Two More

In nursing school (I dropped out when it was time to do clinicals, because as it turns out I like dealing with computers more than I do sick people) we learned a lot of terminology in a short time by using funny cartoons and phrases. The suffix “oma” means a swelling or a tumor. Lymphoma, blastoma, adenoma… you get the idea. The cartoon in question was of a woman who’d just delivered twins. Other children were present, and the speech bubble over the oldest daughter read, “Oh Ma! Two more!” Oma = tumor - it’s a quick way to remember it. Earlier today, I posted links to some notable posts I read in my Google Reader, and now I have two more. I was reminded of the cartoon because they are related to a growing cancer in our society.

Joe at The Evangelical Outpost wrote about the war on civilians.

“There are 5,000 mosques in the region calling for jihad,” said Dr. Ali Aldabbagh.

That wasn’t the answer I expected when I asked Aldabbagh about his country’s biggest internal threat. Like the other bloggers gathered at the Heritage Foundation, I wasn’t prepared for the official spokesman for the government of Iraq to credit so much of the violence in his country to radical Islam. But Aldabbagh wanted to ensure we Americans recognized what is at stake and the reason why the violence will continue. “Iraq is not fighting a civil war,” he said. “We are defending against a war on civilians.”

And its not just in Iraq. As if to underscore Aldabbagh’s claim, Al Qaeda bombers in Algeria killed 33 people and injured 200 others this week. It was a reminder that Islamic terror remains a global phenomena. While insular America didn’t wake up to the threat until September 2001, Algeria has struggled against the radicals since 1992. During the past fifteen years, over 100,000+ Algerians have been killed.

And we’ve allowed how many young Saudis into our colleges in the last few years with little or no screening? (Thanks Mr. President!) We’re about to let in how many Palestinians with little or no screening? We ought to be offering asylum to Jews in France, which is becoming a hotbed of antisemitism. Or to young women in Norway, France and other European countries, where they are increasingly likely to be the victim of a tournante. Of those thousands of Saudis who are here, and Palestinians who are coming, they don’t all have to be terrorists. Far from it. 19 hijackers caused how many billion dollars worth of damage on 9/11? And less than a dozen in London on 7/7.

Aside from letting people in, we already have enough trouble with creeping sharia. Some cabbies won’t carry dogs or alcohol, yet still keep their license as public carriers. Some clerks won’t scan pork products. And now at Dhimmi Watch, a “hate crime” which is no crime at all is causing outrage. Is Clarksville, Tennessee, under Sharia law? The owner of a copy of the Quran left it on mosque steps with rude remarks and bacon in it. The book wasn’t stolen, and bacon and rude remarks are perfectly legal. The worst crime I can see here is littering. No, I take that back. The worst crime here is that the FBI might actually bend to pressure from CAIR and waste our tax dollars investigating this nonsense.

And just to be clear - the growing cancer is not Islam per se - it is terrorism and creeping sharia.

The Tiny Percentage of Radical Islamists

I’ve posted before on the fact that out of a billion or so Muslims, only a tiny percentage are terrorists or terror-supporters.

June 19, 2006: “The problem is that even though only a small percentage of people who declare themselves Muslim actively want to fight us because they say their faith compels it, the numbers involved are huge. For example, after the London bombings last summer, a survey of UK Muslims was taken. Only 5% thought that more attacks were justified. This sounds like great news until you do the math. Unfortunately 5% of Muslims in the UK means 80,000 people thought more attacks were justified. If only 5% of the 5% were actually willing to act on that feeling of justification, that’s still 4,000 jihadis in the UK alone. Considering how few managed to successfully attacks us on 9/11, I’d say that’s cause for concern.”

July 16, 2006: “A July 4, 2006 Times Online article revealed that “13% of British Muslims think that the four men who carried out the London Tube and bus bombings of July 7, 2005, should be regarded as “martyrs”.” Believing that more attacks are justified, and believing that those who carry out attacks are martyrs are roughly equivalent. (If you are a martyr, it follows that your cause was just; otherwise you are referred to as a terrorist or a criminal.) From 5% to 13% in a year. 13% of 1.6 million Muslims is 208,000. Again, holding to the idea that only a tiny minority of 5% would act on those beliefs, 5% of 208,000 is 10,400.”

