Posts Tagged ‘Islam’
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011
This is not good news. Imagine if the governor of California or Texas were assassinated in broad daylight by his own bodyguard. Well, that’s what happened to Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in Pakistan. Of course, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was also assassinated, and Indian PM Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own bodyguards, in large measure due to policies regarding Sikhs in the Indian portion of Punjab.
As for who is responsible, who knows? It could be a freelance jihadist, it could be al Quada, it could be Taliban, or it could be some of the Islamist elements of the Pakistani ISI. (Given the circumstances, I’m assuming it wasn’t Kashmiri nationalists, though stranger things have happened.) In any case, it’s bad news for a nuclear-armed nation that always seems to be inching ever closer to become a failed state.
I don’t have any particular insight into Pakistani, so I direct you to the odd piece by the ever-interesting Christopher Hitchens, which are long on insight and short on hope. Sometimes, as in the Middle East, there are simply no good options.
Tags:assassination, Christopher Hitchens, Islam, Islamist, Jihad, Pakistan, Pakistani ISI, Punjab, Salman Taseer, Sikh
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | 1 Comment »
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
Some pre-Christmas Jihad news:
- Speaking of Christmas, crosses have been banned in Bethleham.
- UK Islamic group launches campaign against Christmas, saying it leads to rape, abortions, crime, pedophilia and raves. They forgot fruitcake.
- In the course of a general indictment of Islam, Rule Britannia (a blog I’m not particularly familiar with; a quick perusal suggests a mainstream Euro/Islamic skepticism rather than the swamps of the National Front) cites this death toll for all of Islam from its founding to the current day of 270 million people. I don’t know enough about the history of the regions cited (Africa, India, etc.) to say how accurate this estimate is, but my initial look suggests its on the high side, with extrapolated estimate taken from of single data sources, which tends to result in distorted figures. Still, Will Durant called the Islamic conquest of India the bloodiest episode in all of history (though that was in 1935, which Hitler and Mao still to come, and the sizes of Stalin’s crimes still largely hidden).
- Somalis unite for the time-honored pastime of burning christian books.
- Iranian truck drivers go on strike due to an end to diesel subsidies in port of Bandar Abbas. This would suck if it was happening in a European country, but I’m just fine and dandy about it happening in Iran…
- The Washington Post says there are similar problems in the rest of Iran. Faster, please.
- Australian muslims found guilty of plotting to attack an army base.
- Kosovo’s Prime Minster involved in organ trafficking. Sadly, this does not appear to be an urban legend, and The Guardian is hardly known for their fierce anti-Islamic agenda…
- Here’s another Greek Orthodox prelate going off the deep end. Sayeth the Metropolite of Piraeus Seraphim: “Adolf Hitler was an instrument of world Zionism and was financed from the renowned Rothschild family with the sole purpose of convincing the Jews to leave the shores of Europe and go to Israel to establish the new Empire.”
- Everyone and their dog (including Fark) has covered this story about a Gitmo detainee claiming that “Jewish guards used witchcraft on prisoners, made me feel a cat was trying to penetrate me.”
- Spanish teacher reprimanded for merely mentioning ham.
Tags:book burning, Christmas, genocide, Greek Orthodox Church, Guantanamo Bay, Islam, Jihad, This Week in Jihad, War on Christmas
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »
Thursday, December 9th, 2010
Another week, another batch of news from the world of Jihad:
Tags:Alcohol, Communism, Gaza, Guantanamo Bay, Hamas, Iran, Islam, Islamist, Jihad, Michael Totten, Prohibition, This Week in Jihad
Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 18th, 2010
Jihad waits for no man, so here’s another roundup of news:
- It takes very special skills to take someone with a sworn confession of involvement in the murder of 224 people, and to bungle the prosecution so badly that you’re only able to convict him on one count of conspiracy. But Eric Holder and the Obama Justice Department are just that special.
- North Korea is reportedly “supplying banned nuclear and ballistic equipment to Iran, Syria and Myanmar. Well, isn’t that just lovely?
- The story of Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, born Carlos Leon Bledsoe, a native-born jihadi who killed a U.S. solider at a recruiting station in Little Rock.
- “Feminist” scholar Lila Abu-Lughod says that honor killings are a consequence of Western colonialism, and that burqas are not at all oppressive to women. Sounds like the type of feminist that would be right at home at WisCon.
- Judges rules that no, cops didn’t violate a Somali’s families rights when refusing to let them put on hajibs during a drug bust. (Whether our time and money is best spent arresting people for possession of khat is a topic for another time…)
- Secretary of State Clinton complains that Europe isn’t accommodating enough to the Religion of Peace. That would be the same Clinton that would be required to wear a burqa in Iran or Saudi Arabia, not the Clinton that could legally have multiple wives; him I figure could get used to it…
- UK student: Support the troops! His Islamic classmates: Support the troops and we will kill you.
