A Woman in a Burqa

When you see a woman in your town wearing a burqa, does it make you feel invaded? If so, does that mean you are an intolerant racist? Does that mean you are a narrow-minded bigot?

Let me ask you another question: If you see a nun in your town wearing a nun's habit, do you feel invaded? If you see a Tibetan Buddhist monk in your town wearing monk robes, do you feel invaded? If not, then "narrow-minded bigot" and "intolerant racist" must miss the mark. Something else is causing you to feel invaded when you see a woman in a burqa.

A burqa is a visible sign indicating that the wearer is following a particular ideology. If we see a Catholic nun in a Catholic nun habit, we can guess with a high degree of certainty what ideology she follows. If we see a Tibetan monk with a shaved head and a saffron robe, we can guess with a high degree of certainty what ideology he is following. If we see a man who has shaved his head and has a swastika tattooed on his neck, we can guess with a high degree of certainty what ideology he follows.

Back to the woman in a burqa. Why are you bothered by seeing a woman in a burqa walking down your local street, but many of your fellow citizens are not the slightest bit bothered by it? Some of your fellow citizens would be much more bothered by the fact that you feel invaded. Why? Because they don't know much about Islamic doctrine. They believe Islam is just like any other religion. They may see the woman in a burqa as a wonderful manifestation of multiculturalism. You see it as an invasion. The only difference is how much you each know about Islam.

If you know someone who is not bothered by a woman in a burqa, talk to them about Islamic doctrine. Do it gently. Think small bits and long campaigns. Use Inquiry Into Islam to help you. It may take awhile for the reality to sink in, but when it does, we are in a better position to marginalize, discredit, and disempower orthodox Islam. The fewer non-Muslims unacquainted with Islam the better off we'll be.

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Social Studies Textbook Review in Tennessee and Texas

The following was written by Roy White, Chapter Coordinator for ACT! for America in San Antonio, Bexar, and Kendall:

We all know of plenty of examples of the bias in social studies textbooks revealed by various groups and individuals. Concerned Tennessee citizens formed a group called Textbook Advocates that conducted reviews of over 50 textbooks that can be found here. Many of those errors involved Islam to include incomplete information on Muhammad, overstating Islam’s influence and simple disparity in word/sentence count on discussions of Islam versus other religions. Their findings are not surprising to readers of Citizen Warrior and others who follow this topic.

The cleverly named, The Textbook Tattler was published to provide citizens with a synopsis of the typical errors found. It is likely these same errors are found in many of the textbooks found in states around the country. Tennessee’s efforts resulted in the current methodology of textbook selection to be under review and will most likely be replaced in the next legislative session. Their landmark success has inspired others to follow their lead including a group in Texas.

In early 2014 Texas begins the process of reviewing Social Studies textbooks that will be used for the 2015-16 school year. A group called “Truth in Texas Textbooks” or “Triple T” have begun recruiting volunteers from inside of Texas and outside who would be willing to help review the Social Studies textbooks that will be submitted by publishers.

Over 48 million textbooks are sold in Texas alone! This is a huge contract for publishers. Estimates range from 50-80% of school districts in the nation choose the same textbooks as those used in Texas schools. Publishers know, what sells in Texas will lead to millions of dollars in other states!

The purpose of TTT is simple, to provide Social Studies textbooks that are truthful and factual that meet the Texas Education Knowledge Standards (TEKS) as defined here. Fortunately Texas has put in place a well-defined set of standards that were recently updated with this resolution on eliminating the pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias found in the current social studies textbooks.

TTT will not simply focus on eliminating this bias but many other “PC” related themes that are so often found in textbooks today. We are not affiliated with any other NPO or national organization but are independent and have reached out to groups and individuals around the country (including Tennessee) for volunteers who are willing to help us.

The long-term goal would be to have one site, such as www.textbookadvocates.com be the single depository of these textbook reviews being done around the country so teachers, parents, advocates can have a single one stop shopping place to go and see a consolidated list of reviews of textbooks.

Publishers get away with their PC tainted textbooks because in the past groups around the country didn’t talk to each other or communicate their findings. Building on what Tennessee has done Texas wishes to continue this movement to put these reviews, along with others, in the public domain at a single website that will give information to everyone who is interested.

Anti-smokers advocacy groups weren’t effective until they banded together against the tobacco companies and shared the data from all their findings. TTT wishes to take the same approach.

The most effective method for having an impact on your children’s textbooks may very well lie on not focusing on your own local school or state but helping Texas adopt the most accurate and factual textbooks which will in turn be likely to show up in your own school district. Additionally you can go through a process with other like-minded individuals who can help you learn the process for conducting reviews.

Collaborative online project management tools, conference calls, use of webinars and other methods will be used to coordinate the efforts of those interested in volunteering. It doesn't matter where you live, you can help Texas and in turn help millions of other children around the country by joining TTT and volunteering. Please share this with teachers, active and retired who are tired of teaching inaccurate or misleading information.

For those interested in serving on the TTT review team, please email truthintexastextbooks@gmail.com and get on the mailing list. You will be asked to complete a survey of interest, experience and level of commitment to the effort. TTT will conduct training beginning in early 2014 to provide reviewers with materials and templates of the best practices found among those experts who review textbooks. If you want to stop the spread of PC myths disguised as facts in social studies textbooks and pro-Islamic/anti-Judeo-Christian biases then please join the TTT team.

Recruiting for experts in the field of US government, history, world history, civics, constitutional law, world history, geography are some of the specific knowledge sets that are needed. Advanced degrees or self-taught are the same to TTT; your knowledge and effort in this endeavor will benefit millions of children for years to come.
______________________

Roy White, Chapter Coordinator
ACT! for America San Antonio, Bexar, Kendall
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/actbexar
Twitter: @ACTBexar

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Alleged Kansas Bomber Wanted to Be "Obedient Slave of Allah"

A friend sent me the following: You're probably aware of the attempted bomb attack of the Wichita airport recently. Below is a short description of the event. At the end is a link to the criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District court against Terry Loewen. The complaint is worth reading because of the insight it gives into the thought process of an orthodox Muslim.
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An FBI sting has led to the arrest of a Wichita, Kan. man who thought he was about to die in a suicide car bombing that targeted a terminal at the city's Mid-Continent Airport.

Terry Lee Loewen, 58, worked at the airport as an avionics technician. This gave him access to airport grounds. He was arrested before dawn Friday after he tried to open a security gate and get on the tarmac, the Kansas City Star reports.

According to a three-count complaint, Loewen discussed his view of faith as a Muslim. That included expressing "his desire to engage in violent jihad on behalf of al Qaeda" during an online conversation with someone whom, unbeknownst to him, was an FBI employee.

"I don't understand how you can read the Qur'an and the sunnah of the Prophet (saw) and not understand that jihad and the implementation of Sharia is absolutely demanded of all the Muslim Ummah," Loewen allegedly wrote Aug. 5. "I feel so guilt-ridden sometimes for knowing what's required of me but yet doing little or nothing to make it happen. I love my Muslim brothers and sisters, whether they agree with me or not, it's just hard to deal with the denial that some of them appear to be going through."

Osama bin Laden and American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki "are a great inspiration to me, but I must be willing to give up everything (like they did) to truly feel like a (sic) obedient slave of Allah (swt)," he wrote a few days later.

Later that month, he asked for help finding "someone who is active in jihad and could use an occasional influx of 'help' ... I just hate the kaffar government and those who are following it to the Hellfire, and the sooner it and its followers get there, the better."

Loewen was trying to drive a van packed with explosives to a terminal as part of a plan he spent months developing, a Department of Justice statement says. He "talked about his commitment to trigger the device and martyr himself."

The explosives were rendered inert by the FBI and the public was never in danger. Agents were drawn to Loewen early last summer after he made statements about jihad. He is with trying to use a weapon of mass destruction, and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Many national Islamist groups have criticized similar sting operations, arguing the FBI is manufacturing a terrorist threat where it might not exist. If Loewen's correspondence in the complaint proves accurate, however, he was a man with the motivation and access to pull off a horrific attack. Left alone, he might have found ways to make his own bomb.

At one point, Loewen acknowledged not knowing whether he could trust his contact. But it wasn't enough to discourage him from pursuing an attack. "my greatest fear is not being able to complete an operation because I was set up," he wrote. "I hate this government so much for what they have done to our brothers and sisters, that to spent (sic) the rest of my life in prison without having taken a good slice out of the serpents head is unacceptable to me."

If convicted, Loewen could face life in prison.

