“The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.” -Marcus Aurelius
September 24, 2009
Michael Finton, also known as Talib Islam, was arrested in Springfield, Ill. on Sept. 23 and charged with attempted murder of federal officer or employees and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction, Reuters reported Sept. 24. Flinton tried to use a cell phone to detonate a bomb he believed was inside a van he had parked outside of a federal building.
Arbitrary this Vs. arbitrary that. Group A makes up arbitrary rules of conduct or dress. They tell people, ‘if you want to be part of group A then you follow our rules and then all is well. If you do not, things are great also, you just do not get to be part of group A. For the most part, everyone in the world understands this basic tenant of group membership. Join, and be part, or do not join, and do not be part, or even, start your own group, make up your own rules.
Now a Muslim woman is suing Abercrombie and Fitch because they would not make an exception to their own dress code to accommodate the equally arbitrary dress codes of Muslims.
it is likely that governments will side with Muslims because it is religion, over a company who’s dress codes could be argued to be more practical and less arbitrary even, than religion, as any potential practical purpose for religious dress codes would likely be no longer applicable, while a clothing company typically knows what is in it’s own interests.
In any case, this is one set of arbitrary dress codes Vs. another, and there is simply no exuse for government to come down on the side of one over another, except where rational issues of public safety are involved, like no copper underwear and pants for employees of Hydro companies for example. Some kind of state legislation would make sense in this case. However when four Muslim women sued UPS because UPS insisted that they obey safety dress codes, USP lost and the women won a fat settlement. Remember, UPS had asked these women not to wear pants because the traditional Muslim long loose evening gowns are unsafe on ladders, and UPS employees in that position are all required to go on ladders.
Here is the story as Time Magazine reports it.
Below is the Burka issue resolved as I would like to see it.
Continue Reading →
As Phyllis Chesler wrote yesterday:
Nonie Darwish, the warmest, sanest, least prejudiced Egyptian whom I know, has both been attacked and has not been defended by the administrative elite at the Whittier College Law School where she is scheduled to speak later today. According to Steven Emerson, the Muslim Student Association on campus defamed Darwish and tried to stop or at least delay her presentation.
Not surprising. They specialize in such demonization and censorship campaigns. Darwish pleads the case of Muslim women whose human rights are seriously violated by shariah law. But the academic administrators at Whittier Law School have not strongly defended her right to speak, nor have they praised her work. This is unforgivable; according to Emerson, many happen to be women who are also feminists.
This is a process that has become all too familiar in recent years as courageous apostates from Islam have been abandoned by both civil libertarians and feminists. The hypocrisy of the progressive Left is now completely exposed: the human rights that they have putatively championed for all these years are not universal. When Islam walks through the door, the Left falls suddenly and mysteriously silent about the right of Muslims to choose their own destiny.
However, America’s former Muslims aren’t waiting for the approval of the Left to assert their freedom. They’ve organized a new group called Former Muslims United under the leadership of Nonie Darwish, Mohammed Asghar, Amil Imani, Wafa Sultan and Ibn Warraq:
Former Muslims United was formed in September, 2009 by a group of leading American apostates from Islam — Nonie Darwish (Director), Mohammed Asghar, Amil Imani, Wafa Sultan and Ibn Warraq — to educate the American public and policymakers about the need for Muslims to repudiate the threat from authoritative Shariah to the religious freedom and safety of former Muslims. Our national campaign for civil rights and physical safety for former Muslims was launched with the creation of a pledge for Muslim leaders to sign — “ The Muslim Pledge for Religious Freedom and Safety from Harm for Former Muslims.”
The first group of Muslim leaders were sent pledges to coincide with the date September 25, 2009.
I’ll have more to say about the Pledge below. But first, some excerpts from the group’s mission statement:
1. Develop a legal framework for and ensure the civil of American individuals and organizations to provide sanctuary for former Muslims without being subject to legal penalties or threats. 2. Call on all Muslims and their spiritual leaders to reject, publicly and without reservation or exception, all Sharia doctrine that permits or calls for punishment or discrimination against former Muslims, including intimidation and threats against person or property. This rejection of violence applies to individuals, Sharia authorities, Muslim courts or other Sharia bodies, governments, and quasi-governmental bodies. 3. Form a support group to empower and give comfort to former Muslims enabling them to stand up for their religious liberties under the US Constitution. […] 7. Demand Muslim leaders reject and denounce all Islamic literature which calls for death or other punishments for former Muslims.
