Rice's dangerous delusions

In "Palestinian 'humiliation'?" in the Washington Times (thanks to Doc Washburn), Joel Mowbray speaks truth to power about Condoleeza Rice's appalling myopia and inability or refusal to confront the reality of the jihad ideology:

In a keynote speech earlier this month to the American Task Force on Palestine, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sounded very unlike President Bush on the Middle East, lavishing praise on Palestinians and implicitly attacking Israel.

While the words she chose have invited criticism, much more concerning is that the top U.S. diplomat has the same fundamental misunderstanding of the Middle East that most do, namely that Palestinians are ready to coexist peacefully next to a Jewish state. This conventional diplomatic wisdom, however, ignores the history of the region since the Oslo accords in 1993: The once largely secular Palestinian society has become increasingly Islamic-and deeply radicalized.

Comparing the Palestinian cause to her own civil rights struggle growing up in "segregated Birmingham, Alabama," Miss Rice reminded the activist audience that if she could overcome such tremendous odds to become Secretary of State, Palestinians could achieve their dream of statehood. She based this belief on "the commitment of the Palestinian people to a better future."

Where does Mr. Bush's most loyal and trusted aide find evidence of this "commitment?" She offered none in her speech. Even if she had wanted to, though, such proof is in short supply. Poll after poll has indicated majority Palestinian support for suicide bombings. Even the term used for bombers, "shahids," is one of glorification, the equivalent of calling someone a saint. And whereas children across the world have posters in their room of sports stars or famous artists, Palestinian youths decorate their living space with posters celebrating "shahids."

In view of the radicalization of Palestinian society, the election this year of Hamas seems far less a vote against corruption-as the State Department explained it-and far more a statement of principle. Yet Miss Rice not only defended the election of Hamas but characterized it as an opportunity since "the Palestinian people and the international community can hold Hamas accountable. And Hamas now faces a hard choice that it has always sought to avoid: Either you are a peaceful political party, or a violent terrorist group -- but you cannot be both."

But what about the very real possibility, or even likelihood, that the Palestinian people elected Hamas precisely because it's a "violent terrorist group?" One thing Palestinians are not is stupid. Is it even possible that Palestinians didn't understand that they were electing a "violent terrorist group" with the stated goal of eliminating the Jewish state?

Read it all.

Morocco arrests 14 in ‘terror plot’

Morocco's relatively reformist leadership is, by virtue of its reformist tendencies, not sufficiently Islamic. And so it must be fought. From Reuters, with thanks to DFS:

RABAT: Moroccan authorities are holding 14 people suspected of belonging to a regional radical Islamist group linked to Al Qaeda, government officials said yesterday.

The 14 suspects had planned to carry out an unspecified "terrorist plot" on Morocco, with the help of Al Qaeda-linked foreign fighters who would travel from the Sahel-Sahara region, they said.

Morocco, a staunch US ally in the global fight on terror, has been on alert since 2003 when suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca, the country’s commercial capital.

It has arrested more than 3,000 people since then and broken up more than 50 radical Islamist cells.

But it is the first time that the authorities have announced the arrest of people with suspected links to foreign cells.

"The 14 persons are suspected of being linked to a global terrorist movement which has connections with small groups operating in the Sahel-Sahara region and links with members of a group based on the Algeria-Mali border," an official statement said.

The statement did not name the groups but government officials said the small groups were Islamist cells linked to the main Algerian Islamic rebel Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) faction.

Anti-terrorism police officials in North Africa and Europe have voiced concerns that the GSPC might turn itself into a magnet for radical Islamists in the region, providing them with weapons and military training in lawless areas of the Sahara desert.

The GSPC said in September it had joined Al Qaeda, whose leader Ayman al-Zawhiri urged the Algerian rebel group to become a "bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders".

Fitzgerald: The jig is up -- or it will be

In a statement regarding the Minneapolis Shari’a taxicab dispute that recently came to Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs from the Muslim Brotherhood, "Dr. Habib described the cabbies’ position as 'absurd' and added 'Muslims must respect and comply with the laws and regulations of the countries they live in and be a good example for their fellow citizens.'"

This is akin to the about-face of the imam Hilali in Australia who, having been secretly taped at his mosque making his now-famous remarks about women dressed in non-Muslim fashion as "meat" who deserved whatever they got from inflamed Muslim men (apparently likened, in the somewhat clumsy metaphor, to the beasts that are attracted to that "meat"), and after indignation had been expressed too loudly and consistently to be ignored, pretended he had meant no such thing and apologized for any malentendu. He did the same thing a few years ago after praising the 9.11 attacks as “God’s work.”

A Charlie Brown Jihad

Good grief! I mean -- Allahu akbar! Charlie Brown and Linus become mujahedin! Over at the Jawa Report (thanks to Steve).

Rioting "youths" burn hundreds of cars in France

Oddly enough, this AP story actually mentions "Muslims." Perhaps the censor had gone to retrieve his liverwurst sandwich, and this one slipped through. "Rioting youths burn hundreds of cars in France: Authorities upbeat despite violence marking anniversary of ’05 unrest," from AP, with thanks to Andrea:

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France - Marauding youths torched hundreds of vehicles overnight and on Saturday in renewed violence coinciding with the first anniversary of riots that exposed a deep schism between poor North African immigrants and mainstream France.

A group of teenagers set one bus on fire Saturday in the southern French port city of Marseille, seriously wounding a passenger. Three others suffered from smoke inhalation, police said. Two other public buses and 277 vehicles around the country were burned overnight, police said.

Six police were injured and 47 people were arrested, ministry officials said. Still the Interior Ministry described the night as “relative calm,” noting that up to 100 cars are torched by youths in troubled neighborhoods on an average night.

Police had braced for a bigger replay of violence in the poor suburbs predominantly made up of Muslims from former French colonies in Africa. Friday marked the one-year anniversary of the deaths of two teens that ignited three weeks of riots in 2005.

The rioting was fueled by anger at France’s failure to offer equal opportunities to many minorities — especially Arabs and blacks — and France’s 5 million-strong Muslim population.

France’s trouble integrating minorities and the suburban unrest are becoming hot political issues in the campaign for next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections. The government passed an equal opportunities law this spring and has poured funds into “sensitive” areas, but disenchantment is still pervasive....

Hmm. You mean they've given the rioters money and favorable treatment, and that still hasn't solved the problem? Do you think maybe it springs from the ideology of Islamic supremacism, and not from poverty at all?

“Four guys attacked Bus 346,” said witness Thierry Ange, 19. “They made everyone get off, then they hit a woman and dragged out the bus driver by his tie,” then torched the bus with a gasoline bomb in a bottle, he said.

The blackened remains of another bus burned earlier stood across town. Two armed men had forced passengers off the bus, police said.

Youths also tried to burn a bus in Reims in eastern France, and attackers hurled metal balls at an empty bus in Trappes, west of Paris, the Interior Ministry said.

Scores of police, wielding shields and backed by a helicopter shining its searchlight, swept into a tough housing project in Montfermeil, a town near Clichy-sous-Bois, and several youths responded by throwing stones.

Paris’ transport authority responded to the violence by curtailing bus services in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of the capital, which is home to thousands of immigrants and their French-born children.

And thus Paris slides toward Third World conditions.

The Muslim Brotherhood writes to LGF

To deny this story about their role in the Minneapolis Sharia Cab Controversy. Charles Johnson's comments are apposite: "It’s the standard denial. This comes from the political and public relations wing of the global jihad. No need for them to threaten. When someone in their network goes too far, they’ll back down and pretend they had nothing to do with it. They’re in this for the long haul."

A portion of the letter, via LGF:

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) denied completely any involvement in the current dispute caused by a group of Somali Muslim cab drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, U.S.A, who are refusing to pick up drunk passengers or those carrying alcoholic beverages claiming that Islam prohibits them from driving passengers with Alcohol. Dr. Mohamed Habib, the first Deputy Chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood, affirmed that Muslim Brotherhood has nothing to do whatsoever with what these Muslim cab drivers believe or view mistakenly as religious decree. Dr. Habib described the cabbies’ position as “absurd” and added “Muslims must respect and comply with the laws and regulations of the countries they live in and be a good example for their fellow citizens”

The question naturally presents itself: is that an unshakeable principle, or a temporary expedient?

"It's a steady, stealthy indoctrination aimed at creating a whole new generation of jihadists. And scandalously, it is unopposed"

It is unopposed not only for the clueless indifference scored in this article. It is unopposed because the vaunted overwhelming majority of moderate Muslims has as yet framed no response to the theological presentations of the jihadists. Only the willfully self-deceived and irredeemably credulous believe that this immense work has already been done.

And Rita Katz is right. It can't be done only by the Bush Administration, and not only because they show no signs of understanding the jihad ideology. It has to be done by those who have moral and intellectual credibility among Muslims -- and yes, this is another virtually insurmountable hurdle, since reformers immediately open themselves to charges from jihadists that they are disloyal Muslims for questioning the literal words of the Qur'an and Muhammad.

"U.S. seen balking at challenge by Islamist Web," by David Morgan for Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is failing to counter Islamist online propaganda that could propel militancy into the next generation, experts say.

From the Middle East, Asia and Europe, Islamists have built an expansive Internet library of sophisticated texts on the ideology that underpins violence against the West and other enemies, analysts and intelligence officials said.

"It's a steady, stealthy indoctrination aimed at creating a whole new generation of jihadists. And scandalously, it is unopposed," said Stephen Ulph, who studies the Islamist Web for the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington think tank.

E-books and online pamphlets, with titles such as "39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad," encourage the growth of home-grown militant cells across the world, including in such Western countries as Canada and Britain, the experts believe.

U.S. intelligence is reluctant to mount an effective counteroffensive by recruiting Islamic experts from overseas to rebut and even ridicule Islamist authors, according to experts and U.S. officials.

"Anything exposing the West as a supporter would destroy Islamic opposition to the jihadis," one intelligence official on condition of anonymity. "We are completely out of luck with the Muslim world, across the board."

Several agencies including the CIA, FBI and the office of U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte are part of a closely guarded effort to monitor the content of Islamist Web sites.

But the program is hampered by stringent security standards that make it hard for intelligence agencies to employ Islamist experts from the Arab world.

"Even if we think we understand elements of the religion, we certainly don't understand elements of their cultural communications," the intelligence official said.

POP JIHAD PROPAGANDA

Others warned that U.S. policy-makers could be making a fatal error by ignoring doctrinal online texts that lay bare the substance of a violent Islamist mind-set.

"In order to be able to fight something, you have first of all to understand what is going on. And I don't think that at this stage they understand it well enough to fight it," said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, which tracks and analyzes international terrorism.

In a presentation this week, Ulph said doctrinal material accounts for 60 percent of Islamist Web content and most texts are in Arabic. But many have begun to reappear in English and other European languages in an apparent appeal to Muslims living in the West.

One of the most popular is the 1,600-page treatise, "Call to Global Islamic Resistance," a comprehensive guide to militant life by al Qaeda ideologue Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, also known as Abu Musab al-Suri, who was captured in Pakistan a year ago.

The Islamist Web became a center for al Qaeda operational planning, training and fund-raising after the fall of the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan.

Thousands of Islamist Web sites have since sprouted, many appealing to disenfranchised Muslim youth with so-called Pop Jihad propaganda that can include films of beheadings and spectacular attacks on U.S. troops in
Iraq.

But Ulph and others, including former intelligence officials, say the future of Islamist militancy depends on the more sophisticated doctrinal material, capable of guiding the life of the committed militant from childhood to martyrdom.

"The focus has been on how these guys use the Internet for fund-raising and operations," said Jarret Brachman of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. "Only recently have we realized there are strategic implications."

Only recently, eh, Brachman? Well, some of us have been trying to tell you for quite some time.

3 Australians, Dane held in Yemen over arms smuggling to aid Somali jihad

All four were studying at al-Iman University in Sanaa, Yemen, a university once suspended by the Supreme Yemeni Council for Universities for overlooking students' academic qualifications (or lack thereof) as long as they could recite 5 excerpts from the Qur'an (no word on which ones).

The Danish suspect is said to be a convert to Islam -- another convert, another alleged "misunderstander" of his new religion. "3 Australians, Dane Held in Yemen Over Arms Smuggling," from AP:

SANAA, 28 October 2006 -- Three Australians and a Dane have been arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle weapons to Somalia, a security official said late Thursday.

All four have been studying at the Islamist Iman University, which is run by Sheik Abdul-Majid Al-Zindani. The United States lists Al-Zindani as an Al-Qaeda supporter.

[...]

However, a Danish Foreign Ministry official confirmed the arrest of the Dane but refused to identify him. "All I can say is that a Danish national has been arrested according to our information," said Uffe Wolffheckel of the Foreign Ministry’s Consular Service.

Danish media said the suspect is a 23-year-old male who converted to Islam and moved to Yemen two months ago with his wife and child.

[...]

Yemen is believed to be a frequent route for smuggling arms to Somali factions.

"Women are like uncovered meat" Muslim cleric linked to terror groups

And this has been known for 20 years.

Here is a story about the "uncovered meat" remarks. And here is the same Sheikh saying that 9/11 was God's work.

"Muslim cleric linked with terror groups," by Jim Dickens and Glenn Milne for The Sunday Telegraph, with thanks to LGF:

ASIO warned authorities 20 years ago that Sheik Taj al-Din Al-hilaly could inflame communal violence in Australia.

Court judgments show ASIO initially believed the controversial mufti posed a risk to the community because of his alleged propensity to cause or promote violence.

Shortly after his arrival in Australia as the new imam of Lakemba Mosque in 1982, Sheik Hilaly was also linked with a shadowy terrorist group, Soldiers of God, which is thought to have been involved in the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981.

A group of the same name, also known as Ansar al Islam, is among those listed by the Federal Government as a banned terrorist organisation.

Western governments believe Ansar al Islam has close ideological and operational links with al-Qaeda.

Sheik Hilaly was also alleged to have endorsed suicide bombing, verbally attacked women and preached a highly political message of extremism.

The Sunday Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman writes today that a former intelligence officer said Sheik Hilaly's name first surfaced in a report by one of Australia's most senior intelligence assets in Cairo. The claimed the sheik spent a number of years training in Libya and was sent to Australia to train extremists.

Akerman writes the report was shelved and the agent who sent it believes that a campaign was waged against its contents.

Not surprising, given the campaigns that are waged against those who tell the truth about such matters today.

Al-Qaeda warns Canada

Canada's "fanatic adherence to Christianity"? Are they talking about the Canada that's just north of the United States, or is there some other Canada I don't know about? "Al-Qaeda warns Canada: Quit Afghan mission or endure attack like 9/11, threat says," by Stewart Bell in the National Post, with thanks to LGF:

OTTAWA - An al-Qaeda strategist has warned Canada to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan or face terrorist attacks similar to 9/11, Madrid and the London transit bombings.

The threat, attributed to a member of the al-Qaeda information and strategy committee, condemns Prime Minister Stephen Harper for refusing to pull out of Afghanistan.

It also refers to Canada's "fanatic adherence to Christianity" as well as its purported attempts to "damage the Muslims" and its support for the "Christian Crusade" against al-Qaeda.

"Despite the strong, increasing opposition to spread its forces in the fire of South Afghanistan, it seems that they will not learn the lesson easily," Hossam Abdul Raouf writes.

"They will either be forced to withdraw their forces or face an operation similar to New York, Madrid, London and their sisters, with the help of Allah."

Three years of jihad watching

Three years ago today, in a climate-controlled vault sealed with three feet of concrete, located somewhere in the vicinity of the Jefferson Memorial and the Golden Gate Bridge and accessible only by helicopter and bungee rope, I began Jihad Watch. I hoped to raise general awareness of the nature of the jihad ideology, the activities of jihadists around the world, and the ways in which both of these were being obscured by academic apologists and the mainstream media.

It has been a tumultuous three years. The site has grown considerably, such that we now average over 30,000 unique visitors daily, and about 600,000 to a million hits each day. ("Hits," as far as I understand it, refers to files viewed. If you look at the front page, it's a hit. If you open an article, it's a hit. If you go back to the front page and open up another article, that's two more hits. Hits also multiply if picture files are involved. There are about 20 to 30, or more, hits per person. Some have charged that by noting that we receive about 30 million hits per month, we are claiming 30 million different visitors. That is not in fact the case.)

Largely, I believe, because this site has captured attention, I have spoken about the jihad ideology on the BBC, the VOA, numerous other radio and television outlets, and to audiences all over this country, as well as in Europe and Israel. I've spoken at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry, given presentations to U.S. Central Command and to a Joint Terrorism Task Force group, and also addressed influential fora that I am not at liberty to name. I've given information on jihadist activity to media outlets on which (or in which, as the case may be) I've never appeared personally, including ABC News, the Washington Post, and the O'Reilly Factor. And I've written two books that made the New York Times Bestseller List. All this is personally gratifying, but it is all much more important as an indication that, increasingly, word is getting out. The truth is getting out.

Much of this I attribute to this site. Hugh Fitzgerald and I, with immense help from Marisol Seibold and others over the last three years, have endeavored to present the facts, no matter how politically incorrect and uncomfortable those facts may be. Although there is the expected drumbeat of calumnies and falsehoods about what we stand for and what we are doing, we have also seen that many people of good will have come to respect this site as a trustworthy and reliable source of information and commentary. We offer rational analysis, while those who tell others to slit the throats of their children lecture us about spreading "hate."

Of course, the fog of misinformation and propaganda still blankets the West and largely strangles public discourse about the nature of the jihad threat and what can be done about it. And for that reason, Year Four of The Jihad Watch Era hereby begins.

Fitzgerald: The rationality of "Islamophobia"

From the announcement of this Contest by the "Islamic Human Rights Commission":

What is Islamophobia? A contemporary and emerging form of prejudice Islamophobia can be described as stereotypes, bias or acts of hostility towards individual Muslims or followers of Islam in general. In addition to individual acts of intolerance and racial profiling, Islamophobia leads to viewing Muslims as a greater security threat on an institutional, systemic and societal level and perceiving their views to be intrinsically problematic, violent or unethical.

And the Awards:

Islamophobia Awards: The Islamophobia Awards is an annual event to acknowledge - through satire, revue and comedy - the worst Islamophobes of that year. Centred around a gala dinner, the 'awards' themsleves are both entertaining and raise awarness of a serious and growing prejudice. Real awards are given to those who have battled against Islamophobia - often against enormous odds.

Note the last sentence in the definition of "Islamophobia":

Islamophobia leads to viewing Muslims as a greater security threat on an institutional, systemic and societal level and perceiving their views to be intrinsically problematic, violent or unethical.

A security threat "greater" than what? Greater than that posed to non-Muslims, by other non-Muslims, in non-Muslims societies? But surely we don't need to know much of anything to know that that is true. After familiarizing yourself with Qur'an, Hadith, and the biography of Muhammad, do you perceive that those who claim to believe that the Qur'an is the uncreated and immutable word of God, and who take Muhammad to be the Perfect Man, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, to hold views that might be described by you as "intrinsically problematic, violent, or unethical"?

French police official: "We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists"

Here is a story about the French Intifada that does not shy away from identifying the rioters as Muslims, or noting the jihadist element of the riots: "Ongoing 'intifada' in France has injured 2,500 police in 2006," from the World Tribune.com:

This might have dropped below the radar, but Al Qaida and its allies are literally battling the Crusaders every day in Europe. And so far, Europe isn't doing so well.

"We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists," said Michel Thoomis, secretary general of the Action Police trade union. "This is not a question of urban violence any more. It is an intifada, with stones and firebombs."

The French Interior Ministry has acknowledged the Muslim uprising. The ministry said more than 2,500 police officers have been injured in 2006. This amounts to at least 14 officers each day.

The battles have been under-reported but alarming to French authorities. Muslim street commanders, who run lucrative drug networks, have organized youngsters in housing projects to ambush police and confront security forces. The response time allows hundreds of Muslims to storm police cars and patrols within minutes.

"You no longer see two or three youths confronting police," Thoomis said. "You see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their comrades free when they are arrested."

France's huge Muslim minority community has come under the influence of agents often influenced and financed by Al Qaida. These agents have recruited Muslim youngsters for urban warfare in which police and government representatives are injured daily.

Not surprisingly, Muslim neighborhoods are becoming autonomous zones, with police and government workers too scared to enter. The police union is demanding the Interior Ministry supply officers with armored cars.

Egyptian police seize one tonne of high explosives

Inner Spiritual Strugglers thwarted in central Sinai. From Reuters:

ISMAILIA, (Reuters) - Egyptian police have recovered nearly one tonne of high explosives hidden in a mountainous area of central Sinai, security sources said on Friday.

The explosives were buried in 13 plastic bags and were discovered by bedouin trackers working for the government, according to the sources, who did not specify the type of explosive.

The area where the discovery was made has been the site of previous shootouts between police and suspects wanted for bombings in Sinai over the past two years.

More than 100 people were killed in bomb attacks in tourist resorts throughout Sinai since October 2004. Egypt has blamed the attacks on an Islamist militant group called al-Tawhid wal Jihad (One God and Jihad).

Vote early and often!

While looking around in the fever swamps of Dean Esmay's site in order to write this post, I discovered here that I have been nominated for "Islamophobe of the Year" by the Islamic Human Rights Commission of the UK.

"Islamophobia" is, in reality, a politically motivated construct designed to deflect attention away from the depredations of jihad terrorists. No one, of course, would have any "phobia" toward Muslims at all were it not for the acts of violence committed daily by Muslims and justified by those who commit them by reference to Islamic teachings. You will note that there is no worldwide "Buddhismophobia" or "Confucianismophobia." Now why is that?

Anyway, I'm in very good company among the international nominees (I'm in the U.S. category). Here are a few of them, along with the taglines from the Islamic Human Rights Commission:

Ehud Olmert For his massacre of the Palestinian and Lebanese people.

King Abdullah of Jordan For his submission to the Israelis and abandoning the Palestinians and Lebanese.

King Mohammed VI of Morocco For his 'so called reforms' aimed at removing Islam from the the Moroccan people.

Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia's Prime Minister) For saying that the war on terror is "something of a godsend" and that Ethiopia is at the "epicenter of terrorism" and "a secular island in the sea of Islam."

Daniel Pipes For his anti-Arab, anti-Islam articles and his campaigns and discrimination against Muslims.

George W Bush For the promoting the phrase 'Islamofascist'

Robert Spencer The author of anti-Islamic books such as ‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam’, as well as ‘Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith’. Islam is often vented in hateful websites such as Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch.

John Howard For stating that Muslims migrating to Australia are bringing problems such as jihadist views and conservative attitudes to women not encountered with other immigrant groups.

Ayan Hirsi For trading on a false reputation that she was a victim of Muslim abuse.

Jose Maria Aznar (Former Spanish PM) For his speech on 22 September 2006 at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

Jack Straw For stoking the flames of Islamophobia with his ‘request’ that Muslim women should remove their veils before he graces them with his presence.

John Reid For whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment and continuing his witch hunt against the Muslims.

Melanie Phillips For (amongst others) suggesting that Iran might attack Jerusalem on 22nd August to commemorate Meraj and for writing her book 'Londonistan'.

Tony Blair For everything.

I suspect that George Bush will sweep my category, so I won't be preparing my "I'd like to thank the Academy...You like me! You really like me!" speech, but I am honored to be nominated, as perhaps it suggests that my efforts against global jihad supremacism are making a difference.

An olive branch, or a call to surrender

Last Saturday I received an email from Aziz H. Poonawalla, a blogger at Dean Esmay's site, with the subject line "an olive branch." Mr. Poonawalla was alerting me to a post he had written at Esmay's site entitled "the jihadwatch," which he was characterizing as that olive branch.

When I received the email I was at the Objectivist Conference in Boston, where I spoke along with Daniel Pipes, Flemming Rose (the Danish newspaper editor who published the Muhammad cartoons last year), Professor John Lewis, and others. Then I took off for Norfolk, Virginia, where I gave a half-day introduction to Islamic jihad theology to the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force. After that I went to Dallas, where I spoke to a Lumen Institute group Wednesday night. Only now am I getting a chance to respond -- which I am doing at this late date for two reasons: because I have had many other exchanges with Esmay (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here) and I believe it would be churlish not to respond to what is being characterized as an olive branch, and because it is certain that many people of good will believe the things that Esmay and Mr. Poonawalla apparently believe, and they may find this response helpful.

The funny thing about being a muslim in America is how you often feel like you're sidelined from the debate.

Mr. Poonawalla has no reason to feel sidelined as far as I am concerned. In fact, as I posted here last June, he and I had been enjoying a cordial and mutually respectful email exchange when I asked him politely to explain why he had apparently intended to mislead Dean Esmay's readers into thinking that my Arabic rendering of my own name was erroneous when it wasn't, taking advantage of their ignorance of Arabic to portray me as an ignorant buffoon. Then Mr. Poonawalla grew silent. Esmay, meanwhile, has gleefully referred to me as "Roobart Sbunsar" quite often since then, and apparently Mr. Poonawalla has never taken him aside and explained to him about p's and vowels in Arabic. Sidelined? Only by his own choosing. I would have been happy to continue our exchange, and to post his explanation of the transliteration deception, if he had cared to offer one.

In any case, in his "olive branch" Mr. Poonawalla goes on to praise Dean Esmay (whom he praises for his "jihad," while I am on a "crusade" -- loaded and significant word choices in Mr. Poonawalla's circles), and then comes to this:

Robert Spencer is on a crusade of a similarly noble intent. That is, to identify the rhetoric of the extremists within Islam and put it on naked display. In so doing he provides a benchmark against which other behavior and rhetoric can be compared. The purpose of this is to stand guard against the rise of such similar rhetoric here at home and thus prevent the ideology of bin Laden from gaining a toehold.

However the problem with both of these causes [that is, Esmay's and mine] is that they don't recognize or honor the other.

This reminds me of when Ibrahim Hooper called me a "hatemonger" on MSNBC, and Keith Olbermann told both of us, "Don't call each other hatemongers." Well, I hadn't actually called Hooper a hatemonger. Nor had I ever said one word about Dean Esmay, or even heard of him, very long before he started calling me a liar, an ignoramus, a traitor -- and since then, in carpet-chewing, eye-socket-popping rage, a man without conscience, destined to die unloved and unmourned, and to fry in hell. Among other things.

Now I am told that we don't "honor" each other, and that we should. Search for "Robert Spencer" and "Roobart Sbunsar" at Dean Esmay's site and you will find a rather steady torrent of abuse and assaults on my honesty, my intelligence, my integrity, my patriotism, my good will, and more. In his relentless attacks Esmay has never accorded me even a modicum of simple human courtesy or good will, as he did to Michelle Malkin and Rusty Shackleford when he attacked them (on false pretenses, I should add), and he has transgressed his own self-righteous exhortation never to assume that one knows the motives of one's opponents. Should Dean Esmay and I "honor" one another? That is not up to me.

Because Robert makes no effort to say to his audience of muslims, "they are more alike us than they are different. In fact, they ARE us", his site fills with the most egregious and xenophobic bile. Robert, like Charles Johnson of LGF, prefers to take no responsibility for the contents of his comment threads, but the problem is that his crusade cannot be separated from the miasma that lurkes beneath it. Simply put, the crusade of Jihadwatch becomes, because it has no emphasis on humanizing muslims, a witch hunt.

I don't accept this characterization on many levels. In the first place, Muslims don't need to be "humanized." They are human already. I am not sure what Mr. Poonawalla means when he faults Jihad Watch for having "no emphasis on humanizing muslims." Does he mean that we never post about Muslims doing good? But that is false. Do we decline to cover Muslims fighting against the global jihad? Of course not. As I pointed out to Mr. Poonawalla's fellow Esmay blogger Ali Eteraz here, we frequently cover Muslim activism against Muslim oppression. I noted two posts for Mr. Eteraz: this one from the early days of the site, recounting the travails of a member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, a group that opposes the mullahocracy; and this one about Muslims opposing the Talibanization of Somalia. Search the archives and you'll find many more. Perhaps Mr. Poonawalla would be surprised to see posts like this one, or to learn that Tashbih Sayyed, editor of Muslim World Today, is a member of the Jihad Watch Board of Directors. As I have said from the beginning of Jihad Watch, "any Muslim who renounces the ideologies of jihad and dhimmitude is most welcome to join forces with us." But to my knowledge Dean Esmay has never troubled to tell his readers such things about Jihad Watch.

It also does not help that Robert routinely ascribes the CAUSE of Islamic extremist ideology to the faith of Islam. That the extremists use this or that Qur'an verse for their justification is not surprising; but were their holy text the phone directory would they act any differently? Throughout history every holy text - and even some non-holy ones - have been used to justify all manner of evil. Let us be frank about personal responsibility here: the CAUSE of the extremists' actions is their own souls and their own dark ambitions. Not their vision of Shari'a for its own sake, but rather the benefits that they imagine such to accrue to them in this life and the hereafter. THAT is what drives them and it is what has driven their predecesors of all faiths and none throughout history's bloody sweep.

All right. Here we come to the heart of the matter. I am wrong in ascribing "the CAUSE of Islamic extremist ideology to the faith of Islam," when in fact, according to Mr. Poonawalla, this ideology could have come from anywhere, even the phone book, and after all, the holy texts of every faith have been used to justify violence.

Yet there seems to be a bit of confusion here. In the first place, it is the "extremists" themselves, not I, who "routinely" ascribe "the CAUSE of Islamic extremist ideology to the faith of Islam." I have posted hundreds and hundreds of examples of this in the three years of Jihad Watch, and have many, many times asked moderate Muslims for some compelling Islamic refutation of the jihad theology. None has ever been forthcoming -- even from Mr. Poonawalla, who promised me in those cordial emails some anti-jihad material from Al-Azhar but never quite got around to getting it to me.

With jihadists daily recruiting for their ranks by appealing to the Qur'an and Sunnah, this is a grave and glaring omission. And it is not my doing. For it is not a matter of the jihadists using, in Mr. Poonawalla's words, "this or that Qur'an verse for their justification." Contrary to Esmay's repeated contention that finding justification for the jihad in the Qur'an is a matter of "cherry-picking" a few verses here and there that Muslims otherwise do not understand in a violent way, the jihad in order to establish the supremacy of Sharia is taught not only in the Qur'an, but in the Hadith, in the words and deeds of Muhammad, and by all the schools (madhahib) of Islamic jurisprudence.

Jihadists are well aware of this, and work hard to situate "the CAUSE of Islamic extremist ideology" within "the faith of Islam." See, to take just one of many examples, this article I wrote a couple of years ago about a theological exposition by Zarqawi. In it, I wrote this:

Zarqawi’s tape amounts to a direct frontal assault on the glib and still oft-repeated assertion that the 9/11 attacks are condemned by Islam because Islam forbids the killing of innocent civilians. It is urgently to be hoped that all those courageous groups that identify themselves as forces for Muslim moderation...construct responses to Zarqawi that reason from Islamic principles....With this audiotape, Zarqawi has seized the intellectual and theological initiative within the global Islamic community, and reinforced the jihadist claim to represent “pure Islam” — a claim that has proved to be a potent recruitment tool among Muslims worldwide, as well as here in the United States. If moderates do not or cannot take that initiative from him, the consequences could reverberate across the world for decades to come.

Did I write Zarqawi's exposition of Islamic theology? Or any of the other similar writings by jihadists? Did I ask Zarqawi to invoke Muhammad's example when justifying his beheadings in Iraq? With respect, Mr. Poonawalla's focus is misplaced. He is shooting the messenger instead of dealing with the real problem: the Muslims who justify violence by referring to Islamic teachings, not the one who reports on their doing so -- me. He is asking me either to look the other way when they quote the Qur'an and invoke Muhammad, or else to tell people that they are doing so incorrectly.

Well, it is not up to me to say whether they are doing so correctly or incorrectly. I just report that they are doing so, and show the deep roots of their perspective in Islamic theology and sacred texts. That's just reality. It is up to peaceful Muslims to challenge this perspective among Muslims if they do not wish it to prevail.

What's more, Mr. Poonawalla himself acknowledges that jihadists act in view of "the benefits that they imagine such to accrue to them in this life and the hereafter." Now, where did they get the idea that they would receive such benefits? From the Qur'an, of course, which promises Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah (9:111), and from Muslim preachers worldwide who invoke that verse and others to justify suicide bombing. Is that not a "CAUSE of Islamic extremist ideology" that is derived from and rooted within "the faith of Islam"? I believe it is. What does Mr. Poonawalla propose we do about this? Ignore it? Deny it is happening? I would rather he and other anti-jihadist Muslims confront and refute it, so as to try to discourage Muslims from having recourse to such actions in the future.

The result is that Robert's readers do indeed come to believe - fed upon a diet of one-sided interpretation as they are - that all muslims are the enemy, potentially.

Of course, I have never said that, in fact, but I have noted that the American Muslim community has made no effort to expel jihadist sympathizers from its ranks, and that some who were apparently moderates turned out to be deceivers. There has been no large-scale, organized effort of takfir by American Muslims: takfir is the process of declaring another group of Muslims to be unbelievers because of their heretical views. Why haven't American Muslims done this for Al-Qaeda, or Hamas, or Hizballah? And in the absence of such an effort, what are infidels to do? I look forward to Mr. Poonawalla's explanation of how non-Muslims in America can reliably distinguish between Muslims who sympathize with the jihad, and may someday act on those sympathies, and those who do not.

The only muslims that become non-threats are those that are externally non-muslim and secular.

That's false also. And I repeat: "any Muslim who renounces the ideologies of jihad and dhimmitude is most welcome to join forces with us."

Hence the popularity of the three Goddesses (Manji, Sultan, and Hirsi Ali) in their circles. Muslims such as myself have no margin for error - the slightest misstatement and we are damned, our motives and intentions pre-ordained. And the times we seek to reach out, we are dismissed as practicing taqqiya or decitful. Isn't it profoundly obvious how such alienation is counter to the self-interest of us all?

Esmay has denounced me repeatedly for taking issue with Ali Eteraz in this post. He has taken this as evidence that when Islamic reformers do appear, I condemn them as deceivers. In fact, you will find no such characterization of Ali Eteraz's motives in that post. But I do point out some rather glaring inaccuracies in his presentation. Why? Because if I can see them, knowledgeable Muslims can see even more -- and this attempt at "reform" will founder. I make no apologies for pointing out such things. Serious Muslims know what their religious texts say, and will not be moved by efforts at "reform" that pretend that large portions of those texts do not exist. Reformers should not ignore, but should refute, the jihad ideology. Why is that too much to ask?

The challenge I pose to Robert then is this: to simply acknowledge the fact that his work has attracted a community of hatred, and that is a problem. And not a harmless one, but rather one that genuinely hinders his very own cause.

Well, it's certainly true that CAIR and others have quoted unhinged comments from Jihad Watch -- which indicates that they can't find the "hatred" they're looking for in my own writings, so they have to resort to trying to hold me responsible for intemperate comments here. But as I have said many times, if you think I agree with the comment, provide evidence of that agreement from my own writings. If you can't, then the comment no more reflects on my own positions than do the comments of the many Islamic apologists and jihad apologists who also post comments at Jihad Watch.

But in any case, a "community of hatred"? No. There are angry people who come here, to be sure. But their anger is not without cause. I think that if Mr. Poonawalla and Dean Esmay had scolded Americans in 1943 for speaking in abusive terms about Germans and Japanese, they would not have found as sympathetic a hearing as Esmay does for his "Islamophobia" charges today. And this constant denial and shift of focus -- the blaming of me rather than the jihadists for using the teachings of Muhammad and Islam to justify their actions -- does nothing to assuage that anger. A "community of hatred"? No. A community of patriots, of lovers of Western civilization and human rights, of people who are passionately committed to defending those things.

In any case, comments are, when all is said and done, unmoderated. I don't have time to read most of them, especially these days, but when particularly abusive ones are brought to my attention, I do remove them. Unlike Esmay, who would not allow Jihad Watch commenters to comment in my defense at his site, I believe in freedom of speech, and that the antidote to bad speech is more speech. And I believe that if comments here offend Aziz H. Poonawalla, he should strive all the harder to eradicate the causes of that anger from the American Muslim community and from the umma worldwide.

Meanwhile, however, Esmay continues his attacks, with a screed against unmoderated comments at Little Green Footballs. Perhaps because I am not directly involved, his characteristic wall-climbing, straitjacket-worthy hysteria is not in evidence (if you like that sort of thing, check out his maniacal anti-Christian rantings in the comments field here), but he does make a number of simply false assertions:

The believer in the Taqqiya Libel against Muslims says that any Muslim can be assumed to be lying to you if you're not a Muslim. They further tell you that any Muslim who expresses hatred of terrorism, hatred of political violence, love for America, or love for Freedom is simply a liar. After all, the Koran "directs" them to lie about these things.

But of course the Koran contains no such direction. Taqqiya is only to be invoked in extreme circumstances, so as to avoid bloodshed and horror. Furthermore, Taqqiya is actually rejected by a majority of Muslims worldwide. Indeed, most conservative Muslim scholars say that "taqqiya" is just code-word for "liar" and that lying is never acceptable under Islam.

Of course, the idea that taqiyya means that "any Muslim can be assumed to be lying to you if you're not a Muslim" is absurd, but aside from that, his assertion that "the Koran contains no such direction" is false. For example: commenting on Qur'an 3:28, the great (and quite mainstream) Qur'an commentator Ibn Kathir says this: if believers "in some areas or times fear for their safety from the disbelievers," they "are allowed to show friendship outwardly, but never inwardly. For instance, Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Ad-Darda said, 'We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.' Al-Bukhari said that Al-Hasan said, 'The Tuqyah [or taqiyya, the shielding of what is in one's heart] is allowed until the Day of Resurrection.'"

Ibn Kathir, a pious Muslim and a renowned scholar whose work has been revered by Muslims for centuries, believes that the Qur'an allows believers to deceive unbelievers. Dean Esmay says that the Qur'an says no such thing, but gives no actual evidence beyond nameless authorities to support his view. And I'm an evil Islamophobe, repeating the equivalent of the blood libel against the Jews (Esmay makes the equation elsewhere in his post), for quoting an actual Muslim source (and I have many, many others that speak in the same vein) that says deception is acceptable, and pointing out that it is quite possible, and indeed probable, that some Muslims in the world today agree with Ibn Kathir. Get the picture?

Esmay also says that "Nowhere anywhere [sic] in the Koran is suicide bombing endorsed. This is yet another Libel against Muslims."

Call the Pentagon, Dean. You also might want to call in the authors of this detailed defense of suicide bombing on Islamic grounds for a little Islamic instruction.

Aziz H. Poonawalla wrote me again last Monday, saying: "Matoko clearly was mistaken, and I'll post ot that effect later. Also, Dean owes you an apology. Which I will make plain to him." "Matoko" is one of Esmay's favorite attack dogs, who doesn't seem to care how wild or inaccurate her charges are. See here and here, and so much for her. But so far no such post has appeared from Mr. Poonawalla. Instead, Esmay today links to a blogger who calls herself "Isis," who includes a gratuitous swipe at me in a post about how people should and should not talk about Islamic terrorism: "Reading Robert Spencer’s latest book or citing 'the Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam' does not make you an Islamic scholar." I do not know "Isis" and had never heard of her before this afternoon, but I repeat the request of her that I have always extended to reasonable people, and even to Dean Esmay: rather than simply sneering, please show me where I'm wrong, and let's discuss these issues in a rational manner. But I know: it is easier to throw stones and set up straw men to knock down than to defend one's own position. So I'm not expecting anything.

Esmay, finally, has been spending quite a bit of time today discussing a Muslim soldier who was killed in Iraq, as if his death proves everything he charges about "Islamophobia." I suggest on the contrary that that soldier's memory would be far better served by an honest discussion by both Muslims and non-Muslims of good will of the elements of Islam that give rise to violence and fanaticism, and positive strategies developed for how both groups can work to neutralize this threat. But good will, it seems, is in short supply these days.

UPDATE: A Jihad Watch reader has notified me that Esmay keeps hammering, saying here: "Ditto idiots like Brian Macker who ran around claiming that no Muslim could be trusted until he entirely repudiated Muhammed and repudiated entire swaths of the Koran, and accused any Muslims who disagreed with his interpretations as being liars. Which is also, interestingly enough, what Robert Spencer does for a living." (Brian Macker is or was a commenter at Esmay's site.) Of course, Esmay would never be able to produce any actual statements I have ever made to back up this characterization of my work, but who cares about accuracy when you can puff your chest out with self-righteous rage? For the record, I do not interpret the Qur'an or any other Islamic texts. Never have, never will. I report on their contents, and on how jihadists use them. I ask moderate Muslims to formulate a reponse to those jihadists. And I will not be intimidated by Esmay's rabid fulminations against me, and repeated attempts at character assassination, into stopping doing so.

Hundreds march in French suburb one year after riots

No hint of the identity of these "youths" beyond their immigrant status. No hint of the fact that they are shouting, as they shouted last year, "Allahu akbar." French Intifada Update from AFP:

Hundreds of people marched in a silent tribute to two teenagers whose death exactly one year ago sent a wave of urban riots surging through France, sparking the country's most serious social crisis in 30 years.

French authorities were on alert for a new flare-up of violence after youth gangs, some carrying handguns, torched -- and in one case hijacked -- three buses near Paris on Wednesday, but police reported no major trouble overnight.

In Clichy-sous-Bois, the poor northeast Paris suburb where the riots erupted on October 27, 2005, around 1,000 people, most of them youngsters, filed quietly Friday morning past the spot where the two boys died.

"Once again, France and the world are watching us," the mayor of Clichy Claude Dilain told the crowd. "We need the calm, dignity and courage that are visible here to prevail. Let us show them who we really are."

"Let's not give anyone cause to point the finger at us," added local association leader Samir Mihi.

Many of the marchers wore white T-shirts printed with the words "Zyed and Bouna, Dead for nothing."

Zyed Benna, 17, and Bouna Traore, 15, both from immigrant families of African descent, were electrocuted as they hid from a police patrol in a power sub-station.

Riots broke out in Clichy that night, quickly spreading to dozens of immigrant-populated suburbs in the Paris region and beyond.

Night after night for three weeks, youth gangs clashed with police, torching more than 10,000 cars and firebombing 300 buildings in around 275 towns, until order was officially restored on November 17.

With the approach of the anniversary, police and local mayors have warned that the conditions that led to the riots remain firmly in place in the poor out-of-town neighbourhoods, plagued by unemployment of 30 to 40 percent.

Nationwide, police were under orders to be vigilant but to keep their presence low-key, to avoid encouraging confrontations with youths, officers told AFP....

Last year's riots -- which led the government to declare a state of emergency, a measure not enacted since the Algerian war half a century earlier -- cast an unforgiving spotlight on France's trouble in integrating its Arab-origin and black communities.

Badly shaken by the crisis, the government promised measures such as an extra 100 million euros (125 million dollars) for local associations, bigger training schemes and a crackdown on racial discrimination for jobs.

Attack by Pakistani jihadists averted in India

"According to the police, Fahaad, a native of Karachi, is a post-graduate in Analytical Chemistry while Mohammad Ali is 9th standard pass from Manshera in Pakistan." A post-graduate in Analytical Chemistry, no doubt driven to jihad by his lack of education and grinding poverty. "Mysore: Two Pakistan militants nabbed," from DHNS, with thanks to Kisan:

MYSORE: The militants who are suspected to be the key functionaries of Al-Badr, a Pakistan-based militant outfit, were on a ‘specific mission’ to create terror in Karnataka, especially in Bangalore.

In a significant breakthrough against terrorism, a special team of Mysore City Police nabbed two Pakistani extremists after a shoot-out on the Outer Ring Road in Vijayanagar Police Station limits at around 12:10 am here on Friday.

The militants who are suspected to be the key functionaries of Al-Badr, a Pakistan-based militant outfit, were on a ‘specific mission’ to create terror in Karnataka, especially in Bangalore.

The militants have been identified as 24-year-old Fahaad (Pakistani identity) alias Nedu Thanni alias Mohammada Koya (Indian identity) and 22-year-old Mohammad Ali (Pakistan identity) alias Hussain alias Jehangir alias Asif Khan (Indian identity).

Acting on a definite information, the 12-member team led by Deputy Commissioner of Police K T Balakrishna intercepted the unsuspecting militant duo who were riding a moped at 12 am at the ring road. Sensing trouble, the militants opened fire at the police party from an AK-47 rifle. The DCP countered firing two rounds from his revolver before the police team overpowered the duo in a 10-minute-long gun-fire.

A police constable was injured on his forehead when a militant assaulted him with his rifle. The militants also suffered minor bruises during a scuffle with the police. The window panes of a police jeep were damaged in the crossfire.

According to the police, Fahaad, a native of Karachi, is a post-graduate in Analytical Chemistry while Mohammad Ali is 9th standard pass from Manshera in Pakistan. Two mobile phones, and a hi-tech satellite-based telephone (duo were speaking directly to militants in Pakistan via satellite) had been seized from them.

UN peacekeepers unlikely to disarm Hizballah: Russia

A Stop-The-Presses Alert from AFP (thanks to Jeffrey Imm): "UN peacekeepers unlikely to disarm Hezbollah: Russia":

MOSCOW - UN peacekeepers deployed in Lebanon are unlikely to be able to disarm the militant group Hezbollah, as required under UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Friday, RIA-Novosti reported.

‘Under the UN mandate, one of the main functions of the peacekeepers is to disarm Hezbollah,’ Ivanov was quoted as saying by the state-run news agency. ‘I strongly doubt that the UN will fulfill this task.’

Ivanov said that concern over this aspect of the peacekeepers’ mission was one of the reasons Moscow decided to send a peacekeeping contingent to Lebanon under an accord reached separately with the Lebanese government, instead of under the UN mandate, RIA-Novosti reported.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 requires the Shia militant group Hezbollah, which fought a 34-day war against Israel in July-August, to disarm.

Peacekeepers are instructed to ensure the south Lebanon border area with Israel is ‘free of any armed personnel and weapons other than those of the Lebanese armed forces and UNIFIL (peacekeepers).’

Hezbollah guerrillas have kept a low profile since the resolution, but refused to disarm.

Eerie calm in Baghdad as Al-Qaeda vows victory

Iraqi Jihad Update by Dave Clark for AFP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

BAGHDAD (AFP) - An eerie calm has descended on Baghdad during the weekly day of prayers after a Ramadan of unprecedented bloodshed in Iraq, while US troops scoured the city for a missing soldier.

Reports of violence in the war torn capital dropped in the three days since the end of the Islamic holy month, in part because thousands of US troops are deployed in the city hunting a comrade who was kidnapped by masked gunmen.

Police found the bodies of 11 murder victims on Thursday and overnight, a US military spokeswoman said Friday, a toll considered low by the standards of Baghdad's vicious dirty war between rival Sunni and Shiite death squads.

On Friday, US troops were still manning cordons around the Karrada district, where the soldier was kidnapped on Monday, and on the approaches to Sadr City, the Shiite militia bastion where they fear he is being held.

Meanwhile, with US casualties for the month so far running at their highest level in a year and 24 Iraqi police killed in an insurgent ambush on Thursday, the Al-Qaeda militant group issued a triumphant statement.

"We call on all mujahideen... to support the young Islamic state in Iraq. Weakness has gripped the infidel nations. The first signs of victory can be seen on the horizon," the group said in an Internet statement.

The message, which could not be independently authenticated, was issued in the name of the self-proclaimed Islamic Emirate of Iraq, which was declared on October 15 by a Qaeda-led coalition of Sunni insurgent groups.

[...]

His family report that he was seized from their home by gunmen, and the US military has said that Wednesday's raid was in part following up on a tip that his kidnappers were based in a Sadr City mosque.

Taleban accuse NATO of genocide, vow more attacks

Another pretext is fabricated to stir up rage among Muslims, thereby increasing jihad recruitment tallies. From Reuters, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan - The Taleban accused NATO forces of genocide on Friday after the latest in a series of civilian combat deaths, and said they would step up already rising suicide attacks.

The strict Islamist group’s one-legged military commander, Mullah Dadullah, also denied NATO charges the guerrillas used villagers as human shields in combat against foreign forces.

The warning came as a a provincial official said a bomb had killed at least 14 civilians in the rugged southern province of Uruzgan on Friday.

‘We want to inform the foreign forces and their slaves that their defeat is inevitable in Afghanistan,’ Dadullah told Reuters by satellite phone from a secret location.

‘The Taleban’s mujahideen are ready to fight until death and in the coming days will increase their activities and suicide attacks to such an extent that the infidel forces will not get a chance to rest.

‘The Taleban will not let the the killers of Afghan women and children rest in peace and will continue to target them.’

A review of Spencer's The Truth About Muhammad by Bruce Thornton

Bruce Thornton is a professor of Classics at Cal State Fresno and co-author with Victor Davis Hanson of Bonfire of the Humanities: Rescuing the Classics in an Impoverished Age and author of Greek Ways: How the Greeks Created Western Civilization (Encounter Books). His most recent book is Searching for Joaquin: Myth, Murieta, and History in California (Encounter Books). This review appears at California Republic.

Ambrose Bierce once quipped that war was God’s way of teaching Americans geography. He could have said “teaching us history,” for the enemy is emboldened by our ignorance not just of where he lives but of how he lives, his beliefs and values, and to understand these traditions we must understand their history. Unfortunately, in the current war against Islamic jihad we persist in ignoring the documented history of Islam and its beliefs, accepting instead the spin and propaganda of various propagandists, apologists, and Western useful idiots.

This imperative to know the enemy’s beliefs is particularly important for understanding the jihadists, for Islam is a fiercely traditional faith, one brooking no deviation from the revelation granted to Muhammad and codified in the Koran, Hadith, and the sira or biography of the Prophet. As Robert Spencer shows in his invaluable resource The Truth about Muhammad, in these sources Muhammad is presented as “an excellent model of conduct,” as the Koran puts it, his words and deeds forming the pattern for all pious Muslims to follow. “Muslims,” according to Muqtedar Khan of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, “as a part of religious observance, not only obey, but also seek to emulate and imitate their Prophet in every aspect of life.” The facts of Muhammad’s life, then, are paramount for understanding the beliefs that warrant and validate jihadist terror.

Presenting those facts clearly and fairly is precisely what Spencer accomplishes in his new book. Spencer has been for years a bastion of plain-speaking truth. Through books like Islam Unveiled, Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades), and as director of Jihad Watch, Spencer has courageously presented the simple facts of Islamic history and thought that too many Americans, including some in the current administration, ignore or distort. Spencer’s new book continues this important service of arming us with the facts we need in order to understand an enemy who wants nothing from us other than our conversion, death, or subjection.

Basing his description of Muhammad on the same Islamic sources revered by believers themselves, Spencer paints a portrait of the Prophet unrecognizable to any who have been deceived by the idealizations of apologists like Farida Khanam, whom Spencer quotes as claiming that Muhammad’s “heart was filled with intense love for all humankind irrespective of caste, creed or color,” or the British religious writer Karen Armstrong, who claims that “Muhammad eventually abjured violence and pursued a daring, inspired policy of non-violence that was worthy of Ghandi.” Such fantastic delusions cannot stand up to the relentless quotations and facts Spencer gathers from Islamic sources, all of which show us a Mohammad justifying and practicing violence in the service of the faith he invented.

Fitzgerald: The necessity of understanding Islam

In the weeks just after 9.11.2001, the American government still did not understand Islam. It had spent the past fifty years not understanding Islam. It had spent the past fifty years thinking of Islam only as a "bulwark against Communism" and attempting to curry favor with such "staunch allies" as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, while taking an indignant stand against its main allies at Suez (when Nasser might have been, and should have been, knocked right down). It constantly pressured Israel after 1967 to give up the Sinai for worthless guarantees. Later, in the post-1967 world, with all that Kissinger "shuttle diplomacy" and then the Rogers Plan, and then a dozen other plans and schemes, not a single thing was done about the menace of OPEC. Nothing, or close to nothing, has been done to diminish these monstrous revenues in the one-third of a century since 1973.

Nothing has been done to prevent, or even to study or wonder about or question aloud, the policy of permitting the mass settlement of Muslims within the Western countries, a policy of criminal negligence toward all Infidel peoples by all Infidel governments. This policy has been based on sheer laziness and sheer unwillingness to learn enough about Islam, or to listen to the diminishing number of real scholars -- as opposed to Muslim and non-Muslim apologists carefully infiltrating and rising in the ranks of academic and government "experts" and "advisers" on Islam: John Esposito was consulted by the Clinton Administration; Gilles Kepel and Olivier Roy by the French government; Tariq Ramadan was appointed to all sorts of E.U. commissions and is even now, in his pseudo-academic post at St. Antony's, "advising" the Blair regime that does not know where to put its feet and hands -- but its opponents promise no better.

Key trading town falls to Somali jihadists, as forces mass near Baidoa

The Islamic Courts fighters may be positioning themselves to attack the seat of the Somali government, as leverage for, or pending an expected outcome of peace talks scheduled for next week. Somali Jihad Update. "Somalia's Islamists take key town," from the BBC:

Fighters loyal to Somalia's Islamic courts have taken control of a key trading town from the transitional government without bloodshed.

They drove into Sakow on Wednesday evening moving closer to the seat of the interim administration in Baidoa.

Islamists are reported to be massing to the east of Baidoa, where government troops have been seen building defences with the aid of Ethiopian soldiers.

The opposing sides are due to meet in Sudan next week for peace talks.

There's a country that doesn't exactly leap to mind when "peace talks" are mentioned.

[...]

"It was simple because we did not encounter any fighting when we entered the town," Sheikh Hassan Derow, an Islamist commander told AFP news agency.

Residents of the town which is 170km south-west of Baidoa, said pro-government forces fled to the north.

The BBC's East Africa correspondent Adam Mynott says the pressure is building towards a confrontation between the two sides.

But the UIC said it dids not intend to attack the transitional government but would defend itself against Ethiopian forces.

"The Courts' forces are still in their positions to defend the town (Baidoa) against the Ethiopian troops which began to move towards the Courts' forces," leading Islamic Courts offical [sic] Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmad told the BBC.

Developing a pretext: "Defending" Baidoa.

NATO says Taliban using civilians as shields

The Taliban takes a cue from Hizballah, perhaps, in exploiting casualties caused by the use of human shields, a practice banned by the Fourth Geneva Convention (see Article 28). "NATO says Taleban using civilians as shields, as high toll feared," from AFP:

KABUL - The NATO force in Afghanistan Thursday accused the Taleban of using civilians as human shields, as authorities scrambled to verify reports that at least 60 people were killed in military strikes.

The International Security Assistance Force said it could not say how many civilians were killed in a series of operations in the southern province of Kandahar late Tuesday, but was helping Afghan authorities to find out.

ISAF said late Wednesday that 48 Taleban were killed in three engagements, including air strikes, in Kandahar’s Panjwayi area late Tuesday.

However, the chief of Panjwayi district, Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi, said he had reports that about 60 locals were killed in aerial bombing that also destroyed a number of houses.

Deputy director of Kandahar provincial council, Bismellah Afghanmal, put the figure as high as 85, but national authorities could not immediately confirm the local reports, which have in the past been exaggerated.

Asked about civilian casualties, NATO civilian representative Mark Laity said "at the moment we don’t know", adding any that had occurred were deeply regretted.

ISAF took great care to avoid civilian casualties, but the Taleban were mixing themselves among residents when attacked, NATO officials told reporters in the capital, Kabul.

"With insurgents who regard the population as a form of human shield for themselves, it obviously makes life very difficult for us, but it doesn’t stop us making every effort to ensure we minimise any problems," Laity said.

"We know that the public rely on us and expect us to take every care, and if they (civilians) are accidentally killed then it can affect (public) faith in us," he said.

ISAF was working with an Afghan defence ministry team that had been tasked to find out what had happened, he told reporters in Kabul.

"We are helping Afghan leaders there fly over the area to make an assessment," added ISAF spokesman Major Luke Knittig at the same briefing.

The force would also attend a shura (council) being convened in the area to discuss the matter, he said.