“The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.” -Marcus Aurelius
It has been quite an interesting week or so. The prosecution in the Geert Wilders case has asked to have all the charges against him thrown out and to find him not guilty of all the charges.
Angela Merkel has made a clear unambiguous statement that multiculturalism has failed and that Islam is a threat to German culture and future.
Now this:
I reported last week on the difficulties faced by Oskar Freysinger, the leader of the Swiss People’s Party, when he attempted to give a lecture in Brussels. Twice denied a private venue, he eventually gave his talk in the Flemish Parliament, thanks to the intervention of Vlaams Belang leader Filip Dewinter.
Mr. Freysinger gave his speech in French, and it has now been translated into English, thanks to the dedicated efforts of our French correspondent l’échappée belle. It is an excellent exposition of the extensive damage inflicted by mass Muslim immigration on the legal systems and national cultures of Europe.
Oskar Freysinger: Is Islam a threat?
Conference in Brussels October 9, 2010
To preface, allow me to note that at the end of this first decade of the 21st century, questions and debate have become a challenge in the EU.
First, the Diamant Conference Center in Schaerbeek closed its doors to me under pressure from the mayor and the police on the leaseholder of the room, and then it was the turn of the Crowne Plaza Hotel to deny me a room. Its owner had at least the elegance, after having first accepted and then rejected the conference, to meet us, Marcel Castermans and me, to express his embarrassment of being unable to fulfill his commitment. “However,” he advised during this interview, “The Crowne Plaza is no exception as to its rejection. Currently, you will not find any hotel room in Brussels prepared to welcome you, as political pressures are too great. You see, I am a businessman, and cannot go against the system “. The manager of the Crowne Plaza didn’t know how right he was, because the owner of a third venue, who originally gave his approval, recanted just this morning.
This is why Europe is running adrift: Not because of fanatics who occupy the land, but because of cowards who let them do it. Continue Reading →
(This is from the Calgary Herald. It is worth noting that the NYT version of this story does not say ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslim’ anywhere in it, yet that was the entire motivation for this terror plot on Jews and Americans in general.)
NEW YORK – Four New York men on Monday were convicted of plotting to blow up synagogues and shoot down U.S. military aircraft after a trial hinging on the testimony of a paid FBI informant, the federal prosecutor’s office said.
James Cromitie, 44, and three others had been accused of wanting to wage Muslim jihad in their own country, attacking the Jewish house of worship and a Jewish community center in the Bronx, and firing Stinger missiles at planes at a nearby Air National Guard base.
They face sentences of up to life in prison.
“Homegrown terrorism is a serious threat,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.
“The defendants in this case agreed to plant bombs and use missiles they thought were very real weapons of terrorism. We are safer today as a result of these convictions.”
The jury in Manhattan federal court took a week to reach the verdict following a trial in which the court heard how an FBI informant lured the four men deeper and deeper into an extended sting operation. Continue Reading →
I’m glad Kitman did this, I had a few clips ready as well but haven’t gotten to it yet. This is a great moment by Douglas Murray from this debate.
Other sources: The National:
h/t TL
A man can beat his wife and kids as long as he leaves no physical marks, the United Arab Emirates’ highest court has found.
The judgment came after a man slapped his wife and kicked and slapped his daughter, according to Abu Dhabi’s The National newspaper.
In the case debated by the Federal Supreme court, the daughter was bruised on the hand and knee, while the wife’s lip and teeth were injured.
According to the court, the injuries showed that the man had over-stepped his rights under Shariah, or Islamic law, the newspaper reported. He had originally been fined 500 United Arab Emirates dirhams ($136), but appealed the case twice.
At 23, the daughter was deemed too old to have been disciplined, the newspaper said.
Story: U.K. cleric: Rape is impossible within marriage
According to Shariah law, a man can beat his wife and children as long as he has first tries unsuccessfully to discipline them by admonishing and then abstaining from sexual relations with his wife.
Islamic scholars don’t agree on the definition of “beating” but they do agree that it should not be too severe.
“Although the (law) permits the husband to use his right (to discipline), he has to abide by the limits of this right,” Chief Justice Falah al Hajeri wrote in the ruling released Sunday, according to The National. “If the husband abuses this right to discipline, he cannot be exempted from punishment.”
