If you throw a frog into boiling water, he will jump out. If you put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, he will not notice the rise in temperature and will eventually boil.
The Islamists are boiling our frog and though this blog and hundreds like it record almost daily the rise in the Jihad temperature, unless we see how far and fast the temperature has risen, we will not know how far along our boiling has progressed.
So, the Gathering Storm will be posting only once a week but these weekly posts will take the Jihadist temperature by looking back at news and events over the last two years. Over the next several weeks in the areas of intimidation, infiltration, disinformation and those appeasers and apologists who either knowingly or unknowingly advance the Jihad agenda, the Gathering Storm will show how far our frog has been boiled.
By seeing the boiling water around us, we can see how far the boiling has progressed.
The good news is that we are noticing that the water is getting warmer. There is a glimmer of awareness here - a glimmer of hope there. But we have a long way to go.
Here’s this week’s look back at the rising Jihad temperature of DISINFORMATION !! And remember – this is just a sampling of Jihadist Disinformation. More to follow.
Storm Track Disinformation: Can Islam Safely Use the Ballot Box?
Now that the concept of political Islam is being recognized by pundits and commentators out side the blogospher, we’re seeing attempts by those pundits and commentators to try to deal with it.
This blog, and hundreds of others like it, know that political Islam is the non-violent strategy of Islamists to inject their jihadist ideology into non-Muslim and Muslim countries in the attempt of overthrowing democratically elected freedom loving governments and what are called current moderate Muslim ones.
If one holds the position that the ideology of Islamism is as much a threat to freedom and world peace as fascism and communism, then its obvious no one should allow it to gain any kind of political power. We see how every day the ‘democratically’ elected governments of Gaza, the PLO, Iran and Pakistan run roughshod over every personal freedom and civil right that the Islamists deem a threat to their theistic ideology.
But there are some who believe we should allow Islam to have a voice in the political process to close the door on ‘extremists’ who would advance the Islamist agenda.
Endy Bayuni, writing in the Washington Post, holds such a position. In his piece titled Don't Send Islam Underground, but to Ballot Box, he states that Political Islam is a fact of life in countries with large Muslim populations and we should allow them access to the ballot box as we have done in the past with other ideologies that have used the political process in democratic countries to advance their agenda.
Indonesia and Turkey, two such countries, have had to deal with this issue for decades. Indonesia's own experience tells us that suppressing or banning political Islam is not the answer. General Suharto tried this when he ruled Indonesia for three decades until 1998, and political Islam simply went underground, making detection of its activities -- some of which were violent -- even more difficult.
If political Islam is accepted as a fact of life, then its presence must be accommodated in any democratic political system. That means the Islamist political parties are allowed to contest elections, but like other political parties, they must abide by the rules of the game called democracy.
Obviously, those Islamist groups who preach violence or even engage in terrorism don't count, and must be dealt with by the law. But Islamist parties that adhere to democratic rules and principles have legitimate claims to operate and take part in elections. Secular parties concerned about the country turning into a theocratic state must then confront political Islam through the ballot box.
And there’s the problem. Allowing a political party that promises to overthrow the very democratic processes that it uses to gain power is the weakness in Mr. Bayuni’s argument. Hitler was voted into office and soon thereafter, used the power of the government to name him as dictator. This was a much the fault of the German people who swallowed his lies in return for prosperity as the Parliamentary form of government and it’s need to have consensus between the many different parties into order to form a government. Unlike our republican form of democracy – there’s a winner and a loser and the loser has to wait until the next election to gain power - I’ve written before of the dangers of a parliamentary form of government and how it can be used by special interest parties to steer a nation into disaster.
Mr. Bayuni, like most liberals, is banking on the power of endless discussion and debate to resolve a country’s problems. What he doesn’t understand or refused to see is that there are those who will use the democratic process to make sure that such discussion and debate is null and void once they gain political power.
But let’s give Mr. Bayuni the benefit of the doubt and use history to defend his position.
Anti-democratic ideologies like fascism in the 1930s and communism in the 1950s were allowed to form political parties and partake in the democratic political process. Any fool could see that their ultimate aim was not to improve the lot of citizens but to control them. Yet, we allowed those anti-democratic parties access to and participation in our political process.
We went to war with two fascist ideologies – Nazism and Shintoism – and declared them illegal to practice in the political process. We fought a cold war with communism and defeated their ideology with the power of our economics. Fascist and Communist parties that survived were eventually marginalized in the democratic institutions around the world. Right wing and communist parties exist but little attention is paid to them in the free democracies.