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The complaint, filed Friday, December 13, 2013: http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/2281.pdf#page=13

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The Video "Three Things About Islam"

A group calling themselves "White Roses" created a video to inform non-Muslims about Islam. It's called Three Things About Islam. You can view it on YouTube or click here to see it on Citizen Warrior.

White Roses is headquartered in Sweden. The name "White Roses" is based on a student resistance group "Die weiße Rose" in Nazi Germany. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet campaign, from June 1942 until February 1943, which called for active opposition to Adolf Hitler's regime.

A spokeswoman for White Roses told me, "We see a parallel here concerning the protection of free speech. As you posted today, freedom of speech is getting more and more limited. The intention in choosing this name is to make a point that there will be groups opposing the doctrine of the state and speaking their mind."

We're honored to say the video was inspired, in part, by three Citizen Warrior articles:

The Least You Need to Know About Islam

What "Religion of Peace" Really Means

What is the Root Cause of Islamic Terrorism?

We've given White Roses the Citizen Warrior Hero Award because they are doing exactly what needs to be done — what we should all be doing: Sharing with non-Muslims key information about Islam, making it interesting and easy to hear, keeping it non-partisan, focusing on Sharia and not on Muslims, keeping it clean and not staining it with racism or hatred, and in this case, putting it in a form that is easily shareable by others.

I've posted the video on a new site I'm building. The purpose of the new site is to help us reach people who might be put off by anything that smacks of Islam-bashing. I suggest you use that site to share the video with those friends and family who don't yet know much about Islam. Here's the video on that site: Three Things About Islam Video.

One last thing: The video presents information you already know, but its "target market" is people who don't know very much, so it's a good tool we can use to share with them. I hope you use it.

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We Can Bankrupt the Global Jihad

After the "Arab Spring," Saudi Arabia gave its citizens a raise. Saudis citizens don't pay income taxes. Most of them don't even work. The Saudi government pays them, and to avoid the fate of the leaders in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere, the Saudis increased their citizens' pay and pensions. They committed future funds to these payoffs.

This has presented the counterjihad movement an opportunity to strike a decisive blow into the heart of the global jihad.

Jihadist projects are funded largely through Saudi Arabia and Iran, two OPEC nations. The Taliban is a Saudi oil-money project, for example. So is the Muslim Brotherhood and the OIC. Hezbollah is an Iranian oil-money project.

OPEC is a cartel formed of primarily Islamic countries. OPEC was founded for the purpose of raising world oil prices. Jihadist activities around the world have been on the rise because jihadist funding has been on the rise. The source of that funding is oil profits, which have been on the rise.

What keeps the whole thing functioning is oil's monopoly over the most important commodity on earth — transportation fuel.

In the 1980's, because the rising cost of oil, many new programs were started to create a freer fuel market. Brazil launched its ambitious ethanol program, many new ethanol distilleries were built in America, Roberta Nichols created a massive methanol experiment in California, etc. But in the mid-80's, OPEC flooded the world market with oil in order to drop world oil prices, which made all of these potentially-competitive fuels no longer competitive on price, which crashed Brazil's program, put half the U.S. ethanol facilities into bankruptcy, and prompted California to abandon its methanol experiment.

It was a classic monopolist move. It's the oldest trick in the monopolist's book: Drop your price to send the competition into bankruptcy.

Once their competitors were sufficiently crippled, OPEC started raising the world oil price again.

But competing fuels have recently begun to reappear. Brazil permanently changed to flex fuel vehicles (rather than ethanol-only vehicles) for example, which has protected them from OPEC's manipulations (when oil prices drop, drivers buy gasoline; when oil prices rise, drivers buy ethanol). Brazil's economy is booming.

In the United States there is a growing clamor to use methanol as a fuel, ideally in flex fuel vehicles. Methanol can be made inexpensively from America's abundant natural gas, and can be sold for half the cost of gasoline without any subsidies. If it was available as a fuel, people would buy methanol because it would save them a lot of money. But right now, it is not available as a fuel in the U.S. One bill now in Congress is trying to change that.

So let's say the bill passes into law and methanol becomes available, and people start using methanol for fuel. Gasoline would have to drop in price to compete, or it wouldn't sell. Everything would be wonderful. But...

Wouldn't OPEC just drop the world price of oil to crush this new competitor?

This is where things have changed in an important way. This is our new opportunity. Saudi Arabia controls what OPEC does. The Saudis are sitting on the easiest oil to produce in the world, and therefore theirs is the cheapest oil to produce. Because of this, they dictate what the rest of the OPEC nations will do. But if methanol becomes a fuel in America, Saudi Arabia (and the global jihad movement) will be between a rock and a hard place — and it could be the end of both OPEC and the third jihad.

If the Saudis decide to lower the world price of oil to make the U.S. lose interest in methanol, they would not make enough money to fulfill their commitments to pay off their subjects, who would probably rise up and throw the monarchy out. But if the Saudis keep the price of oil high, they would lose their income, because who would buy gasoline at $4.00 a gallon when methanol is available for half the price of an equivalent gallon? Not many.

Gal Luft, the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, wrote:

Since the beginning of the Arab Spring, Saudi King Abdullah almost doubled his Kingdom's budget, committing billions in subsidies, pensions and pay raises in an effort to keep his subjects from storming the palaces.

This expensive response effectively raised the price of oil needed for the Saudis to balance their budget from under $70 a barrel before 2011 to at least $110 a barrel by 2015.

When oil is $100 a barrel, gasoline is about $3.50 to $4.00 a gallon. Methanol can sell at about $2.00 an equivalent gallon. Oil would have to be $50 a barrel to compete.

In other words, what happened in the 1980's can no longer happen. Saudi Arabia can no longer afford to drop the price of oil low enough to eliminate the competition. If we introduce vigorous fuel competition now in America, it will be the end of oil's monopoly for good, and funding for the global jihad would evaporate as Saudi Arabia and Iran would be forced to struggle to simply stay afloat.

This is an unprecedented opportunity. And you can help make it happen: If you are an American, join the fuel competition revolution. Go to openfuelstandard.org and sign up for their updates and urge your Representative to co-sponsor the bill. If you are in any other country, let your fellow counterjihadists know about this bill and what it could mean for the world, and let everyone around the world urge Americans to pass this bill. The U.S. is the largest consumer of transportation fuel in the world. If fuel competition happens here, it will spread to other countries. And it will be the death knell of the third jihad.

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It’s Time to Shock O.P.E.C.

The following important article is by Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy:

Forty years ago this week, America received a harsh lesson about the dangers of relying on others for energy. President Nixon’s decision in the midst of the Yom Kippur War to resupply Israel with U.S. weaponry gave members of the OPEC cartel an excuse to embargo oil supplies to this country and drive up prices worldwide. It became known as the “oil shock” of 1973.

Ever since, politicians of both parties have promised to reduce our dependency on unreliable foreign sources. To that end over the past four decades, they have invested untold sums on various schemes – from imposing price controls, producing synthetic fuels and subsidizing ethanol production, curbing demand and diversifying overseas sources of supply for oil and natural gas.

Thanks largely to private sector initiatives and funds, however, real progress has lately been made on this longstanding national objective. Finally, the widespread application of technology like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (better known as fracking) and a series of discoveries of vast quantities of natural gas around the United States and off its coasts have transformed our situation from one of energy dependency to potentially that of the largest energy exporter in the world.

The geopolitical and economic significance of this transformation will be the focus of conferences sponsored by two influential, bipartisan groups in Washington this week. Former Cabinet and sub-Cabinet officers, senior military personnel and other experts will convene on Tuesday under the auspices of the U.S. Energy Security Council and on Wednesday under that of Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) to discuss the oil embargo, the intervening years and where we are today vis a vis those who used energy as an economic weapon against us in the past.

It is very much to be hoped that these conversations will not simply repeat nostrums about the inadvisability of being dependent upon unreliable – to say nothing of  actually hostile – energy sources. Or, worse yet, simply revel in the change of fortunes that will, in the absence of further Obama administration obstructionism, enable us to become again a huge net producer of energy. (Regrettably, between its pursuit of cap-and-trade restrictions on carbon emissions, overreaching EPA regulations, the campaign to destroy the coal industry and further shenanigans with respect to the Keystone XL pipeline, there is ample reason to expect more official impediments to our energy security, not fewer.)

What is needed now is a strategic approach to using our newfound energy leverage to cause some oil “shocks” of our own.

For starters, the windfall of natural gas deposits being found in this country opens up an opportunity to transform the sector in which we are still almost entirely dependent on oil and its byproducts: the transportation of people and goods via automobiles, buses and trucks.  If natural gas can become widely used in eighteen-wheelers and turned into methanol for use in most modern cars, we could dramatically reduce the amount of gasoline we are obliged to import from the Islamists of OPEC.