Now we have this article at Jihad Watch [emphasis added]:

Fully 12% of Muslim Canadians polled by Environics said the alleged terrorist plot — that included kidnapping and beheading the prime minister and blowing up Parliament and the CBC — was justified. Predictably, the CBC managed to find a talking head — in this case York University sociology professor Haideh Moghissi — who dismissed this disturbing revelation. “It’s really negligible that 12 percent feel that the attacks would be justified,” said Moghissi. “I don’t think it even warrants attention.” Clearly, other news agencies and those who put the poll results on the CBC website agree with Moghissi. But just how “negligible” is 12% of 700,000 people. Well, if Moghissi knew arithmetic like she knows denial, she’d know if this poll is accurate, 84,000 Canadian Muslims think it’s justifiable to behead our democratically elected prime minister and blow up the very symbol and centre of our democracy!

Again, guesstimating that of the 12% who approve, only 5% might be willing to actually act on it, that gives you 4,200 Muslim Canadian jihadists.

What if we figure that only a tiny percentage of those willing to act could actually be effective? Of those estimated who are willing to act, let’s guess that 5% are smart enough, have the connections and the ability to come up with an effective plan and carry it out.

That would mean in England, there are 520 effective jihadis. In Canada, 210.

Nineteen people took down the World Trade Centers.

The bible commands Christians to judge those within the church, not those without it. In other words, if you profess Christianity, your doctrine and behavior is the subject for legitimate criticism from other church members, and you can even be expelled from your church fellowship.

For it is no business of mine to be judging those who are outside; but it is yours to be judging those who are among you; As for those who are outside, God is their judge. So put away the evil man from among you.
(1 Corinthians 5:12-13)

Fred Phelps and his vile followers are not welcome in any mainstream church, conference, organization or anywhere else. They have been soundly rejected by the Christian community. In the same manner, Muslims have the first responsibility to clean this tiny percentage out of their “house.” They are the ones best equipped to do it, and they are the ones whose reputation is being harmed by these people.

Instead, we get CAIR.

I wrote in Islamic Neighborhood Watch that “It may not be “right” or “fair” that of a billion or so peaceful Muslims, a tiny percentage are killing thousands, costing billions, and ruining the reputation of all. But it is not more right or fair that all of us in civilized society bear the burden for that tiny percentage.”

We can continue to kill terrorists, and it’s an excellent stopgap measure. But until rank-and-file Muslims stand up for their faith that they keep reassuring the rest of us is so moderate and tolerant, then terrorism will continue. If they had any intellectual honesty at all, the whining about Islamophobia and “backlash” would stop, and they would expel the terrorists and terror supports from their ranks. If these people do not represent Islam, and do not practice it, then there is no excuse for protecting them. It’s time for Muslims to step up, if they are honest about their faith - or is what they’re serving up just more taqiyya?

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Norwegian Women: Getting Raped is Your Fault

When I read this quote, I had to wonder - where are the feminists?

How can anyone - any liberal - let this stand? Why are the only people outraged about this conservative? If anything ought to be bipartisan and cross cultural, anger at this man’s attitude should be. No woman in any society should be treated this way.

“Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes” because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. The professor’s conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: “Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.”

Follow the link for more on this at Ace. The idea that we must adapt to immigrants is ridiculous enough. But the idea that the failure to do so entitles those immigrants to punish us by raping us is an outrage. While I’m in favor of women behaving with common sense - don’t go to a bar, get sloppily drunk, stagger home alone, then express surprise when a criminal victimizes you - that’s not what’s going on here. And even when that does happen, the criminal does not get a free pass because the woman was unwise. No one says that a normal reaction to provocative dress and behaving like a victim is rape; they say that the crime is reprehensible. Women who are raped under any circumstances deserve society’s backing and a strong prosecution against their attackers.

If we, as western society, are willing to sacrifice our sisters and daughters on the altar of multiculturalism, then we have already lost the war with Islam, and continued fighting is a waste of time.

