Read it.

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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According to Lebanese paper Al-Akhabr, the clash started when Al-Ahbash members tried to bar Hizbullah men from passing through a neighborhood where the Sunni group holds control.

Shortly afterward, Shi’ite supporters of Hizbullah and sister organization Amal set fire to a Sunni mosque in the nearby neighborhood of Basta, according to an AP photographer.

(Hum “When You’re A Jet” from West Side Story if you wish.)

The only people who appear to be burning mosques are other Muslims.

Christopher Hitchens is back in the saddle.

Coyly untranslated here (perhaps for “outreach” purposes), Vilayet-i-faquih is the special term promulgated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to describe the idea that all of Iranian society is under the permanent stewardship (sometimes rendered as guardianship) of the mullahs. Under this dispensation, “the will of the people” is a meaningless expression, because “the people” are the wards and children of the clergy. It is the justification for a clerical supreme leader, whose rule is impervious to elections and who can pick and choose the candidates and, if it comes to that, the results. It is extremely controversial within Shiite Islam. (Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, for example, does not endorse it.) As for those numerous Iranians who are not Shiites, it reminds them yet again that they are not considered to be real citizens of the Islamic Republic.

As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it’s easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims—to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be “phobic.” A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.

From my window, I can see the beautiful minaret of the Washington, D.C., mosque on Massachusetts Avenue. It is situated at the heart of the capital city’s diplomatic quarter, and it is where President Bush went immediately after 9/11 to make his gesture toward the “religion of peace.” A short while ago, the wife of a new ambassador told me that she had been taking her dog for a walk when a bearded man accosted her and brusquely warned her not to take the animal so close to the sacred precincts. Muslim cabdrivers in other American cities have already refused to take passengers with “unclean” canines.

Let us by all means make the “Ground Zero” debate a test of tolerance. But this will be a one-way street unless it is to be a test of Muslim tolerance as well.

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Every year on November 2 a select group of Dutch Muslims holds a party to celebrate the anniversary of Theo Van Gogh’s murder. Last year’s celebration was attended by a Dutch anthropologist who purports to “study” Islamic radicals. The existence of these parties — and his admission of his own participation — was inadvertently revealed on Twitter, and has caused a bit of controversy in the Netherlands.

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Now, seven months later, Pakistani officials are telling a very different story. They say they set out to capture Mr. Baradar, and used the C.I.A. to help them do it, because they wanted to shut down secret peace talks that Mr. Baradar had been conducting with the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime backer.

What, they would lie to us? I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.

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Donations to the Pakistan Floods Appeal, which was launched on August 5, increased by 18 per cent in the second week and have not yet started dropping.

DEC member agencies and their partners have so far helped more than 800,000 people.

They’re certainly shaming the other Muslims around the world, whose giving has been so paltry as to be shameful. ‘Millions of dinars for radical hate mosques, but not one dhiram for flood relief!’

(Whatever happened to all these ‘Muslim charities’ who keep getting caught funneling money to Hamas and Hizbollah? Perhaps charity is only a Christian virtue after all.)

Or perhaps the rest of the Umma think of this as merely another form of jizya, an obligation laid on the kufr and not on Believers.

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During the recent controversy over Córdoba House — better known as the Ground Zero mosque — a frequently recurring theme, replayed over and over again in the mainstream media, is that “Córdoba” refers to the “golden age of al-Andalus”, and not to the destruction of Christian culture in Iberia. The Córdoba mosque allegedly represents the high point of Islamic civilization in Spain, when all three “Abrahamic faiths” lived in harmony under the enlightened rule of the Umayyad Caliphate.

The fact that almost very media outlet peddles the same line tells us that they are all taking their talking points from CAIR, ISNA, MPAC, ASMA, etc. The “voluntary” nature of Christian submission in Córdoba is a Muslim Brotherhood meme, and the MSM has bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Unfortunately for the credulous and gullible amongst us, the entire story is bogus. The myth of “the Golden Age of Islam” in Iberia is just that, a myth.

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It is a long-standing practice in Islamic warfare to invite the targeted population to convert before attacking. Indeed, it goes back to Muhammad himself:

“When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. … If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them….” (Sahih Muslim 19.4294)

Well, Christianity is just as bad! Look at all the times Jesus told his disciples to demand that enemies either pay a tax or they would fight them! (Oh, wait … I guess He didn’t….)