Mr. Bayuni thinks that such marginalization can happen eventually with Islamic parties who have the same goals as the fascist and communist parties.
But this anti-democratic ideology is far different from those of the past. Those anti-democratic ideologies were secular while Islam is not. They wanted to survive the conflict while Islamists would gladly eliminate itself in the process if they were guaranteed to be victorious. Those parties represented a comparatively small world population with feeble attempts at demographic domination compared to the rapidly expanding Muslim population in democratic countries.
Though we knew and understood clearly the goals of past anti-democratic ideologies and watched them closely, the ideology of Islamism and its plans for world domination is not fully understood by our political leadership whose vision of the threat has been blurred by political correctness and multiculturalism. If all parties in all democratically elected countries saw the threat for what it is and reported to their general public, the intent of political Islam and its plans of execution – allowing intimidation of Islam’s critics, blind to infiltration of the Islamist ideology in our government, institutions and organizations, and the disinformation that spews from such ‘civil rights’ organizations like CAIR and the Muslin Student Association – then it would be safe to allow Islam access to the ballot box for it would be defeated time and time again like many marginalized parties.
But as of now, we would only be letting the camel‘s nose into the tent – and the entire camel will soon follow claiming democracy has spoken.
Storm Track Disinformation: Winning Battles but Losing the War on Terror
The on-line edition of Time Magazine carries a story by Joshua Kurlantzick paying homage to Indonesia's unequalled track record in the continuing war on terrorism. Too bad they and the writer don’t have a clue as to the real conflict before them.
The article chronicles recent devastating blows dealt to home-grown and imported terror cells, citing Indonesia as "one of the world's few triumphs in fighting terrorism."
Relating how police and anti-terror units have "arrested or killed some 300 alleged militants," Indonesia has also become a front-line member on the world effort to curtail money laundering and terror, earning praise from the U.S., Great Britain and Australia along the way.
The whole thrust of the article plays up the success of treating the war as a criminal problem and totally unaware that the strategic struggle between a 21st century civilization and a 7th century one is about ideology not terrorism.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yodhoyono has pursued a policy of winning hearts and minds, persuading young Indonesians that extremism and radicalism have no place in Indonesian society.
And how well has he been ‘winning hearts and minds’?
As Reuters reported back in October, just 10 percent of Indonesian Muslims said they backed jihad and supported bomb attacks on the island of Bali aimed at foreign tourists. But Indonesia is home to more than 200 million Muslims, so while 10 percent may sound like a small number percentage-wise, it is actually quite large in absolute terms. It means there are some 20 million Muslims in Indonesia alone who are willing to say out loud that they support the use of violence and terror against innocent human beings.
So what do the numbers tell us? That terrorism is not the only jihad that the Islamists use to advance their agenda of Islamatizing the world.
The figures above, taken from a variety of nations, continents and contexts, all point in one very ominous direction. They demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the global jihadist movement enjoys a wide and broad base of political support that extends far beyond just a minuscule number of violent supporters. And that far beyond includes the many different types of jihads used by the Islamists – media, litigation, financial, economic, demographic and cultural jihads.
Another poll gave these results.
More than two-thirds of Indonesians favor the country's current secular system of law, according to a privately funded nationwide survey by the Indonesian Survey Circle, a pollster. If that seems like good news, read it this way: This means there are "only" about 82 million Indonesians who favor Shariah. Approximately 216 million out of Indonesia's approximately 246 million inhabitants, or nearly nine-tenths of the population, are Muslims. And while Indonesia's religious and cultural climate is justifiably regarded as moderate in comparison to much of the rest of the Muslim world -- and its government is a very useful ally against terrorism -- the numbers still leave plenty of room for concern.
Just over two-thirds of respondents disapprove of the death penalty for those who renounce Islam, according to the survey, which was first reported by Rupert Murdoch's www.news.com.au. More than three-quarters of Indonesians disapprove of mandatory head scarves. Nearly two-thirds oppose stoning for adultery. More than 75 percent are against severing the hands of thieves. When the aggregate numbers of people are factored in, the study looks considerably more disturbing. If one-quarter of Indonesians favor cutting off the hands of thieves, it suggests that upwards of 60 million Indonesians favor the practice. If roughly 164 million Indonesians oppose stoning adulterers, it means that more than 80 million favor doing so.
And there’s more proof of the support in Indonesia for political jihad just this last week.
