Tag Archive for: Muslim

Boston University Professor Defends Islamic State Sex Slavery

“In focusing on current abuses in the Middle East, perpetrated by those claiming the mantle of Islam, Americans — whose Constitution continues to permit enslavement as punishment for crime — deflect attention from partial U.S. responsibility for the current crisis in Iraq. Sanctions followed by military invasion and its brutal aftermath laid the groundwork for the situation Callimachi describes.” See, the Islamic State doesn’t practice sex slavery because it is sanctioned in the Qur’an and Sunnah, but because the U.S. did bad things in Iraq. This is what passes for analysis on most university campuses these days. Much more below.

“The Truth About Islam and Sex Slavery History Is More Complicated Than You Think,” by Kecia Ali, Huffington Post, August 19, 2015 (thanks to David):

…Others scholars point out that just because the Quran acknowledges slavery and early Muslims, including the Prophet, practiced it doesn’t mean Muslims must always do so; indeed, the fact that slavery is illegal and no longer practiced in nearly all majority-Muslim societies would seem to settle the point. It is one thing for committed religious thinkers to insist that scripture must always and everywhere apply literally, but it is ludicrous for purportedly objective scholars to do so. Anyone making that argument about biblical slavery would be ridiculed.

The disingenuous reasoning here is appalling. Can’t anyone in academia deal with a topic honestly anymore? I know Kecia Ali is a university professor, and university professors today are mostly muddle-headed ideologues more interested in pushing their far-Left agenda than having rational discussion or searching for the truth, but this is ridiculous. There are so many things wrong with that paragraph that it is a breathtakingly compact example of how contemporary academics obscure, rather than expose, the truth. Here are a few of the ways Kecia Ali outrages the truth in that paragraph:

“Others scholars point out that just because the Quran acknowledges slavery and early Muslims, including the Prophet, practiced it doesn’t mean Muslims must always do so.”

Actually, the Qur’an tells Muslims that Muhammad is uswa hasana, an “excellent example” (33:21), which in Islamic theology has amounted to the proposition that if Muhammad did it, it is right and worthy of emulation. The fact that “the Quran acknowledges slavery and early Muslims, including the Prophet, practiced it” actually inhibited the development of abolitionist movements within Islam, because of the absolute prohibition on declaring something to be wrong that Muhammad considered to be right.

“…indeed, the fact that slavery is illegal and no longer practiced in nearly all majority-Muslim societies would seem to settle the point.”

Actually, it would settle the point if those majority-Muslim societies had outlawed slavery on the basis of Islamic principles, but they didn’t. They abolished slavery under pressure from the West. There was never an indigenous Muslim abolitionist movement, and to this day, slavery is practicedsub rosa in North Africa, Saudi Arabia, etc., and justified precisely on the contention that if the Qur’an assumes it and Muhammad practiced it, it cannot be wrong.

“It is one thing for committed religious thinkers to insist that scripture must always and everywhere apply literally, but it is ludicrous for purportedly objective scholars to do so.”

Here again, this point is only valid if there were some mainstream Qur’anic case against slavery, reinterpreting the pro-slavery passages in a different way. But there isn’t. “Objective scholars” — as if Kecia Ali were one — may not find slavery in the Qur’an or Islamic law, but note that Kecia Ali is writing for an audience of Leftist non-Muslims in the Huffington Post: she is not trying to convince Islamic State slave owners that slavery is wrong on Islamic grounds. It is, in other words, far easier to lull non-Muslims into complacency about a human rights abuse that Muslims justify on Islamic grounds than it is to convince the Muslims who are perpetrating it to stop doing so.

“Anyone making that argument about biblical slavery would be ridiculed.”

Kecia Ali here assumes that the Bible and Qur’an are equivalent in their teachings and mainstream interpretation. In reality, the abolitionist movement arose in the UK and US among Christian clergymen who argued against the ongoing applicability of the Biblical passages justifying slavery on the basis of the idea that all human beings are created in the image of God and equal in dignity on that basis. The Qur’an and Islam, by contrast, make a sharp dichotomy between believers (“the best of people,” Qur’an 3:110) and unbelievers (“the most vile of created beings,” Qur’an 98:6), and consequently there was no teaching of the equal dignity of all human beings upon which an abolitionist movement could be based.

Kecia Ali probably knows all this, or should if she doesn’t. But she doesn’t tell her hapless HuffPo marks, that is, her readers.

Slavery was pervasive in the late antique world in which the Quran arose. Early Muslims were part of societies in which various unfree statuses existed, including capture, purchase, inherited slave status and debt peonage. Thus, it is no surprise that the Quran, the Prophet’s normative practice and Islamic jurisprudence accepted slavery. What is known of Muhammad’s life is disputed, but his biographies uniformly report that slaves and freed slaves were part of his household. One was Mariyya the Copt. A gift from the Byzantine governor of Alexandria, she reportedly bore Muhammad a son; he freed her. Whatever the factual accuracy of this tale, its presence attests to a shared presumption that one leader could send another an enslaved female for sexual use.

What she leaves out (again) of all this is the normative character of the Qur’an and Muhammad’s example for Muslims. That normative character is not some crazy literalist subsect of Islam. It is mainstream Islamic theology among all sects and madhahib.

Like their earlier counterparts in Greece and Rome, jurists formulating Islamic law in the eighth to 10th centuries took slavery as a given. They formalized certain protections for slaves, including eventual freedom for women like Mariyya who bore children to their masters; such children were free and legitimate. Jurists sought to circumscribe slavery, prohibiting the enslavement of foundlings and prescribing automatic manumission for slaves beaten too harshly. But the idea that some people should dominate others was central to their conceptual world; they used slavery-related concepts to structure their increasingly hierarchical norms for marriage.