What is more, as Nobel laureate George Olah observed in an op.ed. article he co-authored in the Wall Street Journal last week, recent breakthroughs in chemistry are allowing another vast U.S. resource – carbon dioxide – to be cost-effectively converted into methanol. Far better to burn it in our automobiles and in modified surface transportation and maritime diesel engines than to pay exorbitant sums, as Team Obama has in mind, to try to store it underground.

Best of all, by enabling these alternatives to oil and gasoline to become available across America, we can create fuel choice for consumers – and competition for the cartelists. The predictable effect would be to drive oil prices down, especially as the scores of other developing nations capable of manufacturing their own alternatives to gasoline begin to do so, as Brazil has already done with ethanol.

The result could be to break the back of OPEC, once and for all. That, in turn, would help dry up the funding that has done so much for decades to power jihadism and undermine our economy.

This is no longer simply a desirable thing to do. It is absolutely imperative. As Center for Security Policy Senior Fellow Kevin Freeman has observed, Mideast oil producers seem determined to join the Chinese and Russians, among others, in terminating the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s international reserve currency. Should they succeed in this gambit, the profound and debilitating economic and strategic ramifications will make the oil shock of forty years ago look like the good old days.

Adopting bipartisan Open Fuel Standard legislation and taking such other steps as are necessary to enable fuel choice can help us withstand as well disruptions in oil supply and/or skyrocketing price increases in the event of a new regional war in the Middle East. We can and must be in a position to deliver the next oil shock, not be its recipient.

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Columbus and Islam

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. We all know the New World was discovered because Christopher Columbus was looking for a trade route to the East.

But why was he looking for a trade route? Because during its second great jihad, Islam had invaded Central Asia and defeated Constantinople in 1453, cutting off the overland route for Europeans. Islamic armies continued their jihad northward, and conquered much of what is now Eastern Europe, until they were finally stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683 (on September 11th).

Learn more about historical jihads here: Jihad Through History.

Learn more about the principles of jihad as they are still applied today.

Another way jihad helped create America: Thomas Jefferson's Quran.

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Separating Kafirs from Muslims

The following was written by Bill Warner, Director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam:

When the al Shabaab jihadi group from Somalia attacked the mall in Kenya, they gathered the crowd together and asked who were Muslims and let them go. According to the media, they then started killing the non-Muslims who were left. But non-Muslims is not the word what the terrorists would have used. No, they would have called them Kafirs (actually they would have called them the Arabic plural of kafir, kuffar. Kafirs is the standard English plural form).

Why did members of al Shabaab do this? Why did they ask the Muslims to leave and keep the Kafirs and start killing them? Let’s start with the word terrorists. Members of al Shabaab are not terrorists, they are jihadists or mujahedeen. That is what they call themselves.

So what difference does it make which words we use? Non-Muslim or Kafir? Terrorists, militants, jihadists or mujahedeen? It makes all the difference in the world. You cannot think precisely with imprecise words and a Kafir is much more than a non-Muslim.

The word “non-Muslim” does not imply anything, except not being a believer in Islam.

Kafir, on the other hand, has enormous implications. Kafir is the actual word that the Koran uses for a non-Muslim. Indeed, one of the many remarkable things about the Koran is that over half of its text is devoted to the Kafir. Think about that: most of the Koran is not about how to be a Muslim, but about the Kafir. Every single verse about the Kafir is not just bad, but terrible. Allah hates Kafirs and plots and schemes against them. The cruelest punishments await the Kafir in hell, but who cares about that? The real problem is what is promised to the Kafir in this life — torture, hatred, death, ridicule, rape, enslavement, political domination and deception.

It is the same with mujahedeen or jihadist as opposed to militant or terrorist. The words militant or terrorist do not tell anything about the motivation of the militant or terrorist, only that they are using violence.

Notice that the words non-Muslim and terrorist are not related to each other; they stand alone. There is no implication of one by the other. But that is not true about Kafir and jihad. Jihad is only carried out against Kafirs. Jihad implies Kafir and vice versa.

Jihad and Kafir are all part of a system of Islamic politics. Mohammed preached the religion of Islam for 13 years and garnered 150 followers. When he turned to politics and jihad, he died ruler of all of Arabia, and every Arab was a Muslim. The religion of Islam was a failure, and Islam triumphed by the use of politics and jihad, war against the Kafir.

Islamic doctrine is found in the Koran, Sunna (Mohammed) and Sharia law and divides all of humanity into Muslim and Kafir. There is no middle ground. Unfortunately, both Christian and Jewish leaders have bought into the fiction that they are all People of the Book and are brothers in religion. When you read the fine print (as none of them have done, being professionally ignorant), they are brothers in Abraham who must be politically and religiously subjugated, but that is a small detail.

If jihad, mujahedeen, and Kafir are pure Islamic doctrine, we can now understand why the media refuses to the correct words that Muslims use — it is all too horrible to contemplate. We are not just having independent terrorist events, such as the West Gate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya or the Boston Marathon bombing; we are in the middle of a civilizational war with a historic enemy — an enemy who is winning because we are in total denial.

Published as an article on American Thinker.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Warner, Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam
Permalink: http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/separating-the-kafirs-from-the-muslims/
copyright (c) CBSX, LLC, politicalislam.com
Use as needed, just give credit and do not edit.
www.politicalislam.com

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Emotions Versus Facts in the Counterjihad

The same man who shared the business card idea (see the post here) also wrote an article I'd like to share with you because he's doing what we're all trying to do (educate our fellow citizens about Islamic doctrine) and running into the same barriers we are. I like his insight about the process. Here it is:

Something struck me the other day when listening to a local radio show on finance; the topic was pricing one’s home for selling and weighing “emotion” versus “fact.” The radio host’s friend had a home for sale that had lingered on the market for some time. The expert knew the price was too high but didn't want to directly make that point to his friend. He asked him if had looked at Zillow or other websites comparing comparable homes in the neighborhood. The friend acknowledged the sites showed his home and other similar homes well below his asking price based upon all the “facts” that goes into these estimates.

The real estate expert, thinking he had demonstrated to his friend that facts were clearly aligned to justify a new lower price, was given this emotional reply: “I know it is worth more; those sites are simply wrong!”

Having had this discussion in my household, I remembered the “emotion” involved with selling one's home for less than what one “feels” it is worth. To move from the “I’d rather stay than sell at that price,” I had to recognize the emotion in the decision and move slowly into reality…the emotional investment disagreed with my concept of “reality”…other forces than “I feel” make up reality around us. However, in our society today, “feelings” are equal to “reality.” The real estate expert knew his friend was wrong because facts supported the reality of a lower price. He didn't lower the price and his home didn't sell.

When I talk to people about Islam, one gets to the emotional gatekeeper in each of us at various points. Some immediately bristle at the thought that something they honestly know very little about (which they don't admit to until you question them) but have an emotional stake in the concept: "all religions are equal" throw out the generic arguments, "there are Christians who do horrible things too," "all Muslims aren't terrorists,” “I know a Muslim and he isn't a terrorist,” or other ad hominem replies.

As Guy Rodgers, Executive Director ACT! for America likes to say, “the facts are on our side.” There are plenty of “Zillow” websites that highlight the facts that the orthodox Islamic ideology followed by many Muslims is proving to be the greatest threat to our national security. Move slowly with the “facts” because emotions are what we base many of our decisions on in life. These facts won’t automatically satisfy our friends, any more than the “facts” couldn't convince the homeowner to lower the price, even if it meant admitting his emotions were preventing him from accomplishing his goal (selling his home).

For me, I took an oath when I was in the military, “to protect and defend the Constitution.” For 20 years I wore the uniform and communism was easy to understand…it hadn't wrapped itself around a religion like Islamism. Once I began studying Islamic history (thanks Citizen Warrior and other sites/authors), emotions were replaced with facts and data that show the clear objectives of Islamic ideology; a single unified caliphate with no specific timetable but with many coordinated/uncoordinated actions, all leading to the same goal, a world under Islamic Shariah rule.

Even writing that last statement, an “emotional alarm” goes off inside my own head that says, “this can’t happen”…but I return to what I know from “Zillow” and the facts and reply calmly, “It is unlikely to happen in my lifetime (I’m 59) but it most certainly could happen in my children and grandchildren’s lifetime based upon the history of Islam.” So what do I do about it? Throw my hands up and merely complain? Or take action? Rant to my friends and allow my own "emotions" to turn off would-be converts?

