Pamela Geller “following in the steps of those Sons of Liberty in the Boston Tea Party of 1773″

/in , , , , /by

Brilliant piece, and no doubt provocative to the cowards who control the public discourse today — not that they will do anything but heap more opprobrium upon Pamela Geller and others who are fighting to defend freedom. Those who say “Yours was a gratuitous event that was needlessly provocative” don’t realize that Islamic supremacists are endlessly offended, endlessly provoked, and endlessly demanding, and those who think that if we just don’t draw cartoons of Muhammad, all will be well, are ignorant (willfully or not) of what Muslims are forcing non-Muslims to stop doing in other countries around the world today, because these actions offend them. Those new demands are coming, lemmings. Get ready to bow down again.

“In Defense of Pamela Geller,” by Jeffrey Lord, American Spectator, May 7, 2015:

The backlash has been considerable.

Pam Geller, whose American Freedom Defense Initiative organized the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest that sparked an armed assault by two self-appointed jihadis in Garland, Texas, has come under a withering assault for her actions. From Donald Trump to a crew at Fox that includes Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Greta Van Susteren, Martha McCallum, Alan Colmes, ex-Bush aide and Fox contributor Brad Blakeman as well as liberal radio host Richard Fowler and doubtless more, Geller has been subjected to a firestorm of criticism.

I respectfully dissent.

According to Newsmax, Ms. Geller has now received an ISIS death threat. Or, as they say in the world of Islam, a “fatwa”:

“The attack by the Islamic State in America is only the beginning of our efforts to establish a wiliyah in the heart of our enemy,” the message reads. “Our aim was the khanzeer Pamela Geller and to show her that we don’t care what land she hides in or what sky shields her; we will send all our Lions to achieve her slaughter.”

Note well the word “khanzeer.” The translation is “swine” — as used in the Islamic world when Jews are called “the descendants of apes and pigs.”

Geller has been making the necessary media rounds to defend herself, including this post in Time magazine. Sean Hannity has come to her defense, saying: “You can’t draw a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad without expecting this violence? Is this how far we have sunk? That we’ve got to capitulate in this way?” Rush Limbaugh has leapt to her defense.

Megyn Kelly was blunt in her defense. “Even if you hate her message, she was promoting free speech,” Kelly said and told a guest critical of Geller that he was “fundamentally confused and wrong” and that “I’m concerned about the America you would have us live in.”

Me too.

The notion that any American anywhere should restrict their own freedom of speech because to do otherwise would provoke violence is a certain path to ending freedom of speech. Let’s go with one of the favorite criticisms of Geller — that what Ms. Geller did holding that conference in Garland, Texas, was the work of a “provocateur.” OK. And?

American history is littered with “provocateurs” whose words or actions “provoked” violence. From the Boston Tea Partiers in 1773 to the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, time after time after time words and actions provoked violence. The Declaration of Independence, in fact, didn’t just provoke a little violence — it provoked a seven-year-long war with Great Britain that was said to have produced 25,000 American casualties. That’s before one gets to the estimated 4,000 British soldiers who were killed. Not to mention that the mere election of Abraham Lincoln provoked a string of events which in turn launched the Civil War. Killing some 600,000-plus Americans. Now there’s a provocation.

Just two months ago President Obama and former President Bush joined together in Selma, Alabama, to celebrate the work of “provocateurs” who knew — and were warned — not to march across Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge in support of black voting rights in 1965. As history records, Selma’s Sheriff Jim Clark faced the protesters at the head of a collection of billy-club wielding, horseback-riding troopers and used a bull horn to warn that the protesters “are ordered” to return to their homes or churches. Thus warned — quite specifically warned — that they were in danger of provoking violence, the marchers refused to turn back and kept coming. At Clark’s signal the troopers launched — and so ruthlessly inflicted violent beatings on the protesters that the event became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

In the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, a Geller-esque white Detroit housewife named Viola Liuzzo heard the call of Dr. Martin Luther King for Americans to come to Alabama and join the fight for voting rights. Liuzzo did so. And on the night of March 25, 1965, Liuzzo was driving a fellow marcher — a 19-year old black youth named Leroy Morton. Liuzzo’s car was spotted by the Ku Klux Klan. They were white racists who saw the fact of a white woman driving a black man as a provocation that violated the social mores of segregation and white supremacy. In response to this “provocation,” Liuzzo’s car was overtaken by a car filled with Klan members. They fired at Viola Liuzzo, shooting her twice in the head and killing her instantly. The car crashed, Morton played dead and once the Klan had departed went for help. This same white woman-black man combination was exactly the same social provocation cited in the killing of Emmett Till, the young black teenager who was murdered in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

Today Viola Liuzzo and the marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge are seen as heroes. In fact, during his visit to Selma for that fiftieth anniversary tribute the President specifically said: “If Selma taught us anything, it’s that our work is never done.” Really? Is the President saying he wants more racial provocations around America? Was he himself acting as a Geller-style “provocateur”?

Should Viola Liuzzo have not gone to Alabama? Should she not have protested for voting rights or had a black man in her car — because what she was doing was “provocative” to the white supremacist view of society and would provoke violence? To listen to today’s chorus of critics of Pamela Geller, apparently the answer is no, Viola Liuzzo should never have gone, and yes, in the end she provoked her own death.

The entirety of the civil rights movement and quite specifically the words and actions of its leaders — most prominently including Dr. King himself — were seen in the day as provocative of violence. In fact, King himself would pay for all those words and actions with his life, shot to death while in Memphis for a 1968 march. Should Dr. King never have marched, spoken, and protested? Should the Civil Rights Act of 1964 never been enacted because it was the result of provocative, violence-inciting Freedom Riders and marches across the South?

There’s another fact here that is ignored. Forget the threat of Islamic radicalism. Take the issue off the table entirely. The uncomfortable fact of life today in a 21st century America drenched in television, films, and social media is that people of prominence, whether they are candidates for office or simply media figures or celebrities, are all too frequently targeted by those who are provoked by their words and actions.

Bill O’Reilly — and I’m not picking on him here but since he has raised the subject himself — is a case in point. Mr. O’Reilly, famously, is the host of Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor, a show with a huge popular following. Five nights a week for 19 years O’Reilly has been delivering a show that is filled with controversial views and frequently controversial people. To his credit, he never holds back in saying what he thinks.

Is what Bill O’Reilly does every night “provocative”? Does Bill O’Reilly invite violence? Well, catch this 2008 CBS interview with O’Reilly himself, as reported by CBS:

“My life is dangerous now,” he said. “You know, I have bodyguards and security. I can’t go many places. I can’t be in certain crowd situations. When I do a book signing, I gotta have a phalanx of state troopers there because there are crazy people. And then there’re the Web sites and all of that, which are just totally out of control.

“They encourage these nuts. You know, I was thinking about John Lennon, you know, and John Lennon was tryin’ to be a nice guy, signing the guy’s thing and [Chapman] pops him. So, that is the worst part of the whole ‘Factor’ experience.”

Got that? What Bill O’Reilly does on his television show is so provocative to some people that his life “is dangerous now” and he has to have “bodyguards and security.” What O’Reilly is saying here is that yes, he too is a “provocateur” — just like Pam Geller. Should O’Reilly quit his show? Should he be seen not as a television host with an interesting show but rather condemned as a deliberately provocative public danger whose very presence anywhere in public could result in violence to innocent bystanders? Should he curtail his First Amendment right to say what he wants on his own television show? Should he be condemned for nightly doing something that is, to use O’Reilly’s description of Geller’s actions, “dumb”?

Absolutely not. That would be dumb.

The disturbing reality here is that, as mentioned, this “provocateur’ phenomenon isn’t limited to Bill O’Reilly or Pam Geller. All kinds of people in the public eye who are not the President of the United States with a retinue of Secret Service agents are targeted by someone Out There as a “provocateur.” As O’Reilly himself mentioned, former Beatle John Lennon’s celebrity alone was enough to provoke a killer. Just the other week, the news brought a recording of a 911 call from a frantic actress, Sandra Bullock. Bullock was locked in a closet in her own home — while a crazed stalker prowled though her home looking for her. Why? For no other reason than Bullock’s movie celebrity had provoked this nut into violently breaking into her home. Should Bullock halt her acting career because it has provoked violence?

What Pamela Geller is about — courageously and boldly — is standing up for freedom. That’s it. That’s all. “My country is in danger,” she said to Sean Hannity on his radio show yesterday — and she is right. When O’Reilly says “Insulting the entire Muslim world is stupid… It does not advance the cause of liberty or get us any closer to defeating the savage jihad,” he is, as Megyn Kelly said, confused. It isn’t Geller’s job to defeat ISIS. That’s the President’s job. It isn’t her job to provoke — or not provoke. It isn’t her job to be smart — or stupid. It is her God-given, constitutional right to stand up for freedom of speech — and she exercises that right. It is her job, as it is that of every American, to work to see that our country is not endangered by gradually giving up our freedoms one by one in a constant backsliding down the slippery slope of tyranny.

What concerns with all this criticism? In effect what the critics are saying is that we should start curtailing American freedoms — the Constitution — to avoid “provoking” or offending someone. Muslims today, gays yesterday, rioting Baltimoreans last week. And so on through some catechism of political correctness.