The members of Former Muslims United are tackling the most urgent issue that can be faced by those who have chosen to leave Islam. In any country where there are significant numbers of Muslims, apostates face the risk of death at the hands of their former fellows. Islam permits — indeed, it requires — the death penalty for apostasy, as well as for other crimes such as blasphemy and adultery.
Continue Reading →
H/T Nick Vandergragt:
Vincent Gioia
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 21 September 2009
Purported non Muslim Barack Hussein Obama made a presidential appointment of Muslim Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Arif Alikhan for a top job at the federal Department of Homeland Security. In his new job Arif Alikhan will be Assistant Secretary for the Office of Policy Development at the Department of Homeland Security. Alikhan has been Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles — in charge of public safety for the city. Why Muslim Alikhan at the Department of Homeland Security you might ask? DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said Alikhan’s “broad and impressive array of experience in national security, emergency preparedness and counterterrorism will make him an asset —yes, but on behalf of the US or Muslims? I am not sure what she is talking about and she probably doesn’t know either. IndiaWest.com
Alikhan says a big part of his job will be fostering communication between agencies. Alikhan, like Obama, also wants to help improve America’s image with Muslims around the world. He will now set policy on security at the highest levels of the federal government. But what policies has the new Assistant Secretary embraced? During his years in Los Angeles, Alikhan was responsible for derailing the Police Department’s plan to monitor activities within the Los Angeles Muslim community, where numerous radical mosques and madrassas existed, and where some of the 9/11 hijackers had received support from local residents. Continue Reading →
From The National Post
Stewart Bell and Adrian Humphreys,
National Post Published: Monday, September 21, 2009
Kagan McLeod/National Post
Ali Dirie, left, has pleaded guilty to gun smuggling charges.
Dirie is one of the men involved with the Toronto 18.
TORONTO — A Toronto man caught smuggling handguns into Canada pleaded guilty to terrorism charges on Monday, making him the latest of the “Toronto 18” group to admit to wrongdoing.
Ali Mohamed Dirie, 26, who was born in Somalia and raised in Syria and Toronto, was to appear in court on Wednesday for a sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to participating in the activities of a terrorist group.
Both the defence and government officials confirmed the plea. Dirie still faces a second charge that will be dealt with after he is sentenced on Oct. 2, said Dan Brien, communications director of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. Continue Reading →
From The Ottawa Citizen.
OTTAWA — In a surprise move, a Federal Court judge has removed most of the bail restrictions on accused terrorist Mohamed Harkat.
Monday’s ruling allows the terror suspect — who was first arrested on a security certificate almost seven years ago — to travel alone within the city and ends the constant surveillance he has been under since his release on bail.
Harkat is still not allowed to use a computer or talk on a cellphone.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service contends Harkat, 41, a former pizza delivery man, is an al-Qaida sleeper agent.
Harkat, who came to Canada in 1995 and applied for refugee status, has always denied any connection to terrorism.
Security certificate provisions allowed authorities to detain and deport non-citizens considered national security threats.
Harkat’s wife, Sophie, said in an earlier interview her husband is eager to understand what foreign agencies are involved in the case against him.
“No matter where the information comes from, we want to challenge it,” Sophie Harkat said in an interview last month.
Harkat’s defence lawyer, Norm Boxall, said his client needs to understand what allegations and evidence flows from foreign intelligence services.
“Harkat can’t respond to things he doesn’t know,” he said.
In June, Canada’s border agency engaged in an unauthorized intelligence-gathering exercise, rather than a legitimate search, when it raided Harkat’s Ottawa home, a Federal Court judge has ruled.
Judge Simon No’l said Harkat’s constitutional right to privacy was seriously breached in last month’s raid, which featured 16 law enforcement officers and three dog teams.
He ordered the agency to return all material seized in the May 12 raid and to destroy any photocopied documents.
I must say, his looks are a surprise. You don’t often see terror suspects who look like this fellow. They usually look more like this:
Federal authorities arrested an airport shuttle bus driver and his father in Colorado and another man in New York City on Saturday night, charging them with lying to investigators about an alleged terrorist plot to detonate an improvised explosive against an unknown target in the United States.
Acting swiftly late Saturday after a week in which investigators worked intensely in New York and Denver to put together a case, F.B.I. agents arrested Najibullah Zazi, 24, his father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, 53, who both reside in Aurora, Colo., and Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, who lives in Flushing, Queens.
The arrests indicated the case was rapidly accelerating and provided for the first time — in a sometimes confusing week of events — an explanation of why authorities were investigating the men and provided details about the alleged plot still under investigation in the United States, Pakistan and elsewhere.
In a statement issued early Sunday, David Kris, the chief of the Justice Department’s national security division, said: “The arrests carried out tonight are part of an ongoing and fast-paced investigation. It is important to note that we have no specific information regarding the timing, location or target of any planned attack.”
Affidavits filed in the case said that during a search of the younger Mr. Zazi’s rental car on Sept. 11, agents found a laptop computer that contained an image of nine pages of handwritten notes. The notes, according to affidavit, “contain formulations and instructions regarding the manufacture and handling of initiating explosives, main explosives charges, explosives detonators and components of a fusing system.”
Last Wednesday, the affidavits said, when agents interviewed Mr. Zazi in Denver, he falsely said he had never seen the handwritten notes and told agents that he had not written the notes.
In two additional interviews on Thursday and Friday, Mr. Zazi told agents that during a 2008 trip to Pakistan, he attended courses and received instruction on weapons and explosives at an Al Qaeda training camp in a tribal area.
The affidavits also said that the elder Mr. Zazi and Mr. Afzali, who was said to have been a source for the New York Police Department, also lied to investigators about their conversations concerning the younger Mr. Zazi and their knowledge of his activities.
The father and son were scheduled to make an initial appearance on Monday in Federal District Court in Denver and Mr. Afzali will make his appearance, also on Monday, in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. Government officials said the charges, which carry a maximum penalty of eight years in prison, were preliminary and were likely to be followed by an indictment with more detailed accusations as the investigation continues.
The Zazis and Mr. Afzali are from Afghanistan. The elder Mr. Zazi is a naturalized citizen, while Mr. Afzalie and the younger Mr. Zazi are legal immigrants.
Wendy S. Aiello, a spokeswoman for Arthur Folsom, the lawyer representing the Zazis, said both men were arrested late Saturday night.
“Their attorney is with them,” said Ms. Aiello, who declined further comment.
Earlier on Saturday, following three days in which the younger Mr. Zazi had been intensively questioned by the F.B.I., he declined to meet with its agents, as planned, she said.
“He’s at home,” she said earlier in the day, adding that no plea arrangement was being negotiated on Mr. Zazi’s behalf.
At the same time, The Denver Post reported on Saturday that Mr. Zazi said in a telephone interview that he had not admitted any link to Al Qaeda, to participation in insurgency training in Pakistan or to involvement in a terrorist plot.
Government officials briefed on the matter have said that as Mr. Zazi voluntarily answered questions on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, he admitted that he had perhaps unwittingly crossed paths in Pakistan with extremists allied with the terrorist organization. There were also indications that Mr. Zazi underwent training in explosives and bomb-making while overseas.
“If it was true, they wouldn’t allow me to leave,” Mr. Zazi told The Denver Post. I don’t think the F.B.I. or the police would allow anyone who admits being a terrorist to go free for one minute.”
In an investigation that went from covert to overt last week, the authorities were moving swiftly to check clues and track the movements of Mr. Zazi and those associated with him — even as they moved in federal court to file affidavits in support of the arrests.
On Monday, the authorities raided four residences connected to Mr. Zazi in Queens, and later executed search warrants his home in Aurora, and the home of his relatives there.
Investigators have copied or mirrored the hard drive of his laptop and are looking for e-mails, downloaded material and any trail of Internet sites that had been visited. The search of the hard drive did yield information about searches of sites connected to public gatherings in New York.
However, investigators have not yet determined what Mr. Zazi’s apparent interest in those sites suggests.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has been briefed regularly on the status of the investigation, as has the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, and officials at the White House and the Pentagon.
Aside from Mr. Afzali’s arrest, several people in New York have been questioned in the case. Three men at a fifth-floor apartment on 41st Avenue, in Flushing described how they had been interrogated on at least three separate occasions since their home was raided about 2 a.m. Monday.
Naiz Khan, 26, said he was interviewed for eight hours Thursday at what he believed was the Brooklyn offices of the United States attorney for the Eastern District. He said he voluntarily provided his fingerprints, DNA samples and prints of the soles of his shoes. A roommate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he submitted to a similar interrogation.
Each man described how they were repeatedly asked series of questions about Mr. Zazi, who they said had spent the night of Sept. 10 sleeping in their apartment.
As they spoke in their home on Saturday, the men said they were not terrorists. Mr. Khan said he had spoken to Mr. Zazi only occasionally in recent years and the other man said he had yet to meet him. Mr. Khan said he doubted Mr. Zazi was a terrorist and expressed frustration over the fallout from his visit.
“He put us into trouble,” he said. “Why do they have to bother me and my roommates? Why do they have to go to my father’s house?”
A defense lawyer with experience in terrorism cases in New York said that three men that he knew of who had had contact with Mr. Zazi had been questioned and fingerprinted by federal authorities.
Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the United States attorney in Brooklyn, Benton J. Campbell, would neither confirm nor deny the questioning.
Mr. Khan said he had not retained a lawyer.
As he spoke he displayed a several pages of search warrants that agents left with him after the Monday raid. The court papers outlined two pages of items to be seized, specifying that they wanted anything to do with explosives or their building blocks: chemicals, fusing caps, timers or blasting caps, among other things.
But the papers also listed what the authorities left with: cellphones; a laptop computer; papers and notebooks with Arabic writing; tools; 100 tongue depressors; a Con Edison bill; immigration papers and nine backpacks.
New York police officers returned on Tuesday and took a green nylon suitcase from a back bedroom, said Mr. Khan. He said his uncle Faiz Mohammed had packed the backpacks into the green suitcase and was planning to bring them to Karachi, Pakistan, for his children and those of his brother.
Mr. Khan also said the authorities asked him whether he had gone to rent a U-Haul on Sept. 9 in Queens and he emphatically said he did not.
“They said, ‘Did you go to U-Haul?’ and I said, ‘No,’ ” said Mr. Khan. “ ‘Did you pack anything, did you store anything in the U-Haul?’ I said, ‘No.’ ”
Ronald L. Kuby, a lawyer, said that Mr. Afzali, an imam in a mosque in Queens, did not rent any truck from U-Haul, though he, too, was questioned by agents in the recent days.
“He has not been in a U-Haul facility since 2004, when he rented a truck to help move his family,” Mr. Kuby said.
The Canadian Islamic Congress one of Canada’s preeminent Islamist groups, fears the crushing of section 13 as legislated within the nations’ Human Rights Commission(s). Why does this outfit wring their hands in such despair? Could it be that the absence of such a provision would severely curb their ability to launch potential, future law-fare complaints against those who legitimately criticize radical Islam?
It may be worth noting that the CIC’s former boss Mohammed Elmasry has since ‘retired’ from the CIC feeling no doubt a bit quirky and f—– up at his public, national smack-down as prominent, Islamist agent provacateur. In believing ‘Canada deserves better media coverage’ than that by which ‘the Zionist controlled media’ could offer, he has since launched the Canadian Charger this past July; (tip: leg, thigh, butt and hip weighters required to muck about in the Pond of CC bullocks). Wahida Valiante now in charge of the CIC, has managed to only slightly and selectively tighten the taps on the flow of her groups’ overt, Islamist operational exercise in Canada, replacing Elmasry with a slightly friendlier, but no less menacing face.
I would be interested to know if there is anyone who could confirm any “false and inflammatory’ allegation(s) quoted from MP Ander’s distributed material found in the paragraph highlighted below. So far I can find no falsehood as 1, 2 and 3 are true. If one can do so, I will gladly buy a pulled pork sandwich and a pint on your behalf, in support of The International Free Press Society.
——
CIC latest media communique, Sept. 17, 2009.
Canadian Islamic Congress Cautions Against Legalizing Hate Speech In Canada
ALL CANADIANS COULD BE ENDANGERED BY CONSERVATIVE MOVES TO WEAKEN HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTIONS, CIC WARNS
The Canadian Islamic Congress issued a warning today about the disturbing use of discriminatory language and misleading statements in campaign pamphlets by Calgary MP Rob Anders.
The pamphlets, issued to Calgary West constituents, relate to the anti-hate powers of the Federal Human Rights Commission. The CIC finds this material to be inflammatory and factually misleading.
“When any politician targets a minority group with disinformation or misleading statements in order to score points with a perceived majority electorate, this needs to be challenged by all Canadians, not only the targeted groups,” said CIC National President Mrs. Wahida Valiante.
Mr. Anders’ pamphlets, which urge constituents to support his efforts to delete the anti-hate protections enshrined in the Canadian Human Rights Act, “cross the line of fair comment to unfairly target Canadian Muslims with inflammatory and factually false material,” continued Mrs. Valiante.
“MP Anders’ distortion of the anti-discrimination work undertaken by human rights commissions in this country highlights the efforts of some Conservative MPs to undermine institutions that protect equality rights and multiculturalism in Canada.”
The false and inflammatory allegations (quoted from MP Anders’ distributed materials) include:
1. “Under section 13 of the so-called “Human Rights” code, Canadians have been prosecuted for holding personal beliefs which offend radical Muslim Imams…” 2. Did you know … it is now illegal to hold opinions that offend radical Muslim activists.” 3. Did you know … In 2007, best selling Canadian author, Mark Steyn, was hauled before the Human Rights Commission. His crime — writing about the dangers of radical Islam. Muslim activists took offence with Mr. Steyn’s writing and lodged ‘human rights’ complaints against him.”
In response to the above excerpts, and similar sentiments voiced by Mr. Anders and his supporters, CIC National Executive Director Imam Dr. Zijad Delic continued:
“In Canada it is not illegal to publish controversial opinions or materials which are subjectively offensive. What the Canadian Human Rights Act prohibits is the publication of material that is hateful,” he explained.
Dr. Delic also emphasized that MP Anders’ singling out of complaints filed only by Muslim Canadians — in a context where all minorities have availed themselves of the same anti-hate protections — raises troubling questions about the Conservatives’ views on which Canadians deserve legal protection … and which, by inference, do not.
“The Harper government’s treatment of Mr. Abousfian Abdelraziq and Ms. Suaad Hagi Mohamud, to mention only two recent examples, has already raised concerns about two-tier citizenship,” Dr. Delic noted. “Now it seems some Conservative MPs also believe that not all communities are entitled to file human rights complaints.”
“With an election on the horizon, all Canadians must be extremely mindful of Conservative attempts to undermine equality rights in Canada and to erode the concept of official multiculturalism that made Canada what it is today,” Mrs. Valiante concluded.
(CNN) — Najibullah Zazi, the man at the center of a probe into a suspected terror plot against a target in the New York area, has admitted ties to al Qaeda, an administration official familiar with the matter told CNN Friday.
Either a plea deal or charges are possible, the official said.
The terror plot that came to light this week following raids in New York may have been targeting a major transportation center, sources close to the investigation told CNN on Thursday.
There was planning and preparation for an attack, presumably in the New York area, where there would be a large number of people and where security screening is lax such as a large railroad or subway station, essentially where there is no airport-style screening, the sources said.
Zazi, a 24-year-old Colorado resident, met this week with FBI agents in Denver as his lawyer disputed a report that bomb-making plans were found on the man’s computer.
Federal agents searched Najibullah Zazi’s apartment and another home in the same Denver suburb on Wednesday in connection with the terrorism investigation. A law enforcement official told CNN that diagrams showing how to make bombs were found on the computer that Zazi had with him when he was stopped in New York during a recent visit, but his lawyer, Arthur Folsom, dismissed that allegation.
Authorities are taking the plot seriously, because, the sources said, they think it involves “real-deal terrorists” operating and planning an attack in America.
Because of that fear, an unprecedented level of resources is being devoted to the investigation, the sources said. That includes the placement of a hostage rescue team in New York for possible raids and the deployment of additional resources to the Denver area in Colorado, where another phase of the probe is taking place.
The federal terrorism probe emerged Monday with a series of raids in the New York borough of Queens.