Yet again: Kecia Ali doesn’t tell her unfortunate readers that Islamic law is not considered to be some man-made document like the U.S. Constitution; on the contrary, in Islamic theology Sharia is considered to be the unchangeable and perfect law of Allah himself. As such, its allowance for slavery is considered to be as divinely inspired and unalterable as the rest of it.

Still, early Muslim slavery (like early Muslim marriage) wasn’t particularly a religious institution, and jurists’ ideas about the superiority of free over slave (and male over female) were widely shared across religious boundaries.

“Still, early Muslim slavery (like early Muslim marriage) wasn’t particularly a religious institution” — an unsupported and false claim. “Jurists’ ideas about the superiority of free over slave (and male over female) were widely shared across religious boundaries” — everyone did it, you see, so it must be OK. This tu quoque argument might hold water if theologically-justified slavery persisted in religious contexts other than Islam today, but it doesn’t.

To say this is not to present an apologetic defense of Islam;

Don’t kid yourself, professor.

to the contrary, effective Muslim ethical thinking requires honesty and transparency about the lasting impact on Muslim thought on slavery and non-consensual sex.

Honesty and transparency on this issue would be refreshing, but it isn’t forthcoming in this article.

However, singling out slavery or rules governing marriage or punishments for a handful of crimes as constituting the enactment of “authentic” Islamic law surely reflects a distorted notion of a Muslim polity.

The Islamic State’s attempt to create an imagined pristine community relies on a superficial and selective enactment of certain provisions from scripture and law, an extreme case of a wider phenomenon.

Once again, an assertion without evidence. How is the Islamic State being superficial and selective in its interpretation of the Qur’an and Sharia? Kecia Ali doesn’t tell us. She just wants us to take her word for it.

Religious studies scholars, of course, must analyze their doctrines.

I’m all for that.

What beliefs do they express? How do they formulate them? What one mustn’t do is take them at face value, as the legitimate expression of a timeless Islamic truth.

And why mustn’t one do this? Because above all, Kecia Ali and the Huffington Post don’t want you to have a negative view of Islam. But why should one not think that the Islamic State’s practices are the “legitimate expression of a timeless Islamic truth”? Yet again, we just have to take Kecia Ali’s word for it.

In fact, the stress they put on the errors of their Muslim opponents, who actively dispute their interpretations of many things including slavery, makes very clear that there is no one self-evident interpretation of Islam on these points.

Note that Kecia Ali doesn’t actually offer an alternative interpretation of the Qur’an passages that the Islamic State adduces in order to justify slavery. She just tells us that some unnamed “Muslim opponents” of the Islamic State have offered this. Who? When? Where? She doesn’t tell us. Why not? Could it be that this Muslim challenge to the Islamic State hasn’t actually happened at all?

…In the thousand-plus years in which Muslims and non-Muslims, including Christians, actively engaged in slaving, they cooperated and competed, enslaving and being enslaved, buying, selling and setting free. This complex history, which has generated scores of publications on Muslims and slavery in European languages alone, cannot be reduced to a simplistic proclamation of religious doctrine. The fact that the Islamic State must preface its collections of rulings for slaveholding by defining terms such as captive and concubine illustrates that it is drawing on archaic terms and rules, ones that no longer reflect anything like the current reality of the world.

I doubt that even the Islamic State jihadis would deny that these are old terms and rules that have fallen into desuetude. But they would argue that they are part of the law of Allah; the fact that they’re old and long unused doesn’t change that, and actually only increases the urgency of reviving them, so as to bring the practice of Muslims back in line with the commands of Allah. Here yet again, Kecia Ali is attempting a sleight-of-hand, pretending that this issue is all about human law, not about the law that Muslims consider to be that of Allah himself.

By focusing on religious doctrine as an explanation for rape, Americans ignore the presence of sexual abuse and torture in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and in Assad’s Syria by the regime and other factions in its vicious ongoing war. None of this is to deny the horror of the systematic rapes Callimachi reports or the revolting nature of the theology she describes. It is to point out that there are reasons why the story of enslaved Yazidis is one that captures the front page of the New York Times: it fits into familiar narratives of Muslim barbarity.

The idea that the New York Times is interesting in retailing “familiar narratives of Muslim barbarity” is beyond ludicrous. For years, the Times has again and again obscured and whitewashed numerous incidents of barbarity committed by Muslims and justified by their perpetrators by reference to Islamic texts and teachings. Rukmini Callimachi’s piece was highly anomalous in acknowledging, even in a slight and incomplete manner, that the Islamic State justifies its practices by referring to teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah. But to admit that fact would be to expose as false and manipulative the ever-present narrative of Muslim victimhood, and Kecia Ali is not going to do that.

In focusing on current abuses in the Middle East, perpetrated by those claiming the mantle of Islam, Americans — whose Constitution continues to permit enslavement as punishment for crime — deflect attention from partial U.S. responsibility for the current crisis in Iraq. Sanctions followed by military invasion and its brutal aftermath laid the groundwork for the situation Callimachi describes. Moral high ground is in short supply. The core idea animating enslavement is that some lives matter more than others. As any American who has been paying attention knows, this idea has not perished from the earth.

“Moral high ground is in short supply.” Because the U.S. Constitution “continues to permit enslavement as punishment for crime” (the 13th Amendment says: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”), we shouldn’t judge the Islamic State’s barbaric practice of sex slavery.

Kecia Ali’s moral equivalence here is nothing short of monstrous. But for her efforts, she will no doubt be hailed in Leftist circles and laden with honors, while the Islamic State’s sex slaves, for whose rights and human dignity she could have and should have spoken out instead of engaging in this gruesome apologetic for their enslavement, continue to suffer daily torture.

This is American academia today.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Bangkok bombing that murdered 20 people at Hindu shrine was an Islamic jihad attack

Islamic State bulldozes 1,500-year-old Syrian monastery

‘Sandboxing’ Islam: How to Protect America from Jihad Terrorism by Ralph Sidway

Enforcing the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) can give us the legal and tactical edge in countering the threat from Islamic supremacism.