Shouting "Allah is great", and waving black and white flags, about 80,000 members of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir gathered in a sports stadium in Jakarta yesterday to call for the creation of a Muslim state spanning the Islamic world.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in several countries, including France, Germany and the Netherlands, has a strong following in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim state. Delegates at the Bung Karno Stadium had also come from Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
Yes. Indonesia may be winning battles on terrorism but have no idea that they are losing the war to the real enemy – political Islam.
Storm Track Disinformation: Liberty Science Center Indoctrinates Children in Islamic Culture
More indoctrination of young American children into the wonders of Islam. This one promoting the myth of Islamic scientific accomplishments.
Although there is no arguing that the Muslim world was more advanced during this period than the “Christian” world, the reasons for this have absolutely nothing to do with the Islamic religion (other than its mandate for military expansion). In fact, the religion actively discourages knowledge outside of itself, which is why the greatest Muslim scholars throughout history tend to be students of religion rather than science.
To sum up, although the Islamic religion is not entirely hostile to science, neither should it be confused as a facilitator. The great achievements that are said to have come out of the Islamic world were made either by non-Muslims who happened to be under Islamic rule, or by heretics who usually had little interest in Islam. Scientific discovery tapers off dramatically as Islam asserts dominance, until it eventually peters out altogether.
For more of this myth read a recent post here at my blog. A new book by Physicist Taner Edis has an interrsting take on the ‘scientific approach’ of Islam. In his book “An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam” Edis examines the range of Muslim thinking about science and Islam, from blatantly pseudoscientific fantasies to comparatively sophisticated efforts to "Islamize science."
Sultan Knish has post about the Liberty Science Center exhibition on Islamic culture.
With enough money invested the Arab and Muslim world has demonstrated the ability to take advantage of American tolerance and Western political correctness to promote their propaganda and self-glorification abroad. The Liberty Science Center exhibition is not simply about promoting a myth of Islamic culture, it is about promoting Islam. Read the following paragraph from the official Liberty Science website.
"Never before presented in North America, this important exhibition from MTE Studios in South Africa was first presented at Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It will help guests of all ages understand how the flowering of Islam led to a new kind of prosperity across large areas of the known world, from Spain to China."
Note that what is mentioned is specifically the flowering of Islam as bringing prosperity across the world. Never mind the millions dead, the religions and cultures crushed and suppressed. They of course go unmentioned.
You'll even visit a re-created Souk, an Arabic market, as part of your introduction to the Islamic world.
Which of course is the real agenda. Not promoting science. But "introducing your kids to the Islamic world" which the Arab money behind the exhibition intends to have them join down the road.
That this propaganda has been repeatedly aimed and targeted at Western children, whether through schools or now a children's educational museum, bespeaks the cowardly and cunning nature of the enemy intent on brainwashing our children when they cannot get to the adults and those adults in charge at the Liberty Science Center and at schools who allow this promotion of Islamic supremacism.
Twisting history to meet one's agenda is an old Leftist trick well learned by the Islamists of today.
Storm Track Disinformation: “Understanding the Basics of Islam Is the First Step in Healing”
That headline come from that well-known apologist for Islam, John Esposito, writing in the Washington Post.
Jesus is for Christians, except solely human. He is seen as the ideal husband, father and friend, the ultimate political leader, general, diplomat and judge. Understanding Muhammad's special place in Muslim hearts helps us appreciate the widespread anger of many mainstream Muslims -- not just extremists -- with the denigration of a Muhammad-like figure in Salman Rushdie's 1988 novel "The Satanic Verses," the controversial 2005 Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad in unflattering lights or Pope Benedict XVI's 2006 speech quoting a long-dead Byzantine emperor who accused the prophet of bringing "only evil and inhuman" things into the world.
Karen Armstrong's "Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time" and Tariq Ramadan's "In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad" provide fresh, perceptive views on his modern-day relevance.
The Gallup World Poll's helpful section on the Muslim world (www.muslimwestfacts.com) sheds some light on the views and aspirations of more than 1 billion Muslims. My years studying those attitudes suggest that Muslim hostility toward the West is mostly political, not religious, and that Muslims hope the West will show their faith more respect.
You have to wonder if Esposito lives in the real world. Has he seen the reality of Islam’s modern-day relevance in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan?
I don’t understand people like Esposito. Do they have their heads in the sand or up their arse?
Not that President Bush is any better. While I wrote this post I was listening to his latest speech on the war on terror, democracy, the middle-east and comparisons to World War II Germany and Japan. He still refuses to see that the war on terrorism is a misnomer and that we didn’t go to war with Japan and Germany to bring democracy to those countries. We went to war to defeat their virulent ideology.