Where does this stop? Just as Islam forbids images of The Prophet, so too does it forbid homosexuality. If Americans are not supposed to “provoke” Muslims by doing something that offends their religion, does this mean the push that is on now for gay marriage should come to a screeching halt? Should the Supreme Court make gay marriage illegal because to recognize gay marriage would deliberately provoke Muslims across America and around the world? Indeed, isn’t an American approval of any gay “right” a deliberate provocation of Muslim sensibilities?

This is, I would suggest, an untenable place for conservatives to be. It’s an untenable place for liberals to be. It’s an untenable place for Americans to be. It isn’t enough to say some version of “oh sure Pam Geller has the right to do it but she’s provocative and what she did is dumb.” As Sean Hannity has said, Americans cannot slip into the habit of saying “I’m for free speech…but…”

What Pam Geller is doing is bravely standing where so many Americans celebrated today once stood. She is following in the steps of those Sons of Liberty in the Boston Tea Party of 1773 or the signers of the Declaration in 1776 Philadelphia or the civil rights marchers on that Edmund Pettus Bridge or Viola Liuzzo in 1965….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Geller, Wilders, Spencer “fighting the West’s battle for freedom”

VDH: Jihadists have “already cut a huge swath out of American free speech”

Jihad in Garland, Texas: Conservative Cowards

/in , , , , /by

On May 3, 2015 in Garland Texas a watershed event occurred that will change the way many Americans enjoy their First Amendment freedoms. The change of which we speak is the focus of today’s show.

Our guest Dr. Andy Bostom will take us on a doctrinal journey that establishes the comprehensive prohibition against drawing ANY image of Mohammad, or any of the revered prophets of Islam.

Most disturbing is that this morally unjustified Islamic jihad attack against unarmed civilians has resulted in many well-revered conservative commentators to fearfully equivocate to such as degree that Champagne corks are popped in the caves of Mujahedeen worldwide.

These conservatives, whom we identify on this show, have earned the disrespectful though completely appropriate title – “BUTT HEADS.”

The Thinning Skin of America

/in , , , , , /by

While reading a column this week about the pernicious effects of “micro-aggressions” on the psychological development of America’s young men and women, I thought to myself: what has happened to this rugged country?

police speechThis idea, born out of academia, that “micro-aggressions” and “trigger words” can cause lasting damage to the “delicate” human spirit is surely an insult to the memories of the millions of Americans, my grandparents included, who suffered through the Great Depression, fought in the trenches, cities, beachfronts and the forests of the World Wars, and the many millions more who labored through a lifetime of arduous, back-breaking, manual labor without the benefits of advanced safety equipment or robotics.

Does anyone really want to live in a country where the language police stand ready to declare a word as “triggering” at a moment’s notice and to subsequently label and stain the speaker with an unflattering adjective, while having to immediately provide a “safe space” for the delicate flower on the receiving end?

Does anyone really want to live in a country where social and ideological pressure from academic elites and society’s “thought leaders” force people into group identifications and allegiances in order to demonstrate the implicit discrimination acting against us through “micro-aggressions”?

Does anyone really want to live in a country where controversial speech is labeled “provocative” because terrorist savages feel that gunning people down in cold blood is the appropriate remedy for being on the receiving end of words that offend them?

Should these panels of self-ordained “experts” on the use of language, and the psychological and sociological reasons for the use of the language, really be given such power? The power to mark someone with the Scarlet Letter for grievances against society either real, or imagined, is a dangerous one in the wrong hands. More dangerous is the power of savage violence to suppress speech, and to create a climate of fear indicative more of a third-world tyranny than the world’s most prosperous democracy.

The danger of restricting speech, both controversial and ideological, creates an obvious slippery slope with no clear defining limits to the speech dragnet. A growing number of Americans sense the danger of operating on this slope, but some do not. Sadly, many have bought into the false narrative that the enlightened “elites” in academia, the government bureaucracy, the cultural “thought leaders,” and the media should determine which form of speech is acceptable and which form should be restricted.

America is exceptional because anyone is free to openly speak about and celebrate our country and its political leadership. Or you are free to lob endless insults at both (free of threats), without fear of imprisonment or harm. Sadly, this is the historical exception, not the rule. In order to preserve this going forward, I have a suggestion: MAN UP!

Now, I understand that the use of “MAN UP!” rather “man up” can be perceived as potentially “micro-aggressive” because I used capital letters and an exclamation point. I also understand that it can be perceived as “triggering” because I used the word “man” instead of using the words “man and woman,” but I refuse to issue any faux apologies to placate the speech police crowd and their Hester Prynne end-game. I am the son of a resilient single mother, the husband of a first generation immigrant who fought against nearly insurmountable odds to become a successful mother and small business owner, the father to two strong and determined young ladies who never settle for second best, and the partner of a core group of determined and effective female political strategists who run my political organization. I will not now, nor ever, be lectured to by a group of academic elites, who haven’t accomplished an iota of what these powerful women have, about what constitutes both constructive and destructive interpersonal interactions.

We, as a country, need to man up. One could spend an entire lifetime pinpointing real and perceived grievances against America for reasons both legitimate and not, but the real question is – where is this getting us? Race relations, community strife and the balkanization of America into separate groups have all grown worse under this administration despite their rhetoric otherwise, and the constant attention they shower on identity politics. There are both angels and fools among us, the world is a tough place

We should focus more on what we can do to empower our young men and women growing up under tough circumstances and on how to teach them to take a punch and then get back up. A vibrant national school choice initiative, tax rates which give businesses the opportunity to expand into struggling cities, personal control over healthcare and health insurance and, most importantly, a reduced role of government in all of our lives which is stealing away the pride of ownership over our efforts, are but some of the steps we need to ensure that the next generation develops the resolve to fight on in the face of adversity and accept nothing less than the success they deserve.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review.

Dom: The Conservative Lady Warrior

/in , , , /by

dom the conservativeMeet, Dom -The Conservative, blogger, wife, Mom, counter-jihad warrior! Sometimes it’s funny how life provides positive developments from extremely bizarre situations.

On May 3, 2015, Dom was one of the attendees at the Pamela Geller – Muhammad Art Exhibit and was there to support the American doctrine of freedom to speak and freedom to assemble. Little did she realize how her life would be changed by being one of the people under attack from Muslim terrorists who were intent on killing the participants simple because they were at the event?

In the midst of the “controlled” confusion of the evening our United West team met Dom, interviewed her and became friends with a very serious, very intelligent woman who has a critically important message for all freedom-loving Americans.

Listen to what Dom has to say and then, JOIN THE FIGHT!

RELATED ARTICLES:

Catholic University Investigated for Offending Muslims by Having Too Many Crosses

Saudi Arabia Shows Its Displeasure With Washington

Anti-Israel Intruders arrested for invading IDF Presentation at Temple Israel in Westport, Connecticut

Trojan House: U.S. State Dept. Program Brings Refugee Jihadis to America costing Billion $

/in , , , , , /by

Refugee Resettlement and Hijra jpgMike Bates and I interviewed Ann Corcoran, editor of the Refugee Resettlement Watch  blog on 1330 AM WEBY’s “Your Turn’ program, Tuesday, May 12, 2015. Corcoran is the author of “Refugee Resettlement and the Hijra to America .“ We noted  early in the interview the importance of Hijra (immigration in Arabic) as a doctrinal imperative for Muslims in one of the Hadith (sayings of Mohammed) according to a reliable commentator, Bukhari:

There can be no Hijra (migration) after the conquest but Jihad and a desire or an intention, and if you settle then spread out.

For more see: Modern Day Trojan Horse: Al-Hijra, the Islamic Doctrine of Immigration, Accepting Freedom or Imposing Islam?  By Sam Solomon and E. Al Maqdisi.

The focus of our discussion was on  rising concerns over Muslim refugee resettlement  under the billion dollar secretive US Refugee Admission Program that has operated under the virtual radar screen for 35 years. These concerns have arisen since the Refugee Act of 1980 was passed and signed into law by former President  Jimmy Carter. The law was introduced by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy and then Senator, and now Obama Vice President, Joe Biden. Based on the interview, Corcoran believes that it is overdue for a major overhaul and reform. By virtue of admitting thousands of  potential Jihadis among refugees from Muslims lands, the program constitutes a significant national security risk.

Watch Corcoran’s Center for Security Policy You Tube video which has gone viral since its posting on April 20, 2015 with  236,748 hits at last count.

Here are some takeaways from the 1330 AM WEBY interview with Corcoran:

  • The UN High Commissioner for Refugees  “calls the shots”  on the annual allotment of 70,000 refugees that the State Department sends a Presidential Directive  to Capitol Hill in Washington, DC to be ‘rubber stamped’ by Senate and House Subcommittees on Immigration and Border Security.
  • The Congress has never exercised effective oversight of the Refugee Admissions program through hearings and recommendations leading to changes in countries of origin under UN allotments.
  • The Refugee Admissions Program has been used punitively against  political critics. One example is the assignment  of  large  numbers of Somali refugees to the Congressional District of former US Rep. Michelle Bachmann in St. Cloud, Minnesota
  • Nearly 400,000 refugees admitted to the US under this State Department program funded by taxpayers came from “countries that hate us”: Somalia, Iraq, Bosnia and soon, Syria;
  • Hundreds of terrorists have entered the US as refugees, many fraudulently, whose backgrounds are impossible  to run background checks as their countries of origin are virtual failed states;
  • Among examples of refugee Jihads caught are:

Dozens of Somaliémigré youths arrested and charged with material support for terrorism by attempting or leaving to join Al Shabaab in war torn Somalia or the Islamic State in Syria;

Iraqi Al Qaeda operatives admitted because of fraudulent representations who were convicted of trying to attemptingto ship weapons and funds to Al Qaeda and only caught when fingerprints were found on shards of an IED that killed four Pennsylvania National Guardsmen in Iraq;

The Brothers Tsarneav who perpetrated the Boston Marathon Bombing that killed three and one MIT police officer, injuring over 263, some maimed for life.