This is a repost from November, but I think it bears repeating, and the link to the Reconquista article is a must-follow:

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Muslim - Sex Crime Correlation
I’ve read several articles like this one at Gates of Vienna regarding high incidence of Muslims raping non-Muslim girls in Norway and Sweden. But Sir Henry Morgan at Reconquista (h/t to Anchoress who linked to this excellent neo-neocon post about government vs. press lies, where a commenter posted the Reconquista link) has done some rather amazing work researching this phenomenon in the London area. You need to read the whole thing, but here are a few clips just to give you a sample -

…I focused on a single crime category. Sex offences seemed a natural choice because all over the world there are reports of Muslims engaging in sex offences against non-Muslims (and other Muslims too, as it happens, where men have the cover of the Hudood Ordinances in Pakistan, or license from the government as in Sudan) out of all proportion to their numbers. Recent Australian events, and the scandal surrounding the Mufti of Australia were being talked about, I’d recently been reading Fjordmann’s work on rape in Scandinavia, we’ve all (?) read the reports on rape in Pakistan and Darfur, the slums of France, the “smileys” inflicted in the Netherlands, the grooming of under-age girls in Bradford; and I was, anyway, looking for an offence-category that could not be linked to personal economic circumstances. There are already enough confounds in the data without having that as a position for people to argue from (some idiot would claim that being poor makes you more likely to commit an offence). So I chose that category: Sex Offences …

What I have is, if not actual proof, then a whole series of correlations. However, on the basis that if you can’t actually prove something fell out of the back end of a dog, but it looks like it did, smells like it did, feels like it did, and tastes like it did, then it might be best if you didn’t step in it, I’m going to publish what I found. You can make your own minds up. I’ve made mine up, and I wouldn’t want my daughter or nieces living near large numbers of Muslims. I think most reasonable, reasoning, people will agree after reading this.

The Reader’s Digest version - which does not do this post justice at all, please read the whole thing - is that in London boroughs which have a 10% or greater population of Muslims, there is a sharp increase in sex crimes which are unrelated to general population density, and not duplicated in areas with equivalent Christian or other religions, which actually show a sharp decrease in sex crimes. After a series of charts which are explained in detail, he writes

if this doesn’t convince you that 10% Muslims is a critical mass with there being essentially a step-change, with no further change up to at least 35%, then nothing ever will.

Read the whole thing. He didn’t invent these numbers. These are crime statistics maintained by the police. And another, disconcerting statement in that post - he wonders at what point this behavior started in the Paris Banlieus, because

It might be useful to know when intifada-like behaviour is likely to start in London. The Metropolitan Police is already considering buying water-cannon – do they already know what we are groping our way towards here?

The west is at war. It’s past time to acknowledge it.

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Islamic Neighborhood Watch

I’ve posted next to nothing lately on the Israel/Hizbollah war, the Religion of Peace™, what Iran’s got planned (or not) for 8/22, the recent discovery of a wonderful new RoP plan to establish peace and justice in the world by blowing up airplanes, and a multitude of other issues related to recent events. Aside from the fact that I’ve been out of pocket a lot lately, I just haven’t had anything original to say. I’ve thought about posting, but when the gist of a post is just regurgitating what another blogger posted (Yeah! What HE said!), then why bother?

That said, if you haven’t read Ace’s post on “racial” profiling re: terror attacks - and I know that’s the commonly accepted term, but religion isn’t race any more than who you go to bed with is race - it’s worth reading.

Muslims will say, “Why should be inconvenienced or humiliated for the excesses of a few?”

And the rest of us say, “Why should we be inconvenienced or humiliated for the excesses of Muslims, when they seem to be active or passive supporters of the Muslim terrorists causing all of the problems?”

Well, yeah. I’ve posted before (1, 2, 3) on the idea of the 5% of the 5% who are jacking around the rest of the planet. It may not be “right” or “fair” that of a billion or so peaceful Muslims, a tiny percentage are killing thousands, costing billions, and ruining the reputation of all. But it is not more right or fair that all of us in civilized society bear the burden for that tiny percentage.