Not 100% sure what is going on here but it appears that groups of people in France, specifically a certain area, created a blockade and set fires, then interfered with firemen trying to deal with those fires. This of course is very common throughout Europe and Vlad Tepes has posted numerous videos most notably from Belgium and Sweden on ‘no go zones’. I am not certain exactly of what is taking place here, but it clearly is recent. It is marked Oct 15 2010
From The Ottawa Sun
By EZRA LEVANT, QMI Agency
Last Updated: October 17, 2010 2:00am
It is illegal for a woman wearing a face-obscuring veil to board a plane in Canada. But a unanimous ruling last week by the Ontario Court of Appeal says it’s just fine for that same woman to give testimony in court with her face covered.
There’s more. Ontario’s highest court says veiled women can ask for an order to clear men out of the courtroom — any men in the public gallery, any male court staff, even her opponent’s lawyer, even the judge himself — in return for taking off her veil. It’s paragraph 85 of the ruling.
Shariah law has come to Canada.
Face-obliterating veils called niqabs are a medieval tool for gender apartheid. They destroy a woman’s identity. They turn her into an object, a chattel owned by her master — which is why they’re the norm in Saudi Arabia, where women have fewer rights than men and only slightly more than animals.
Burkas — an even more prison-like shroud, with just a tiny beekeeper’s screen to peek through — are the Taliban variety. Those are now allowed on the witness stand in Canada, too.
Rip the Ten Commandments off the wall, because we must have separation of church and state. But when the most un-Canadian expression of radical Islam walks in the court, our judges follow the Qur’an.
But that’s not fair to the Qur’an. No verse in that book requires face-covering. But our judges now say it’s a Charter right.
To their shame, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association intervened to support this. They have demanded Bibles be removed from schools and the Lord’s Prayer be banned from legislatures. But Muslim veils — a chastity belt for the face — have their support in a secular court.
The CCLA has found religion. And LEAF, the feminist law organization built with Canadian tax dollars, has a new view on a woman’s proper place. They argued for the niqab, too.
As National Post columnist Barbara Kay points out, a survey of Muslim women in France found 77% wear the veil out of fear of men.
Australian Imam Taj Din al-Hilali put it another way, in a sermon about rape: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street … and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.”
LEAF supports covering up “the meat.” Now our courts do too.
The Ontario ruling came about because a Muslim woman alleged she was molested as a child by her uncle and her cousin in the 1980s. It’s a horrendous accusation and, if true, the woman deserves our sympathy and the accused deserve our most punitive punishment. But before we get there, there’s the matter of a trial.
In Canada, even accused rapists have the right to question their accuser and the court has the right to observe her demeanour. It’s why we don’t allow testimony from someone wearing a mask.
But this accuser didn’t want to take off her mask.
“It’s a respect issue, one of modesty and one of — in Islam, we call honour,” she told the judge at the preliminary inquiry “It’s to conceal the beauty of a woman.”
She had only been wearing a veil for about five years and the judge found her religious belief was “not that strong.” But “I would feel a lot more comfortable if I didn’t have to, you know, reveal my face.”
Sure, she took the veil off to get her driver’s licence. But that was important, you see. Not like accusing a man of a horrendous crime.
The judge told her to take off her veil. That’s what was over-ruled last week.
This could be great, says the Court of Appeal. The reliability of her veiled testimony could actually be better.
“Without the niqab … one could not expect her to be herself on the witness stand … her embarrassment and discomfort could be misinterpreted as uncertainty and unreliability.”
But it’s more than law. It’s politics, they say. Allowing the niqab “could be seen as a recognition and acceptance of those minority beliefs and practices.”
That’s exactly the problem.
In heaven, Aqsa Parvez is screaming again.
— Read Levant’s blog at ezralevant.com
From The National Post, Full Comment.
Conrad Black October 16, 2010 – 7:55 am
It is certainly time that the West considered systematically if our civilization has irreconcilable differences with Islam. The belligerence of many Islamic spokesmen, the failure to assimilate of many Muslim immigrants, as well as the spectacular terrorist provocations of extreme Islamic groups make this a legitimate question.