  • Rampant fraud was detected  from DNA samples among Somali applicants under the State Department Family Reunification P-3 Visa Program  resulting in the shutdown of the program for three years.  20,000 fraudulently admitted Somali refugees were never pursued to eject them.
  • Given the world’s attention on the problem of illegal migrants crossing the Mediterranean, the State Department  Refugee program let in to the US  thousands of Somalis who fled to the Island of Malta without any clearances.
  • Endangered Middle East Christians are effectively discriminated against for refugee status, because  they do not reside in UNHCR camps, dominated by Sunni Muslims. Of  the initial group of  Syrian refugees brought into the US, 92 percent were Muslims, with the balance Christian.
  • There are upwards of  17,000 Syrians refugees  in the UNHCR pipeline awaiting processing for admission to the US.
  • The State Department contracts with 9 religious and special interest NGOs who place refugees through a network of 350 contractors and compete for significant processing fees and grants for obtaining citizenship.
  • Refugees are legal immigrants and thus have access to a smorgasbord of cash assistance, Medicaid, educational support that run into billions of costs all funded by US taxpayers.
  • The  Federal  Office of Refugee Resettlement  has a contract with a Soros-backed immigration advocacy group, “Welcoming America,” to go into ‘pockets of resistance’ in local communities targeted for refugee allotments.
  • Local communities have virtually no say or review of refugee placements to assess local burden on schools, medical facilities or assisted housing. That has led Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) to write Secretary Kerry to put a hold on refugees slated for his district until resettlement questions are answered.

For more, listen to the 1330 AM WEBY interview with Ann Corcoran, here and here.  An article based on this interview will appear in the June edition of the NER.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Islam’s ‘Reformation’ Is Already Here—and It’s Called ‘ISIS’ by Raymond Ibrahim

/in , , , , /by

The idea that Islam needs to reform is again in the spotlight following the recent publication of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s new book, Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now.  While Hirsi Ali makes the argument that Islam can reform—and is in desperate need of taking the extreme measures she suggests to do so—many of her critics offer a plethora of opposing claims, including that Islam need not reform at all.

The one argument not being made, however, is the one I make below—namely, that Islam has already “reformed.”  And violence, intolerance, and extremism—typified by the Islamic State (“ISIS”)—are the net result of this “reformation.”

Such a claim only sounds absurd due to our understanding of the word “reform.”  Yet despite its positive connotations, “reform” simply means to “make changes (in something, typically a social, political, or economic institution or practice) in order to improve it.”

Synonyms of “reform” include “make better,” “ameliorate,” and “improve”—splendid words all, yet words all subjective and loaded with Western connotations.

Muslim notions of “improving” society can include purging it of “infidels” and “apostates,” and segregating Muslim men from women, keeping the latter under wraps or quarantined at home. Banning many forms of freedoms taken for granted in the West—from alcohol consumption to religious and gender equality—is an “improvement” and a “betterment” of society from a strictly Islamic point of view.

In short, an Islamic reformation will not lead to what we think of as an “improvement” and “betterment” of society—simply because “we” are not Muslims and do not share their first premises and reference points.  “Reform” only sounds good to most Western peoples because they naturally attribute Western connotations to the word.

Historical Parallels: Islam’s Reformation and the Protestant Reformation

At its core, the Protestant Reformation was a revolt against tradition in the name of scripture—in this case, the Bible.  With the coming of the printing press, increasing numbers of Christians became better acquainted with the Bible’s contents, parts of which they felt contradicted what the Church was teaching.  So they broke away, protesting that the only Christian authority was “scripture alone,” sola scriptura.

Islam’s current reformation follows the same logic of the Protestant Reformation—specifically by prioritizing scripture over centuries of tradition and legal debate—but with antithetical results that reflect the contradictory teachings of the core texts of Christianity and Islam.

As with Christianity, throughout most of its history, Islam’s scriptures, specifically its “twin pillars,” the Koran (literal words of Allah) and the Hadith (words and deeds of Allah’s prophet, Muhammad), were inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of Muslims.  Only a few scholars, or ulema—literally, “they who know”—were literate in Arabic and/or had possession of Islam’s scriptures. The average Muslim knew only the basics of Islam, or its “Five Pillars.”
In this context, a “medieval synthesis” flourished throughout the Islamic world. Guided by an evolving general consensus (or ijma‘), Muslims sought to accommodate reality by, in medieval historian Daniel Pipes’ words,

translat[ing] Islam from a body of abstract, infeasible demands [as stipulated in the Koran and Hadith] into a workable system. In practical terms, it toned down Sharia and made the code of law operational. Sharia could now be sufficiently applied without Muslims being subjected to its more stringent demands…  [However,] While the medieval synthesis worked over the centuries, it never overcame a fundamental weakness: It is not comprehensively rooted in or derived from the foundational, constitutional texts of Islam. Based on compromises and half measures, it always remained vulnerable to challenge by purists (emphasis added).

This vulnerability has now reached breaking point: millions of more Korans published in Arabic and other languages are in circulation today compared to just a century ago; millions of more Muslims are now literate enough to read and understand the Koran compared to their medieval forbears.  The Hadith, which contains some of the most intolerant teachings and violent deeds attributed to Islam’s prophet—including every atrocity ISIS commits, such as beheading, crucifying, and burning “infidels,” even mocking their corpses—is now collated and accessible, in part thanks to the efforts of Western scholars, the Orientalists.  Most recently, there is the Internet—where all these scriptures are now available in dozens of languages and to anyone with a laptop or iphone.

In this backdrop, what has been called at different times, places, and contexts “Islamic fundamentalism,” “radical Islam,” “Islamism,” and “Salafism” flourished.  Many of today’s Muslim believers, much better acquainted than their ancestors with the often black and white teachings of their scriptures, are protesting against earlier traditions, are protesting against the “medieval synthesis,” in favor of scriptural literalism—just like their Christian Protestant counterparts once did.

Thus, if Martin Luther (d. 1546) rejected the extra-scriptural accretions of the Church and “reformed” Christianity by aligning it exclusively with scripture, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab (d. 1787), one of Islam’s first modern reformers, “called for a return to the pure, authentic Islam of the Prophet, and the rejection of the accretions that had corrupted it and distorted it” (Bernard Lewis,The Middle East, p. 333).

The unadulterated words of God—or Allah—are all that matter for the “reformists,” with ISIS at their head.

Note: Because they are better acquainted with Islam’s scriptures, other Muslims, of course, are apostatizing—whether by converting to other religions, most notably Christianity, or whether by abandoning religion altogether, even if only in their hearts (for fear of the apostasy penalty).  This is an important point to be revisited later.  Muslims who do not become disaffected after becoming better acquainted with the literal teachings of Islam’s scriptures, and who instead become more faithful to and observant of them are the topic of this essay.

Christianity and Islam: Antithetical Teachings, Antithetical Results

How Christianity and Islam can follow similar patterns of reform but with antithetical results rests in the fact that their scriptures are often antithetical to one another.   This is the key point, and one admittedly unintelligible to postmodern, secular sensibilities, which tend to lump all religious scriptures together in a melting pot of relativism without bothering to evaluate the significance of their respective words and teachings.

Obviously a point by point comparison of the scriptures of Islam and Christianity is inappropriate for an article of this length (see my “Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam” for a more comprehensive treatment).

Suffice it to note some contradictions (which naturally will be rejected as a matter of course by the relativistic mindset):

  • The New Testament preaches peace, brotherly love, tolerance, and forgiveness—for all humans, believers and non-believers alike.  Instead of combating and converting “infidels,” Christians are called to pray for those who persecute them and turn the other cheek (which is not the same thing as passivity, for Christians are also called to be bold and unapologetic).  Conversely, the Koran and Hadith call for war, or jihad, against all non-believers, until they either convert, accept subjugation and discrimination, or die.
  • The New Testament has no punishment for the apostate from Christianity.  Conversely, Islam’s prophet himself decreed that “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.”
  • The New Testament teaches monogamy, one husband and one wife, thereby dignifying the woman.  The Koran allows polygamy—up to four wives—and the possession of concubines, or sex-slaves.  More literalist readings treat all women as possessions.
  • The New Testament discourages lying (e.g., Col. 3:9).  The Koran permits it; the prophet himself often deceived others, and permitted lying to one’s wife, to reconcile quarreling parties, and to the “infidel” during war.

It is precisely because Christian scriptural literalism lends itself to religious freedom, tolerance, and the dignity of women, that Western civilization developed the way it did—despite the nonstop propaganda campaign emanating from academia, Hollywood, and other major media that says otherwise.

And it is precisely because Islamic scriptural literalism is at odds with religious freedom, tolerance, and the dignity of women, that Islamic civilization is the way it is—despite the nonstop propaganda campaign emanating from academia, Hollywood, and other major media that says otherwise.