Background

It should be obvious for anyone with eyes to see that Islam — its scriptures, the example of Muhammad, its doctrines, and its overall ideology — is behind the spread of most terrorism and unrest in the world today.

From the Islamic State (ISIS), Boko Haram, al-Nusra and al-Shabaab, to slightly older groups such as al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Muslim Brotherhood, to lesser known jihadi organizations throughout Central Asia, India, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Rim, and China, a survey of terrorist attacks reveals Muslim involvement throughout the entire world.

Here in the United States, we are seeing a dramatic rise in Muslim “lone wolf” jihad terrorist attacks (and, as some have described them, known wolves”). Further, from all points of the compass, we are seeing literally tens of thousands of Muslims flocking to the Middle East to join the Islamic State caliphate and support the jihad with their very lives.

The scenario gets worse. Some analysts argue that we are seriously underestimating the numbers of Western Muslims joining the Islamic State.

Here at home, we have a “ full blown insurgency.” The FBI has already arrested seventy IS-inspired Muslim terrorists, and has active investigations of IS-inspired jihad plots in all 56 of its field offices. NewsMax reports “the government’s terrorist watch list carries 700,000 to a million names.”

The Challenge: Jihad-Linked Mosques

This is all indisputable fact. The threat is real and growing. Even worse, the threat is specifically from devout, observant Muslims who attend mosque. Behind every lone-or-known-wolf jihadi and every Islamic State recruit there is a mosque where they are receiving instruction in Islam.

That should give us pause, as four separate studies in recent years show that 80% of mosques in the U.S. teach, preach or advocate for jihad and the imposition of sharia law in America. 

Confirming these mosque studies are proven links between mosques and terrorists.  For example, one of the two Mississippi Muslims recently arrested for trying to join the Islamic State is the son of the imam at the local mosque. Many terror-linked mosques have spawned multiple jihadis. The Phoenix mosque attended by the Garland TX jihadis is notorious for having two other members in federal prison on terrorism-related convictions. Perhaps most infamous is the Islamic Society of Boston, which was attended not only by the Boston Marathon Bombers, but by numerous other jihad-terror-linked Muslims. The list goes on and on.

For many people, especially in our political class and certainly among the 2016 field of presidential candidates, there seems to be no solution to this national security nightmare of terror-linked mosques and known wolf jihadis. To date, there is no coherent, principle-based policy to address Islamic terrorism in the United States.

The Solution: ‘Sandboxing’ Islam in America

This is where I believe the simple analogy of “Sandboxing” can help us.

You’ve probably heard the term, even if you’re not a computer geek. One tech source offers this definition:

A “sandbox” is a play area for young children: it is supposed to be safe for them (they cannot hurt themselves) and safe from them (it is sand, they cannot break it). In the context of IT security, “sandboxing” means isolating some piece of software in such a way that whatever it does, it will not spread havoc elsewhere.

If we think of America as being, ideally, a safe and free place for its citizens, within which we should be able to live, work, play, and, as the ubiquitous bumper sticker says, “Coexist,” then when it comes to Islam and Muslims, we need a solution analogous to the IT security process of “sandboxing.” We need to isolate malicious jihadi forces, “in such a way that whatever they do, they will not spread havoc elsewhere.”

What would “sandboxing” look like when it comes to Muslims in America? In practice, it could include the following policies:

  • A moratorium — a complete freeze — on Muslim immigration. Senator and presidential candidate Rand Paul expressed a similar policy concept following the Chattanooga jihad murders of five US servicemen, proposing a halt to immigration from Muslim countries with known jihad activity. Going one step further, Franklin Graham wrote at the same time that “We should stop all immigration of Muslims to the U.S. until this threat with Islam has been settled.
  • All mosques must be classified and treated as “agents of foreign power,” in accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a U.S. law (22 U.S.C. § 611 et seq.) passed in 1938.

The law presciently allows for application in gray areas such as Islam presents, as it states that any entity with a “political or quasi-political capacity” disclose their relationship with the foreign government and information about related activities and finances. The purpose is to facilitate “evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements and activities of such persons.” [Source]

Islam certainly thinks and behaves like a foreign power, is guided in America by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Saudis and other foreign Islamic groups, and has a definite political dimension. (See also here.)

  • Any and all mosques associated with Muslim terrorists must be investigated, and if found to be advancing jihad doctrine, sharia law, and Islamic supremacism over the United States, they should be prosecuted and closed, in accordance with the FARA act referenced above.
  • Stop all foreign funding of mosques, whether by FARA, new legislation, or executive power. We already know that Saudi Arabia is providing extensive funding to advance its extremist Wahhabi strain of Islam worldwide, including of mosques in America, as is Turkey. There already exist covert lobbying groups for Muslim nations, including Iran.

These are just some starting points to aid in getting this conversation going. The American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) has an 18-point platform with similar policy proposals which may be considered as well.

We must have hope that, just as illegal immigration has become a major issue in the presidential race, so also we may be successful in elevating public awareness of the clear and present danger from Islam and Muslim jihad terrorists. This is a generational if not century-long struggle ahead of us, and should resonate with voters.

The concept of “sandboxing” is, I believe, the most helpful image in making our case to not only the American people, but also to the political elite and the 2016 candidates.

We must publicly challenge the Republican presidential candidates to take the initiative, and to fearlessly raise the issue of Islam up to the same level as Immigration. We must demand of them to be bold and daring when it comes to defeating jihad. The defense of our nation, our freedoms, and the lives of our fellow citizens and men-and-women in uniform should be paramount for whoever would be Commander-in-Chief. This issue will be topmost on that person’s desk in the Oval Office from Day One. Better to tackle it now with a strong and visionary policy, than to be knocked back on our heels by a surprise attack in 2017.