But it is not so easy to answer. Some passages of the Koran, and some of the more purposeful remarks attributed to Muhammad, certainly incite the inference that mortal conflict is inevitable — an impression heightened by the neurotic obsession of a great many Muslims with the red herring of Israel. It is hard for Westerners to know what to make of Islam: As the Muslim world stretched from Morocco to Indonesia, it became ever more fissiparous and hydra-headed. It speaks through an infinite number of clerical and secular leaders, and in a range of vocabularies from fraternal to genocidally hostile.
Muhammad was allegedly instructed to found Islam in 610, by the versatile Archangel Gabriel. Twelve years later, Muhammad still had only 150 followers. He then decamped to the Jewish oasis of Yathrib, seized control of it, renamed it Medina, set up the first mosque, and went forth to conquer Arabia. Unlike Jesus, or the contemplative and sedentary Gautama, founder of Buddhism, Muhammad was a military leader who advanced by fire and sword and told his followers to emulate him. They established Sharia, a totalitarian legal system whose edicts go far beyond what even the most pious and fervent Westerner would consider the province of religion. Continue Reading →
Britain ’s biggest supermarket chains are selling halal lamb and chicken without telling unsuspecting shoppers, reported the Mail on Sunday.
The paper had to force an admission out of Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, and M&S, none of whom tell shoppers whether their lamb is ritually slaughtered, even when a Muslim slaughterman is intoning ‘Bismillah Allah-hu-Akbar’ (meaning ‘In the name of Allah, who is the greatest’) over each animal killed.
No beef sold is halal, it seems. But 5% of chicken sold in Tesco is halal as is 35% of the store’s UK lamb. None of it is labelled as such. The Co-op is the same. We believe that only Asda and Morrisons clearly label their ritually-slaughtered meat but we were waiting for confirmation as we went to press.
NEW ZEALAND LAMB IS 70% HALAL
The scandal applies mostly to lamb. 70% of New Zealand lamb sold by British supermarkets is slaughtered according to Muslim law. The reason is that New Zealand supplies a growing Muslim consumer base in the Middle and Far East . It was the New Zealanders who developed the ‘pre-stun’ method of slaughter, rendering the animal unconscious by electric shock, rather than by a captive-bolt pistol, which is very ‘haram’ (forbidden).
But none of the New Zealand halal lamb is labelled as such, so consumers do not know that they are buying and eating ritually-slaughtered meat. A growing proportion of meat slaughtered in British abattoirs is also halal, using the same method, and that does not appear to be labelled ‘halal’ in many stores either.
In their statements, the supermarkets were determined to present the issue as solely one of animal welfare. They appeared oblivious to the religious implications of the Islamic blessing pronounced over each animal killed. But even that could not explain the procrastination, ignorance and/or inability to explain the facts to consumers that the supermarkets displayed.
TESCO AND THE CO-OP
For example, when the Mail on Sunday rang them, Tesco were initially reluctant to admit they sold any halal meat at all. Tesco said in a peculiar statement: ‘It is not the case that all the meat we sell is halal or that our suppliers only offer halal meat.’
But when quizzed further, a spokesman was more forthcoming: ‘All our New Zealand lamb is halal-slaughtered, as is 35 per cent of our UK lamb. Less than five per cent of our chicken is halal.’ Continue Reading →
Dunno how I missed this clip before but it’s a joy to watch.
From DutchNews.nl
The public prosecution department on Friday afternoon stated that Geert Wilders is not guilty of discriminating against Muslims. Earlier on Friday it announced he should also be found not guilty of inciting hatred.
Prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman reached their conclusions after a careful reading of interviews with and articles by the anti-Islam politician and a viewing of his anti-Koran film Fitna.
They said comments about banning the Koran can be discriminatory, but because Wilders wants to pursue a ban on democratic lines, there is no question of incitement to discrimination ‘as laid down in law’.
On the comparison of the Koran with Mein Kampf, the prosecutors said the comparison was ‘crude but that did not make it punishable’.
Dealing earlier on Friday with incitement to hatred, Van Roessel and Velleman said some comments could incite hatred against Muslims if taken out of context, but if the complete text is considered, it can be seen that Wilders is against the growing influence of Islam and not against Muslims per sé.