The Islamic Reformation Is Here—and It’s ISIS

Those in the West waiting for an Islamic “reformation” along the same lines of the Protestant Reformation, on the assumption that it will lead to similar results, must embrace two facts: 1) Islam’s reformation is well on its way, and yes, along the same lines of the Protestant Reformation—with a focus on scripture and a disregard for tradition—and for similar historic reasons (literacy, scriptural dissemination, etc.); 2) But because the core teachings of the founders and scriptures of Christianity and Islam markedly differ from one another, Islam’s reformation is producing something markedly different.

Put differently, those in the West calling for an “Islamic reformation” need to acknowledge what it is they are really calling for: the secularization of Islam in the name of modernity; the trivialization and sidelining of Islamic law from Muslim society.  That is precisely what Ayaan Hirsi Ali is doing.  Some of her reforms as outlined in Heretic call for Muslims to begin doubting Muhammad (whose words and deeds are in the Hadith) and the Koran—the very two foundations of Islam.

That would not be a “reformation”—certainly nothing analogous to the Protestant Reformation.

Habitually overlooked is that Western secularism was, and is, possible only because Christian scripture lends itself to the division between church and state, the spiritual and the temporal.

Upholding the literal teachings of Christianity is possible within a secular—or any—state.  Christ called on believers to “render unto Caesar the things of Caesar [temporal] and unto God the things of God [spiritual]” (Matt. 22:21).  For the “kingdom of God” is “not of this world” (John 18:36).  Indeed, a good chunk of the New Testament deals with how “man is not justified by the works of the law… for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified” (Gal. 2:16).

On the other hand, mainstream Islam is devoted to upholding the law; and Islamic scripture calls for a fusion between Islamic law—Sharia—and the state.   Allah decrees in the Koran that “It is not fitting for true believers—men or women—to take their choice in affairs if Allah and His Messenger have decreed otherwise. He that disobeys Allah and His Messenger strays far indeed!” (33:36).   Allah tells the prophet of Islam, “We put you on an ordained way [literarily in Arabic, sharia] of command; so follow it and do not follow the inclinations of those who are ignorant” (45:18).

Mainstream Islamic exegesis has always interpreted such verses to mean that Muslims must follow the commandments of Allah as laid out in the Koran and the example of Muhammad as laid out in the Hadith—in a word, Sharia.

And Sharia is so concerned with the details of this world, with the everyday doings of Muslims, that every conceivable human action falls under five rulings, or ahkam: the forbidden (haram), the discouraged (makruh), the neutral (mubah), the recommended (mustahib), and the obligatory (wajib).

Conversely, Islam offers little concerning the spiritual (sidelined Sufism the exception).

Unlike Christianity, then, Islam without the law—without Sharia—becomes meaningless. After all, the Arabic word Islam literally means “submit.”  Submit to what?  Allah’s laws as codified in Sharia and derived from the Koran and Hadith—the very three things Ali is asking Muslims to start doubting.

The “Islamic reformation” some in the West are calling for is really nothing less than an Islam without Islam—secularization not reformation; Muslims prioritizing secular, civic, and humanitarian laws over Allah’s law; a “reformation” that would slowly see the religion of Muhammad go into the dustbin of history.

Such a scenario is certainly more plausible than believing that Islam can be true to its scriptures and history in any meaningful way and still peacefully coexist with, much less complement, modernity the way Christianity does.

RELATED ARTICLES:

UCLA Prof Khaled Abou El Fadl Condemns ISIS, But Does He Condemn Stealth Jihad?

Virginia Muslima, Islamic State supporter, gets 4 1/2 years prison for lying to FBI

Egypt: Underage Coptic girl abducted, Muslim neighbor suspected

/in , , , /by

A 17-year old Coptic Christian girl named Tihani al-Nur Hakim was kidnapped in late April in the village of al-Kom al-Qibliyya in Samalout, Upper Egypt.

Her family accuses the next door neighbor, a Muslim man named Ahmed Khalifa.

An eyewitness said he saw the Muslim man seizing the girl.  Although the family planned on organizing a protest, village elders counseled against it, lest it backfire by provoking more of the area’s Muslims to retaliate against the Christian minority of the region, as often happens whenever Copts demand their human rights.

Two days earlier, a young Coptic man named Abu Noub Zarif Yusif also disappeared from the region and then reappeared saying that he had converted to Islam.

RELATED ARTICLE:

Egypt: Gunmen kidnap 8-year-old Copt from mother’s arms

Proposed EU Quota for Distribution of Illegal Migrants Draws Fire

/in , , , /by

The European Commission’s (EC) European Agenda for Migration has floated its proposals for dealing with the massive surge in illegal migrants being smuggled across the Mediterranean by human traffickers. That has created discord among the 28 EU members about the rescue burden placed on so-called front line countries in the Mediterranean like Malta, Italy, Greece and Spain versus the relocation burden on major members like Germany and Sweden. It has also given rise to UN criticism for a controversial plan to destroy the rickety boats of human traffickers in Libya and elsewhere in North Africa, originally proposed by EU Foreign Relations Commissioner, Frederica Mogherini. A side show has been the UN and European Parliament adverse comments of  the ’horrible’ national survey in Hungary opposing EU and UN setting allotments and quotas for distribution of asylees and refugees. Hungary’s PM Orban is a prominent member of the large center right European Parliament EPP coalition. The formal release of the EU Commission’s proposal is scheduled for Wednesday, May 13th.

We wrote in our NER article on this roiling debate in the May edition, “Stemming the Surge of Deadly Illegal Migration Across the Mediterranean”:

The EC proposed a pilot project to re-distribute 5,000 refugees who meet asylum requirements stranded outside the EU, as an attempt to fairly distribute the burden of asylees. That flies in the face of objections by major northern countries to further asylum quotas. In 2014, 626,065 refugees filed asylum claims, a 44% percent increase over 2013. As one example, Germany experienced a sharp rise is asylum requests over the first quarter of 2015 to 85,394, double over the same period in 2014. By contrast the U.S. received 47,500 asylum applications.

The majority of those asylum seekers hail from Kosovo, Syria and Albania. Germany currently has a backlog of over 200,000 applications. This has given rise to complaints by municipalities in Germany about the impact on facilities and community integration. In the most controversial proposal, the EC requested EU Foreign Relations Commissioner Federica Mogherini to develop rules of engagement enabling it to capture and destroy illegal smuggling vessels. Overall EC President Donald Tusk of Poland said the illegal migrant crisis is a” complex issue” that will “take time to tackle.”

The EUObserver reported  the leaked contents of the EC proposals and reactions:

Leaked documents, seen by EUobserver, indicate that both ideas are now back on the table in an effort to help ease pressure on select member states.

“The EU needs a permanent system for sharing the responsibility for large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers among member states,” notes the draft document.

Some 80 percent of all asylum applications are processed in six EU countries, with most refugees from Syria either ending up in Germany or Sweden.

Germany’s Angela Merkel reportedly backs the commission’s proposals but the issue has already generated a backlash elsewhere.

Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban on Friday described the commission plan as “mad and unfair”.

Earlier this month, he proposed setting up new national legislation to keep out immigrants even it runs counter to EU rules.

“If [other EU members] want to receive immigrants, they can do it. But then they should not send them back here, or through us,” said the Hungarian leader.

According to the leaked commission text, the EU executive wants member states to resettle around 20,000 new refugees every year, although the final figure could change.

An initial figure of 5,000 had been floated last month at the EU emergency summit, but was then dropped.

[…]

The number of relocated migrants to be taken in by each state would depend on the member state’s population size, economic strength, unemployment level and number of refugees already there.

“The commission will table legislation by the end of 2015 to provide for a mandatory and automatically-triggered relocation system to distribute those in clear need of international protection within the EU when a mass influx emerges,” notes the commission paper.

The proposed quota system would not be binding on Ireland, the UK and Denmark.

This has brought an immediate reaction from the newly elected Conservative government of UK Prime Minister David Cameron.  The Guardian reported:

“We will oppose any EU commission proposals to introduce a non-voluntary quota,” a spokesperson told the paper.

Britain is instead pushing for an UN-backed resolution to “destroy the business model of the traffickers” by sinking the boats and rubber dinghies used to ferry migrants across the sea.

The UK’s Royal Navy’s flagship HMS Bulwark and its three Merlin helicopters are already at port in Malta.

Debate at the UN Security Council session yesterday in Manhattan revealed criticism of the EU Foreign Commissioner’s proposal to attack the smuggler vessels engaged in trafficking of illegal migrants. The EU Observer reported:

Peter Sutherland, the UN special envoy on migration and a former EU commissioner, issued the warning at a meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC) warned the EU that “innocent refugees”, including children, will be “in the line of fire” of any operation to sink migrant smugglers’ boats.

He noted that in the first 130 days of this year “at least” 1,800 people drowned in the Mediterranean Sea trying to get to EU shores.

“This total represents a 20-fold increase over the same period last year. At this pace, we are on course to see between 10,000 and 20,000 migrants perish by autumn”.

He said about half the people who make it have a legitimate need for EU protection.

EU Foreign Relations Commissioner Mogherini replied:

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini told the UNSC, also on Monday, that she’s been tasked “to propose actions to disrupt the business model of human trafficking networks across the Mediterranean”.

“We have in these [past] weeks prepared for a possible naval operation in the framework of the European Union Common Security and Defence Policy. The mandate of this operation is currently being elaborated with the EU member states”.