Read it.

The Islamic symbolism of the design for the late World Trade Center.

Having rejected modernism and the Saudi royal family, it’s no surprise that Bin Laden would turn against Yamasaki’s work in particular. He must have seen how Yamasaki had clothed the World Trade Center, a monument of Western capitalism, in the raiment of Islamic spirituality. Such mixing of the sacred and the profane is old hat to us—after all, Cass Gilbert’s classic Woolworth Building, dubbed the Cathedral to Commerce, is decked out in extravagant Gothic regalia. But to someone who wants to purify Islam from commercialism, Yamasaki’s implicit Mosque to Commerce would be anathema. To Bin Laden, the World Trade Center was probably not only an international landmark but also a false idol.

There’s no pleasing some people.

Well, yeah.

In Islam, however, there is no such thing as a half-Muslim. Like all monotheistic religions, Islam is an exclusive faith.

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings. (Some may point to cases in which lesser punishments were ordered — as with some Egyptian intellectuals who have been punished for writings that were construed as apostasy — but those were really instances of supposed heresy, not explicitly declared apostasy as in Senator Obama’s case.)

Because no government is likely to allow the prosecution of a President Obama — not even those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the only two countries where Islamic religious courts dominate over secular law — another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.

At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.

Why this ‘religion’ is different from every other religion is left as an exercise for the reader, as is the fate of non-Muslims in a Muslim world.

Read it.

Ponder why an Asian country of 230 million people needs handouts from a European country of 17 million people. Might the fact that 90% of the population is Muslim have something to do with it?

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A court in Saudi Arabia is seeking medical advice on whether it is possible to cut the spinal cord of a man as a punishment after he was indicted of causing paralysis to another man during a fight, a local daily reported on Thursday.

The unidentified defendant hit Abdul Aziz Al Mutairi, another Saudi, with a cleaver during a fight more than two years ago and the trial has been delayed because Mutairi is insisting that his attacker suffer the same injury.

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One of the primary documents [pdf] used in the Holy Land Foundation trial in 2008 was the “Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group”. It was written on May 22, 1991 by Mohamed Akram, and gave a brief description of the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States:

The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. […] It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is…The above is a clear declaration that the front organizations of the Muslim Brotherhood — CAIR, ISNA, ICNA, NAIT, MSA, IIIT, etc. — intended to “bore from within” and overthrow American constitutional government by subverting our own institutions.

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Mariam Ghorbanzadeh, 25, who was six months’ pregnant and miscarried after being beaten up in Tabriz prison this week, was initially sentenced to death by stoning for adultery but her sentence has been commuted to hanging in a rapid judicial review. The decision is thought to have been driven by the Iranian authorities’ desire to avoid further international condemnation over the barbaric punishment.

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Speaking for the first time since the attack, the Afghan told how several of the charity workers tried to hide under vehicles but were gunned down or hit with grenades as they fled.

When the eight aid workers and two Afghans had been killed, the attackers told associates over a radio: “Everything’s finished. We killed them.”

Two of the three women in the team, which included the British medic, Dr Karen Woo, 36, jumped into the 4×4 vehicle to try to escape but were killed by a grenade.

One-by one the rest of the group were shot, included the team’s cook who was hiding under a car.

Safiullah told investigators the lead gunman spoke like a Pakistani.

Despite the safe-passage the British had been granted, they were attacked by Ghilzai warriors as they struggled through the snowbound passes.

Looks like things haven’t changed very much in 150 years:

On 1 January 1842, following some unusual thinking by Elphinstone, which may have had something to do with the poor defensibility of the cantonment, an agreement was reached that provided for the safe exodus of the British garrison and its dependants from Afghanistan. Five days later, the withdrawal began. The departing British contingent numbered around 16,000, of which about 4,500 were military personnel, and over 12,000 were civilian camp followers. The military force consisted mostly of Indian units and one British battalion, 44th Regiment of Foot.

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I’m opening a book on how long it takes before some American flies an airliner into it.

Unfortunately, the irony would be lost on the entire ruling class of the Western world, to say nothing of the Dar al-Islam.

Read it.