On Tuesday, the prosecutors said the MP should not be found guilty of group insult.
The public prosecution department was forced to take the case by the high court after anti-racism campaigners protested at its refusal to prosecute Wilders.
What the hell? Did Europe just wake up this week from some kind of multi-decade bender of Multicultural-Leftist drunkenness and notice the mess? First Holland throws out the charges against Geert and now this….
Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have “utterly failed”, Chancellor Angela Merkel says.
In a speech in Potsdam, she said the so-called “multikulti” concept – where people would “live side-by-side” happily – did not work.
Mrs Merkel’s comments come amid recent outpourings of strong anti-immigrant feeling from mainstream politicians.
A recent survey showed that more than 30% of Germans believed Germany was “overrun by foreigners”.
The study – by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think-tank – also showed that roughly the same number thought that some 16 million of Germany’s immigrants or people with foreign origins had come to the country for the social benefits.
Foreign workers
Mrs Merkel told a gathering of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party on Saturday that at “the beginning of the 60s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country… We kidded ourselves a while, we said: ‘They won’t stay, sometime they will be gone’, but this isn’t reality.
“And of course, the approach [to build] a multicultural [society] and to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other… has failed, utterly failed.”
In her speech, the chancellor specifically referred to recent comments by German President Christian Wulff who said that Islam was “part of Germany” like Christianity and Judaism.
Mrs Merkel says Islam is part of Germany but more must be done on integrationWhile acknowledging that this was the case, Mrs Merkel stressed that immigrants living in Germany needed to do more to integrate, including learning to speak German. Continue Reading →
First, here is the AFP story referred to in teh SITREP by STRATFOR in an earlier post:
European countries must reinforce north African armies battling Islamist militants or the security situation will deteriorate and they will be forced to move, a senior Niger official said Friday.
“When speaking of security, Europe thinks of closing up, securing the interior and the borders, but the principal security of Europe is the security and development of Africa,” said Amadou Marou, president of the National Consultative Council that is managing the country’s political transition following a military coup in February.
His comments follow the kidnapping last month of five French nationals, a Madagascan and a Togolese from an uranium mining town in Niger by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
AQIM, which has exploited the vast spaces of the Sahara desert and Sahel scrub-land to stage attacks in a number of countries in the region, is believed to be holding the prisoners in a mountainous desert region in northeastern Mali.
“Somalia got away from us and northern Mali is in the process of getting away from us,” said Marou, speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of a meeting organised by the lay Catholic community Sant’Egidio.
“If the Europeans don’t reinforce security in this area, they’ll have to move,” he added.
North African counter-terrorism experts held two days of meetings this past week with their G8 counterparts on how to step up regional cooperation and battle Islamic militants linked to Al-Qaeda.
“The Sahel is very fragile, fertile ground for all sorts of terror and trafficking,” said Marou.
© ANP/AFP
He certainly has a point. Europeans have to get a handle on their own immigration most certainly as does the rest of the infidel world. But if Islam (radical, orthodox, traditional, whatever you want to call it) is to be fought, it must be fought where it is taking massive amounts of territory and resources away from more or less secular and more or less rational peoples.
We cannot for example, claim to be fighting Islam and attempting to curb its growing influence in Western nations while packing up and leaving Afghanistan or watching Somali militants grow in power and territory, threatening neighbouring nations and peoples and attacking non-Muslim peoples all over Africa, especially Christians and those opposed to draconian (as if there was any other kind) Islamic rule. Sooner or later, we will face off with islam in a more or less conventional military scenario. But the longer we wait, the higher the cost in blood and treasure.
Imagine Muslims like the Somali, Al-Shabab manage to get control of significant parts of North Africa land and sea. That they manage to destabilize governments in Africa that actually allow development and growth for their people, and eitehr stop the export of resources, or take control of those resources and force even more concessions of freedoms and secular laws from the west in exchange for their resources. So far, its just oil. Wait till its fertilizer materials, metals, other strategic resources.
The right time, and the cheap time to fight Islam is now, and partially in North Africa, and arguably in Afghanistan. We can win it now. Imagine the cost in 10 years.