I’ve lived - back in my welfare days - in really bad neighborhoods. Combined efforts by good citizens in a poor neighborhood with a heavy drug trade could stop that drug trade and improve the lives of everyone. Neighborhood watch on steroids - everyone watch everything and report, report, report. Stand up to the criminals, and testify against them. Band together and throw the criminals out. Own the problem. Might you be murdered? Certainly. Wouldn’t it be better to be killed outright than to live in bondage to criminals? Yes, in my opinion. But this isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s easier to take a passive voice, i.e. “someone should stop this crime problem” when the hard cold alternative is “I will report my own son for dealing drugs.” So we have a “stop snitching” culture where gangstas are neighborhood heroes to all but a few, and the problem persists and increases. The people who live in those neighborhoods have the information the police need, and they withhold it because their personal concerns are greater to them than the welfare of their community. So be it. The consequence of that decision is that their lifestyle sucks. That’s fair. That’s justice.

How is that different from what goes on in Muslim communities? When they see hateful literature published by our “allies” the Saudis in their mosques, when their Imam preaches terrorism, when their brother in law goes alone to Syria for a three month “vacation” - why do these elusive moderates not speak up? The same reasons that people in poor neighborhoods don’t. And, finally, hopefully, the same consequences.

That Word, Terrorism

That word, terrorism. I do not think it means what David Gomez thinks it means.

Doubtless, Mr. Gomez meant that the Islamic shooter who attacked the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle - who does not represent all Muslims any more than Phelps et. al represent Christians - did not act as part of an organized terror plot. It was probably more or less spur of the moment. Something like, “I have a gun, I’m really mad at Israel, nothing good on TV, I guess I’ll go kill some Jooos who are the source of all evil in the world.” Although he was not funded by al Qaeda or Iran - that we know of - that does not make it less an act of terror.

The FBI defines terror in the Code of Federal Regulations as “…the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” I’d like to ask Gomez why this shooting isn’t terror. Perceived payback for what’s “going on in Israel” certainly qualifies as a political or social objective. But the American government has a knee-jerk reaction to not call Islamic terror by its name. It’s so consistent it may well be a written policy somewhere.

Props to CAIR in Seattle, who said

There is no room for such acts of violence in our city and community. When one of us is attacked, none of us are safe. We refuse to see the violence in the Middle East spill over to our cities and neighborhoods.

We reject and categorically condemn any attacks against the Jewish community and stand in solidarity with the Jewish Federation in this tragedy.

but their parent organization, CAIR, was predictable. They at least avoided use of the word “backlash.”

The American Muslim and Jewish communities must do whatever is within their power to prevent the current conflict in the Middle East from being transplanted to this country. We also urge local, state and national law enforcement authorities to step up security measures at synagogues, mosques and other religious institutions of both faiths.

Because it’s well known that Jews have committed acts of terror in American airports and college campuses, with sniper fire in Washington, D.C., and encouraged more of the same. Preaching that advocates terror is a serious problem in many foreign-funded synagogues in this country. That’s why the Jewish communities need to step up and take responsibility for driving this kind of hatred out of their communities.

If Mr. Gomez can’t bring himself to call it terror, he could at least call it a hate crime. If we must have hate crime laws, they could at least be used on occasions such as this. Theo van Gogh, who was also not a victim of radical Islamic terror by Mr. Gomez’ understanding of the word, is still unavailable for comment.

[Added - Again, I don't think the shooter, Naveed Afzal Haq, represents all Muslims. But I think he represents a lot more of them than we'd like to admit. Approximately 13% of Muslims (208,000) just in the UK thought the 7/7 bombers were martyrs. If only 5% of those Muslims were willing to act on that belief (that the bombers were martyrs and consequently the bombings were admirable and justified) that is 10,400 people. Just in the UK. I haven't seen surveys like this in America, but I'd be willing to bet a lot of people in Dearborn, MI, for example, nodded approvingly when they heard about this shooter.

Jay Tea also noted CAIR's reaction.]

Why is Ahmadinejad so confident?

Ahmadinejad feels pretty confident right about now. My timing was off, obviously, in my prediction in May that we’d be “in a state of declared war with Iran before much longer. I would guess it’ll happen before mid-summer, certainly.” Declaring war seems to be passé since WWII. And right now our ally is in it, not us. Yet. But I - and many, many other people who have been awake for the last few years and not burying their heads in a multi-culti sandpit - took him at his word, and he’s proved to be honest about his intentions, at least. He wants nukes, he wants war, he wants the global domination of Islam - and he’ll do what he can to make it happen.