But Islamic scholars hope the clock’s influence will stretch far further than the sands of Saudi Arabia, as part of a plan for Mecca to eclipse the Greenwich Observatory as the “true centre of the earth”.

As Mohammed al-Arkubi, manager of one of the hotels in the complex, put it: “Putting Mecca time in the face of Greenwich Mean Time. This is the goal.”

This claim that the holy city is a “zero magnetism zone” has won support from some Arab scientists like Abdel-Baset al-Sayyed of the Egyptian National Research Centre who says that there is no magnetic force in Mecca.

“That’s why if someone travels to Mecca or lives there, he lives longer, is healthier and is less affected by the earth’s gravity,” he said. “You get charged with energy.”

Western scientists have challenged such assertions, noting that the Magnetic North Pole is in actual fact on a line of longitude that passes through Canada, the United States, Mexico and Antarctica.

But what is mere science if Muslim supremacy is at stake?

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They’ll come in handy when we destroy their army as we destroyed Saddam’s.

Just sayin’.

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Alibekov has had just about enough. This 30-year-old conservative blogger, French-born, newlywed, with a good university education, has just decided to turn his back on his home country, where his grandparents hid Jews during the Second World War. He has almost completed his immigration papers for Canada. He is leaving soon. Next step, possibly: the United States.

After university, Alibekov lived and worked for six years in Africa. He returned home a short while ago to the Paris region. What he saw horrified him.

Read it.

Many apparently mainstream Muslim groups have the same ideology as violent Islamists, according to a secret report from the think tank Quilliam.

A conclusion inescapable to anybody with two brain cells to rub together. It’s secret, of course, because the government doesn’t contain anybody with that much intellect.

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Ten people — including at least two Americans — were killed by gunmen in Afghanistan on Thursday, police said Saturday, and the Taliban militant group has claimed responsibility.

The gunmen stopped the victims on a road, took their belongings and shot them one by one, said Aqa Nwor Kentoz, police chief of Badakhshan province.

“The team had been in Nuristan at the invitation of communities there,” the international mission said. “After having completed their medical work, the team was returning to Kabul. At this stage we do not have many details but our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who are presumed killed. … Some of the foreigners have worked alongside the Afghan people for decades.”

The assistant to the executive director of the mission group said the victims were providing eye care and internal medicine care to Afghans.

Hans Ronnlund denied statements by the Taliban that the medical staff was carrying Bibles.

Your life under Islam, the ‘Religion of Peace’. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Read it.

Ain’t no ‘assimilation’ for Muslims. Muslims don’t move to another country; they live always in the Dar al-Islam, wherever they may be temporarily residing.

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Prem Chand, 25, a bright spark from the minority Hindu community, was a member of the National Youth Parliament and was heading to Islamabad from Karachi to attend the organisation’s last session when the Airblue flight crashed into the Margalla Hills on July 28, killing all 152 people on board.

Ehsan Naveed Irfan, a youth parliamentarian who identified Prem Chand’s body, said the coffin was first marked in black with the word “kaafir” and this was then highlighted in red.

Under Islam, there are two types of people: Muslims and Other. If you’re an Other, you don’t count. At all.

Read it.

Those of us who were stirred from our slumber by the events of September 11th have spent the last nine years acquiring the rudiments of a new vocabulary. The struggle against Islamization has made the understanding of certain key Arabic words a necessity.

Just for starters, an essential list would include da’wa, deen, dhimmi, fiqh, ijtihad, ikhwan, imam, jahiliyyah, jihad, jizyah, kitman, mujahideen, mullah, shahid, shirk, tafsir, takfir, taqiyya, ulema, ummah, waqf, and zakat. Some of these terms — dhimmi and shahid, for example — have no concise equivalents in Western languages, and often require several sentences of explanation to make their meaning clear. ICLA is currently working on an “Islamic Lexicon for Dummies” with the goal of providing a handy reference guide for members of the Counterjihad.

Read it.

A deadly incident between Israeli and Lebanese forces occurred today at the border between the two countries. It was the most serious such incident since the end of the 2006 war, and at least five people were killed.