The establishment of democracy in those countries was an after thought.
Bush paid lip service to the “ideological struggle of our times” but refused to address that ideology (Islamism) explain its objectives (imposing Sharia Law on the world) and how we will confront the multiple fascists of their strategy (the different tactics of political Islam).
Until Bush ceases to listen to apologists like Esposito who, like his comrades in CAIR, have the ear of the administration, we can never form a cohesive defense and an effective defense against the ideology of Islamism.
Storm Track Disinformation: Blinded By the Light
Singing Cumbya is no way to fight terrorism. But you can’t tell that to Sonia Gandhi.
While recognising terrorism as the worst form of conflict propelled in the name of religion and ethnicity, Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has said the civilised world could by no means lower its yardsticks in combating the menace.
Delivering the inaugural Mahatma Gandhi Lecture Series at Cape Town University on the continuing relevance of Gandhian philosophy earlier this week, Sonia Gandhi delineated the risk posed by terrorism, saying that it had inflicted "untold suffering on innocent women, men and children".
She, however, cautioned against attempting extra-legal measures. "If democracies are going to wage a war against terrorism, the measures that are adopted should be consistent with and not contrary to the values of democracy," she said. She pointed out that the essence of the Gandhian value-system lay in the coherence of ends and means.
"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for, but no causes that I am prepared to kill for," she quoted the Mahatma as having said.
Too bad the Muslims in India, who he defended, took him at his word. A Muslim, after Gandhi had performed the ultimate appeasement by giving Muslims their own country – Pakistan – assassinated him and his appeasement to Muslims ushered in a long, slow abandonment of secular law – which Gandhi held at such high esteem - in Pakistan.
If you look at the history of Pakistan you will see that when it broke off from India, India went on to become a prosperous nation of the 21st century while Pakistan followed a slow downward spiral lead by fundamentalist Islam and Islamic law.
One could say the Mahatma Gandhi is the quintessential role model of the common liberal. His way of dealing with oppression was to dialogue and peacefully protest. Our own protégée of Gandhi was martin Luther King who used many of Gandhi’s tactics to bring attention to and bring about the results of the civil rights movement.
To say that the tactics of Gandhi and King were successful is an understatement. One confronted an Empire and made it conform to his ideals. The other confronted a long held bigotry and made its institutions conform to his will. Both freed their people. Liberals and Progressives forever hold these two men and the means they used in high esteem and claim that dialogue with opponents, peaceful protest and the very power of their ideals will always win over brute force, hatred and aggression.
But there is a flaw in this thinking.
Both men struggled with a fundamentally moral opponent. Their protests were not met with firing squads and their dialogue did not condemn them to concentration camps. They worked their magic of change in an environment ruled by Anglo-Saxon culture that above all recognized the value of life and the procedure of law.
The flaw in Gandhi’s thinking became quite evident during WW II when he was asked how he would respond to Hitler and the Nazi persecution of the Jews. David Lewis Schaefer in “What Would Gandhi Do?”
Gandhi offered only one avenue for the Jews to resist their persecution while preserving their “self-respect.” Were he a German Jew, Gandhi pronounced, he would challenge the Germans to shoot or imprison him rather than “submit to discriminating treatment.” Such “voluntary” suffering, practiced by all the Jews of Germany, would bring them, he promised, immeasurable “inner strength and joy.” Indeed, “if the Jewish mind could be prepared” for such suffering, even a massacre of all German Jews “could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy,” since “to the God-fearing, death has no terror.”
Unknown to Gandhi at the time, the Jews did enjoy his “voluntary suffering”. It was called the Holocaust.
The pacifist ignores reality and substitutes it with his or her beliefs. Gandhi said of Hitler just a month before the fall of France, “I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed.”
As for his response to Muslim demands for a separate nation – Pakistan – once India received its independence from Britain, Sudaram writes in “Gandhi, the Moulana of Muslim Appeasement”:
Dr B R Ambedkar paid his tribute to the Muslim Appeasement Bible of Moulana Mahatma Gandhi in these brilliant words: 'Gandhi has never called the Muslims to account even when they have been guilty of gross crimes against Hindus. It is a notorious fact that many prominent Hindus who had offended the religious susceptibilities of the Muslims either by their writings or by their part in the Shudhi Movement have been murdered by some fanatic Musalmans. The leading Muslims never condemned these criminals. On the contrary, they were hailed as religious martyrs.... This attitude of the Muslims is understandable. What is not understandable is the attitude of Mr Gandhi.'