I have to wonder why he’s so confident. Is it because nearly half our country seems to think that our own president is a greater threat than he is? That “Islamophobia” is a greater threat than radical Islamists? I’m sure those things do improve his confidence levels. Perhaps Ahmadinejad is so confident because he really does believe he’s going to destroy Israel and the 12th Imam will bring on the Global Caliphate. But perhaps he’s confident because he knows his plans will so disrupt the west that we can’t interfere with him. It makes sense to conclude that he’s got another card to play. We should expect another terrorist attack - or at least an attempt - soon. He’s been trying to get his pieces in place for some time:

It is undeniable that terrorists have entered the United States by crossing our land borders illegally. The empirical evidence of terrorist entry is significant. Several cases are now publicly known. For example, on January 15, 2004, Mahmoud Kourani was indicted in Dearborn, Michigan, for conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization (Hezbollah). He had entered the United States by bribing a Mexican official to provide him a visa to enter Mexico, and then paying a coyote to smuggle him across the border into the United States. Kourani came to the attention of the INS while living with other illegal aliens in Dearborn and was initially imprisoned on immigration charges. It was later learned that he had trained with Hezbollah in Iran and Lebanon and was raising money for Hezbollah in the United States.

[...] In addition to these specific cases, there are statistics suggesting that the number of terrorists crossing our southern border may be much higher than we think. In Fiscal Year 2005, the Border Patrol Apprehended 3,722 aliens from nations that are either designated state sponsors of terrorism or places in which Al Qaeda has operated.[3] We also know that for every one alien the Border Patrol apprehends, there may be three aliens who are not caught. If this is the case, then more than 10,000 aliens from high-risk, terrorist-associated countries illegally entered the United States in FY 2005. Obviously the majority of these aliens are not terrorists. But if only one in a thousand were, that would still be ten terrorists who successfully crossed our borders.(link)

It isn’t possible to know how many Hezbollah terrorists - and terrorists with other affiliations - have crossed our borders, and it isn’t possible to know how many Americans jihadis are living among us. We saw what 19 could do. The number of radical Islamists in Londonistan has grown. On July 26, 2005, Adrian Warnock posted that according to a Guardian article after the 7/7 bombings, only 5% of Muslims in Britain thought more attacks would be justified. He rightly pointed out that “Eighty thousand muslims who believe more attacks are justified is a major, major security concern.” Giving the benefit of the doubt and saying that only a tiny minority - 5% of that 5% - might be willing to actually act on that belief, I did the math: that’s 4,000 people who would be willing to attack the country they live in based on their religious beliefs.

What a difference a year makes! A July 4, 2006 Times Online article revealed that “13% of British Muslims think that the four men who carried out the London Tube and bus bombings of July 7, 2005, should be regarded as “martyrs”.” Believing that more attacks are justified, and believing that those who carry out attacks are martyrs are roughly equivalent. (If you are a martyr, it follows that your cause was just; otherwise you are referred to as a terrorist or a criminal.) From 5% to 13% in a year. 13% of 1.6 million Muslims is 208,000. Again, holding to the idea that only a tiny minority of 5% would act on those beliefs, 5% of 208,000 is 10,400.

The news is not all bad. From the same article “65% of British Muslims say that their community needs to do more to integrate properly with British society.” That is good news - but it doesn’t outweigh more than 10,000 potential terrorists in Britain alone. I haven’t seen studies equivalent to these in the United States, but I think it’s fair to assume the numbers would be roughly equivalent. And maybe that is why Ahmadinejad is so confident.

To What War Are You Referring?

As the definition of torture has been dumbed down to include activities practiced daily in every junior high school in America, so has the meaning of the word “war.” The war on poverty, and the war on drugs are two examples. In the eighties we learned that “business is war” and business people who travel a lot are “road warriors.” I’ve been told that the first few minutes of Saving Private Ryan are a fair representation war. It’s not “just saying no” to something. It is a literal fight for your life against people who wish to kill you for policy reasons. But because the word has been so misused over the years that it now seems meaningless, we are now actually fighting one without having first defined the enemy. In “A war that isn’t” Diana West describes the Struggle to Make Everyone Think We’re Swell.

Once upon a time, “We the People” were crass enough to have repelled German blitzkrieg, defied Japanese sneak attack and even to have combated Soviet disinformation. Now, “We the Peoples” are enlightened to the point where we send armies out for years to fight generic terror — no matter how specifically Islamist that terror is.
There are many reasons why this matters, not least of which is that without understanding the religious nature of jihad, along with its sister institution of dhimmitude (inferior status of non-Muslims under Islam), there can be no triumph over jihad and no avoiding dhimmitude. There can also be no understanding of the religiously rooted attitudes toward jihad movements among even non-violent Muslims, generally ranging from tacit ambivalence to wild adulation.
In fighting our war on terror, we have simultaneously fought against any such understanding. Maybe the reason goes beyond reflexive political correctness. Maybe we in the West simply don’t want any enemy at all; maybe we simply want to safeguard ourselves against terror. Maybe our elites believe that, in targeting only terror, the enemy will learn to like us, and terror will go away.

This phenomenon was recently illustrated by the Toronto Star, which was perplexed at what could cause 17 Canadians to unite and plan to attack Canada. We can’t win the war when we haven’t defined who we’re fighting. I understand the need to not declare war on a billion people, most of whom don’t especially want to fight us any more than we wish to fight them. The problem is that even though only a small percentage of people who declare themselves Muslim actively want to fight us because they say their faith compels it, the numbers involved are huge. For example, after the London bombings last summer, a survey of UK Muslims was taken. Only 5% thought that more attacks were justified. This sounds like great news until you do the math. Unfortunately 5% of Muslims in the UK means 80,000 people thought more attacks were justified. If only 5% of the 5% were actually willing to act on that feeling of justification, that’s still 4,000 jihadis in the UK alone. Considering how few managed to successfully attacks us on 9/11, I’d say that’s cause for concern.

Dan Simmons’ April Message (yes, I linked to it in Chickenhawk Christians too. I know that it’s fiction, but it’s extremely instructive. Go read it already!) diagnoses the problem clearly:

“You were a philosophy major or minor at that podunk little college you went to long ago,” said the Time Traveler. “Do you remember what Category Error is?”

It rang a bell. But I was too irritated at hearing my alma mater being called a “podunk little college” to be able to concentrate fully.

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said the Time Traveler. “In philosophy and formal logic, and it has its equivalents in science and business management, Category Error is the term for having stated or defined a problem so poorly that it becomes impossible to solve that problem, through dialectic or any other means.”

I waited. Finally I said firmly, “You can’t go to war with a religion. Or, I mean . . . sure, you could . . . the Crusades and all that . . . but it would be wrong.”

The Time Traveler sipped his Scotch and looked at me. He said, “Let me give you an analogy . . .”

God, I hated and distrusted analogies. I said nothing.

“Let’s imagine,” said the Time Traveler, “that on December eighth, Nineteen forty-one, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke before a joint session of Congress and asked them to declare war on aviation.”

“That’s absurd,” I said.

“Is it?” asked the Time Traveler. “The American battleships, cruisers, harbor installations, Army barracks, and airfields at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in Hawaii were all struck by Japanese aircraft. Imagine if the next day Roosevelt had declared war on aviation . . . threatening to wipe it out wherever we found it. Committing all the resources of the United States of America to defeating aviation, so help us God.”

“That’s just stupid,” I said. If I’d ever been afraid of this Time Traveler, I wasn’t now. He was obviously a mental defective.“The planes, the Japanese planes,” I said, “were just a method of attack . . . a means . . . it wasn’t aviation that attacked us at Pearl Harbor, but the Empire of Japan. We declared war on Japan and a few days later its ally, Germany, lived up to its treaty with the Japanese and declared war on us. If we’d declared war on aviation, on goddamned airplanes rather than the empire and ideology that launched them, we’d never have . . .”

I stopped. What had he called it? Category Error. Making the problem unsolvable through your inability – or fear – of defining it correctly.

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