson has a B.A. in Political Science with an emphasis on Middle Eastern studies, as well as a Master’s Degree in Library Science. In addition to Canada Free Press, Steven’s previous articles have appeared on the American Thinker, Pajamas Media, Front Page Magazine, and Hudson-NY.org. Steven can be reached at: ssimusa@hotmail.com

A Recent Case Sheds Light on the Muslim Brotherhood, but Most Republicans Ignore It

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When the five House Republicans rose up to call for scrutiny of enemy efforts to  influence our government, they were not speaking hypothetically. The effort is  very real. And the enemy is now so brazen, so confident about the inroads it has  made, that it publicly closes ranks around its operatives even after their  treachery has been laid bare.

by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY

I’m a big fan of the 1 percent. No, not the dastardly 1 percent of Occupy    Wall Street myth; I’m partial, instead, to the 1 percent of Congress that takes  seriously the threat of Islamic-supremacist influence operations against our  government.

The people have 435 representatives serving in the House and another hundred  in the Senate. Of these 535, a total of 288 are Republicans – 241 and 47 in the  lower and upper chambers, respectively. Of these, only five House conservatives  – five – have had the fortitude to raise concerns about the Islamist  connections of government officials entrusted with positions enabling them to  shape U.S. policy.

Think about that. Republicans purport to be the national-security party. For  decades this claim was well founded, starting with Ronald Reagan’s clarity in  seeing the Soviets as enemies to be defeated, not accommodated. President  Reagan’s plan for the Cold War was, “We win, they lose,” and he pulled it off  because he was not under any illusions about who “they” were.

But something happened to the GOP in the Bush years. For all the welcome  understanding that Bill Clinton was wrong – that the jihad could not be indicted  into submission – the Bush administration never learned a fundamental truth that  Reagan knew only too well: You cannot defeat your enemies unless you understand  them, and you cannot even begin to understand them if you are too craven to name  them.

As they gather in Tampa for their quadrennial showcase, Republicans, but for  the 1 percent, remain timorous on the subject of America’s enemies. Oh, they’ll  tell you that we must confront “terrorism” and crack down on the “terrorists.”  But that’s not much different from claiming to be against “burglary” and  “burglars.” Terrorism is a vicious crime, but it becomes a national-security  threat only when it is an instrument of an ideology that aims to destroy our  country. What made the terrorist organizations armed and trained by the Soviets  in the Sixties and Seventies a threat was the Soviets, not the  terrorism.

America’s enemies are Islamic supremacists: Muslims adherent to a  totalitarian interpretation of Islam who, like Soviet Communists, seek to impose  their ideology throughout the world, very much including the United States.  Terrorism is an offensive strategy they use, but it is only one arrow in the  quiver. Its chief utility, moreover, is not that it will coerce surrender on its  own; it is the atmosphere of intimidation it creates. That dramatically  increases the effectiveness of the enemy’s several other offensive strategies -  legal demands for concessions, media campaigns, infiltration of society’s major  institutions, and influence operations against government.

The most disheartening thing about the modern Republican party’s dereliction  – about its accommodation and empowerment of our enemies under the delusional  guise of “Muslim outreach” – is that it flies in the face of the Bush Justice  Department’s signal counterterrorism achievement.

That was the 2007-08 Holy Land Foundation case. For once, political  correctness and the fear of being smeared as “Islamophobic” were shelved. In the  course of convicting several Hamas operatives, prosecutors proved that the  Muslim Brotherhood is engaged in a far-flung enterprise aimed, in the Brothers’  own words, at “eliminating and destroying” our way of life “from within” by  means of “sabotage.” The Bush Justice Department not only showed that what the  Brotherhood calls its “grand jihad” (or “civilization jihad”) is real; Justice  shed light on the ideology that fuels this enterprise, and expressly identified  many of the global Brotherhood’s accomplices.

Alas, this achievement is one today’s Republicans prefer to ignore. The party  of Ronald Reagan would have worn it like a badge of honor. Today’s GOP would  rather engage our enemies and call them our friends – not understand them, call  them what they are, and defeat them. Today’s Beltway Republicans save their  wrath for the occasional conservative – the messengers who embarrass them by  illustrating how small the big time has made them.

Did you know, for example, that when the Republican establishment had its  hissy fit over the inconvenient 1 percent – when John McCain and John Boehner  led the shrieking over their five conservative colleagues’ purported  scaremongering over Islamist influence-peddling – the fact that this  influence-peddling effort exists had just been proved in court?