“We want to work with the United Nations, in particular with the UNSC”, she added.

She took pains to say the military plan is part of a wider approach.

She also pledged that “no refugees or migrants intercepted at sea will be sent back against their will”.

[…]

“This is not all about Libya, we know that very well. This can happen in other parts of the world. But we all know also very well that the vast majority of human trafficking and smuggling in these months is happening in Libya, or rather, through Libya”, Mogherini noted.

Given the divisions within the EU, it would appear the roiling political debate over how to handle the deadly illegal migrant surge of illegal migrants across the Mediterranean may be irresolvable. Much of the illegal migrant flight is driven by civil war and jihad conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Al Qaeda-linked terror groups in Africa. This despite the suggestions of  Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders that perhaps the only ways to deal with the surge is to adopt the Australian model of returning the stream of illegal migrants for possible relocation in North Africa and other areas in the Middle East. That is likely to be objected to by the UN High Commissioner of Refugees seeking to depopulate huge refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and elsewhere across the Muslim Ummah. The Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council would clearly object to such a scheme involving the members of the GCC embroiled in a war against Iran–backed Houthi Rebels in Yemen.

The question is whether that means an increase in refugee resettlement  allotments  courtesy of the UNHCR  might be coming here in the U.S. The arrival of Syrian refugees in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program is  already causing a rising debate among localities in the American heartland.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of illegal migrants picked up in the Mediterranean. Source: Migrant Offshore Aid Station

Obama’s Middle East Debacle

/in , , , /by

Saudi Arabia's King SalmanI had to laugh when I heard that the new King of Saudi Arabia, Salmon, told the White House he wasn’t going to attend Thursday’s photo-op get together of Arab leaders. Some lesser Saudi officials will attend. The message is clear enough, so long as Obama continues to make nice with Iran, the center of the problems in the Middle East, the Saudis and the others are going to be wary of any proposal that comes out of the White House.

As far as the Middle East is concerned, Obama seems to have no idea of the history or the dynamics that affect all the actions there. His Secretary of State, Kerry, is no better. He met with Arab officials last Friday and they told him they want a defense treaty in the event they were attacked by “external forces”, something that the Congress will not approve so long as Obama is in the White House.

One would think that any President at this point would have concluded that the Palestinians have no intention of signing onto a peace treaty with the Israelis.

Writing in The New York Times on May 8, Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, put it bluntly, “It doesn’t matter what these politicians think now or have said in in the past. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not happening in the next two years.” That’s how long we all have to wait until Obama leaves office.

David P.Goldman, a Senior Fellow of the Middle East Forum, writing in Asia Times Online on May 10, spelled it out. “It is inconvenient for diplomats to say so, but the Palestinian Authority collapsed quite some time ago,” noting that “President Mahmoud Abbas’ term in office began in 2005 and ended six years ago, and he has not called new elections for the simple reason that Hamas—the Palestinian branch of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood—would win those elections.” These days the Egyptians label Hamas a terrorist organization and have taken steps to eliminate the Brotherhood. At least they know who the enemy is.

Obama has been antagonistic to Israel from before he was elected and has made little effort to hide it. Consider this, as Goldman notes, “Hamas fired over 4,000 rockets at Israel in 2014, prompting Israeli counterstrikes during the summer.” Its declared intention and the reason for its existence is to eliminate the State of Israel. Why are we surprised to hear that Obama wants to take the statehood issue to the United Nations, a hotbed of anti-Semitism, and has little to say of the Palestinian Authority’s assertion that it wants to drag Israel in front of the International Criminal Court for having defended itself against the attacks by Hamas!

Not only has the Saudi King sent Obama a message, but so did the Israelis when they overwhelmingly reelected Benjamin Netanyahu as their Prime Minister. “The Israelis look around the Middle East and see nothing but conflict, carnage, instability and danger,” said Schanzer. “The Obama doctrine—which includes a deliberate contraction of American power in the Middle East—has undeniably made Israel less safe.”

It has made the U.S. and the world less safe too.

One of the most obscene aspects of the Obama obsession with Iran is that, in return for any deal—which Iran would ignore and cheat—they are ready “to provide as much as $120 billion in sanctions relief to satisfy the narrow technical parameters of a nuclear deal, which would legitimize Iran as a threshold nuclear state. These funds,” said Schanzer, “will flow to Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Iran terror proxies dedicated to Israel’s demise.”

To put all this in perspective, as Goldman reminds us, “From Israel’s standpoint, the Palestinian Authority was offered 95% of Judea and Samaria in return for a final peace agreement, and both times (at Camp David in 1999 under Ehud Barack and in 2008 under Ehud Olmert) the offer was rejected.”

“The U.N. Security Council,” said Goldman, “will punish Israel for the failure of negotiations that were meaningless to begin with, and establish a Hamas-controlled state within nine miles of the Mediterranean coast. Iran has already promised to arm West Bank Arabs, just as it armed Hezbollah and Hamas.”

Israel which has enjoyed the support of the United States since it declared its independence in 1948 is now put at risk by the first administration to deliberately turn its back on it in preference for a deal with the leading terror-sponsor, Iran, in the Middle East.

You cannot make a greater mess of the mess that already exists in the Middle East, but Obama is doing his best to add to it. What else should we expect from a President who refuses to utter words like “Islamic terrorism”?

© Alan Caruba, 2015

You’re on the Front Line of the Islamic War

/in , , , , /by

Does anyone remember what happened on September 11, 2001? Or is it just “ancient history” at this point? Some three thousand totally innocent Americans were murdered by a sneak attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Who did it? The same murderous Islamists who attacked an event in Garland, Texas to focus attention on the insanity that passes for one of the world’s great “religions.”

Islam is not a religion. It is a cult around the so-called prophet Mohammad and his assertion that the Koran was the word of Allah. The name Islam means “submission” and the purpose of Islam is the tyrannical control over the entire world’s population. Within this alleged holy faith, two sects, Shiites and Sunnis, have been at war almost from its inception, never failing to kill one another.

The turmoil in the Middle East is the direct result of this murderous cult and those Muslims who oppose the killing that flows from Islam must keep their silence or become its victims. Jews and Christians can speak out and debate about aspects of their faiths, but Muslim risk death when they do so. For those Jews and Christians living in Middle Eastern nations, death is always a prospect for no other reason than not being Muslim.

Americans have not yet fully embraced the fact that they are on the front lines along with other Western nations in a global war with Islam.

Will it take another 9/11? Surely the recent attack by two Islamists on May 3rd in Garland, Texas, was another wake up call. They arrived intent on killing as many of those attending the American Freedom Defense Initiative event. A Garland police officer killed both before anyone had to die in the name of the Bill of Rights.

AA - Garland TX and IslamBut why Garland, Texas? Because, as my friend Amil Imani noted in a recent commentary, “The venue was chosen as a defiant response to a Muslim group that had held a conference entitled ‘Stand With the Prophet Against Terror and Hate.”’ Ironic, eh? Their response to the event that invited cartoons of Muhammed as to want to kill the participants. If that is not war, I do not know what is.

If Muslims feel hatred, they have earned it here in the United States and elsewhere they have attacked any criticism or defiance, from Charlie Hebdo in France to the countless attacks around the world from Mumbai, India to Bali. A website, the Religion of Peace, com, posts news of the daily assaults by Muslim on both other Muslims and those they call “infidels”, unbelievers.

Pamela Geller who leads the American Freedom Defense Initiative has been widely assailed for her event that was intended to respond to the earlier one in Garland that Amil Amani noted “was convened to eliminate free speech or any expression, verbal and/or artwork depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammad in a negative light.”

“As a life-long expert on the subject of Islam, I felt that this event—more than anything else Pamela could have done—would be the target of a violence terrorist attack in the name of the religion of peace, either real and explosive or on social media at the very least.” It was real.

The Garland police were taking it seriously. Amani said “I was astonished at the large police presence already there. Some of the cops were dressed in tactical gear and carrying AR-15s. The security was ubiquitous, almost as if something untoward had already happened.”

Speaking in an interview with Sean Hannity on May 6, Geller noted that neither the FBI nor the Department of Homeland Security has yet to have contacted her about the thwarted attack. “This is a serious threat” said Hannity. “Basically a Fatwah, a death threat, has now been issued.” Geller noted the lack of interest or concern expressed by those in our government one might expect to at the least make an inquiry, adding that “I have a team now, private security, and NYPD counterterror has been in touch with me.”

Now I call that a level of courage for which Pamela Geller should be praised, but I heard too many criticisms that she was being “provocative.”

“Provocative”?????

When are Americans going to realize that the Islamists do not need any provocation? When are we going to start acting like we are at war? A good first step would be to stop inviting Muslims to immigrate to America. The Obama administration has been importing as many as possible. The next step is to understand that it is Obama and his administration that are part of the Islamic war.

It is the Pamela Geller’s that are crying out to us. We need to listen. We need to support them. We need to arm ourselves if we have not done so already. Then we need to secure “concealed carry” laws in every State of the Union. We are at war.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

Rising Concerns over Muslim Refugee Resettlement in U.S. [Video]

/in , , , , , /by

Ann Corcoran’s brief video on Muslim Refugee Resettlement in the U.S. has gone viral since being put up on YouTube on April 20, 2015 by the Center for Security Policy. It has had over 200,735 hits to date climbing every day. Clearly, Corcoran’s message has resonated among concerned Americans. Watch it on YouTube:

Refugee Resettlement and Hijra jpgThe CSP YouTube video is a complement to her recently published book on the problems confronting America over the threat of mass Muslim migration that has transformed Europe and now troubles grass roots America, “Refugee Resettlement and the Hijra to America” .