A former counterterrorism official who has been briefed on the investigation said bomb instructions were found, but could not say where.
The former official said backpacks, computers and maps were found during the searches in New York, and field tests turned up positive for explosives. But initial tests often yield false positives, and the former official was unaware whether more definitive tests had been concluded.
The backpacks support a theory that an attack similar to the 2004 train bombings in Madrid, Spain, was being planned.
The Madrid bombings — coordinated attacks on four morning-rush commuter trains — killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800.
“There’s no diagram of a bomb. There’s no information like that,” Folsom told reporters as he walked his client to his second meeting with federal agents. If something like that had turned up on Zazi’s computer, he asked, “Do you really think the FBI would have allowed us to walk out of here last night?”
Zazi, an Afghan national, gave writing, fingerprint and DNA samples to FBI agents Wednesday during a “very friendly, very cordial” interview, Folsom said. He said Zazi has no ties to terrorism, and he thinks his client drew investigators’ attention “because he stayed at a house owned by an old friend of his who was under observation from the FBI.”
According to law enforcement sources with knowledge of the investigation, the Colorado searches were part of a probe that began with Zazi and led to New York.
Zazi has driven limousines for First ABC Transportation in suburban Aurora, near Denver International Airport, for about six months, according to a worker who answered the phone at the company.
The man, who identified himself only as “Joe,” said he was startled to hear Zazi was under investigation. He said Zazi was a hard-working man who was single-handedly supporting his family.
“He is a young, nerdy, kind of good kid — nothing to do with religious or anything,” the man said. “He is a kid.”
Joe said co-workers called Zazi “the bearded one” in a lighthearted way. When he heard that Zazi might be associated with a bomb plot, he said, “I was literally laughing.”
“I agree with his lawyer he has nothing to do with that kind of stuff. His character is much better than that,” Joe said.
The case began with a New York police informant, with authorized FBI wiretaps used to further develop the case, the former counterterrorism official said. Agents launched the raids after police stopped Zazi on the George Washington Bridge during a recent visit to New York, raising concerns that he would figure out he was under surveillance, the former official told CNN.
Wednesday, Folsom said Zazi stayed in one of the apartments that was raided after he drove to New York from Denver to sort out a business issue. Sources close to the investigation told CNN that the Queens raids were spurred by a confluence of events in the city — including the upcoming U.N. General Assembly session and President Obama’s Wall Street speech on Monday.
It’s thought to be the first time Afghan nationals have been suspected of involvement in a terror plot targeting the United States. But FBI Director Robert Mueller told a Senate committee Wednesday that he did not think the investigation had revealed any “imminent danger.”
After literally days of editing uploading file size changing and developing cool logos for everyone with some new software I bought, I finally have the Q&A session from the night with Bruce Bawer online for all too see.
I think the interaction of the panel, of David Harris, Terry Glavin, Bruce Bawer, and Marc Lebuis is well worth the time to watch. All of these men come from quite diverse backgrounds and interests politically but have one very strong thing in common. The threat Islam poses to secular liberal democracy.
If you have already seen Bruce’s speech in Ottawa from Sept. 14th, go to the second video and watch the Q&A
Eeyore for Vlad
Link: 
Link:
Broadly speaking, 9/11 produced two instinctive responses in the thinking population, which then became political positions that have continued to diverge and harden with the years.
The realists instantly understood that the trade tower attacks were the tipping point of an already metastasizing jihad against the West, a jihad that had now to be resisted on all fronts: the physical jihad by combat, and the soft jihad– the push for Islamization of the West through suppression of “offensive” speech and a gradual imposition of shariah law –by words and civic actions.
A more populous and culturally influential group, our liberal dreamers — mainstream media, intelligentsia, liberal Christian and Jewish clergy and most Western politicians — were too besotted by utopian multicultural ideals to grasp the nettle of Islamism as a phenomenon beyond rational means of containment.
The Freethinking Film Society, a Canadian organization committed to providing the nation’s capital with interesting conservative/libertarian films, played host last evening to the much anticipated appearance of journalist Bruce Bawer, author of Surrender-Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom at the National Library, Archives of Canada to an enthusiastic audience.
The evening opened with a thoughtful introduction of panel members by Fred Litwin of the Free Thinking Film Society, and his blog Gay and Right, and with another to Mr. Bawer from Marc Lebuis creator of Canada’s most influential French language, anti-Islamist blog Point de Bascule. Also in attendance was James Cohen, the Canadian vice-president of the International Free Press Society, a vitally important global group which defends the universal right of free expression and combats those who would threaten it. The speaking panel consisted of four members, all of which brought remarkable qualifications, specific areas of expertise and varying political partisanship– award winning journalist and author Terry Glavin; David B. Harris, former chief of strategic planning for CSIS and currently a Senior Fellow for terrorism/national security at the Canadian Coalition for Democracies; renowned author Bruce Bawer and Marc Lepuis. It was easily recognizable from the start that despite the differences in their political views, the most potent of similarities between each of these men was a shared and cogent understanding of the very real and direct threat radical Islam presents to universal human values, and to the principle of individual freedoms.
I choose the words universal and human deliberately and carefully, as these terms reflected the basic undertone of the lecture. Each member thoughtfully reinforced the need to concentrate on the human face of this struggle, to reevaluate the usefulness of the popular concepts of left and right political partisanship we have so securely wrapped ourselves in and, to instead, abandon their usage and unite against those engaged in the furious pursuit to coerce and shift the world toward ‘Dar-al-Islam’. It is also important to understand that countless Muslims the world over do not subscribe to the prescription of submission handed them by the fascist elements that live among them. Many suffer greatly with some, bravely seeking freedom from persecution and enslavement by this hateful and intolerant ideology. It is within this recognition the panel made clear, that we share the most common of ground, where all of us can stand united in direct and strong opposition to extremism.
Mr. Bawer illustrated effectively that we are living in the midst of a jihad most of us do not recognize. We have come to believe that the world suffers only from violent jihad; terrorist plots to murder fueled by an intense hatred of western values by seventh century crackpots in suicide gear, self-imploding at the behest of foaming and slathering Imams in far away lands. While it is true that terror attacks happen with great frequency, a simultaneous but less spectacular attack is in motion. Far more dangerous than a street lined with bloodied body parts is the quiet jihad, the stealth jihad of the ‘polite’, bridge-building kind which is being played out in quiet neighborhoods, institutions and courtrooms across the western world. This type is patient, cunning and deceitful, culturally informed, well financed and legally savvy. Foolishly so, we are complicit in it’s advancement by both complacency and capitulation through our romantic attachment to such things as cultural-relativism, diversity projects, and multicultural policies. We have become dangerously vulnerable and as Mr. Bawer pointed out, they know it.
Islamists simply do not care which political office holds the power of the day as western legal codes are in and of themselves contrary to Islam. Left, right and the principle of democracy are man-made ‘illegal’ notions, a beyond-the-pale bastardization of the laws of Allah. These gross deeds can only be corrected by employing the scripture of the Quran as brought to the world by the prophet Muhammed in the form of sharia, the only law suitable for all of mankind.
Mr. Harris pointed to the increasing infiltration of the Islamist element seen increasingly in a vast array of institutions. Today in Canada as in western Europe, the political fascism of Islam has found a comfortable and protected footing among a variety of departments, banking institutions, political offices and inter-faith groups. His earnest call that we should insist upon the permanent crushing of section 13(1) of the HRC code received wide applause. Terry Glavin highlighted the moral bankruptcy of the feminist movement while in their staunch pursuit to defend the western woman, many routinely abandon the very same human needs asked of by an Afghan mother struggling against her male aggressors. Mr. Lepuis wondered why Imams in some Montreal mosques continue to stridently condemn Canada to a packed house of primarily second and third generation Muslims and why some honour killings are being committed at the hands of men who have been raised and educated in western nations. Each had cited circumstances clearly reflected in Bruce Bawer’s writing and each had reinforced truths found in Surrender.
Asked to review the speaking engagement given by Mr. Bawer and the accompanying guest panel, I entered the room like most other audience members. I left amazed and moved by three things: the unflinching bravery of Mr. Bawer and his devotion to reach out to those of us who seek to understand the growing threat of radical Islam and the operation of stealth jihad; the unity, comradeship and professionalism in common purpose held by the panel members to work in tandem against radical Islam and, the realization that we are not defending western values as much as we are defending human and universal ones.