I owe it to them and to the brave men and women who have sacrificed their lives and bodies for the freedoms we all share. I can’t allow my emotions to keep me from doing what the facts clearly show is a threat to our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Most importantly, I can't allow my emotions to come out in conversations in a way that turns my listeners off. Get engaged, join ACT! for America, Oak Initiative, Tennessee Freedom Coalition or other like minded groups in your area or start one up if there isn't one to channel that emotion into useful action.

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The New Muslim Brotherhood Logo and What it Symbolizes

Steve Amundson, the Santa Monica counterjihadist we wrote about earlier (see the article here), wrote to us again. He said, "We will be educating the public on the new MB logo and what it means tonight."

I asked him how it went, told him I liked the flier and asked if it would be okay if I shared it with our readers. He wrote:

It went very well. Very few people are aware of this new logo now being used all over. The Muslims coming up to our booth are much more combative and come in groups of 4-5 instead of 1 or 2.

Overall foot traffic was down from what it has been. Summertime is over, kids back to school and vacations are finished (this perhaps answers why we see fewer people).

Yes, feel free to post the brochure. Information is only as good as to the number of people who have access to it.

Click here to see, print, or download the flier.

What a great way to educate the public! If you have been doing something similar, please let us know about it. Here's what the flier looks like (click on image to see it larger):

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Business Card Counterjihad

People often write to us with good ideas. Here's one we received recently. We'll just quote from the email:

Thanks so much for your website and the content. I've steered as many people as I could to your site. I come across a lot of people while commuting to and from work as well as while I'm working. I've been practicing broaching the topic using the various ways you and others recommend but I felt I needed something to leave with them in case they wanted more information, and business cards seemed to be the best way to get the point across.

Feel free to post these wherever you wish. I don't have a web site or blog, but I've got a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ActBexar.

Check out the business cards below. There are several places online where you can order business cards inexpensively. Vista Print is one of them. Why not always keep a card in your pocket and after a conversation, if it seems appropriate, give one to the person?

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September 11, 2013 — Has Anything Changed?

Has anything changed since 2001? In many ways it would be justifiable to answer no. Politicians and the media are still pitifully reluctant to speak honestly about anything Islam-related. Stealth jihad is still progressing, and bloody jihad is going on as before.

However, many important things have changed. Many more people have awakened to the fact that Islamic doctrine is dangerous to non-Muslims, and our growing numbers have allowed some good legislation to pass. ACT! for America's membership is multiplying and its clout is growing along with it. Several states in the U.S. have passed American Laws for American Courts legislation, and more are in the process. But the one change that really stands out is the amount of good educational material available about Islam.

When the Towers came down, many of us tried to find answers. We wondered why it happened. Who did this and what motivated them? And those answers were hard to find. That has changed completely. When someone looks for information about Islam now, they can get real answers easily. If you Google the question, "Is Islam dangerous?" or "Does Islam promote violence?" or "Why do Muslims want to kill us?" you will find good answers on the first page of search results. The Koran, the Sira and the Hadith are available in readable form now. That wasn't the case in 2001. And of course, web sites like WikiIslam.net and TheReligionofPeace.com and blogs and Facebook pages and so on are all over the place now.

People are continually waking up to the disturbing truth about Islamic doctrine. I hear from people all the time who have only recently started looking into Islam because of the Lee Rigby beheading or because of the Boston Marathon bombing. Maybe they were too young on 9/11 to grasp what had happened. But the point is, when people look for answers, now they can find them, so the pace of awakening our fellow non-Muslims is accelerating.

I know it may not seem like it in your personal life sometimes. You reach impasses with people. Some of your own family members might refuse to talk any more about it. But it is also true that sometimes you don't realize you reached someone. You may have struck a nerve with them and even though they argued with you at the time, later they think about it or something else happens, like the Fort Hood shooting, or the Andy Long murder, and it becomes the last straw and they finally decide to look into it, and once someone looks into it sincerely, we gain another counterjihadist.

Some of us are finding new ways to reach people. Some have been creating excellent pamphlets and leaflets — which can help us reach people (some people are willing to read one just because it's short). Lots of DVDs and YouTube videos have been created since 9/11. And books, of course. We recently published an article (here) about a group with a booth in Santa Monica on a main thoroughfare every Saturday night to engage people about Islam. One of the comments on that article is illustrative about how new approaches are stimulating creativity in others. The commenter wrote:

I stopped by on Saturday to see the table (I'm visiting Santa Monica). Very nice people! I'm so glad to see them out there. There were lots of Muslims passing by; some stopped to stare or argue, and my friend engaged one of them to try to hear "the other side," but the only counterargument she got from him was, "This is crap." If I were doing a table like this — and maybe someday I will be, in a different part of the country — I might want to try a few different ways to hook people and see what works best, like having a poster saying something like, "Could Islam rule the world?" or "Speak up for American freedoms" or "Some conspiracy theories are true" — leading to a graphic of the Muslim Brotherhood and its tentacles. Because people who aren't already in the counterjihad probably have no idea why we're "bashing" Islam and they won't connect the dots, and making them aware in the first 30 seconds that there's a specific threat — an international movement to take over the world for Islam — would be good. Just an idea to try. God bless these people for being out there.

People are awakening. And it is getting easier to help them awaken. That may seem like a small thing compared to the magnitude of what we are up against, but a little more knowledge is what motivated Flight 93 to stop the hijackers from reaching their intended target. Just a little more knowledge made the difference. You and I need to make sure the people in our lives have a little more knowledge about Islamic doctrine. Let's roll.

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Is Reading the Koran a Waste of Time?

We received the following question and thought it was worth sharing:

I know you advise all readers to commit to reading the Koran and earlier I agreed with you on this issue. But lately I have realized that no matter what I think the Koran says, the Muslim man or woman is going to interpret it in his/her own way. Even if I think it is terribly violent or it is super peaceful, what difference will that make to the thinking of the Muslim multitudes? They will still commit murders in the name of their religion.

If we — the Islamo-aware people — want to convince other non-Muslims of the horror of Islamic doctrine, then isn't it better to do it by pointing out the violent acts committed by Muslims in the name of their religious doctrines rather than waste time reading a Koran ourselves? I would welcome your viewpoint on this issue.

I replied with this:

What a great question. I have no intention of changing the way Muslims think. It would be great, but I don't see it happening. That's really a job for ex-Muslims. My goal is to get non-Muslims to know what they're dealing with. Once that happens, we will be able to do whatever needs to happen to curb the spread of orthodox Islam. Most of the people I know who are not already Islamo-aware believe that the bloodshed in the name of Islam is being done by a fringe group, similar to the KKK (who consider themselves Christian), and are not a significant threat. Most people are unaware of the scope and universality of Islamic violence and bigotry. So telling them about it might help. For some people it would be enough. But I've found most non-Muslims explain it away. But when I tell them what's in the Koran because I have read it, and when I try to convince them to prove it to themselves by reading it, I gain an authority in their minds and I reach them better.

What I believe people need to understand is that violence and intolerance are embedded in Islam's fundamental doctrines. It is a sobering realization, but it changes the way people respond to actions motivated by Islamic doctrine. That solid information changes people. It gives them a resolve I don't think anything else does.

That's exactly what happened to Thomas Jefferson when he read the Koran.

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Remembering 9/11 with Erick Stakelbeck

If you are anywhere near Tennessee, you are invited to an event you won't want to miss. Read more about it here. The event will take place on September 11, 2013 at the Embassy Suites in Cool Springs (the VIP event begins at 5:30pm and the General Event begins at 6:45pm).

The "Remembering 9/11" event will include the following speakers:

• Erick Stakelbeck - Author of "The Brotherhood: America's Next Great Enemy" and "The Terrorist Next Door: How the Government is Deceiving You About the Islamist Threat"
• Rabbi Jon Hausman - Ahavath Torah Congregation Rabbi in Stoughton, MA
• Cathy Hinners - former Law Enforcement Officer and Activist
• State Senator Bill Ketron
• State Representative Judd Matheny
• J. Lee Douglas - 9/12 Project Tennessee

VIP tickets for this event are currently sold out (though a waiting list is being compiled). There are still tickets left for the general event that will feature the bulk of the program. You can register for the event below:

General Event - Remembering 9/11
VIP Event - Remembering 9/11

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A Justifiable Concern Among Non-Muslims

The following is a letter to the editor by Edward Kesler that was published in the August 23, 2013 issue of the Tribune Star.