Dr Ambedkar was not talking through his hat about the anti-Hindu and pro-Muslim attitude of Mahatma Gandhi. When thousands of women were raped and many of them killed by the Moplah Muslims during the Moplah rebellion in 1921, the brutalised women of Malabar led by the senior Rani of Nilambur gave a heart-rending petition to Lady Reading, the wife of the then Viceroy of India. The atrocities committed by the Moplah rebels were widely reported in the English and vernacular newspapers of the day throughout India and the British Empire. Mahatma Gandhi was fully aware of every development in Malabar during this time. But his overweening egoism blinded his eyes to such an extent that he was unable to see the realities on the ground.
Gandhi was a great leader but also an appeaser showing many of the traits of appeasers and apologist over the ages - especially the need to see their oppressors as ‘human beings’ so as to continue the fantasy that they hold the same basic ideals of humanity and that they can be reasoned with.
Mahatma Gandhi at that time gave a great finding to the effect that every Muslim is a bully and every Hindu a coward. On the one hand he called every Hindu a coward and on the other hand he exhorted all the Hindus to remain calm and non-violent even when they went all out to defend themselves against the attacking Moplah Muslims. The truth is Mahatma Gandhi displayed all his courage only to suppress the Hindus. In so far as the Muslims were concerned, he was a typical Hindu coward. He was mortally scared of them. So was Jawaharlal Nehru. Therefore Gandhi had no moral sanction to talk about the cowardice of the Hindus. And here is the callous, sadistic and barbarous message he gave to the Hindu victims of Moplah rebellion in Young India of 29 September, 1921: 'The ending of the Moplah revolt is a matter not only of urgency, but of simple humanity. The Hindus must have the courage and the faith to feel that they can protect their religion in spite of such fanatical eruptions. ... Be the Moplahs be ever so bad, they deserve to be treated as human beings.'
Storm Track Disinformation: The Liberal Delusion of Islam Continues
Yesterday I posted an article on the delusions that liberals have about Gandhi and his vision of Muslims. Today I’ll answer a blog post by Mick Hall of Organized Rage adding more fuel to the delusions of liberal-think and Islam.
When it comes to political islam, it appears the majority of the western media have taken their lead from their political masters and bracketed it within the context of the ‘clash of civilizations,’ so beloved of George W Bush. Thus organizations as diverse as Palestinian Hamas, Lebanese Hezbullar, the Afghan Talaban and Al-Qaeda are all portrayed as terrorist groups beyond the pale, as if they were a single homogeneous Group.
In reality political islam represents a host of differing political positions and to attempt to blanket them as a single homogenous group is ridiculous, dangerous and uninformative.
May I respectfully say, Mr. Hall – bulls**t!
All true Muslims are the same. It’s very simple Mr. Hall. Do true Muslims consider themselves members of the nation of Islam – that is, the Ummah? Yes they do. Do all true Muslims follow the dictates of Sharia law and not the secular laws of the societies they live in? Yes they do. If a Muslim replies in the negative, then they are apostates and according to Islam must be killed.
I was brought to task by some of my liberal friends saying I was simplifying the problem too much and any moderate Muslim would not admit to such answers.
Well ….Guess what? The New York Times spilled the beans when they reported an interview which they claim is from two true Muslim moderates. You know, the law-abiding, deeply religion, good neighbor that lives next door. They seek a ‘middle ground’ of moderation – with us and our freedoms in the middle.
Here’s one of the moderate’s answer to the question I pose.
“Every Muslim who is honest would say, I would like to see America become a Muslim country,” he said. “I think it would help people, and if I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be a Muslim.
There’s your answer. A true Muslim must work to Islamatize the societies they live in.
There are countless verses and traditions, in fact, that make it clear that Muslims are to be in a constant state of animosity toward non-Muslims, waging war through tongue and teeth in order to spread Islam, and, when finally in a position of superiority, discriminating against those who refuse to convert (see, for example, 3:28, 5:73, 5:17, 9:5, 9:25, etc).
The solution to the Muslim problem is not to engage in conversations of accommodation but to make it clear that this is our culture that has hundreds of more years of history and struggle towards freedom than theirs and these are the values and mores that we intend to live by. If Muslims can’t, then they need to find those societies that are willing to be subjugated by them.
Those are examples of the rising Jihad temperature of for this week. When seen in groups like this, the slow boil becomes obvious.
Next week a look back at the rising Jihad temperature of Islamist appeasement!!
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It’s not the government that makes war in a democracy, but the people – and the people are asleep in the free democracies today, lulled into inaction by a ‘softening up’ process of our enemy.