Corcoran and her team chronicle news and developments about this issue on the blog where she is editor, Refugee Resettlement Watch. You may have read our interview with Erick Stakelbeck, ISIS Threat to America  in the current edition of the NER where he drew attention to the Somali refugee communities in the American heartland sending jihadi terrorists in Somali and Syria.  He spoke of young Somali émigré men who have joined up with, first Al Shabaab in Somalia, and now increasingly, join the Islamic State to fight for the self-declared Caliphate in Syria and Iraq.   We have drawn attention to the problems of Somali refugee resettlement in NER articles and Iconoclast posts over the past eight years.  They have  covered  severe cultural and integration problems in the American heartland  in places like Shelbyville, Tennessee, Emporia, Kansas, Greeley , Colorado, Minneapolis, Minnesota,  Columbus, Ohio, and Lewiston, Maine.

The Somali émigré jihadis aren’t the only terrorists among admitted refugees. Think of the brothers Tsarneav who perpetrated the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013. See our NER article, “Refugee Jihad Terror in Boston.”  An ABC investigation reported that dozens of terrorists have been admitted fraudulently under the U.S. Refugee Admission Program.

 One example was two Iraqi refugees, al Qaeda operatives, arrested in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 2011 convicted in 2013. They were charged with sending weapons and cash to Al Qaeda. They lied on their Federal Refugee Admission forms about their prior terrorist involvements in Iraq. One had constructed IEDs, involved in killing four members of a Pennsylvania National guard unit in 2006 in Iraq. A check of fingerprints on the shards of the IED caught the perpetrator. Watch this 2013 ABC Report. Recently, one of those convicted, Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, filed a motion seeking to overturn his conviction because his counsel said he wouldn’t get life.  That episode briefly raised the criticism of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

In excess of 250,000 Somali and Iraqis have been admitted to the U.S. as refugees.  An estimated one million have immigrated to the U.S. from Muslim lands. Through births and admittance of relatives under the problematic P-3 Family Reunification Visa program the impact could mean millions of additional Muslim émigrés in the U.S.  Virtually all of the Somali and Iraqi refugees were Muslim.  Endangered Christians and other minority religion accounted for less than 8 percent of Syrian Refugees admitted under the State Department administered U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Eleven Christian, Jewish and special interest NGOs or voluntary agencies (VOLAGS) are paid by the billion dollar State Department refugee program to process and place refugees in American communities. VOLAGS like Catholic Charities, Lutheran World Services, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the International Rescue Committee. The total annual federal and state program costs of refugee resettlement are estimated to range in excess of $12 to $20 billion annually.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees  establishes priorities for U.S. Admissions under the Refugee Act of 1980. An Act co-sponsored by the late Edward Kennedy and then Senator, now Vice President in the Obama Administration, Joe Biden. The U.S. may be poised to accept another wave of over 75,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years.   Doubtless they and growing number of  Muslim refugees from  elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia will be “seeded”  in American cities under the Fostering Community Engagement  and Welcoming Communities Project of  the Office of Refugee  Resettlement with the Soros-backed  NGO, “Welcoming America“.

 But now there is pushback by American cities, as witnessed by concerns expressed in letters to Secretary of State Kerry by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the House Judiciary Sub Committee on Immigration and Border Security. Both The House Subcommittee and the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, chaired by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) hold annual hearings over refugee allotments. Gowdy’s letter of April 13, 2015 was prompted by constituent complaints in Spartanburg, South Carolina of the establishment of a VOLAG office to processing Muslim refugees. He wrote Secretary Kerry seeking answers as to why the office was being established and had not been reviewed with state and local agencies. He ended his letter:

I request that any plans to resettle refugees in the Spartanburg, South Carolina, area be placed on hold until my constituents and I receive your substantive responses to the questions and information requested in this letter. Additionally, before moving forward, both the Spartanburg community and I should have time to substantively review the information and be comfortable with the information provided.

As previously stated, I am troubled by the lack of notice and coordination with my office and the Spartanburg community, particularly local officials, regarding the plans to resettle refugees in the area. In that vein, I request at least one month’s notice prior to the arrival of the first refugee[s] in the Spartanburg area.

To find out more about what could become an important issue for evaluation of 2016 Presidential candidates, be sure to listen to an interview with Ann Corcoran of RRW by Jerry Gordon and Mike Bates on 1330am WEBY “Your Turn.” The program will air at 5:30 PM CDT (6:30 PM EDT), Tuesday, May 12th.  You may Listen Live here. The recorded program will be archived and posted following the broadcast.  A transcript of the interview may appear in the June edition of the NER.

RELATED ARTICLES:

U.S. Welcomes Millions of Aliens ‘Sight Unseen’

“A Growing Threat”: You’ll be Amazed at the Number of Immigrants Who Have Come to America From Muslim Countries Since 9/11

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Fred Fleitz: Inside the CIA, National Security and Iran Nuclear Crisis

/in , , , /by

I have a fascinating discussion with Fred Fleitz about the CIA, National Security and the Iran Nuke Crisis.

Mr. Fleitz served in U.S. national security positions for 25 years at the CIA, DIA, Department of State and the House Intelligence Committee staff. During the administration of President George W. Bush, Mr. Fleitz was chief of staff to John Bolton, then Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

During his tenure with the House Intelligence Committee, he was the staff expert on the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs and briefed key National Intelligence Estimates on these issues to committee members. After he left government in 2011, he founded and served as Director of the Langley Intelligence Group Network (LIGNET), Newsmax Media’s global intelligence and forecasting service. Fleitz is a regular commentator on Secure Freedom radio and has appeared on the Fox News Channel.

Mr. Fleitz is the author of Peacekeeping Fiascoes of the 1990s (Praeger) and is working on books on intelligence reform and the Iranian nuclear program. Mr Fleitz holds an MA in Political Economy from Fordham University and a BA in Politics from Saint Joseph’s University.

Learn more at: www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org

RELATED ARTICLES:

Haroon Moghul: Geller & Spencer are “the Anwar al-Awlakis of anti-Muslim terrorism”

Virginia Muslima, Islamic State supporter, gets 4 1/2 years prison for lying to FBI

Minnesota: Jihad terror recruit back in custody after violating release conditions

Jihad Watch: The most attacked site on the Internet

MIT’s Muslim chaplain raised money for al-Qaeda groups

/in , , /by

Everyone at MIT no doubt assumed that Laher was a “moderate.” To question that assumption would have been “Islamophobic.”

“Al Qaeda’s Base at MIT,” by Ilya Feoktistov and Charles Jacobs, Breitbart, May 11, 2015 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

At the end of April, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology unveiled a permanent memorial to MIT Police Officer Sean Collier. Officer Collier was gunned down by the Boston Marathon bombers, Chechen refugees Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, three days after they blew up the Marathon.

It is painful to learn that in the late 1990s, there were students at MIT who helped recruit for the Chechen jihad and raised funds for Al Qaeda-affiliated groups operating in the Tsarnaevs’ homeland. It is even more painful that the man who led this fundraising effort was still on MIT’s staff when Officer Collier was gunned down.

Suheil Laher had been MIT’s Muslim chaplain for almost 20 years. Today he continues to preach at the Islamic Society of Boston, the extremist mosque founded by MIT students near campus, where the Tsarnaevs worshipped during their radicalization.

Americans for Peace and Tolerance have just released a mini-documentary, “Al Qaeda’s Base at MIT,” showing how MIT Muslim chaplain Suheil Laher used his leadership of the MIT Muslim Students Association as a vehicle for raising money for Al Qaeda causes around the world. We especially focus on the Al Qaeda affiliate in Chechnya, which Laher and his associates lionized, even as MIT trusted him to be its Muslim students’ spiritual guide.

Suheil Laher came to MIT as a student in 1990 and by 1998, he became the MIT Muslim chaplain. By the year 2000, he also became president of a Muslim charity based in Boston called Care International, which was founded by Osama Bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam and was originally called “Al Kifah Refugee Center.” Care International was, in essence, a fundraising vehicle for mujahideen. After the leader of Al Kifah in Brooklyn, “the Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rehman, was convicted for his role in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, Boston’s Care International took overas Al Qaeda’s main base in the United States. Laher, then, was quite an important figure in Al Qaeda’s leadership here. His perch at MIT meant that he had easy access to the best American Muslim minds – and their world-class technical skills.

As a religious scholar and an engineer, Laher was both the spiritual and technological leader of Care International. He pioneered the Jihadist use of the new Internet medium to fundraise and recruit for Al Qaeda causes online. Laher’s personal website prominently featured Abdullah Azzam’s notorious call to Jihad, a tract called “Join the Caravan:”

Beloved brother! Draw your sword, climb onto the back of your horse, and wipe the blemish off your ummah. If you do not take the responsibility, who then will?

That same Jihadist tract was found on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s computer.

Laher’s website contained a large collection of his writings and of sermons he gave in the Boston area. These sermons are replete with calls for Jihad, such as this passage:

When the Muslim lands are being attacked, and the Muslims are being raped and killed, the only solution prescribed by Allah is jihad. Jihad is for all times. […] Jihad does not stop. Those of us who have not yet managed to go and physically help our brothers and sisters should support […] our mujahidin brethren with prayer, with money, with clothes, by taking care of their families, and at some point in person. Otherwise, we must face the wrath of Allah.