Now is the time to put misbehaving Muslims and their terror-linked-mosques on time-out. Islam is at war with us. More and more Muslims are heeding the summons from Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, taking up arms against us in this war, and killing American citizens right here at home. Denying the reality and threat of Islamic jihad is not a valid policy, it is civilizational suicide.

It is time to “sandbox” Islam in America, and use decisive, legal means to counter its threat to our freedoms and our way of life.

ABOUT RALPH SIDWAY

Ralph Sidway is an Orthodox Christian researcher and writer, and author of Facing Islam: What the Ancient Church has to say about the Religion of Muhammad. He operates the Facing Islam blog.

RELATED ARTICLES:

West Virginia: “Support ISIS & The Taliban” sign left at war memorial

Childhood in the caliphate: toddler happily beheads teddy bear

France: Two U.S. Marines overpower Muslim who opened fire on train

“The man had a Kalashnikov, an automatic pistol, ammunition and a box cutter in his luggage.” Clearly he was intending to commit mass murder for his bloodthirsty god.

“US passengers overpower gunman who fired in Amsterdam-Paris train,” by Benjamin Massot, AFP, August 21, 2015:

Arras (France) (AFP) – A heavily-armed man opened fire in a “terrorist attack” on a high-speed train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris on Friday, injuring at least two people before he was overpowered by two American passengers.

The suspect, who was arrested at a railway station in the northern French town of Arras, was a 26-year-old from Morocco or of Moroccan origin who was known to the intelligence services, French investigators said.

The man had a Kalashnikov, an automatic pistol, ammunition and a box cutter in his luggage, one police source told AFP.

The motives for the shooting were not immediately known, although French prosecutors said counter-terrorism investigators had taken over the probe.

A jihadi could scream, “Allahu akbar! I am a Muslim and I am killing in accord with Islamic texts and teachings mandating jihad warfare against and subjugation of unbelievers!,” and authorities and the media would still be saying the motives were unknown.

…According to initial unconfirmed information from investigators, the two men who tackled the gunman were American soldiers who had apparently heard him loading his weapons in a toilet cubicle and confronted him when he came out.

The incident occurred at 5.50 pm (1550 GMT), the train operator said.

The gunman was arrested ten minutes later when the train with 554 passengers on board stopped at Arras station where armed police were waiting, a spokesman for the French state rail company SNCF told AFP.

One of the Americans who confronted the gunmen was injured, sources said. Media reports said a British man was also hurt, but the Foreign Office in London said there were no reports of any British casualties.

One victim was hit by a bullet but his life was not in danger, while the second suffered cuts to his elbow caused by a box cutter….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Chattanooga woman fired for criticizing jihad murderer and his family

Childhood in the caliphate: toddler happily beheads teddy bear

West Virginia Muslim arrested for threatening to blow up Statue of Liberty

Jason-Paul-Smith-Abdul-Yasin

Jason Paul Smith Abdul Yasin

The [bomb] threat turned out to be a hoax. Abdul Yasin, another convert to Islam who somehow has gotten the crazy idea that his Religion of Peace mandates violence against unbelievers, was apparently trying to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah” (Qur’an 8:60).

“Man accused of threatening to blow up Statue of Liberty arrested,” by Ray Sanchez, CNN, August 19, 2015:

New York (CNN) He’s accused of using his iPad and a phone service for the hearing impaired to call in a bomb threat that resulted in the evacuation of more than 3,200 people from Liberty Island in New York Harbor.

On Wednesday, Jason Paul Smith, 42, of Harts, West Virginia, was charged in federal court with a count of conveying false and misleading information and hoaxes, according to the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York….

On April 24, Smith allegedly made a 911 call from his iPad using a service that helps hearing-impaired people make and receive telephone calls, according to federal prosecutors.In the call, Smith identified himself as “Abdul Yasin,” described himself as an “ISI terrorist” and conveyed a threat to “blow up” the Statue of Liberty, Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.

The Statue of Liberty and Liberty Island were evacuated and closed to the public until the threat was declared unfounded. The New York Police Department bomb squad examined a locker thought to contain a suspicious package and found it was empty, a law enforcement official said at the time.

The statement from prosecutors said the iPad registered to Smith was allegedly used to make other 911 calls, including at least two in May from a user who identified himself as “Isis allah Bomb maker.” The caller threatened to attack Times Square and kill police officers at the Brooklyn Bridge.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Slovakia refuses EU plan to resettle Muslim refugees, ‘will only accept Christians’

UN to let Iran inspect its own alleged nuke site

Germany: ‘Refugees’ riot, stone police over torn Qur’an, 15 wounded

These people are going to be a marvelous addition to German society.

“Riot over disrespect to Holy Quran left 15 wounded in Germany,” Khaama Press, August 20 2015 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

A riot erupted among asylum seekers at a refugee center in Germany leaving 15 people wounded including Afghans.

The riot reportedly erupted after a refugee tore pages from the Holy Quran prompting anger of some 20 other residents in the refugee center in Suhl city of Thuringen State on Wednesday evening.

Police say the confrontation escalated into a riot and around 100 refugees took part in it.

125 police officers were dispatched to the area to break the brawl but they also came under the attack from refugees and were pelted with sticks and stones.

Four police officers, two badly, and 11 refugees were wounded in the clash.

Seven police vehicles were also damaged during the riot that took around four hours to come under control.

According to the officials, the person who tore pages from the Holy Quran had arrived from Afghanistan. Police took him into custody for his own safety.

In other words, they arrested the one who violated Sharia blasphemy law, not the rioters.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Pakistan Muslim leader exhorted Muslims to kill Hindus

UK: Jihadi free to roam streets as interpreters are abandoned to Taliban

U.S. Set to Block Aid to Pakistan for Failing to Crack Down on Terrorist Group

VIDEO: Ryan Mauro on Stopping the Iran Deal

Ryan Mauro, National Security Analyst, Clarion Project is our featured guest on today’s short promotional for the “DAY OF ACTION” in Santa Barbara, California on Sunday, August 30th, 2015.