Demands Reforms in Muslim Teachings

Many non-Muslims feel threatened by the hateful teachings of the Koran, a Muslim holy book. For example, the Koran calls Jews the “children of apes and pigs” and calls on Muslims not to befriend Jews or Christians. It demands that Muslims “slay the idolaters”, Buddhists, Hindus, followers of any religion not comporting with their view of Allah and Mohammed. It calls on Muslims to wage Jihad (wars) against non-Muslims to collect war booty and to impose Jizya taxes on them as a part of the imposition of shariah (Muslim) law on the defeated non-Muslims. Jizya can be received in many forms, such as welfare, etc.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees American residents (including non-citizens) complete religious freedom. This is a freedom to worship, not to spread hatred of our society, culture and mores in the presumably religious settings and environments of mosques and Islamic centers.

The indoctrination of Muslims, young and old, with hate-filled, violent ideas are a justifiable concern among non-Muslims. It is disconcerting for Christians, Jews or any other non-Muslim to understand that local mosques and Islamic cultural centers are teaching these hateful values to their Muslim neighbors and their children.

The recent rapes, tortures and murders of Coptic Christians in Egypt and the continued barbaric savagery committed against Christians in Nigeria and across Africa should be instructive. More than 100 million Africans, 160 million Christians, Buddhists and Hindus have been killed by Islamic Jihad. Entire Jewish populations have been destroyed in Muslim countries.

Non-Muslims have a right to demand that Muslims in America undertake serious reforms of Islam ideology. As Americans, we must demand these issues be addressed immediately.

— Edward Kesler

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The Poor, Persecuted Muslim Brotherhood!

Before you read the article below, I'd like to give you some background about the author. Henri Boulad has been a Catholic priest for over 40 years in Egypt. He's now 82 and still writing and speaking worldwide. He has long spoken out about the persecution of Christians in Islamic countries, and about living as a non-Muslim in a Muslim country. A man of courage and integrity, caring, warm and intelligent, he speaks the truth from his lifetime of experience.

The Poor, Persecuted Muslim Brotherhood!

by Henri Boulad, SJ, Cairo, August 17, 2013

The entire Western world is outraged, offended and scandalized because the Egyptian Army has dared to dislodge the Muslim Brotherhood from the two bastions of Rabia and Nahda, where they had been barricaded for several weeks. Bottom line: more than six hundred dead in the two camps.

In no time at all, the right-thinking Western media uttered cries and whimpers asking the Security Council and international human rights associations to condemn this savage aggression with the utmost firmness.

The poor Muslim Brothers! Victims of violence! Those gentle lambs, well known for their sweetness and innocence! The object of unacceptable brutality. Consequently, it’s a duty to defend them against the devouring wolves of the Egyptian army and police. The USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, Turkey, the UN...then, should rise as one man to denounce injustice, defend those innocents, and invite the world to fly to their rescue. The international media instantly leapt upon Pegasus to charge at the guilty ones…

This lifting of shields to claim and proclaim the right of all citizens to protest "peacefully" has something tragicomical about it.

Consider the facts:

1. The Rabaa mosque, where the Brothers were holed up was a real armory where an incredible arsenal of war was discovered. No denunciations from the West. 

2. For weeks, the Brotherhood’s militias, armed to the teeth, sowed terror among the whole population of Egypt: killings, abductions, kidnappings, ransom demands, abductions and rape of girls forcibly married to Muslims. No reaction from the West. 

3. More than 20 police stations looted and burned; nearly fifty policemen and officers killed and tortured in the most savage way. Silence from the West. 

4. Sufi mausoleums destroyed and Shiite families massacred raise NO international emotion. 

5. Some 50 churches, schools and Christian institutions burned in the single day of August 14. No protest on the part of the West. 

6. Priests and Christians attacked and killed — including children of tender age — for the sole reason that they were Christians. No Western denunciation appeared which might be accused of "Islamophobia", which today is the crime of crimes. 

7. Nearly 1,500 people massacred by Morsi militias during its one-year reign. Silence from the media. 

8. Secret agreements from Morsi to sell Egypt, piece by piece to its neighbors: 40% of the Sinai to Hamas and the Palestinians, Nubia to Omar al-Bashir, and the western portion of the territory to Libya... This is a gift for the West, since it is their doing…

When Egypt finally decides to react and put some order in the house...the West cries ‘persecution’, ‘injustice’ and ‘scandal’!

It’s a secret to no one that the presidential elections were a broad farce and that the election was tainted by massive fraud. Nevertheless, the media persisted in asserting that Morsi was the first president in Egyptian history to be 'democratically' elected and that he achieved 'legitimacy'.

The Egyptian people are easy to blame, since they agreed to play this game, saying to themselves: ‘Let’s see what they actually do.’ The result was so catastrophic — insecurity, unemployment, inflation, bread and gasoline shortages, the economy in free fall, moribund tourism — that at the end of one year the entire population requested Morsi to clear out.

Within two months, the Tamarrod movement collected more than 22 million signatures calling for his departure. In vain! Facing his obstinacy, tens of millions of Egyptians — the majority of which were the humble people who had been his former supporters — turned out on the streets of major cities to demand his departure. Still in vain!

The Army — neutral until then — decided to intervene to support the people and toss the bums out, keeping them under house arrest. During long hours of interrogation, the Army got revelations of exceptional wrongdoings that compromised both the Muslim Brotherhood and a number of foreign countries.

Faced with the Army’s power grab, the West immediately cried ‘coup d’état’.  If it had been a ‘coup d’état’, it was a ‘people’s coup’, rather than military one. The Army had merely acquiesced to the will of the people. The people were fed up with a president who had betrayed, flimflammed and hoodwinked them, and they reacted with a survival reflex, calling for his departure.

A delightful little story illustrates what I am saying. A guy buys a can of something at the grocery which, once opened, appears to be spoiled. What’s he going to do? Eat it or toss it? Toss it, obviously.

It's kind of what did the Egyptian people did after Morsi and the Brothers promised the moon and the stars. Once the can was opened, they realized that it was all rotten. And so they reacted by rejecting them.

Following Morsi’s house arrest, the Army still wanted to have the Muslim Brotherhood contribute to the new Government, offering them to team up with other parties. That met with systematic and stubborn refusal.

After numerous unsuccessful attempts of dialogue and negotiations with them, a new provisional government was set up.

It was then they decided to go underground and sow terror; in this they were highly successful. But this strategy has only increased their unpopularity and we can say today that the Egyptian people despise and abhor them.

Equipped with the most sophisticated weapons, the Brothers are everywhere burning, attacking, killing, destroying…

The Army then decreed a State of Emergency and imposed a curfew from sunset to sunrise. But the Muslim Brotherhood considered themselves exempt from compliance. Yesterday, August 16, in my room near Ramses Avenue and Ramses Square (that were swarming with their militias), I heard explosions, single shots and submachine gun fire from the surrounding streets.

After several warnings to young people to go home, the Army decided to send in tanks to enforce the curfew. Seeing the collateral damage, well-thinking Westerners indicted the Army for having the nerve to attack 'peaceful’ demonstrators!

Whom are they trying to kid?

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A September 11th Event You Won't Want to Miss

The Tennessee Freedom Coalition and ACT! for America of Middle Tennessee have been working together on a "Remembering 9/11" event over the past few months. They are now at the pre-registration phase where you can reserve your spot at the event.

The event will feature many excellent speakers along with periods of remembrance and reflection. The speaker lineup includes Erick Stakelbeck, author of The Brotherhood: America's Next Great Enemy, Rabbi Jon Hausman, State Senator Bill Ketron, State Rep. Judd Matheny, 9/12 Project's J. Lee Douglas, and Cathy Hinners.

There are two registration groups: One for the general event list and another for the VIP event list. The general event is $20 and the VIP event is $50 (includes a meet-and-greet with Erick Stakelbeck and premium seating). We strongly encourage you to pre-register for this event. It promises to be a meaningful remembrance of the events of 9/11.

The event will take place on September 11, 2013 at the Embassy Suites in Cool Springs (the VIP event begins at 5:30pm and the General Event begins at 6:45pm). You can find more information by following one of the links below:

General Event — Remembering 9/11
VIP Event — Remembering 9/11

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Does Lack of Education Cause Terrorism?

The following was written by Ramachandra B. Abhyankar, an American from India. He has gotten several letters to the editor published in the Tribune Star. Below is another one. It's short, specific, understated and persuasive. This is the kind of thing that can help change the minds of our fellow citizens.

Wrong on Roots of Terrorism

In his Aug. 8 piece, “I said it before …”, Ronn Mott suggests that the cause of terrorism among Muslims is “a lack of education.” The facts do not bear this out.

Terror icon Osama bin Laden had a degree in engineering. Mohammed Atta, who participated in the 9/11 attack on America, had a graduate degree in engineering. Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, is a psychiatrist. Terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks,” has a degree in engineering. The current leader of al-Qaida, Ayman Al Zawahiri, is a pediatrician.