- “The scholars are unanimously agreed that a Muslim who insults the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) becomes a kaafir and an apostate who is to be executed.”
- Saudi Arabia and India stepping up military cooperation. Hmmm….
- Quest for Honor is a new documentary by Mary Ann Smothers Bruni about the quest to eradicate honor killings in Kurdistan. It seems to be getting a bit of Oscar buzz.
- And researching that, I came across this site http://www.stophonourkillings.com/, which I hope to take a closer look at when I have more time.
- Toy pig pulled from toy farm because…well, you can probably guess.
(Hat tips: Jihadwatch, MEMRI, Michael Totten, etc.)
Tags:Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, Ahmed Ghailani, burqa, Carlos Leon Bledsoe, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, India, Iran, Islam, Jihad, Lila Abu-Lughod, Mary Ann Smothers Bruni, Myanmar, Obama, Political Correctness, Saudi Arabia, Syria, This Week in Jihad, UK
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »
Thursday, November 11th, 2010
Another week, another roundup of the World of jihad:
- Arabs would evidently prefer to see a little Arab boy die rather than have his life saved by an Israeli ambulance
- Jihadists try to blow up airplanes by stuffing dogs with bombs. Killing the dogs in the process. Angries up the blood, it does.
- My congressman, Rep. John Carter, wonders why the Pentagon still has not acknowledged that “radical Islamic terrorism” was the cause of the Ft. Hood rampage. (At some point I should put up pics from Carter’s picnic. He got a lot of pictures with my dog…)
- The Turkish media seems happy to keep their own citizens in the dark about what really happened with the Peace and Happiness Flotilla earlier this year.
- Reza Aslan is one of those “moderate Muslim spokesman,” who, when you actually examine their words and deeds, turns out not to be so moderate after all…
- Pope: Hey, how about some religious freedom in Islamic countries? I wouldn’t hold your breath…
- Especially in Hamasistan, who have declared that they’re not going to let any of those filthy, stinking Shi’a into their country, much less Christians, Buddhists or (ha!) Jews. (Which, of course, won’t prevent them from taking money from the Shi’a theocracy in Tehran.)
- The latest group of racist, bigoted Americans to oppose the Ground Zero Mosque: Muslims.
- A Somalia sex-slave ring is operating out of: A.) Mogadishu, B.) Cairo, or C.) Minneapolis?
Tags:Ground Zero Mosque, Hamas, Islam, Israel, Jihad, John Carter, Michael Totten, Palestinians, Reza Aslan, sexual slavery, Turkey
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Republicans | No Comments »
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
Just because the U.S. has an election doesn’t mean Islamic fundamentalists rest. So here’s a roundup of Islamic- and Jihad-related news from around the world.
Tags:Bill Mahar, CAIR, Democrats, Elections, Iran, Islam, Islamist, Jihad, Keith Ellison, MEMRI, Michael Totten, Oklahoma, Saudi Arabia, This Week in Jihad
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Jihad | 1 Comment »
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010
Thanks to an Instalanch (with assists from Ace of Spades and Moe Lane, among others), my piece on Elizabeth Moon and WisCon has proven extraordinarily popular, so I’ve been spending a fair amount of attention on that. (And numerous liberal science fiction professionals have been writing in to thank me for it, as the shrill, exclusionary rhetoric and tactics of the FailFandom crowd have alienated vast swathes of the field.) But that’s not the only news from the World of Jihad this week, so here’s a roundup of a few other notable developments:
- The convert-to-Jihadism that threatened the lives of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone over the Mohammed episodes is going to prison:
A 20-year old guy named Zachary Adam Chesser pled guilty on Wednesday to three federal charges: communicating threats against South Park’s writers, soliciting violent jihadists to desensitize law enforcement, and attempting to provide material support to Al-Shabaab, an organization designated by the US as a terrorist group….He faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison when sentenced on February 25, 2011. He was born Jewish, and converted in his teens to an extremist strain of Islam, adopting the name Abu Talhah al-Amrikee….Chesser admitted that he promoted online what he called “Open Source Jihad,” where he would direct jihadists through his online forums to information on the Internet that they could use to elude capture and death while maintaining relevance and striking capability.
- London borough turning into an Islamic republic (the Telegraph‘s phrasing, not mine). Lutfur Rahman, the newly-elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets, has “close links [with] a Muslim supremacist body, the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) – which believes, in its own words, in transforming the ‘very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed… from ignorance to Islam.’”
- Speaking of UK jihadists, Pregnant Asiyah Khan of Bradford, who burned to death, may have been the victim of an honor killing.
- Benjamin Kerstein points out the obvious: the Middle East Peace Process is a joke.