As Patrick Poole, one of few to cover the  case, has observed,  it is the biggest spy scandal you’ve never heard about. Right around the time  McCain and Boehner were dressing down the 1 percent last month, Ghulam Nabi Fai  was finally heading off to prison. He had pled guilty last December to acting as  a secret foreign agent against our government.

In sum, Fai was paid millions of dollars over two decades by the Pakistani  intelligence service to push its agenda through a D.C.-based front, the Kashmiri  American Council. You haven’t heard much about it because it is a Muslim  Brotherhood operation through and through, one that demonstrates exactly what  the 1 percent is warning about.

Read more at American Thinker

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor  Andrew C. McCarthy is  a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, author ofWillful  Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad and blogs at National Review Online’s The  Corner.

The Wages of Willful Blindness: Is It Time for Defenders of Liberty to Abandon the GOP?

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By Andrew McCarthy

The embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood by President Obama, aided and  abetted  by the Republican establishment, is not new. It is the  culmination of a gradual  surrender whose silhouette was already evident  nearly twenty years ago. I wrote  about it in Willful  Blindness,  a memoir about the start of our nation’s confrontation with  Islamic  supremacism as a domestic threat – back in the early Nineties, when I   led the prosecution of the Blind Sheikh’s New York jihadist cell, which  carried  out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Is our wayward course  one that can be  corrected? The ongoing  controversy over Islamist influence on our government will probably answer  that question.

Spotlighted are concerns  raised by five conservative members of the House of Representatives  about (i)  Brotherhood-friendly government policymaking and (ii)  government officials,  such as the State Department’s Huma Abedin, who  have longstanding Islamist  ties. The crossroads at which we’ve arrived,  however, involve a lot more than  any single government official or  policy. Let me be stark: Our liberty and  security are threatened, and  the questions not only of whether GOP leaders  comprehend the stakes, but  also of whether the Republican Party remains a  worthy home for  defenders of liberty, have become very real.

A little history, to measure how far we’ve veered. When we tried Sheikh  Omar Abdel Rahman and his cohorts in 1995, the overarching charge was that  all 12  defendants, plus dozens of unindicted coconspirators, conspired to wage  a  war of urban terrorism against the United States. Beyond the Trade  Center  attack, this campaign included a more ambitious plot to bomb New  York City  landmarks (e.g., Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, UN complex,  FBI’s lower Manhattan  headquarters, some U.S. military installations,  etc.), as well as sundry  schemes to kidnap or assassinate current and  former government officials,  murder the president of Egypt, and the  like.

Here is the crucial part that you need to understand: The Blind  Sheikh and  his subordinates were not merely “violent extremists,” seized  by some sort of  psychological problem. They were Islamic supremacists.  Yes, their methods were  barbaric; but that does not mean they were  insane or irrational. Indeed, had  that been the case, they would have  been not guilty by reason of mental  incapacity.

To the contrary, we proved that their actions were rationally motivated  by Islamic supremacist ideology,  an easily knowable interpretation of  Islam, drawn directly from Muslim  scripture, that commands its adherents to  coerce societies into adopting  sharia. Sharia is Islam’s totalitarian framework  for how societies are  to be ruled. It is not just a set of spiritual  guidelines; it is a comprehensive social and legal system,  said to be  Allah’s gift and directive to mankind. It governs all human  activity – not just  prayer and worship, but financial, social, familial,  political, military, and  even hygienic activity.

Here are two salient facts. Once you grasp them, you’ll know everything you  need to know to understand the rest of the dispute:

(a) Not all Islamic supremacists (or “Islamists”) are violent, but the  goal of all Islamic supremacists is the same: to coerce the acceptance of  sharia.  The methods of pursuing that goal vary: sometimes terrorism is  used,  sometimes non-violent avenues are exploited – meaning, Islamic   supremacists co-opt legal processes, the media, educational  institutions,  and/or government agencies. But regardless of what methods  an Islamic  supremacist uses, his goal never changes: He aims to  implement sharia. In  Islamic supremacist ideology, sharia is regarded as  the mandatory,  non-negotiable foundation that must be laid before a  society can be Islamized.  Sharia is not “moderate”; therefore, you are  not a “moderate” if you want it,  no matter what method you use to  implement it. For example, if you are an  Islamic supremacist and you  want to repeal the First Amendment in order to  prohibit speech that  casts Islam in a negative light, you are not a “moderate”  – even if you  wouldn’t blow up buildings to press your point.

(b) Islamic supremacism is not a fringe interpretation of Islam.  It  is probably still the minority interpretation in North America.  Nevertheless,  it is the predominant interpretation of Islam in the  Middle East. Poll after  poll shows us that upwards of two-thirds of  Muslims in countries like Egypt and  Pakistan want their governments to  adopt and strictly enforce sharia. This is  why the Islamic supremacist  parties in the “Arab Spring” countries are  currently enjoying such  success in elections

With that as background, understand that in the aforementioned 1995  trial,  we proved that the reason the Blind Sheikh was able to run a  terrorist  organization – despite the fact that his physical infirmities  rendered him  incapable of performing any physical acts that would be  useful to terrorists -  was his globally renowned mastery of Islamic law.  Omar Abdel Rahman is  not a nut suffering from a psychological disorder.  He has a doctorate in  Islamic jurisprudence, earned by graduating with  distinction from al-Azhar  University in Cairo, the legendary seat of  sharia scholarship since the Tenth  Century. When he preached that  Muslims were obligated to force non-sharia  governments to adopt sharia,  by terrorism if necessary, he drew these  instructions directly from Islamic scripture,  and his instructions had  extraordinary persuasive force precisely  because he was, undeniably, an  internationally recognized authority on  Islamic jurisprudence. The government  would have you to believe Barack  Obama or George Bush or Hillary Clinton or  John McCain or Condi Rice or  Janet Reno knows more about Islam and its sharia  than Omar Abdel Rahman  does. That is ludicrous.

We seemed to get that 20 years ago, but observe the measure of how far  off-course we’ve drifted:

(a) In 1995, we demonstrated that (i) the Blind Sheikh  was attempting to  impose sharia, (ii) that he drew directly and  accurately from Islamic scripture  his instructions that Muslims must  impose sharia, by violence if necessary, and  (iii) his Muslim followers  were animated by these instructions to push for the  imposition of sharia  standards, using terrorist attacks, among other methods.  That was the  crux our our case. For proving this in federal court, the Clinton   Justice Department honored my colleagues and me with the attorney  general’s  highest award.

(b) Today, by contrast, for doing exactly the same thing – namely,  for  arguing that an authoritative interpretation of Islam directs  adherents to  impose sharia, by violence if necessary, in order to lay  the groundwork for  changing a non-Islamic society into an Islamic  society – I am routinely accused  of promoting hatred and “Islamophobia.”  Such accusations, applied to assertions  of what used to be seen as  fact, do not come only from the Obama Left  (including its Clinton  administration veterans – the State Department, run by  Hillary Clinton,  and the Justice Department run by Eric Holder, Clinton’s  deputy attorney  general). The smears are echoed, and in many cases led, by  prominent  members of the Republican establishment.

I haven’t changed. The threat against us hasn’t changed. The government has  changed.

The Obama administration and the Republican establishment would have  us live  a lie – a lie that endangers our liberties and our security. The  lie is this:  There is a difference between mainstream Islamic ideology  and what they call  “violent extremism.”

Read more: Family Security Matters

 Andrew C. McCarthy is  a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, author of Willful  Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad and blogs at National Review Online’s The  Corner.

 

Two-Thirds of Likely US Voters Are Islamo-Realistic

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by Andrew Bostom:

A survey of 1,000 Likely Voters nationwide conducted on May 10-11, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports has revealed the following key findings:

  • 63% total—80% of Republicans and 62% of  Independents, but only (or even?) 46% of Democrats—believe there is a conflict between Islamdom and Western civilization. What the report terms the “Political Class”—a group held in low esteem by “Mainstream Voters”—remains “evenly divided on the question,” and “more supportive of U.S. efforts to encourage democracy in the Islamic world,” compared to the Mainstream. However, 73% of the latter, i.e., Mainstream Voters,  recognize the conflict.
  • A mere 26% believe the United States should be aggressive in encouraging “the growth of democracy in the Islamic world,” while 58% maintain the US should leave matters alone, and 16% are undecided.
  • Moreover, a scant 10% of voters predict that America’s relationship with the Muslim world will improve a year from now, while 29%  believe that relationship will deteriorate further, and  50% expect it to remain unchanged.
  • Finally, those who have served in the military, past or present, or are family members of those currently serving, are more pessimistic than those who lack this background

After nearly 19,000  jihadist attacks since 9/11/2001, perhaps these somber, if Islamo-Realistic views, are influenced by a phenomenon Nicolai Sennels characterized in his essay, and plea for moral clarity in nomenclature, “Islamonausea, not Islamophobia.”

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