One of the MIT students who answered Laher’s call to join the Jihad in person was a bright young biologist named Aafia Siddiqui. She started out as a passionate and prolific fundraiser for Care International, but by the time she was arrested by the FBI in Afghanistan in 2008, she was known as “Lady Al Qaeda” and had become the most wanted woman in the world. She is now serving an 86-year prison sentence for attempting to kill the FBI agents arresting her. Her belongings upon arrest included two pounds of cyanide and plans for mass casualty attacks on New York using chemical and biological weapons, as well as literature about the Ebola virus.

While Laher’s sermonspreached the general Islamic obligation to do Jihad, Care International’s website along with its newsletter “Al Hussam” (“The Sword”) promoted what Laher and his fellow Care leaders saw as the concrete performance of that responsibility. In the late 1990s, Care International focused its fundraising activity on the Russian breakaway republic of Chechnya. Specifically, Care International backed the Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists under the leadership of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev.

Basayev can arguably be described as one of the cruelest Islamic terrorists in modern Jihadist history. Our documentary recounts one of his cruelest acts: the Beslan School Massacre. On September 1, 2004, during a ceremony marking the first day of school, Basayev’s men surrounded the school in the town of Beslan in southern Russia and took over 1,100 people hostage, nearly eight hundred of them children. They murdered several people on the spot in front of the children and herded everyone into a sweltering gymnasium, where the hostages were kept without food or water for three days as bombs were hung up from the rafters and basketball hoops above them. On the third day, the terrorists started setting off the bombs and Russian security forces stormed the school as shell-shocked children ran the other way and were shot in the back by the terrorists. Three hundred and eighty five people were murdered, among them one hundred and eighty six children. Subsequently, Shamil Basayev bragged about his “success” at Beslan and the fact that the attack only cost him 8,000 Euros to launch. He was killed by Russian security forces in 2006.

Care International raised huge amounts of money for jihad around Boston, $1.7 million according to Federal authorities. A large portion of this money came through checks that were specifically earmarked for “Chechen Muslim fighters.” Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, Care International hosted dispatches and communiques from Basayev and his forces in the field. A Care International “Al Hussam” newsletter praised a previous Basayev hostage operation against a Russian hospital’s maternity ward:

Minute by minute the whole world watched with agony, as some of the Mujahideen (not exceeding 80), under the leadership of Mujahid Shamil Basyev took 1500 Russians […] We cannot depend on anybody’s help; we have to fight evil with evil. The operation of the Mujahid Shamil Basayev is perfect proof.

How could MIT’s Muslim chaplain have led a group that applauded and funded such a savage?

In 2003, the FBI began investigating Care International for terrorism financing. At the same time, Basayev and his organization were designated as foreign terrorists. The flow of money from Boston to Chechnya stopped. After the Beslan Massacre, Basayev complained that the lack of funding prevented him from seizing more schools in Moscow and Leningrad. Because Basayev was not officially considered a terrorist before 2003, there was little the FBI could do to prosecute Laher and his fellow activists. Three Care leaders, including the group’s treasurer, received minor sentences for tax evasion. After being questioned by the FBI, Laher walked free and continued to influence students at MIT for more than another decade. His successor as MIT’s Muslim Chaplain, Hoda Elsharkawy, is herself closely linked through her husband to Laher and to Islamic extremism in Boston, which will be the focus of our future reporting.

While Laher officially stepped down from his post as MIT chaplain in 2014, he continues to preach at mosques in the Boston area, including the Tsarnaev’s own mosque, the Islamic Society of Boston – giving a sermon there as recently as May 1, 2015….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Haroon Moghul: Geller & Spencer are “the Anwar al-Awlakis of anti-Muslim terrorism”

Virginia Muslima, Islamic State supporter, gets 4 1/2 years prison for lying to FBI

Minnesota: Jihad terror recruit back in custody after violating release conditions

Jihad Watch: The most attacked site on the Internet

6 Reasons Pamela Geller’s Muhammad Cartoon Contest Is No Different From Selma

/in , , , , /by

“In 1965, defying racist Democrats posed a legitimate threat to your life. In 2015, defying jihadists poses a legitimate threat to your life. Martin Luther King knowingly risked his life. Pamela Geller knowingly risks her life.”

This piece is brilliant in its clarity. Leftists and Islamic supremacists have, of course, reduced it to “Nolte likens Pamela Geller to Martin Luther King!” but that is not the point at all, although there really isn’t any problem with the comparison anyway. The point is that both “provoked” an oppressor to expose him as such, at risk to their lives. One is revered, one is excoriated. Both are heroes.

“6 Reasons Pamela Geller’s Muhammad Cartoon Contest Is No Different From Selma,” by John Nolte, Breitbart, May 9, 2015:

When you are dealing with the mainstream media, it is always difficult to tell if you are dealing with willful ignorance or just plain old ignorance-ignorance. There are plenty of moronic savants in the national media who have cracked the “hot take” code to please their left-wing masters but have no fundamental grasp of history, or much of anything much of else.

The act of willful ignorance in the media manifests itself through bias, and lies of omission conjured up to serve that bias. These dishonest liars know they are dishonest liars, and willfully choose to not tell the world pertinent facts like, say, Baltimore has been run by Democrats for a half-century, Hillary Clinton is in favor of legally aborting infants born alive, Ted Kennedy abandoned a drowning woman, and George Zimmerman is Hispanic.

Anyone who knows anything about history understands that tactically and morally, Geller’s provocative Muhammad Cartoon Contest was no different than Dr. Martin Luther King’s landmark march from Selma to Montgomery.

The first thing the spittle-flecked will scream upon reading the above is that I am comparing Geller to King. I did not know King. I do not know Geller. I am not comparing anyone to anyone. What I’m comparing is one righteous cause to another.

The second thing the spittle-flecked will scream is that King never would have held a Draw Muhammad Cartoon Contest … which brings me to the first reason there is no moral or tactical difference between Garland and Selma:

The Oppressor Chooses the Form of Protest, Not the Protester

Whether it is a bully stealing lunch money, an abusive husband “keeping the little woman in line,” a government passing unjust laws, or religious zealots demanding fealty from all, oppressors come in all shapes and sizes.

Oppressors do, however, share three important things in common: 1) The use of the threats of everything from shaming to instituting unjust laws to violence. 2) The goal of stripping others of their rights. 3) The choosing of the design and structure of whatever defiant protest might take place against them.

The protester has absolutely no say in this matter.

The only way to defy and protest against the bully who takes your lunch money, is to not give him your lunch money. Through his own actions the bully has designed the form of protest. The same is true for the abusive husband. If he is using the threat of violence to keep you “in line,” a defiant protest can only come in one form: doing the exact opposite of what he tells you to do or not to do.

If an unjust government passes a law making it illegal to sit in the front of the bus, the only way to protest the unjust government is to sit in the front of the bus.

Martin Luther King did not choose his form of protest in Selma. Racist Southern Democrats did.

Pamela Geller did not choose her form of protest in Garland. The jihadists did.

The day that changed America is called “Bloody Sunday.” On March 7, 1965, five-hundred-plus civil rights activists provoked violence from their oppressors by defiantly gathering on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

It was the oppressor who chose this form of protest, not the protestors. Racist Democrats who ran Selma and the state of Alabama refused to authorize the march and pledged to stop it. Therefore the only righteous way to defy these racist Democrats who refused to allow Americans to exercise their God-given right to protest for their God-given rights, was to go ahead with the march.

What was true in Selma 50 years ago also was true in Garland 5 days ago.

It was the jihadists who told us they would oppress us with violence if we exercised our God-given rights to draw and satirize Muhammad. Therefore, to righteously defy this oppression, Pam Geller and the 200 others had no other choice but to draw and satirize Muhammad (more details on this below).

The Deliberatively Provocative Symbolism of the Site of the Protest

The launch point of the historic 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery was no accident. To poke a finger deep in the eye of their racist Democrat oppressors, civil rights organizers deliberately chose the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The bridge is named after a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, a confederate Civil War general, and a Democrat U.S. Senator.

Starting their civil rights crusade in such a place was an intentional taunt, an open insult to a diseased culture, and an obvious act of cultural blasphemy.

For the same righteous reasons, Geller chose the site of The Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, to hold her defiant cartoon protest. Just two weeks after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in France, a Stand with the Prophet in Honor and Respect event was held at the Curtis Calwell Center. The Islamic event was a horror show of extremism.

An unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings was invited to the conference — a barbarian who has declared the F.B.I. a terrorist group and preaches, “This so-called democracy of America, will crumble and there will be nothing. The only thing that will remain will be Islam.”

The organizer of the event, Malik Muhammad, has advocated for Sharia Law here in America.

The entire event was premised on “defeating” those who disrespect Muhammad. This was all couched under the politically correct term of “Islamophobia,” but here is the rub:

“Frustrated with Islamophobes defaming the Prophet?” the event materials ask. … “Remember the Danish cartoons defaming the Prophet? Or the anti-Islam film, ‘Innocence of Muslims’?”

Like I said: it is the oppressor who chooses the form of protest.

A Righteous Cause for Civil Rights

In the face of a very real danger, Martin Luther King, his fellow organizers and hundreds of free Americans, stood up and defied their savage oppressors in defense of their God-given rights.