Join us in STOPPING THE IRAN DEAL!

We have TWO amazing events on August 30th!

The first is a Roundtable Luncheon featuring a panel of national and local experts on the Iran Treaty, on the U.S. and Israel and how it will affect Santa Barbara County. Tickets are $60. Sponsorships are available at different levels. A ticket to the lunch gets you a VIP seat at the rally (details below). If you are not able to attend but would like to donate (100% tax-deductible) to help offset to costs of this grassroots effort, it would be appreciated. To purchase tickets, to sponsor or to donate, go to: StopIran.eventbrite.com

After the lunch, there will be a Stop Iran NOW Rally at the Santa Barbara Courthouse Sunken Gardens co-hosted by Stand With Us, The Clarion Project, The United West and other local groups. The rally is FREE and we need as many people as possible to attend. Please forward to your friends, family, neighbors and co-workers. It’s up to us to stop this deal! Signs and flags will be provided.

GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum to deliver speech on Immigration at National Press Club

WASHINGTON, D.C. /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum will deliver a major policy address on immigration at the National Press Club on Thursday, Aug. 20.

Santorum, a former U.S. senator who spoke at a Club Luncheon in 2006, will offer his proposals for addressing immigration. He has argued that immigrants, both legal and unauthorized, have taken jobs that should go to American workers.

The program begins at 11 a.m. and will follow the Club’s luncheon format, in which Santorum will speak before taking questions submitted by the audience and asked by Club President John Hughes. The event is sponsored by the Club’s Speakers Committee.

Santorum ran for president in 2012 and won the Iowa caucuses and several other states before losing the Republican nomination to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

The event is open to all Club members and credentialed reporters. Reservations are requested by clicking here.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Is FBI attempting to chill free speech in report that reads like it was authored by the Southern Poverty Law Center?

National Suicide: Number Of Syrian Muslim Refugees To U.S. Expected To Quadruple

Cool map tells us which immigrant ethnic group holds demographic dominance in each state

Is FBI report attempting to chill free speech? Reads like it was authored by the Southern Poverty Law Center!

World Net Daily writer Leo Hohmann (who has written extensively on the Refugee Program) reports on a document that the FBI will not deny is theirs.

The gist of it is that the FBI is watching militia groups they claim are anti-Islam and asserts that the groups are getting their inspiration from World Net Daily, the Blaze, Fox News and Pamela Geller among others.  Below we have snipped a bit of Hohmann’s report.

FBI

But, first a suggestion from a political observer to me:

This appears to be a free-political-speech threat.

Grassley (Senate Judiciary) or Goodlatte (House Judiciary) should open an investigatory hearing on this “intelligence bulletin”, swear all the administration witnesses, ask who directed such instructions, and at least publish a report or a staff study on their findings.

Here is World Net Daily (ignore the confusing headline) on the astounding “intelligence bulletin:”

Just three weeks after ISIS attacked a Muhammad cartoonist event in Garland, Texas, the FBI began circulating an intelligence bulletin that alerts state, federal and local law enforcement about the likelihood of attacks against Muslims by “militia extremists.”

The bulletin, marked “sensitive” and not for distribution without FBI authorization, cites evidence gathered since 2013 that American militia groups are planning attacks on mosques, Islamic centers and possibly individual Muslims.

The document is dated May 28, 2015, and was leaked to Public Intelligence, an online information site committed to exposing government secrets and data. Public Intelligence posted the document on its site Aug. 18.

Named in the bulletin as news sites that provide information that supposedly fuels the militia groups were WND.com, Fox News, the Blaze, Western Journalism Center, Patriot Newswire and Pamela Geller’s blog, AtlasShrugs.com.

[….]

The FBI concludes that there are “salient perceptions within militia extremism that contribute toward an anti-Muslim bias.” The FBI says such “bias” against Islam is based on the following beliefs among the “extremists”:

~“Islam represents a foreign threat, equivalent to those which emanate from illegal immigration or international terrorism.

~“The President of the United States not only sympathizes with Islamic extremists but directs U.S. Government policy to align with their goals.”

[….]

WND contacted the FBI with several questions about the bulletin and got the following response from Joshua Campbell, supervisory special agent of the FBI office of public affairs.

“Unfortunately, we are unable to provide any information on the authenticity or contents of the referenced document. Our standard practice is to neither confirm or deny investigations or comment on bulletins provided to law enforcement partners.”

One of the questions WND asked was if he FBI had documented any actual militia attacks on Muslims over the past seven years.

None, I am sure, or it would have been all over the news.

Go to WND to read what some of those fingered by the FBI have to say.

RELATED ARTICLES:

National Suicide: Number Of Syrian Muslim Refugees To U.S. Expected To Quadruple

Cool map tells us which immigrant ethnic group holds demographic dominance in each state

Trump jumps to A- grade on NumbersUSA Presidential candidate score card

Puts a discussion of LEGAL immigration on the table with his Immigration white paper.

Here is Roy Beck writing at NumbersUSA earlier this week:

The weight of Donald Trump’s front-runner status and his detailed plan released over the weekend tipped the balance among the Republicans’ 2016 Presidential field so that the dominant position now is that immigration policy is a jobs and wage issue.

And he joins several candidates in raising the question in one way or another of whether LEGAL immigration ought to be reduced.

Several candidates had already been advancing the idea in recent months that federal policies on LEGAL immigration are not serving the interests of the American worker.

Continue reading here.

And, go here, to see the latest scores.  Rick Santorum still has a solid A, Trump A-.  The next closest candidate is Scott Walker with a B,  and then all of the other candidates at this time have lower scores.