- If you’re wondering what “Islamic moderates” look like, take a look at this essay by Mohamed El-Moctar El-Shinqiti, which, in diagnosing the cure for Arab decline, calls for a guarantee of the rights of non-Muslims, but rejects a wholly secular state saying that “non-Muslim minorities and non-practicing Muslims need to accept the fact that Islamic law is too rich and too important to be discarded.” Mr. El-Shinqiti’s vision of a rule based on moderate Islamism would be a distinct improvement in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, but a vast step backwards in any Western society based on individual rights.
(Hat tips: Instapundit, JihadWatch, Michael Totten, MEMRI.)
Tags:Abu Talhah al-Amrikee, Asiyah Khan, Benjamin Kerstein, Elizabeth Moon, honor killing, Islam, Islamic Forum of Europe, Islamist, Jihad, Lutfur Rahman, Matt Stone, Open Source Jihad, Radical Islam, South Park, Trey Parker, Zachary Adam Chesser
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »
Thursday, October 21st, 2010
The Wiscon convention committee (concom) has caved in to extremist demands and canceled Elizabeth Moon’s Guest of Honor invitation.
Why?
She dared to voice politically incorrect thoughts about Islam. Naturally the very small but quite vocal FailFandom contingent dedicated to the far-left agenda of political correctness and identity politics demanded her head. Sadly, the cowards running WisCon decided to offer it up to appease the PC Police.
So America’s main feminist science fiction dis-invited a Guest of Honor they had already extended an invitation to (which you just don’t do) for the crime of speaking out against radical Islam, the greatest threat to woman’s freedom in the 21st century. And Elizabeth Moon isn’t Mark Steyn or Ann Coulter; my impression from talking to her is that she’s probably best described as a moderate Democrat. And I suspect anyone from outside the suffocating confines of FailFandom are likely to find very little in her original essay to justify this self-indulgent orgy of wailing and rending of garments the FailFandom brigade greeted it with.
Bad move, WisCon. And it’s one you will regret.
Hat tip: Patrice Sarath.
Edited to Add: Welcome Instapundit readers! I hope some of the other topics here on BattleSwarm will interest you as well. I do want to note that this is my political blog, and I cover non-political science fiction (and other) topics over on Futuramen.
Also, I have some signed Elizabeth Moon book for sale over here as well.
Tags:Elizabeth Moon, feminism, Islam, Jihad, Political Correctness, science fiction, WisCon
Posted in Democrats, Jihad | 45 Comments »
Saturday, September 18th, 2010
Molly Norris, the cartoonist who created Everybody Draw Mohammed Day as a joke, has now gone into hiding because American-born, Yemen-based imam Anwar al-Awlaki has put a fatwa on her head. As the WSJ asks: Where’s Obama standing up for her First Amendment rights?
In other news, award-winning science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon has enraged some of the usual suspects (including one deploying the classic “but-but-but Pope Alexander II” fallacy) by pointing out that modern Islam has some problems as part of a larger essay on citizenship, with which there is much to agree. (I do take exception to her passing comments about “Libertarians, survivalists, Tea-Partyers” being people whose “whose goals benefit only their own group;” as smaller government and lower budget deficits are indeed goals that would benefit United States citizens as a whole. And survivalists need only bring up Katrina, Ike, etc., to point out that people with sources of functional food, communication, transportation, etc., in an emergency greatly benefit the community as a whole as well.) I thought about posting this on my non-political blog, where I cover a lot of science fiction topics, but thought it fit in better over here.
As long as we’re on the topic of The Religion of Peace™, there are ten time as many antisemitic hate crimes in the U.S. as anti-Islamic hate crimes. (Figures are from 2008, the most recent for which the FBI has released figures.) As for Europe, some may find it appalling that every single “assault rape” committed in Oslo, Norway between 2007-2009, “the offender was a non-Western immigrant.”
At some point in the future, I hope to touch on the topic of why Islamists have become the most sacred group in the American Far-Left Pantheon of Victimization (perhaps one could ask Lynne F. Stewart, assuming you could contact her during visiting hours while serving her 10-year sentence for aiding and abetting terrorists), but this post is already long enough as is…
(BTW, I have some of Elizabeth’s books for sale over on at Lame Excuse Books for those of you who read science fiction.)
Tags:Draw Mohammed Day, Elizabeth Moon, Islam, Islamist, Jihad, Lynne Stewart, Molly Norris, rape
Posted in Jihad, Media Watch | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
So I saw the link for this Michael Totten interview on Instapundit, and the name Benjamin Kerstein rang a bell. He was the one that penned this excellent essay on Zionism as a refutation of liberalism, which I cited in some of my Helen Thomas coverage.
This interview talks about, among other things, the “reality bubble” English speakers in Tel Aviv walk around, the Arab-Israeli conflict, options for dealing with Iran, and more. It’s quite fascinating. Read the whole thing, and remember than Totten depends on reader tips for his funding.
Tags:Benjamin Kerstein, Islam, Israel, Jihad, Michael Totten, Zionism
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »
