Free Speech vs Islam in America

The muslims of Dearborn don't like it, but that's too bad. Unless the local court finds a way to twist the Bill of Rights and withhold the right of Pastor Jones to demonstrate against the anti-freedom ideology that muslims support.

Detroit Suburb Fights Pastor's Mosque Rally

Authorities in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn are trying to head off a confrontation at a rally planned Friday to protest Islamic law by Quran-burning Christian pastor Terry Jones outside the biggest U.S. mosque.

But the bid to stop the Florida pastor has stirred concerns about violating his First Amendment rights.

Pastor Terry Jones plans a rally in Dearborn against Islamic law.

The Wayne County prosecutor is asking a state court to order Mr. Jones to pay a peace bond to guarantee the event won't be violent. "The greatest danger is the likelihood of a riot ensuing, complete with the discharge of firearms, unless this bond is granted," the prosecutor said in her complaint.

The city of Dearborn, meanwhile, has asked Mr. Jones to move his rally two to three miles away to one of its two designated "free speech zones," from the planned site near the Islamic Center of America. The city—home to Ford Motor Co. and one of the largest Arab-American communities in the U.S.—cited concerns about traffic and parking near the mosque, which is near two churches hosting Good Friday services.

The city of Dearborn was in the process of denying Mr. Jones's permit, said a spokeswoman, adding if he went ahead as planned, he could face arrest.

Mr. Jones, head of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., drew world attention last month when his congregation staged a "trial" of Islam's holy book that culminated in setting a copy of the Quran ablaze. News of the event incited riots in Afghanistan and an attack on a United Nations facility there that killed seven people.

Michigan's 19th District Court is expected to hear Wayne County's case Thursday afternoon. Mr. Jones said he plans to appear in court and said he would refuse to post a peace bond if so ordered, which could land him in county jail. Concerns about the public's security were unfounded, he said, repeating he had no plans to burn Qurans.

"We are going there totally in peace. We have no intentions of doing anything provocative," he said in an interview. "We will be speaking our minds, expressing our First Amendment rights."

Free-speech advocates criticized the prosecutor. "As reprehensible as his beliefs may be, this is an unconstitutional attempt to limit his unpopular speech," said Rana Elmir, a spokeswoman at the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

Majed Moughni, an organizer of a counter-demonstration to take place in one of the free-speech zones, agreed. "We think he has the right for free speech," said Mr. Moughni, a local attorney who burned Mr. Jones in effigy last fall when he threatened to burn the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Mr. Jones said his event at the Islamic Center is aimed at protesting sharia, or Islamic law. He said he expects a handful of supporters to join him.

In response, Kassem Allie, executive administrator at the Islamic Center, said the mosque will hold an interfaith gathering involving the Archdiocese of Detroit and other Christian churches Thursday afternoon. Mr. Allie is encouraging congregants to avoid the mosque Friday and join a "Stop the Hate" rally being held elsewhere.

Although Mr. Jones said the public had nothing to fear, he is concerned about his own safety. He said he has received 400 death threats, including some from Dearborn residents. He said he and an assistant accompanying him plan to be armed.

"I have a .40-caliber semiautomatic that I carry with me at all times," said Mr. Jones. "If someone would try to attack us, shoot us, we would have no problem defending ourselves."

What's Wrong with Islam? -- A Lot says Bernard Lewis

As if we didn't know that Iran and other Islamic nations are run by religious fanatics who want to start a nuclear war. But the recent revolutions may save the world from the Pyrrhic Loss that would define the kind of war the Islamic fanatics want.

'The Tyrannies Are Doomed' The West's leading scholar of the Middle East, Bernard Lewis, sees cause for optimism in the limited-government traditions of Arab and Muslim culture. But he says the U.S. should not push for quick, Western-style elections...

'What Went Wrong?" That was the explosive title of a December 2001 book by historian Bernard Lewis about the decline of the Muslim world. Already at the printer when 9/11 struck, the book rocketed the professor to widespread public attention, and its central question gripped Americans for a decade.

Now, all of a sudden, there's a new question on American minds: What Might Go Right?

To find out, I made a pilgrimage to the professor's bungalow in Princeton, N.J., where he's lived since 1974 when he joined Princeton's faculty from London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

Two months shy of his 95th birthday, Mr. Lewis has been writing history books since before World War II. By 1950, he was already a leading scholar of the Arab world, and after 9/11, the vice president and the Pentagon's top brass summoned him to Washington for his wisdom.

"I think that the tyrannies are doomed," Mr. Lewis says as we sit by the windows in his library, teeming with thousands of books in the dozen or so languages he's mastered. "The real question is what will come instead."

For Americans who have watched protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Bahrain and now Syria stand up against their regimes, it has been difficult not to be intoxicated by this revolutionary moment. Mr. Lewis is "delighted" by the popular movements and believes that the U.S. should do all it can to bolster them. But he cautions strongly against insisting on Western-style elections in Muslim lands.

"We have a much better chance of establishing—I hesitate to use the word democracy—but some sort of open, tolerant society, if it's done within their systems, according to their traditions. Why should we expect them to adopt a Western system? And why should we expect it to work?" he asks.

Mr. Lewis brings up Germany circa 1918. "After World War I, the victorious Allies tried to impose the parliamentary system on Germany, where they had a rather different political tradition. And the result was that Hitler came to power. Hitler came to power by the manipulation of free and fair elections," recounts Mr. Lewis, who fought the Nazis in the British Army. For a more recent example, consider the 2006 electorial triumph of Hamas in Gaza.

Elections, he argues, should be the culmination—not the beginning—of a gradual political process. Thus "to lay the stress all the time on elections, parliamentary Western-style elections, is a dangerous delusion."

Not because Muslims' cultural DNA is predisposed against it—quite the contrary. "The whole Islamic tradition is very clearly against autocratic and irresponsible rule," says Mr. Lewis. "There is a very strong tradition—both historical and legal, both practical and theoretical—of limited, controlled government."

But Western-style elections have had mixed success even in the West. "Even in France, where they claim to have invented freedom, they're on their fifth republic and who knows how many more there will be before they get settled down," Mr. Lewis laughs. "I don't think we can assume that the Anglo-American system of democracy is a sort of world rule, a world ideal," he says. Instead, Muslims should be "allowed—and indeed helped and encouraged—to develop their own ways of doing things."

In other words: To figure out how to build freer, better societies, Muslims need not look across the ocean. They need only look back into their own history.

Mr. Lewis points me to a letter written by France's ambassador in Istanbul shortly before the French revolution. The French government was frustrated by how long the ambassador was taking to move ahead with some negotiations. So he pushed back: "Here, it is not like it is in France, where the king is sole master and does as he pleases. Here, the sultan has to consult."

In Middle Eastern history "consultation is the magic word. It occurs again and again in classical Islamic texts. It goes back to the time of the Prophet himself," says Mr. Lewis.

What it meant practically was that political leaders had to cut deals with various others—the leaders of the merchant guild, the craft guild, the scribes, the land owners and the like. Each guild chose its own leaders from within. "The rulers," says Mr. Lewis, "even the great Ottoman sultans, had to consult with these different groups in order to get things done."

It's not that Ottoman-era societies were models of Madisonian political wisdom. But power was shared such that rulers at the top were checked, so the Arab and Muslim communities of the vast Ottoman Empire came to include certain practices and expectations of limited government.

Americans often think of limited government in terms of "freedom," but Mr. Lewis says that word doesn't have a precise equivalent in Arabic. "Liberty, freedom, it means not being a slave. . . . Freedom was a legal term and a social term—it was not a political term. And it was not used as a metaphor for political status," he says. The closest Arabic word to our concept of liberty is "justice," or 'adl. "In the Muslim tradition, justice is the standard" of good government. (Yet judging from the crowds gathered at Syria's central Umayyad mosque last week chanting "Freedom, freedom!," the word, if not our precise meaning, has certainly caught on.)


The traditional consultation process was a main casualty of modernization, which helps explain modernization's dubious reputation in parts of the Arab and Muslim world. "Modernization . . . enormously increased the power of the state," Mr. Lewis says. "And it tended to undermine, or even destroy, those various intermediate powers which had previously limited the power of the state." This was enabled by the cunning of the Mubaraks and the Assads, paired with "modern communication, modern weapons and the modern apparatus of surveillance and repression." The result: These autocrats amassed "greater power than even the mightiest of the sultans ever had."

So can today's Middle East recover this tradition and adapt it appropriately? He reminds me that he is a historian: Predictions are not his forte. But the reluctant sage offers some thoughts.

First, Tunisia has real potential for democracy, largely because of the role of women there. "Tunisia, as far as I know, is the only Muslim country that has compulsory education for girls from the beginning right through. And in which women are to be found in all the professions," says Mr. Lewis.

"My own feeling is that the greatest defect of Islam and the main reason they fell behind the West is the treatment of women," he says. He makes the powerful point that repressive homes pave the way for repressive governments. "Think of a child that grows up in a Muslim household where the mother has no rights, where she is downtrodden and subservient. That's preparation for a life of despotism and subservience. It prepares the way for an authoritarian society," he says.

Egypt is a more complicated case, Mr. Lewis says. Already the young, liberal protesters who led the revolution in Tahrir Square are being pushed aside by the military-Muslim Brotherhood complex. Hasty elections, which could come as soon as September, might sweep the Muslim Brotherhood into power. That would be "a very dangerous situation," he warns. "We should have no illusions about the Muslim Brotherhood, who they are and what they want."

And yet Western commentators seem determined to harbor such illusions. Take their treatment of Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi. The highly popular, charismatic cleric has said that Hitler "managed to put [the Jews] in their place" and that the Holocaust "was divine punishment for them."

Yet following a sermon Sheikh Qaradawi delivered to more than a million in Cairo following Mubarak's ouster, New York Times reporter David D. Kirkpatrick wrote that the cleric "struck themes of democracy and pluralism, long hallmarks of his writing and preaching." Mr. Kirkpatrick added: "Scholars who have studied his work say Sheik Qaradawi has long argued that Islamic law supports the idea of a pluralistic, multiparty, civil democracy."

Professor Lewis has been here before. As the Iranian revolution was beginning in the late 1970s, the name of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was starting to appear in the Western press. "I was at Princeton and I must confess I never heard of Khomeini. Who had? So I did what one normally does in this world of mine: I went to the university library and looked up Khomeini and, sure enough, it was there."

'It" was a short book called "Islamic Government"—now known as Khomeini's Mein Kampf—available in Persian and Arabic. Mr. Lewis checked out both copies and began reading. "It became perfectly clear who he was and what his aims were. And that all of this talk at the time about [him] being a step forward and a move toward greater freedom was absolute nonsense," recalls Mr. Lewis.

"I tried to bring this to the attention of people here. The New York Times wouldn't touch it. They said 'We don't think this would interest our readers.' But we got the Washington Post to publish an article quoting this. And they were immediately summoned by the CIA," he says. "Eventually the message got through—thanks to Khomeini."

Now, thanks to Tehran's enduring Khomeinism, the regime is unpopular and under threat. "There is strong opposition to the regime—two oppositions—the opposition within the regime and the opposition against the regime. And I think that sooner or later the regime in Iran will be overthrown and something more open, more democratic, will emerge," Mr. Lewis says. "Most Iranian patriots are against the regime. They feel it is defaming and dishonoring their country. And they're right of course."

Iranians' disdain for the ruling mullahs is the reason Mr. Lewis thinks the U.S. shouldn't take military action there. "It would give the regime a gift that they don't at present enjoy—namely Iranian patriotism," he warns.

By his lights, the correct policy is to elevate the democratic Green movement, and to distinguish the regime from the people. "When President Obama assumed office, he sent a message of greeting to the regime. That is polite and courteous," Mr. Lewis deadpans, "but it would have been much better to send a message to the people of Iran."

Let's hope the Green movement is effective. Because—and this may be hard to square with his policy prescription—Mr. Lewis doesn't think that Iran can be contained if it does go nuclear.

"During the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the United States had nuclear weapons but both knew that the other was very unlikely to use them. Because of what was known at the time as MAD—mutually assured destruction. MAD meant that each side knew that if it used a nuclear weapon the other would retaliate and both sides would be devastated. And that's why the whole time during the Cold War, even at the worst times, there was not much danger of anyone using a nuclear weapon," says Mr. Lewis.

But the mullahs "are religious fanatics with an apocalyptic mindset. In Islam, as in Christianity and Judaism, there is an end-of-times scenario—and they think it's beginning or has already begun." So "mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent—it's an inducement."

Another key variable in the regional dynamic is Turkey, Mr. Lewis's particular expertise. He was the first Westerner granted access to the Ottoman archives in Istanbul in 1950. Recent developments there alarm him. "In Turkey, the movement is getting more and more toward re-Islamization. The government has that as its intention—and it has been taking over, very skillfully, one part after another of Turkish society. The economy, the business community, the academic community, the media. And now they're taking over the judiciary, which in the past has been the stronghold of the republican regime." Ten years from now, Mr. Lewis thinks, Turkey and Iran could switch places.

So even as he watches young Middle Eastern activists rise up against the tyrannies that have oppressed them, he keeps a wary eye on the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. It is particularly challenging because it has "no political center, no ethnic identity. . . . It's both Arab and Persian and Turkish and everything else. It is religiously defined. And it can command support among people of every nationality once they are convinced. That marks the important difference," he says.

"I think the struggle will continue until they either obtain their objective or renounce it," Mr. Lewis says. "At the moment, both seem equally improbable."

Driving While Christian -- in Pakistan

Plurality? Tolerance? Multiculturalism? Acceptance? Respect? Peace? Isn't that what Islam is all about?

Gunmen Kill Pakistan's Religious Minorities Minister

Mr. Bhatti was Pakistan's government minister for religious minorities and a member of Pakistan's Christian community, which makes up about 5% of the country's population.

ISLAMABAD—Suspected Islamic militants shot dead Pakistan's federal minister for minority affairs who had campaigned for reforming the country's controversial blasphemy law.

Shahbaz Bhatti, one of the few Christians in a senior government position, was traveling in Islamabad, the capital, to attend a cabinet meeting when three gunmen open fire on his car. Eyewitness and police said the gunmen dragged Mr. Bhatti out of his car and shot him several times before escaping in a white Suzuki vehicle. Mr. Bhatti was shot eight times and died on the spot. His driver was also seriously injured.

No group immediately claimed responsibility. But the attackers left leaflets saying they had acted in the name of the Punjabi Taliban and al Qaeda.

"This is the horrible fate of this cursed person," read the leaflet. It also blamed the government of putting an "infidel Christian" in an important position. The killing of Mr. Bhatti, a Catholic in his 40s, further deepens the political instability in a country where secular-minded politicians are increasingly at odds with a rising strain of Islamism in the middle classes.

It also complicates the role of the U.S. in Pakistan. Washington has strengthened ties with the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, including a massive new civilian aid package. But the government, viewed as too pro-U.S. and secular by many Pakistanis, is increasingly unpopular.

The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, in a statement condemned the killing of Mr. Bhatti, who he called a "Pakistani patriot and a voice for understanding."

In January, Salmaan Taseer, governor of Punjab province and a key ally of Mr. Zardari, was killed by his police bodyguard. Mr. Taseer, a Muslim, also had spoken out against the blasphemy law, which human rights groups and others say has been used to target minority groups like Christians and Ahmadi Muslims.

The police guard said he shot Mr. Taseer in a posh Islamabad shopping center because of his stance on the blasphemy issue. The guard is facing trial but has been feted as a hero by some religious groups and other sectors of the middle classes like lawyers' associations.

Mr. Bhatti had angered Islamic extremists for urging changes in the law which sanctions the death penalty to anyone found guilty of blasphemy against the prophet Muhammed.

He was head of a parliamentary committee which was examining misuse of the law. In many cases, people have used it to settle local scores unrelated to religion, human rights groups say. In recent media interviews, Mr. Bhatti had vowed to continue his campaign against the law, despite receiving repeated death threats from the Islamists.

Wajid Durrani, Islamabad's police chief, said Mr. Bhatti was provided protection in view of the threat to his life but was traveling without his security detail at the time of the attack.

The loss of one of the most prominent leaders of Pakistan's small Christian community comes amid increased persecution from Islamists. Last year, a court sentenced a Pakistani Christian farm worker to death for blasphemy. The Vatican and rights groups have slammed the verdict and called for her release.

Christians are the largest religious minority in the country, where about 5% of the nations's 180 million population are non-Muslims. "We have lost our most courageous spokesman," said Akram Massig Gil, a Christian member of parliament.

Authorities have yet to carry out a death sentence for blasphemy since the laws were tightened under the Islamist dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s. But human rights groups say the laws have encouraged militant violence against minorities. Scores of people, most of them Christians, are in detention facing trial under the law.

"Bhatti's murder is the bitter fruit of appeasement of extremist and militant groups," Human Rights Watch, the New York-based rights advocacy group, said in a statement.

Mr. Bhatti's killing also is likely to deepen security concerns for others who have spoken out against the blasphemy law. Sherry Rehman, a former minister of information and prominent opponent of the law, is currently in hiding.

Death before Dishonor

Millions of Americans believe one of a few conservative talk show hosts -- Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck or O'Reilly -- spoke the words that triggered Jared Loughner's bloody attack in Tucson. However, there's absolutely no evidence that the control of Loughner's mind by media gasbags was a factor.

On the other hand, there is an endless number of stories about killings committed in the name of Islam. Both individual killings and mass murder. Stunningly, Americans seem to have far less interest in these clear-cut cases of murder due to warped thinking inspired by a single book (the Koran, if you're wondering) than in the idiotic claims that a couple of people committed lethal crimes because conservative talk show hosts made them do it.

Murder Trial Begins for Iraqi Immigrant Accused of Daughter's 'Honor Killing'

Jan 24, 2011

She had shunned an arranged marriage and gone to live with her boyfriend. And Noor Almaleki ended up dying in an "honor killing" carried out by her own father, prosecutors say.

Faleh Almaleki, who had moved the family from Iraq to Arizona, apparently felt his 20-year-old daughter had become too Westernized, according to prosecutors. He allegedly crashed his Jeep into his daughter and her boyfriend's mother in 2009 as they walked across a parking lot. The daughter died from her injuries after two weeks in a coma. The mother lived.

Prosecutors charge that Faleh Almaleki carried out an "honor killing" by slamming his Jeep into his 20-year-old daughter in 2009. His trial began Monday in Phoenix.
Almaleki, 50, goes on trial today on charges of murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault and leaving the scene of a serious accident, after weeks of plea negotiations failed, The Associated Press reported. He faces life in prison if convicted.

Almaleki said he was angry at his daughter for becoming "too Westernized" and believed she was acting against Iraqi and Muslim values, Jay Davies, a spokesman for the Peoria, Ariz., police department, told Reuters. Police say she didn't want the arranged marriage and was living with her boyfriend and his parents.

Prosecutors called the death an"honor killing" after Almaleki said his daughter brought dishonor to the family, the AP said. He wanted his daughter to stay true to Iraqi traditions, but she wanted the life of a typical American young woman.

He regularly harassed his daughter and told the boyfriend's family that if she didn't move out of their home, "something bad was going to happen," the AP said, citing a court document.

Honor killings -- the practice of killing a relative over perceived shame -- have been documented by the United Nations in Egypt, Iraq, Turkey and other countries. They are rare in the U.S.

The defense has not commented on its strategy.

A year ago, Almaleki's previous lawyer said the defendant didn't understand the court proceedings and may need a mental health checkup, The Arizona Republic reported in July. He had been treated at a psychiatric unit as of late December 2009 and had been under suicide watch before that, the paper said.

Pelosi -- Investigate Mosque Critics -- HERE I AM

Nancy Pelosi and most members of Congress need a lot of schooling in two subjects: Economics and islam.

Economics Lesson One: This capitalist economy will grow IF government gets out of the way.

IF Congress were to permit oil & gas drillers to drill where the oil & gas are, THEN the energy industry will hire lots of high-paid American workers to get the oil & gas from the ground to consumers.

IF the government were to get out of the way and permit the nuclear industry to re-start, THEN lots of Americans would get jobs designing and building those plants, which would decrease our use of gas for electricity production.

IF the government were to get out of the auto industry and permit automakers to build any vehicle desired by consumers, THEN the domestic auto industry would hire more people to build those cars -- as long as wage and benefit packages were within reason.

When it comes to islam, Congress needs to understand that islam is a multipurpose system of beliefs. It is a religion, a government and a military, all rolled into one.

IF Congress were to acknowledge islam's role as a government, THEN it would have to ban islam from America because islam stands absolutely and resolutely against all the freedoms granted Americans by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. It's that simple.

Hence, IF taking a stand against a religion/government/military that aims to take away every freedom and right that forms the essence of America makes me suspicious and needing investigation, THEN probe away.

AUDIO - Rep. Pelosi calls for investigation of WTC mosque opposition

August 17, 2010

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, called for an investigation of those who are protesting the building of the Ground Zero Mosque on Tuesday. She told San Francisco's KCBS radio:

AUDIO

"There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded," she said. "How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we've been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City."

Calls to investigate the funding for those proposing the $100 million "Cordoba House" have fallen on deaf ears, though, as New York's Mayor Mike Bloomberg has described such an investigation as "un-American."

Ms. Pelosi called the Ground Zero mosque an "urban development decision" for New Yorkers to work through. Her remarks happened on the heels of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, parting ways with President Barack Obama on the issue. Mr. Reid suggested the mosque should be built somewhere else.

More to come...

The Conversions of Islam

In the same way muslim terrorists converted commercial jetliners into flying bombs, muslims are converting our Freedom of Religion into another weapon of mass destruction. Now they're getting support from our ex-muslim president who has declared that muslims have a right to build a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero.

Last year, when another situation dear to Obama's heart arose he declared "the Cambridge Police Department acted stupidly." When an officer responding to a dispatcher's call informing him a crime of breaing-and-entering was in progress the officer detained a black Harvard professor the president concluded the professor's civil rights have been violated by the officer. As he later conceded, weakly, he was wrong.

Obama is at it again. He has again inserted himself into an issue that clearly shows his willingness to let his emotions rule. This time he wants to allow muslim terrorists another opportunity to gain ground in the US. He is a threat to the republic.


Cordoba or Tours?

Islam is using the values of the West to fight the West.

By Emmanuel Navon

In today’s France, Jewish items are being burnt on the streets again. Not Jewish books by the Church, but Jewish food by the Mosque. Food items are publicly thrown out of stores and burnt on the street if they are imported from Israel or simply if the package indicates that they are kosher. At least, the French Government publicly condemned this phenomenon and Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux promised to prosecute the authors of what he called a criminal act of racial discrimination.

In Britain, by contrast, the court system has capitulated to the hatred and violence.

A few weeks ago, a London court acquitted the members of a gang who broke into a weapons factory and mostly tore it down. Their defense line was that they suspected that this factory had sold weapons to Israel during the Cast Lead Operation. The Judge ruled that their version was acceptable and set them free without even fining them for the damage they had caused to the factory. Similarly, four militants were acquitted by a British court last week for breaking into a retail store of the Israeli company Ahava.

In other words, you are allowed to destroy property (and maybe, tomorrow, to kill) based on political opinions or even based on the unproved suspicion that your victim is acting against your political opinions. This is the rule of intimidation and terror, not the rule of law.

In Norway, it is not the court system but the government itself which has become accomplice to Jihad.

Norway’s Minister of Education Kristin Halvorsen was recently photographed in front of a demonstration sign saying that the US and Israel are the real Axis of Evil. Her boss, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, expressed public support for two doctors who helped Hamas during the Cast Lead Operation. Those two doctors are the authors of an anti-Semitic book that has been praised by Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr StØre. Norway’s State Secretary for Environment and International Development Ingrid Fiskaa has declared that the UN should bombard Israel.

Europe’s descent into dhimmitude is a tragedy for those who care about Western civilization and about freedom. Alas, even the shining city upon a hill on the other side of the Atlantic no longer seems to be a safe heaven. President Obama’s endorsement of the Ground Zero Mosque indicates that America is capitulating to cynicism in the name of freedom.

On the face of it, President Obama is right: As he said, because America is committed to religious freedom, Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in the United States, and that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan.

President Obama, however, is missing two points.

The first point is that Islam rejects religious freedom and the founding principles of the US Constitution.

If Islam were not a religion protected by the US Constitution, it would be banned because of its ideology of hatred and discrimination. No other religion has produced 9/11. True, Christianity is responsible for the Crusades and for the Inquisition. But Christianity has integrated some elements of modernity, and it no longer condones murder in the name of faith. Islam does.

The second point is that the proponents of the Ground Zero Mosque are being purposely offensive and cynical, and that they intend to set a historical precedent full of symbolical significance.

By building an Islamic site and symbol a few yards away from the place where 3,000 people were murdered in the name of Islam, they are intentionally insulting the memory of these people and are pushing bad taste to its limits. But, mostly, they want to declare victory. That is no speculation or conspiracy theory: The mosque will be called Cordoba. Do you get it? Cordoba was the first European city conquered by a Muslim army (in 711). Then a mosque was built there, and the rest of Spain was conquered. This is an accepted Islamic practice, and the proponents of the Ground Zero Mosque are note even hiding their intentions.

Islam is using the values of the West to fight the West. Saying that is not politically correct, but it is true. 70% of Americans are against the Ground Zero Mosque precisely because they understand that this mosque is not about religious freedom. It is about the use of freedom to fight freedom and to progressively impose an ideology of hatred, discrimination, and violence. Either President Obama doesn’t see that –which is bad. Or he does but lacks the courage to say it –which is worse.

The American people should build a huge Church near Ground Zero and call it the Tours Church. Why Tours? Because Tours is the French city where Charles Martel defeated an invading Muslim army in 732, thus halting the Islamic expansion to Europe (actually, the battle was fought in an area between the cities of Poitiers and Tours, located in north-central France, near the village of Moussais-la-Bataille.

But the battle is known as "Battle of Tours" in English and as the "Battle of Poitiers" in French. Incidentally, "Tours" happens to mean "towers" in French). By doing this, Americans will not only show that they too know History. They will also prove to themselves and to the world that they learned from it.

The Dark Night of Islam and America

It's remarkable how easy it is for humans to fool each other. One of the most compelling deceptions ever perpetrated on humans was the product of one man. Muhammad, the L. Ron Hubbard of Islam. Humans who have embraced this suicidal religion have misled each other for 1,400 years, and their numbers keep growing. Clearly too many humans, especially those who fall under the influence of Islam, are deluded.

Joys of Muslim Women

by Nonie Darwish

Here are a handful of disturbing facts about life in an Islamic theocracy, which is what muslims want to create in America.

In the muslim faith a muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year old and have sexual intimacy with this child, consummating the marriage by 9. The dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman (who becomes his slave) and for the purchase of the private parts of the woman, to use her as a toy.

Even though a woman is abused, she can not obtain a divorce. If she has been raped, she must give proof. To prove rape, the woman must have (4) male witnesses.

Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family must return the dowry. The family has the right to execute her (an honor killing) to restore the honor of the family. Husbands can beat their wives 'at will' and the man does not have to say why he has beaten her.

The husband is permitted to have 4 wives and a temporary wife for an hour (prostitute) at his discretion.

The shariah muslim law controls the private as well as the public life of the woman.

That control is coming to the Western World (America). Muslim men have begun to demand shariah law to prevent wives from obtaining divorces, thereby giving husbands full and complete control of wives. It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters attending American Universities are now marrying muslim men and submitting themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Shariah law.

By passing these comments to as many people as possible, enlightened American women may avoid becoming slaves under Shariah Law.

Ripping the West in Two

Author and lecturer Nonie Darwish says the goal of radical Islamists is to impose Shariah law on the world, ripping Western law and liberty in two.

She recently authored the book, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law.

Darwish was born in Cairo and spent her childhood in Egypt and Gaza before immigrating to America in 1978, when she was eight years old. Her father died while leading covert attacks on Israel. He was a high-ranking Egyptian military officer stationed with his family in Gaza.

When he died, he was considered a "shahid," a martyr for jihad. His posthumous status earned Nonie and her family an elevated position in muslim society.

But Darwish developed a skeptical eye at an early age. She questioned her own muslim culture and upbringing. After hearing a Christian preacher on television she converted to Christianity.

In her latest book, Darwish warns about creeping sharia law - what it is, what it means, and how it is manifested in Islamic countries.

For the West, she says radical Islamists are working to impose sharia on the world. If that happens, Western civilization will be destroyed. Westerners generally assume all religions encourage a respect for the dignity of each individual Islamic law (Sharia) teaches that non-muslims should be subjugated or killed.

Peace and prosperity for one's children is not as important as assuring that Islamic law rules everywhere in the Middle East and eventually in the world.

While Westerners usually believe all religions encourage some form of the golden rule, Sharia teaches two systems of ethics - one for muslims and another for non-muslims. Building on tribal practices of the seventh century, Sharia encourages the side of humanity that wants to take from and subjugate others.

While Westerners tend to think in terms of religious people developing a personal understanding of and relationship with God, Sharia advocates executing people who ask difficult questions that could be interpreted as criticism.

It's hard to imagine, that in this day and age, Islamic scholars agree that those who criticize Islam or choose to stop being muslim should be executed. Sadly, while talk of an Islamic reformation is common and even assumed by many in the West, such murmurings in the Middle East are silenced through intimidation.

While Westerners are accustomed to an increase in religious tolerance over time, Darwish explains how petro dollars are being used to grow an extremely intolerant form of political Islam in her native Egypt and elsewhere.

In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President (says Darwish. However, today, muslims account for 1% of the population. Even if muslim birthrates are extreme and muslims immigrate to America at a high rate, it's unlikely their numbers will carry a presidential election. On the other hand, Obama is an ex-muslim, which means the general pool of voters are capable of extraordinary foolishness)! Rest assured they will do so... You can look at how they have taken over several towns in the USA .. Dearborn Mich. is one... and there are others.

I think everyone in the U.S. should be required to read this, but with the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized (this claim is simply silly. Noting will stop the facts from circulating. But willful blindness to the muslim agenda will take all the sting out of the facts), unless each of us sends it on!

It is too bad that so many are disillusioned with life and Christianity that they accept Muslims as peaceful. Some may be but they are part of an army that is willing to shed blood in the name of Islam. The peaceful muslims support the warrior muslims with money and their own form of patriotism to their religion. While America is removing Christianity from all public sites and erasing God from the lives of children, the muslims are planning a great jihad on America.

This is your chance to make a difference! Pass the word through your email list.

More Cartoons Mocking Muhammad

This might become a national movement. Cartoon drawings that mock Muhammad. That will show them.

Seattle cartoonist launches "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day"

'South Park' producers say network cut fear speech

Everybody Draw Mohammed Facebook page

MyNorthwest.com

After Comedy Central cut a portion of a South Park episode following a death threat from a radical Muslim group, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris wanted to counter the fear. She has declared May 20th "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day."

Norris told KIRO Radio's Dave Ross that cartoonists are meant to challenge the lines of political correctness. "That's a cartoonist's job, to be non-PC."

Producers of South Park said Thursday that Comedy Central removed a speech about intimidation and fear from their show after a radical Muslim group warned that they could be killed for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

The group said it wasn't threatening South Park producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but it included a gruesome picture of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker killed by a Muslim extremist in 2004, and said the producers could meet the same fate. The website posted the addresses of Comedy Central's New York office and the California production studio where South Park is made.

"As a cartoonist I just felt so much passion about what had happened I wanted to kind of counter Comedy Central's message they sent about feeling afraid," Norris said.

Norris has asked other artists to submit drawings of any religious figure to be posted as part of Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor (CACAH) on May 20th.

On her website Norris explains this is not meant to disrespect any religion, but rather meant to protect people's right to express themselves.