A little digging will tell the reader that the incident was almost certainly deliberately provoked by the Lebanese army commander on the scene. It’s also easy to discover that Israel had informed UNIFIL of a fence-repair operation ahead of time, and that UNIFIL observers were present alongside the Israeli soldiers. Although they were on the Lebanese side of the fence, the Israelis remained entirely inside Israeli territory, because the fence itself is set back from the border to make operations like this one possible.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Read it.

What museum? Wait for it….

Arab American National Museum in Michigan launches campaign to raise money for statue of veteran White House correspondent who ended career by saying Jews should ‘get the hell out of Palestine’.

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Late last week, just four days after the documents were published, death threats began arriving at the homes of key tribal elders in southern Afghanistan. And over the weekend one tribal elder, Khalifa Abdullah, who the Taliban believed had been in close contact with the Americans, was taken from his home in Monar village, in Kandahar province’s embattled Arghandab district, and executed by insurgent gunmen.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Read it.

Pakistan’s intelligence agency has cancelled planned talks with security experts in Britain following David Cameron’s claim that elements within the country are promoting the export of terror, it is reported.

Sounds like a win-win to me.

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This Time cover has led to much consternation on the internet. Most of the outrage isn’t over the image but, rather, the headline. Still, the image itself is shocking. It depicts Aisha, an 18-year-old Afghan woman who was sentenced by the Taliban to have her nose and ears cut off after she fled her abusive in-laws.

A potent reminder of what sort of people our enemies are. ISLAM IS AN OPPRESSIVE TOTALITARIAN IDEOLOGY WITH WHICH NO CO-EXISTENCE IS POSSIBLE. Remember that every day of your life, or you (and your family) will wind up like Aisha.

Read it.

Muslims: It’s their way or the highway.

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There are three major components to the Islamic strategy for overcoming the infidel democracies: the Ummah, Dawah, and Jihad. Each is necessary for Islamic success, but Jihad is the final stroke, and consumes far less time, resources, and manpower than the other two.

This is an excellent synopsis, and deserves much thought.

Read it.

Oh, really? I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.

Gates of Vienna deconstructs the Third OIC Observatory Report on Islamophobia.

I’m sure that Communists left over from the heyday of the Soviet Union are kicking themselves that they didn’t think of exploiting the term ‘Communistophobia’ along with the other tools that the Useful Idiots of the West were so eager to hand them.

Read it.

And watch the video.

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Guess things really haven’t changed over there in the last 200 years.

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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I’m curious as to why they’re considered to have some sort of a choice in this.

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Jihad – it’s not just for Americans any more.

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Non-Muslims are the niggers of the Middle East.

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It seems almost unthinkable, but Islamist groups are, as we speak, hard at work creating Muslim states-within-states in the U.S. Indeed, this process has been unfolding for a long time across the Western world, through the creation of isolated Muslim enclaves in both rural and urban areas, as well as through the designation of “no-go zones” where governments admit to having little authority over Muslims living there, essentially leaving them to function as autonomous regions.

Daniel Pipes has tracked numerous examples since 2004 of Muslim groups working to create communities based solely on Islam and run by Shari’a law. As discussed by David Kennedy Houck in 2006, “Although such concepts are antithetical to a free society, U.S. democracy allows the internal enclave to function beyond the established boundaries of our constitutional framework.”

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When they can’t find Christians or Jews to kill, they kill each other.

That’s some Religion o’ Peace you got there, fellah.

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A former detainee held at Guantanamo Bay for nearly three years has been arrested in Pakistan on terrorism charges. Pakistani officials told Agence France Presse that Issa Khan, who had been detained in Afghanistan in late 2001, held at Gitmo, and then repatriated to Pakistan in September 2004, was arrested today in the Bannu district of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa).

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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Reminder for those who haven’t been paying attention: Islam is an oppressive totalitarian ideology with which no co-existence is possible.

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Pakistan was founded, and remains, an explicitly Muslim state. Any pretense that it’s on our side is just that, pretense.

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Any country that lets Muslims cross its border has a death wish.

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Your life under Islam. Don’t say that you weren’t warned.

1. Thank God you don’t live in Britain.
2. Without eternal vigilance, it could happen here. Probably in Ann Arbor (if it hasn’t already).

Read it.

More than £2bn of cash has been openly flown out of Kabul airport since 2007, raising fears huge sums of British and American aid are being creamed off by corrupt officials.

Oh, ya think?