Thank you to Fred Litwin at The Free Thinking Film Society for bringing Mr. Bawer to Ottawa for such an important event. Thank you to Mr. Harris, Mr. Glavin and Mr. Lepuis for their thoughtful analysis, expertise and professionalism and to James Cohen of the International Free Press Society for his attendance. Most of all, thank you to Mr. Bruce Bawer for his courage in writing such a book of importance and necessity, one which helps us to understand the threat of jihad by way of fundamentalist Islam.
Below, please find a video of Bruce Bawer’s excellent lecture in full. The video of the panel discussion is rumored to be ready and posted within a day or so and should be visible in this post as well, below Dr. Bawer’s lecture.
Link:
Grace for VTB:
Aqsa Parvez
The Toronto Star… A Mississauga father and son have been ordered to stand trial next year in a slaying that has attracted international attention.
Justice George Gage today decided there was enough evidence for Muhammad Parvez, now 59, and his son Waqas, now 28, to be tried for the planned and pre-meditated slaying of Aqsa Parvez. They were both committed to trial on a charge of first-degree murder in the strangulation death of Aqsa Parvez.
The 16-year-old student at Applewood Heights Secondary School died on Dec. 10, 2007. Aqsa, known to her friends as “Axa” was the youngest of eight children in the family, which immigrated from Pakistan.
The killing, which some have described as a carefully planned honour killing while others say was a horrible case of uncontrollable domestic violence continues to be the subject of world-wide Internet discussion involving a clash of Western and Middle Eastern cultures.
Evidence presented at the lengthy preliminary hearing and the reasons behind Justice Gage’s decision remain under a court-ordered publication ban.
I think the Americans might want to speed up that fence they are trying to build.
FOX NEWS… TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez railed against the West on Saturday, pledging to deepen their ties and stand together against the United States and world powers the two perceive as imperialistic.
Sept. 5: Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, left, shakes hands with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a meeting in Tehran on Saturday.
Chavez is on an 11-day tour that has taken him to Libya, Algeria, Syria and Iran. The leftist Venezuelan leader is also to visit Belarus, Russia and Spain in the trip he has described as a bid to build a “multi-polar world” and counter U.S. influence.
After landing in Tehran late Friday — his eighth visit to Iran so far — Chavez said Iran is “a true strategic ally, a staunch ally” to his country and defended Iran’s right to a nuclear program.
He praised Iran for standing up to alleged attempts by “Western forces” to destabilize it after the June presidential election that brought his ally Ahmadinejad a second term in office. These attempts have failed, Chavez said, and “Iran has been strengthened.”
During Chavez’s meeting Saturday with Ahmadinejad, Iran’s English-language state Press TV quoted the Iranian president as saying their two countries have “important missions to help the oppressed and revolutionary nations and to expand the anti-imperialist front in the world.”
“Time has passed for arrogant powers to have influence on revolutionary nations,” Ahmadinejad said.
Chavez and Ahmadinejad — both well-known for their anti-U.S. rhetoric — have forged ties in everything from finance to factories. Iran now manufactures cars, tractors and bicycles in Venezuela, and the deepening relationship has provoked concern in Washington.
Speaking to Venezuelan state TV on the phone from Tehran, Chavez defended Iran’s “sovereign right” to pursue a nuclear program, which the West fears masks nuclear arms making. Tehran, despite three rounds of U.N. sanctions over its failure to halt uranium enrichment, persists in the pursuit, insisting the program is only for peaceful purposes.
“There isn’t any proof that anybody can show that Iran is building an atomic bomb,” Chavez said. “We’re certain that Iran won’t give in to any blackmail.”
He said that Venezuela will also likely face such accusations in the future, as it is looking to develop “nuclear energy so that the Venezuelan people can also count on this marvelous resource for peaceful purposes.”
Chavez said both Tehran and Caracas are “facing the same enemy, which is the U.S. empire and its lackeys. And we will defeat the empire and its lackeys.”
He also said that a newly founded Iranian-Venezuelan bank, based in Caracas, now has its first $200 million of capital and that the two countries are also discussing plans to tap crude and gas together in both Venezuela and Iran, and to jointly build two ethanol plants.