Clearly, Mr. Mott’s statement is incorrect.

— Ramachandra B. Abhyankar

You can see the original in the Tribune Star here.

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What Counterjihadists do Saturday Nights in Santa Monica

The following was originally published in The English Review:

Most folks chill out on Saturday nights; shopping at malls, dining out, or catching a movie at a multiplex. That is most folks. A group calling itself Counter Jihadists Coalition of Southern California spend Saturday nights at a booth in the busy Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica engaging in what I call anti-Da'wah — countering the call to Islam.

They endeavor to get the word out about what is inside the Qur'an, the Hadith, Mohammed's exemplary bio, and the ever-reliable guide to Islamic doctrine and Sharia, The Reliance of the Traveller. They number among their group some members of the West Coast branch of The United West. They even have a Coptic Christian member who can translate Arabic spoken by Muslim passersby who either walk by muttering or engage the doughty band.

Last Saturday evening marked the culmination of Ramadan with the Feast of Eid al-Fitr. So the group set up their booth laden with pamphlets and related materials elucidating the totalitarian creed that lies within the Islamic doctrine — a creed that denigrates all unbelievers and denies civil and human rights for women, those who leave Islam by choice, gays, and, of course, The People of the Book (Christians and Jews).

As Ramadan had ended the group prepared a poster from a recent score card of violence that occurred in the Ummah and elsewhere during Ramadan that they downloaded from the Religion of Peace website, The Ramadan Bombathon Scorecard for 2013. The Religion of Peace website notes:

TheReligionofPeace.com has been reporting on the number of people killed and injured in the name of religion throughout the month of Ramadan, which just ended. Here are the totals for 2013. All but one were carried out by Muslims, and that one didn’t result in any deaths or injuries.

Tell your Muslim friends you are happy Ramadan is over along with the yearly spike in Islamic terror attacks around the world.

What follows is a report from one of the leaders of the Counter Jihad Coalition, Steve Amundson: 

Scenes from a Saturday Night
at a Pedestrian Mall in Santa Monica 

The Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, CA, is one of the busiest pedestrian malls in Southern California. Hundreds of tourists and locals stroll the mall to shop, watch the street performers, and to take in the ethnic and cultural variety that makes Santa Monica so vibrant.

A group of activists called the Counter Jihad Coalition is also there to inform the public about the many ways Islamic ideology threatens the American way of life. We are armed only with a collection of illustrated brochures addressing as poignantly as possible the major concerns about Islamic ideology. Here is a list of some of the most popular brochures:

Islam in a Nut-Shell (which you can see here)
   
The Muslim Brotherhood
   
The Three Stages of Jihad

Are you a Muslim Born in a Foreign Country? (Containing challenging questions for Muslims who have never experienced freedom of speech and thought)

Women who marry into Islam may have to abandon all rights

An African-American Muslim is a Slave to a Racist Ideology

Is it “Un-Christian” to speak out about Islam?

There is no excuse for domestic violence, except Islamic Sharia Law

We attract visitors to our information table by posting large graphic signs about recent Islamic outrages — like the Boston Marathon bombing or the daylight beheading of Lee Rigby by Quran-quoting terrorists. Last Saturday, we used a 3’ by 4’ blow-up of the 2013 Ramadan Bombathon Scorecard published by www.thereligionofpeace.com.

(image of a poster was deleted)

This poster with the smiling jihadi holding an automatic got lots of attention. Passersby were signing up for the local American Congress for Truth (ACT), complementing us for speaking out, and (Muslims, of course) complaining how we have misunderstood their ideology. Having an Arabic-speaking Copt Christian and a woman on our team went a long way to diffusing the usual red-herrings dragged across our message.

As we engage the public, we are learning a number of things that other anti-Islamic activists must take into consideration: 

1) Most non-Muslims are woefully uninformed about Islam to the point that many could not determine if we were for or against Islam.

2) CAIR and other Islamist propaganda organizations have been relatively successful in convincing American non-Muslims that Islam is a “religion” protected by the First Amendment instead of a political ideology operating under the cover of religious protection.

3) Muslims are terrified at even touching anti-Islamic fact sheets or looking at selected verses of the Quran in English translations provided by mosques and other Muslim sources.

4) Muslims are obsessed with displaying their Islamic “gang symbols” in public to show that “we are here and you have to accept us.”

No we don’t. Tolerance of the intolerant is cultural suicide.

Editor's note: Here are a couple of updates on their activities:
Awakening People On the Third Street Promenade
Busy Night at the 3rd Street Promenade Information Table

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Religious Practice Versus Imposition

Earlier tonight an acquaintance said he had heard that during Ramadan in Dearborn, Michigan, there's a high school football team that does their football practice from 11:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. because some of the devout Muslim players can't eat or drink anything during the daylight. He said this without any judgment at all. It looked like he felt absolutely neutral about it.

I said, "In other words, the Muslims are imposing their practices on non-Muslims." I said it with a face that clearly displayed disapproval.

He was casually dismissive. "Well, other religions do crazy stuff too," he said.

I said, "They don't impose their stuff on me. Are there religious people who impose something on you? Or try to get you to grant a concession? Or try to make your values yield to theirs? To practice a religion is personal and private. If someone wants to go without food, what do I care? They can go right ahead. But when it impinges on people who are not members of the religion, that's no longer religious. It's political. So all the high school students who want to play football at that school have to practice in the middle of the night because Muslims are thrusting their Islamic practice into the non-Islamic public sphere. Those non-Muslim kids have to disrupt their normal sleep cycle because the Muslims won't bend and the non-Muslims will. And step by step, inch by inch, orthodox Muslims gain one concession after another as our tolerant culture yields to their intolerant culture. Is that okay with you? It's not okay with me."

I had to leave, but this brief conversation inserted an idea I got from Bill Warner. And my acquaintance looked like he heard something he had never even thought about. I wish I'd had time to explain to him that religious supremacism is the belief that a particular religion is superior to others and entitles members of the religion to control or dominate non-members. That's what these Muslim football players were doing.

But maybe it was better that I didn't go into any more detail. Sometimes less is better. Sometimes it's actually more effective to let things sink in a little at a time.

Given how many people are becoming aware of the disturbing nature of Islamic texts, these kinds of brief conversations must be taking place all over the free world. Let's keep it up. We should think in terms of small bits and long campaigns.

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Can We Stop This Creeping Jihad?

CAIR executive director, Nihad Awad

The following is a letter by Edward Kesler, published on July 28, 2013 in the Reader's Forum of the Tribune Star.

Admittedly, Americans have enormous difficulty realizing that a religion, Islam, is a threat to our society. Perhaps untiring efforts to awaken the public is a fool’s errand. Most readers of any newspaper will not research this issue for themselves. Understanding the task is daunting. It may be useful to examine groups the media believes purportedly speak for Muslims in the U.S.

In the news recently is the Muslim Brotherhood. Some Americans realize the Brotherhood controlled the Egyptian government until the last few weeks. Fewer understand this is not a “political party” but a movement dedicated to world domination. Simply reading the Muslim Brotherhood’s motto should sound alarms for all of us.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 after the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. A primary goal was to re-establish a caliphate that could be extended worldwide. The founders, ardent admirers of Hitler, translated “Mein Kampf” into Arabic. The Muslim religious leader, the Mufti of Jerusalem, spent many years in Germany supporting and observing death camp operations and planning the same for the Muslim world. Rommel’s defeat at El-Alamein ended the plan.

The Jihad (terrorist) group Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is the government of Gaza. In the United States the Brotherhood is the power and financing arm behind the Islamic Society of North America (headquartered in nearby Plainfield), the Muslim Students Association, the International Institute for Islamic Thought and many others.

Perhaps most notably, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, portrayed as a Muslim civil rights organization, is not only connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, but was also an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation money laundering case. The foundation was convicted of funneling money to Hamas to aid in the terror against Israel.

These are the “moderates” with whom this president’s administration and, to some extent, the previous two administrations, have attempted to coexist. In this administration, members of the Brotherhood and various other Islamist groups have made deep inroads into the halls of power.

Is it too late to stop the creeping social jihad being waged against us, even at the highest levels of our government?

— Edward Kesler, West Terre Haute

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ACT! for America Wins Victories

If you haven't yet signed up for ACT! for America's email updates, it's time to do yourself the favor. Their updates are top quality, they often give you action alerts to let you know how to take a specific immediate action that will make a difference, and sometimes their reports include good news, like the one they sent out yesterday. Here's what it said:

This year, the governor of Oklahoma signed into law American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) legislation.

The Alabama legislature passed ALAC and has sent it to the voters for approval in 2014 to add ALAC to the state constitution.

South Dakota passed the Free Speech Defense Act.

A school board in Northern Virginia rejected a charter school application from a group affiliated with the Islamist Gulen Movement.

A principal in Washington state removed a flawed, biased textbook from the school.

Kansas said "no" to sharia law and passed anti-Female Genital Mutilation legislation.

And ACT! for America helped make every one of these 2013 victories possible.

They have the largest national security grassroots citizen action network in the country, with over 260,000 members and 800 chapters, and growing.

They've got chapters now in other countries too: Argentina, Canada, Australia, Britain, India, Germany, etc. Sign up for their email updates here.

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They Oppressed the Wrong Woman

Waris Dirie

Waris Dirie was born in the desert of Somalia. Her family were Muslim nomads. When she was 13 years old, her father announced to her he'd found her a husband and she would soon be wed. Her "groom to be" was an old man. She protested and begged, but the old man had already paid her father, so the deal was done.

The next morning, before her father awoke, she ran away. She took off into the desert knowing only that somewhere was a city named Mogadishu and somewhere in that city she had an aunt. Amazingly, after a very difficult journey, she found her aunt and stayed with her a short time. Then one of her uncles became the Somalian ambassador to the UK and would be stationed in London. Waris begged her uncle to take her with him to be a maid. He consented.

She eventually became a fashion model whose face adorned the covers of many glamour magazines.

At one point in her career, Waris had been interviewed many times. The interviews were always about how a barefoot Somalian nomad became a famous model. But one day as another of these interviews was beginning, Waris took a bold step. She said the rags to riches story had already been told. "Would you like a real story?" she asked.

She told the interviewer about the day she experienced female genital mutilation (FGM), an ancient practice of removing a woman's clitoris, labia minora, and labia majora. Waris was then sewn up with a small hole for urination, which is usually how it's done. This procedure guarantees that she will be a virgin when she gets married, and it ensures she will not feel pleasure during sex (and thus helps prevent infidelity). A girl is not considered marriageable if she is "uncut" — she is considered no better than a whore, so parents make sure she undergoes FGM.

The interviewer was moved and shaken by Waris's story. And the magazine had the guts to print it. This was the beginning of an increasing global awareness of FGM and a movement to do away with it, in the same way that binding girl's feet was banned in China in the early 1900s. Already several countries have committed themselves to eradicating the practice.

Banning FGM would not only save millions of girls from the horror, pain, and death caused by this barbaric practice (it is done to 8,000 girls a day worldwide, with one out of four girls dying from the procedure), it would also help to marginalize, discredit, and disempower orthodox Islam.

The practice is over 4000 years old, and it was taken for granted during Muhammad's lifetime that all women underwent FGM, so he mentioned it a few times as a forgone conclusion, and his mention was written down, so it has now been enshrined in Islamic doctrine as an Islamic practice. Fundamentalists want it to continue because whatever Muhammad said is right for all time.

Banning the procedure would stop this orthodox practice, which would help disempower the fundamentalism itself. Everywhere we can prevent an orthodox practice, like covering women or beating them for disobedience or FGM, we weaken the forces of orthodoxy. If some Islamic fundamentals can be abandoned or seen as wrong, other fundamentals might be more easily abandoned as well.

I encourage you to help your friends and family become aware of FGM. You don't even have to mention the word "Islam." Read Waris's story in her excellent book, Desert Flower (written with Cathleen Miller). And then share the book with people you know. Talk it up. And watch National Geographic's movie by the same name and share that too. This is a way to help innocent girls, a way to pit humanistic empathy against Islamic domination, and a way to get people involved in marginalizing orthodox Islam — people who might never otherwise get involved. The Islamic oppression of women can and should be stopped. Let's start by saving orthodox Islam's weakest and most innocent victims: Girls.

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Why Talk About Islam? Shouldn't We Talk Specifically About "Extremists?"

One of our articles, Will It Stop Terrorism To Build Schools?, received a comment and I wanted to talk about it here because the point of view of the commenter is one of the most important barriers preventing the West from successfully defending itself against Islam's relentless encroachment.

In other words, if the issues the commenter brought up are not answered and answered well, I believe Islam will successfully Islamize the West. My answer (below) may not be complete enough, but it's a start, and I hope others will help out by adding their points in the comments to this post. So here goes...

The commenter's name was Ekblad. His first comment was, "Seems to me that you yourself, sir, is promoting hatred."

My response was, "Let me get this straight, Ekblad: Because I stated a fact: 'The primary doctrinal source of Islam, the Qur'an, teaches hatred and encourages violence against non-Muslims,' that means I'm promoting hatred?

"Who do I recommend hatred toward? Nobody, as far as I can tell. But if you quote a statement I have made that recommends people hate somebody, please let me know so I can correct it.

"Otherwise, what I am concerned with is a particular DOCTRINE. That is, a collection of written teachings. My main message is that anyone following those teachings will be necessarily dangerous to non-Muslims, and we non-Muslims best be aware of that fact and alter our policies accordingly. I'm talking about immigration policies, sedition laws, and our policies of negotiating with anyone following those teachings. I'm talking about policies toward allowing madrassas that teach these ideas to children, and I'm talking about policies toward what is said in mosques. Read more about that here.

"Many people do not know that inside the Qur'an are passages urging hatred toward Jews and Christians, and even greater hatred for those of us who are neither, and there are Muslims around the world who take these passages seriously and follow the teachings religiously.

"Do you recommend that we infidels simply stop talking about these teachings? Do you repudiate these teachings? Which passages of the Qur'an do you reject? Let's hear it, Ekblad."

Ekblad had this response:

"From your defensive tone I surmise your intention is in fact not to promote hatred. In that case I suggest you separate the Qur'an texts from its implementations, as we would do with Old Testament texts of similar content.

"An honest assessment of the implementation would no doubt result in the conclusion that the jihadists represent a tiny minority position within the Muslim world — and one that simply thrives on the kind of violence that has been the main tactic against them for too long.

"Bundling these extremists and their extreme interpretation of the Qur'an with all Qur'an followers is unfair and counterproductive.

"Greg Mortenson offers in my opinion a much more adequate and appropriate response towards the Muslim world, an attitude based on compassion for peoples living under difficult situations, regardless of creed."

Here is my response to that:

I think what you're bringing up here, Ekblad, is one of the most important issues non-Muslims will have to come to grips with in this century. Namely, is it legitimate to warn against the contents of the Qur'an and the Hadith? Or is wrong to do so? Is it being unfair to those who do not abide by every teaching of the Islamic doctrine?

I'm glad you responded, Ekblad. I was hoping for an opportunity to go into detail about this. To call my tone "defensive" seems oddly hostile. The reason I'm explaining so much to you is not only to answer you, but to answer your questions for the many others who will read this. And by the way, you didn't answer my question, which I still put to you: Are there any passages in the Qur'an that you repudiate?

But back to the main issue. I'm going to take your points one at a time. First you suggest we separate Qur'an texts from what people do with those texts (how they implement them). To which I would reply: I do exactly that. In the article you are taking exception to, I wrote, "Islamic terrorism (the implementation) has its roots in the ideology of Islam (the texts)."

I went on to say, "The primary doctrinal source of Islam, the Qur'an, teaches hatred and encourages violence against non-Muslims." Which is true. If you haven't read the Qur'an, I urge you to read it cover to cover as I have and find out for yourself. It is not difficult to read. Find out more about reading the Qur'an here. The passages are not hard to decipher. It is not written in vague language. It is vigorous and direct. And it does, very straightforwardly, encourage intolerance and violence against non-Muslims.

You should read it yourself before criticizing someone who talks about what's in it.

Your next point is that Jihadis are only a small minority of Muslims. If you mean violent Jihadis, I concede that point, although the minority who support the violence is much larger than most non-Muslims would guess (or feel glad about), and when you add up the violence worldwide, as Glen Reinsford does, this small minority of Muslims causes a great deal of carnage. But violent jihad is only one small part of the problem. There is a much larger and more dangerous issue — the political nature of Islam.

Islamic teachings direct Muslims to commit violence against non-Muslims, but the teachings do far more than that, and the options for waging jihad against non-Muslims are enormous. Violence is only one of many ways to wage jihad.

The political goal of Islam is universal Shari'a law. Political action toward that goal is a religious duty for a Muslim. One way a Muslim can work toward that goal is to use violence to strike terror into the hearts of non-Muslims. Or to intimidate non-Muslims into refraining from any criticism of Islam, as the "cartoon riots" tried to do (and in some ways they succeeded). Another way to wage jihad is to organize a YouTube video-banning project. If YouTube gets enough complaints about a video, YouTube makes the video unavailable to view. Muslims around the world have successfully banned many videos that were critical of Islamic teachings. Another way to wage jihad is to create an organization such as the Council of American-Islamic Relations and bring lawsuits against people who criticize Islam. Another way to wage jihad is to infiltrate the "chaplain system" of the penal system and try to convert prisoners to Jihadis.

The list goes on and on. All of these things and many more are being done in the United States and Europe. Jihad is being waged on so many fronts at once, it is astonishing. And frightening. The end-goal of all of these efforts is to establish Shari'a law — a seventh century form of law which removes human rights from women, among many other drawbacks.

Warren Mendleson said at a recent press conference:

Sharia "requires non-Muslims to live as dhimmis, second-class citizens... and be treated in a brutal and demeaning way... it mandates discrimination against women and non-Muslims, demands the murder of homosexuals, adulterers, and apostates, and requires violent jihad against all infidels, including Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and others." He continued that "Sharia law is seditious because it calls for the violent overthrow of governments like the United States and the replacement of democratic Constitutional law with its own bureaucratic code." He indicated that the nations practicing Sharia law today are "some of the most oppressive regimes in the world."

Another speaker at the same press conference, Wendy Wright, said:

In Shari'a law, "husbands can use physical force against their wives, the early forced marriage of a girl as young as nine, that men can have multiple marriages and multiple wives, that men can have the right of custody of children and mothers have no rights of custody, that homosexuals should be stoned to death, that women accused of bringing dishonor to male relatives should be killed."

The teachings of Islam urge followers to establish Shari'a law and to abolish "man-made" governments (such as democracies) so the law of Allah can rule the behavior of all people on earth. That is the goal.

R. James Woolsey, former director of Central Intelligence, commenting on Robert Spencer's book, Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs, wrote:

"Robert Spencer makes a solid case that the major threat to our way of life does not come solely from those radical Islamists who embrace violence and terrorism. It also comes from those who do not accept that they must live side-by-side on a basis of equality with those of other faiths in a civil society and who instead work in multiple ways toward obtaining special standing for Islam in our society and, ultimately, toward theocracy. A vital wake-up call of a book."

So in answer to your question, Ekblad, I do not think it is especially significant or useful to emphasize that Jihadis are a "tiny minority" in the Muslim world.

This is why the core teachings of Islam are relevant and important to non-Muslims. The core teachings of Islam are aiming at the eradication of the values, principles, and way of life non-Muslims care about most. If Islam accomplishes its goal, governments protecting liberty and equality will no longer exist.

Your third point, Ekblad, is that it is unfair and counterproductive to bundle "extremists and their extreme interpretation of the Qur'an with all Qur'an followers." And here we arrive at the core issue. The Qur'an says what it says. It promotes intolerance toward non-Muslims in very direct language which requires no "interpretation." Since we can all read it, and since we couldn't possibly know for sure that at least some of the people who call themselves Muslims have decided not to follow some of those teachings, it is up to Muslims to declare themselves. It is not up to non-Muslims to avoid offending those liberty-and-equality-loving "Muslims" by assuming they are peace-loving, liberty-loving, and equality-loving people.

That is a big assumption to make for anyone who knows what is in the Qur'an.

This is so important, I want to make this perfectly clear. We non-Muslims can read the Qur'an. We can know what it says. Anyone who calls himself a Muslim, we assume, must believe the Qur'an is the word of Allah, which means he believes in (and is committed to) the passages in the Qur'an. Which means he is potentially dangerous to the liberty and even the survival of non-Muslims. For non-Muslims to have any inkling that a "Muslim" does not follow all the teachings contained in the Qur'an, he would have to tell us which passages he repudiates.

I have yet to hear any Muslim doing so (except the excellent people over at Muslims Against Sharia). In fact, it says in the Qur'an itself a Muslim may not reject or ignore any verses of the Qur'an. So both Muslims and non-Muslims are between a rock and a hard place. I don't know what the ultimate solutions will be for this problem, but I'll tell you what I know will NOT work: For non-Muslims to avoid or ignore or downplay the writings of Islam's most sacred book. For any solution to come about, we all have to be honest about what is written in that book.

I've been studying about this and writing about it for a long time, and I have heard from many Muslims over the years. Almost all of them have said they were "peaceful Muslims." But not one of them has quoted a passage from the Qur'an and said, "I do not and will not ever follow that passage."

What is a non-Muslim to do?

To be on the safe side, a non-Muslim should assume anyone who calls himself a Muslim follows the teachings of the Qur'an. Just as we would assume anyone who calls himself a Christian is following the teachings of the Bible. But as much as people always try to imply the two religions are similar, the Bible is a large collection of writings from many different writers and written at different times in history. Its message is not nearly as clear-cut as the Qur'an's message. And the Bible does not give its followers a political agenda. It does not explicitly tell its followers how to treat non-Christians.

For those and many other reasons, non-believers such as myself have no need to be as wary of Christians as we need to be of Muslims (read more about that here). This may not be "fair" to those Muslims who choose to ignore particular teachings in the Qur'an, but this is an important issue of self-preservation and the protection of liberty. We cannot risk such things for the sake of being "nice."

It is up to the Muslims to say which intolerant and violent verses of the Qur'an they reject. It is not up to the non-Muslims to assume every Muslim rejects those passages until they prove otherwise by their behavior — too much is at stake. "Innocent until proven guilty" is an important legal principle in a criminal court, but it would be foolish to follow the same principle in establishing immigration policies, for example. It would be foolish to assume all mosques in the free world are teaching a peace-loving, democracy-loving (altered) version of the Qur'an until after a generation of mosque-goers prove otherwise, especially when Undercover Mosque and Mapping Sharia have already shown quite otherwise.

The onus is on the Muslims. Sad but true. There is no other sensible way for non-Muslims to deal with our dilemma.

The whole issue is compounded further by the principle of taqiyya, or religious deception. This is an Islamic teaching that says, basically, a Muslim may deceive a non-Muslim if it furthers the goals of Islam. But that is a whole other discussion which I will reserve for another time.

The last point you made, Ekblad, is that Mortenson offers a more appropriate response toward the Muslim world than my response of educating non-Muslims about Islamic teachings. You are saying you think it is a better solution to build non-madrassa schools in Muslim lands than it is to educate non-Muslims about the contents of the Qur'an.

I really like what Mortenson is doing, as I said in the article. But given all the ways jihad is being waged against non-Muslims, Mortenson's solution is only a small part of the response non-Muslims should make. It is an important and worthwhile contribution, but will not solve the problem by itself.

By the way, you said it was unfair to bundle "extremists" and other Muslims together. I assume you mean I "bundled them together" by saying they both use the Qur'an as their holy book. But I didn't make that up. I didn't conjure that idea from thin air. All Muslims — "extremists" and otherwise — profess to follow the teachings of a single book. In other words, I didn't bundle them together. They have bundled themselves together by professing reverence for the same holy book and Prophet.

You also said it was counterproductive to educate non-Muslims about the unsavory teachings of the Qur'an. And here I finally agree with you. It is counterproductive to the Jihadis' goals for me to inform non-Muslims about Islamic teachings. Non-Muslims are more capable of resisting "Shari'a creep," as it's been called, when they know about it. When non-Muslims are more informed about Islamic teachings, we are better able to see through the taqiyya and to stop giving concessions to Islam's constant pressure. We are better able to defend ourselves.

I wonder how you would answer this question, Ekblad: Does it harm a truly peaceful Muslim (or Christian, for that matter) to inform non-Muslims and non-Christians that their books contain passages that promote violence?

If the person is truly peaceful, and if the person is truly a Muslim or Christian, then that person must already be fully aware of the passages in their primary holy books, right? Are they embarrassed by those passages? I doubt it.

So they know about the violent or intolerant passages and they are not embarrassed. Then where is the harm of mentioning those passages?

The only harm I can see is it might make people shy away from converting to those religions. But that's not a good enough reason to avoid warning the potential victims of the violence.

I see only one other way it harms someone: I can see that it harms the Jihadis' ability to fulfill their plans when people like me go around "giving away the game." It harms the Jihadi goal of imposing universal Shari'a law to let non-Muslims know that's what they want. That is a "harm" I can live with.

I asked you a question before that you have so far avoided answering: What passages in the Qur'an do you reject? Here's another: Are you a Muslim? If not, what do you hope to accomplish by your criticism?

One last thing, Ekblad. Awhile back I wrote a post you might be interested in. I have heard from so many Muslims in the past, I decided to write out my response so I could just send a link next time and save my fingers some wear and tear. Check it out: A Message to Peaceful Muslims.

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