I say it is about time that LEGAL immigration numbers are scrutinized and we thank Trump for forcing the discussion when a whole bunch of Presidential candidates haven’t had the guts to address immigration at all, let alone put their ideas in writing.

trump illegals veteransTrump on refugees

Here (below) is what Trump says in his brief mention of the Refugee Admissions Program of the UN/U.S. State Department. Find the abuses in the program and the money saved should be used for America’s children:

Refugee program for American children. Increase standards for the admission of refugees and asylum-seekers to crack down on abuses. Use the monies saved on expensive refugee programs to help place American children without parents in safer homes and communities, and to improve community safety in high crime neighborhoods in the United States.

It is a good first step. It is up to all of you to impress upon your elected officials (at all levels) and ultimately the mainstream media that this program has gone seriously and irreparably awry.  We have more work to do.  They don’t know yet what you know.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Asst. Secretary of State Anne Richard will answer questions about refugees in Spartanburg, SC this coming week….

Is FBI attempting to chill free speech in report that reads like it was authored by the Southern Poverty Law Center?

National Suicide: Number Of Syrian Muslim Refugees To U.S. Expected To Quadruple

Cool map tells us which immigrant ethnic group holds demographic dominance in each state

Islamic State links its origins to the killing of Osama bin Laden and U.S. withdrawal from Iraq

Obama’s most significant legacy is the Islamic State. Its rise is the most important accomplishment of his Administration.

Islamic State Links Its Origins To Killing Of Bin Laden,” Investor’s Business Daily, August 17, 2015 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

Killing Osama bin Laden may have won President Obama re-election in 2012, but the price was the rise of the Islamic State. At least according to IS itself.

The secret 32-page IS manifesto and strategy plan, written in Urdu and just uncovered from remote Pakistan by the American Media Institute, is titled “The Caliphate According to the Prophet.”

Beyond its headline-grabbing reference to Obama as “Mule of the Jews,” the IS dossier blames the president for the organization’s rise to power in a whole new way.

Obviously, Obama’s cut and run of U.S. troops from Iraq left the welcome mat out. But the manifesto boasts that IS ruler Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in avenging the killing of Osama bin Laden, engineered car bomb and IED attacks in cities across Iraq.

“The losses inflicted upon Americans, apostates and heretics were unprecedented,” the IS document stated. “This state of affairs forced Mule of the Jews, U.S. President Obama, to announce an exit plan.”

There is a chilling irony here. When Obama, interviewed by the New Yorker a year and a half ago, dismissed IS as just “a jayvee team,” in the same breath he downplayed their importance because IS lacked “the capacity and reach of a bin Laden.”

The IS strategy document reveals that the new caliphate is already taking steps to unite Pakistani and Afghan Taliban factions, then launch a war on India. And then finally confront America….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Chicago jihad suspect accused of assaulting inmate over Muhammad cartoon

Spanish music festival bans Jewish performer for being pro-Israel

Government report: U.S. fight against Islamic State disorganized, incoherent

Wow. What was their first clue? “Government Report: U.S. Fight Against Islamic State Disorganized, Incoherent,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, August 17, 2015 3:35 pm

The U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State (IS) suffers “from a lack of coherence” and is often operated in a disorganized fashion, harming efforts to effectively combat the terrorist force, according to a new report by the government.

As the United States and 21 other nations attempt to push back IS forces operating in Iraq, the new report warns that the war effort is being undercut by a lack of coordination and, in some cases, efforts that “contradict” one another, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service that was not made public but was released by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

The report comes amid numerous reports IS is making gains and solidifying its control key Iraq cities and even expanding outside of the war torn country’s borders.

CRS concluded in its analysis that the effort, dubbed Operation Inherent Resolve, is being led in a haphazard manner that leads to inefficient military action by the countries involved.

“Without a single authority responsible for prioritizing and adjudicating between different multinational civilian and military lines of effort, different actors often work at cross-purposes without intending to do so,” the report states.

Exact financial contributions by countries remains fuzzy, making it difficult to track exactly what each nations if funding and for what reason.

“Each nation is contributing to the coalition in a manner commensurate with its national interests and comparative advantage, although reporting on nonmilitary contributions tends to be sporadic,” the report found.

Recent military campaigns provide evidence of the incoherent strategy, according to CRS.

“These coalition coordination challenges were demonstrated in recent military campaigns (and particularly in Afghanistan),” it states. “Exacerbating matters, other actors in the region—some of whom are coalition partners—have different, and often conflicting, longer-term regional geopolitical interests from those of the United States or other coalition members.”

“This, in turn, may lead nations participating in the coalition to advance their goals and objectives in ways that might contradict each other,” the report found.

These flaws are impacting the success of the joint military campaign against IS, which has cost the United States $3.21 billion as of July 15….

RELATED ARTICLE: Nigeria: Up to 150 drowned, shot dead fleeing the Islamic State

Could the Jig Finally Be Up for Huma Abedin?

In FrontPage this morning I explain why the current mini-controversy over Huma Abedin bespeaks a much larger problem with America’s contemporary political culture.

They got Al Capone for tax evasion, and they may get Huma Abedin for “violating rules regarding vacation and sick leave” and for the “possible exchange of unsecured, classified data.” To be sure, these are serious charges, and the available evidence makes it abundantly clear that there is ample warrant to investigate and perhaps even charge Abedin. However, it is a sign of a serious problem with today’s political culture that even more serious allegations regarding Abedin have never been investigated, and almost certainly never will be.

Huma Abedin’s Muslim Brotherhood connections have been fully exposed by Andrew McCarthy and bruited about for years. The facts are quite public, albeit largely ignored: Abedin’s parents are both members of the Muslim Brotherhood, but her links to the organization are not just familial. Abedin was for twelve years the assistant editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA), which was founded by Abdullah Omar Naseef, a Muslim Brotherhood operative and al-Qaeda financier. Naseef and Abedin both appeared on the JMMA’s masthead from 1996 to 2003.