They provoked violence, taunted, and broke the law, all in furtherance of a righteous cause.

In the face of a very real danger, Pam Geller, her fellow organizers and hundreds of free Americans, stood up and defied their violent oppressors in defense of their God-given rights.

They provoked violence, taunted, and obeyed the law, all in furtherance of a righteous cause.

I Come In Peace

The Selma protesters defying their violent oppressors, did so peacefully. Their only provocation was exercising their rights.

The Garland protestors defying their violent oppressors, did so peacefully. Their only provocation was exercising their rights.

Democrat Bigots Victim-Blame

While much of the national media sided with the Selma protestors, local Democrats in the media and the political establishment blamed and demonized King, and his followers, for rocking the boat, provoking violence, insulting the local culture, and causing the violence to happen.

Last week, Democrats in the media (New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, and even some sorry corners of Fox News) and the political establishment blamed and demonized Geller, and her followers, for rocking the boat, provoking violence, insulting a culture, and causing the violence to happen.

The 1965 Democrats and today’s Democrats are also bigots. The same CNN that protects Islam from offense by blurring the Muhammad cartoons, does not blur the Piss Christ.

The same New York Times that blasts those who offend Islam, profits from Mormon bashing.

Every one of these present-day media Democrats are silent in the defense of satire and mockery directed Christianity, or they enjoy and defend it. The opposite is true of satire and mockery directed at Islam. And that is the very definition of bigotry.

For the Righteous Cause of Freedom, People Risk Their Lives

In 1965, defying racist Democrats posed a legitimate threat to your life.

In 2015, defying jihadists poses a legitimate threat to your life.

Martin Luther King knowingly risked his life. Pamela Geller knowingly risks her life.

In both good and evil ways, Sunday in Garland, Texas, history repeated itself.

The national media is hiding that fact because they are either too bigoted, cowardly, and biased to tell the truth, or too ignorant to see the truth.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Malaysia: Muslim leader forbids Mother’s Day, says it honors Virgin Mary

SNL skit depicts fear of drawing Muhammad

Iran Holds Holocaust Cartoon Contest, Draws Nearly a Thousand Entries

Now For the Bad News

/in , , /by

An article by Christopher Carson in the April 27 edition of Daily Mailer.FrontPage, titled, A Mad Max Nation with No Electrical Grid, is enough to scare the bejabbers out of anyone.

In predicting what America would be like during a major outage of our electrical grid, Carson tells us: “It’s been one year since a white-hot study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was leaked to the Wall Street Journal. The government study concluded that coordinated attacks on only nine electrical transmission substations in the United States could bring down the entire trinity of grids (called interconnections) that supply electricity to America. Terrorists would have to physically destroy only four in the East, three in the West, and two in Texas, plus one large transformer production plant, and ‘the entire United States grid would be down for at least 18 months, probably longer.’

“Imagine what that would mean for a nation entirely dependent upon electricity for its very survival. Almost all large transformers are constructed overseas, including China, and the typical lag time from order to delivery and installation is two years. Forget no iPhones. Try no working sewer systems, no heating, no cars (because no gasoline pumps), no transportation, no garbage collection, no hospitals, no medicine kept in cold storage, no working government, and no civilization. It wouldn’t even be a medieval society because Europe in the Middle Ages had functioning governments, currencies, and a trading system. The USA would be more like the world of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome – for the lucky survivors.”

This was preceded by an April 23 article by Discovery Communications and the Washington Post, describing a University of Utah geophysical study published in the current edition of the journal Science. The University of Utah study, titled, Yellowstone Supervolcano Much Bigger Than Thought, reports that a giant reservoir of magma and hot rock beneath the Yellowstone supervolcano has been found and imaged. The newly found reservoir lies 12-28 miles below the surface, and is four-and-a-half times larger than the shallower, hot melted rock zone that powers current Yellowstone geysers and caused the caldera’s last eruption some 70,000 years ago.

“The volume of the newly imaged, deeper reservoir is a whopping 11,000 cubic-miles (46,000 cubic kilometers), which is about the volume of Long Island with 9 miles of hot rock piled on it, or 300 Lake Tahoes…”

According to the Washington Post, the Yellowstone supervolcano is “one of the world’s largest volcanoes, one that is quiescent for the moment but is capable of erupting with catastrophic violence at a scale never before witnessed by human beings. In a big eruption, Yellowstone would eject 1,000 times as much material as the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. This would be a disaster felt on a global scale, which is why scientists are looking at this thing closely…

“The newly discovered reservoir is 4.5 times larger than the chamber above it. There’s enough magna there to fill the Grand Canyon. The reservoir is on top of a long plume of manga that emerges from deep within the Earth’s mantle… This system has been in place for roughly 17 million years… The last time Yellowstone had a calderic eruption was 640,000 years ago, and the misshapen hole it created

was about 25 miles by 37 miles across. This caldera has since been filled in by lava flows and natural erosion, and Yellowstone Lake covers a portion of the area. The main visual evidence of the old caldera is the striking absence of mountains at the heart of the park: They were literally blown away in the last eruption.”

But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission study on the likely impact of a terrorist attack on our national electric grid, and the University of Utah study on the Yellowstone supervolcano, are only speculative… forecasts of what might happen “if and when.” That’s the good news; now for some bad news.

In an October 23, 2013 study by respected writer and researcher Michael Snyder, titled, 28 Signs That The West Coast Is Being Absolutely Fried With Nuclear Radiation From Fukushima, Snyder paints a grim picture of the impact of the March 11, 2011 nuclear meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. The failure occurred when the plant was inundated by a tsunami following the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake, resulting in the meltdown of three of the plant’s six nuclear reactors.

As Snyder prefaces his study he points to a map provided by the Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center which shows that “…radiation levels at radiation monitoring stations across the country are elevated… this is particularly true along the west coast of the United States. Every single day, 300 tons of radioactive water from Fukushima enters the Pacific Ocean. That means that the total amount of radioactive material released from Fukushima is constantly increasing, and it is steadily building up in our food chain.”

As evidence of his assertion, Snyder notes a U.S. Geological Survey statement stating that some of the thirty-three polar bears found along the Alaska coastline showed evidence of “alopecia (loss of hair) and other skin diseases.”

Snyder quotes National Marine Fisheries Service wildlife biologist, Sharon Melin, as saying that, at island rookeries off the Southern California coast, 45 percent of sea lion pups born in June 2013 were dead by October of that year. The normal mortality rate among sea lion pups is less than one-third.

Among the findings in his research, Snyder notes that:

Along the Pacific coast of Canada and the Alaska coastline, the population of sockeye salmon is at a historic low.

Scientists have found that something is causing the fish along the west coast of Canada to bleed from their gills, bellies, and eyeballs. One test in California found that all 15 of the blue fin tuna examined in a test were contaminated with radiation from Fukushima. .

A vast field of radioactive debris from Fukushima that is approximately the size of California has crossed the Pacific Ocean and is starting to collide with the west coast. It is estimated that the radioactivity of coastal waters off the west coast could double over the next five to six years.

The California coastline is being transformed into a “dead zone.” Coastal rocks are unnaturally free of kelp, barnacles, and sea urchins and tidal pools are eerily devoid of crabs, snails, and other scurrying creatures. Snyder reports that there are days in which he is hard-pressed to find even a half dozen seagulls and/or terns on the beach, compared to 10-15 years ago when the skies and all the beaches were filled with seagulls.

Up to 100 times as much nuclear radiation from Fukushima has been released into the Pacific Ocean than was released during the entire 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. It is projected that the entire ocean will soon have radioactive Cesium levels 5 to 10 times higher than during

the era of heavy atomic testing in the Pacific during the 1940s and ‘50s.

In 2012, the Vancouver Sun reported that Cesium-137 was being found in 73% of mackerel, 91% of halibut, 92% of sardines, 93% of tuna and eel, 94% of cod and anchovies, and 100% of the carp, seaweed, shark, and monkfish sold by Japan to Canadian markets. Some experts expect high levels of cancer among west coast residents from eating contaminated fish.

The BBC has reported that radiation levels around Fukushima are 18 times greater than previously believed. Atmospheric radiation from Fukushima reached the west coast of the U.S. in just a few days in 2011.

The Iodine-131, Cesium-137, and Strontium-90 that are constantly emanating from Fukushima will affect the health of those living in the northern hemisphere for generations to come. Iodine-131 can be ingested into the thyroid where it emits beta particles that damage tissue… Cesium-137 from Fukushima has been found in fish caught as far away as California. It spreads throughout the body, but tends to accumulate in muscle tissue. Strontium-90, which mimics Calcium and accumulates in the bones, has a half-life of around 29 years.

According to the Wall Street Journal, it is projected that the Fukushima cleanup may take up to 40 years. Yale professor Charles Perrow warns that, if the Fukushima cleanup is not handled with 100% precision, humanity could be threatened for thousands of years.

To consider the impact of these tragedies… one politically preventable and two dictated by the laws of nature… tends to make issues such as global warming, the Middle East conflict, and an $18 trillion national debt pale by comparison. Since it is impossible to say anything remotely positive about the fates that might await us, a few wise words on fatalism appear to be in order.

Samuel Butler once said, “Let us eat and drink, neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.”

Finally, George Bernard Shaw once said, “Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world.” At age 81, I find that to be a very comforting thought.