Consider that Abedin worked closely for seven years with a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who financed al-Qaeda in light of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy during the years that Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State. Everyone acknowledges that Abedin and Clinton are extremely close, and that Abedin controls access to Clinton and has tremendous influence over her. Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department was distinguished by the remarkable sight of Egyptian anti-Muslim Brotherhood protestors holding signs denouncing the President of the United States for supporting terrorism, and by the Benghazi debacle, when the Secretary of State sat back and did nothing as jihad terrorists murdered four Americans, including an ambassador.

Then there was the Benghazi cover-up, during which Clinton vowed to have a man who made a video criticizing Muhammad arrested and imprisoned for supposedly provoking the riots, thereby placing herself firmly in opposition to the freedom of speech and aligning herself with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s efforts to compel Western governments to criminalize criticism of Islam (under the guise of “incitement to religious hatred”).

Is it at all possible that Huma Abedin, whose parents were active in the Brotherhood and who worked for twelve years for a journal closely linked to the Brotherhood, had anything to do with the pro-Muslim Brotherhood orientation of the Obama/Clinton State Department? In today’s poisonous political culture, it isn’t possible even to ask the question without incurring charges of “Islamophobia” – as we saw in 2012, when Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) had the temerity to call for an investigation of possible Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government.

Bachmann explained: “The concerns about the foreign influence of immediate family members is such a concern to the U.S. Government that it includes these factors as potentially disqualifying conditions for obtaining a security clearance, which undoubtedly Ms. Abedin has had to obtain to function in her position. For us to raise issues about a highly-based U.S. Government official with known immediate family connections to foreign extremist organizations is not a question of singling out Ms. Abedin.  In fact, these questions are raised by the U.S. Government of anyone seeking a security clearance.” And that was to say nothing about Abedin’s association with Naseef and work with the JMMA.

Now that Abedin is suspected of mishandling classified material, Bachmann’s questions about Abedin’s security clearance are piquant in retrospect. But when she first raised them, Bachmann was ridiculed and vilified, even earning a denunciation from John McCain: “These sinister accusations rest solely on a few unspecified and unsubstantiated associations of members of Huma’s family, none of which have been shown to harm or threaten the United States in any way. These attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis, and no merit. And they need to stop now.”

It was actually about more than just Abedin’s family, and a perfectly sound case could be made, in light of Obama’s foreign policy disasters, that Abedin’s Muslim Brotherhood links possibly did harm and threaten the United States. But Bachmann’s name was dragged through the mud in 2012 for talking about all this, and now none of the new allegations against Abedin raise any issue with her possible Muslim Brotherhood connections.

That few people care about those connections, and that those who do are dismissed as “far-Right bigots,” shows how myopic and foolish our contemporary political culture is. If Huma Abedin had a hand in the pro-Muslim Brotherhood tilt of the Obama/Clinton State Department, that would be a far graver offense than anything she is accused of now, just as old Capone was guilty of far greater crimes than tax evasion. But on the other hand, those tax evasion charges ended Capone’s operations for good, and so if Hillary’s infamous email server does the same to Huma Abedin, no one who values America’s historic role as leader of the free world will have any reason to complain.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Ahmadi imam says Muslim clerics have perverted Islam for 1400 years

Iran’s President warns of plots to portray Islam as a religion of violence

Islamic State Leader ‘Repeatedly Raped and Tortured U.S Aid Worker Kayla Mueller’

Disturbing details have come to light about the ordeal faced by American aid worker Kayla Mueller, who was captured by the Islamic State and repeatedly raped by the terror organization’s self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

A Yazidi eyewitness, who also suffered sexual assault, apparently told American officials of Mueller’s torture and rape.

“We were told Kayla was tortured, that she was the property of al-Baghdadi. We were told that in June by the government,” Kayla’s parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller, confirmed to ABC News.

“They told us that he married her, and we all understand what that means,” Carl Mueller, told The Associated Press.

ISIS held the 26-year old from Arizona for some 18 months before she was killed. The Islamic State maintains she lost her life during an attack by coalition forces in February.

Much of the evidence on Mueller’s torment came from a 14-year-old Yazidi girl, who said she spent two months in a house with Mueller before escaping in October 2014. Al-Baghdadi would take Mueller to his room and then on her return, Mueller would tell the other captive women and children what the ISIS leader had done to her.

The Yazidi said Mueller refused to escape with her and others because she could endanger them as she was more-easily recognizable. She also cared for other captives during their time together.

The Islamic State has a track record of enslaving women, selling them in markets and repeatedly raping them before passing them on to other fighters.

RELATED ARTICLES:

ISIS Social Media Creates ‘Alternative Universe’

Young U.S. Lovers Arrested Eloping to Islamic State

ISIS Takes Hostage 15-Year-Old Pregnant Swedish Girl

Islamic State Releases Gruesome Execution Video

Iran ‘not satisfied’ with nuke deal, wants more concessions

Obama and Kerry will no doubt jump to give him what he wants, but if they do, the opposition to the deal will grow even stronger than it already is.

“Iranian hardliner: The supreme leader opposes the nuclear deal,” by Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press, August 15, 2015:

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is opposed to a landmark nuclear deal reached with world powers, a prominent hard-liner claimed Saturday.

Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the daily newspaper Kayhan and a representative of Khamenei, made the comments in an editorial Saturday.

It marked the first time someone publicly has claimed where Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, stands on the deal.

Khamenei has not publicly approved or disapproved the deal. However, he repeatedly has offered words of support for his country’s nuclear negotiators. Moderates also believe the deal would have never been reached without Khamenei’s private approval.

Iran’s parliament and the Supreme National Security Council will consider the agreement in the coming days. The deal calls for limiting Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.

Shariatmadari said in the editorial that many parts of the deal threaten Iran’s independence, security and “the sacred system of the Islamic republic of Iran” and that it would be “disastrous” if Tehran implements the accord. He did not specify which parts of the deal he thought were problematic.

He also referred to a speech by Khamenei last month during which the ayatollah said, “Whether this text is approved or disapproved, no one will be allowed to harm the main principles of the (ruling) Islamic system.”

The editorial noted: “Using the phrase ‘whether this text is approved or disapproved’ shows his lack of trust in the text of the deal. If His Excellency had a positive view, he would have not insisted on the need for the text to be scrutinized through legal channels … It leaves no doubt that His Excellency is not satisfied with the text.”…

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Iran Deal Leads to War. There Is a Better Way.

“Tens of thousands” of Muslims in Southeast Asia support the Islamic State

Islamic State takes Libyan port city

Bishop Slaughtered for Refusing to Convert to Islam to be Beatified

Nowadays Bishop Flavien-Michel Malké’s feckless successors among the U.S. Catholic bishops bow and scrape before the children and heirs of those who killed him, silencing those who speak out about the Muslim persecution of Christians and consigning today’s new martyrs to their fate, sacrificing them on the altar of their fruitless, delusional and self-defeating quest for “dialogue” with Muslims.

How many Christians has that “dialogue” prevented from being persecuted or martyred? Why, absolutely none, of course. But the comfortable suburban Church continues on its comfortable suburban way, secure in its illusions and delusions.

One day, however, the truth it has so assiduously endeavored to ignore, deny and suppress will dawn upon it with undeniable and terrifying reality, and maybe some of those bishops will realize how ill they served their people by enforcing and reinforcing their ignorance and complacency.

“Syriac Bishop Will Be Beatified on the 100th Anniversary of His Martyrdom (832),” National Catholic Register, August 11, 2015:

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — On Saturday, Pope Francis approved a decree recognizing the martyrdom of Flavien-Michel Malké, a Syriac Catholic bishop who was killed in 1915, amid the Ottoman Empire’s genocide against its Christian minorities.

The decision was made during an Aug. 8 meeting between Pope Francis and Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Bishop Malké will be beatified Aug. 29, the 100th anniversary of his martyrdom, during a liturgy celebrated by Ignatius Youssef III Younan, the Syriac patriarch of Antioch, at the convent of Our Lady of Deliverance in Lebanon. It is expected that thousands of Syrians and Iraqis displaced by the Islamic State will attend the beatification.

“In these painful times experienced by Christians, especially the Syriac communities in Iraq and Syria, the news of the beatification of one of their martyrs, will surely bring encouragement and consolation to face today’s trials of appalling dimension,” read an Aug. 9 statement of the Syriac Patriarchate of Antioch.

“Blessed Martyr Michael, intercede for us, and protect especially the Christians in the Orient and all the world in these hard and painful days.”

Malké was born in 1858 in the village of Kalaat Mara, a village of the Ottoman Empire in what is now Turkey, to a Syriac Orthodox family. He joined a monastery of that Church and was ordained a deacon, but then converted to the Syriac Catholic Church. (Both the Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholics use the West-Syrian rite.)

After his conversion, he was ordained a priest in Aleppo in 1883. He was a member of the Fraternity of St. Ephrem and served parishes in southeastern Turkey, near his home.

Ottoman persecution of Christians began in earnest with the Hamidian massacres of 1894-1897. Malké’s church and home were sacked and burned in 1895, and many of his parishioners were murdered, including his mother. In total, the massacres killed between 80,000 and 300,000 Christians.

He was selected to become a bishop in the 1890s, serving as a chorbishop and helping in the rebuilding of Christian villages. In 1913, he was consecrated bishop and appointed head of the Syriac Diocese of Gazireh (modern-day Cizre, 150 miles southeast of Diyarbakir).

A second round of persecution of Christians in the Ottoman Empire began in April 1915. Known as the Armenian Genocide, it targeted the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Christian minorities in the empire. The Assyrian genocide (the portion of the mass killings directed against Syriac and Chaldean Christians) is also known as the Seyfo Massacre, from the Syriac word for sword.

Some 1.5 million Christians were killed, and millions more were displaced during the genocide.

During the summer when the genocide broke out, Bishop Malké was in the Idil district, near Gazireh. In June 1915, hearing the Ottoman forces were preparing to massacre Gazireh’s people, he returned.

According to the Syriac Patriarchate, when his friends and acquaintances urged him to withdraw from Gazireh to a safer location, he replied, “Even my blood I will shed for my sheep.”

Together with four of his priests and the Chaldean bishop of Gazireh, Philippe-Jacques Abraham, he was arrested and imprisoned for two months.

Bishop Malké refused to convert to Islam, and on Aug. 29, 1915, he was martyred.

He was the last Syriac bishop of Gazireh; after his death, the diocese was suppressed, and, today, the Syriac Catholic Church has no presence in Turkey.

In an Aug. 8 interview with Vatican Radio, the postulator of Bishop Malké’s cause, Father Rami Al Kabalan, spoke of the bishop’s deep spiritual life as well as the relevance his martyrdom has today.

The bishop, he said, “played a fundamental role in encouraging people to defend their faith in the difficulties of the time, during the persecutions of the Ottoman Empire.”

Bishop Malké lived a life of poverty, even selling his liturgical vestments in order to assist the poor and help fight poverty, Father Al Kabalan said.

In addition to his closeness with the poor, the priest said that Bishop Malké was extremely zealous in his apostolate and visited all of the parishes within his diocese.

One of the bishop’s most striking phrases, his postulator said, comes from when he was pressured to renounce the faith and to convert to Islam. Rather than giving in, the bishop replied, “I will defend my faith to the blood.”…

Imam converts to Christianity; Muslims beat and jail him, and burn his house down
Australia: Son of jailed Muslim cleric stopped from heading to Syria