Robert Spencer popularized the term “Stealth Jihad,” and some in the Conservative wing such as Newt Gingrich have ran with it and are using it all the time. As has been exposed on Loonwatch and other sites, “Stealth Jihad” is paranoid speak and just another anti-Muslim conspiracy theory.

Lisa Miller takes on this term in her recent article which no doubt will have Spencer, whose site is described as “a hyperventilating anti-terror blog,” in fits.

The Misinformants

By Lisa Miller

Here is the latest semantic assault from the party that brought you “Islamo-facism” (circa 2005) and “Axis of Evil” (2002). The term “stealth jihad” is suddenly voguish among politically ambitious right wingers who see President Obama’s approach to terrorism as insufficient. If it sounds like a phrase from a military-fantasy summer blockbuster, that’s on purpose: in its cartoonish bad-guy foreignness, “stealth jihad” attempts to make the terrorist threat broader and thus more nefarious than it already is. The only thing scarier than an invisible, homicidal, suicidal enemy with a taste for world domination is one who’s sneaking up on you. In the words of former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at a July speech at the American Enterprise Institute, “stealth jihad” is an effort “to replace Western civilization with a radical imposition of Sharia.”

The term wasn’t Gingrich’s invention. It’s the title of a two-year-old book by Robert Spencer, whose hyperventilating antiterror blog, Jihad Watch, is cited and circulated widely on the far right. But the recent vicious debate over the proposed community center and mosque near Ground Zero gives Gingrich an excuse to use “stealth jihad” and its variants frequently—not just at the AEI but in an interview with this magazine. (In an essay on the conservative Web site Human Events, he referred instead to “creeping sharia.”) Gingrich’s like-minded peers have seized on the language, too. “Muslim Brotherhood operatives, like [Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the center’s founder and leader] are extremely skilled at obscuring … their true agenda,” said Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy, on FOX’s Glenn Beck show. “It’s part of the stealth jihad.”
‘A Little Intolerant, But Good Reason To Be’ Protesters for and against the building of a Muslim community center near Ground Zero talk about their reasons for supporting or opposing the project.

Words matter, and if you say them often enough and with enough authority, they start to sound true—even if they’re not. Abdul Rauf, for instance, has no affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood and is an “operative” (another nefarious word) only in the sense that running a small, progressive interfaith nonprofit is an “operation.” As for his “stealth jihad,” it’s virtually impossible to imagine how such an event would—logistically—occur. Would the construction of an Islamic prayer site near Ground Zero inevitably lead American women to wake up one morning and find themselves veiled and confined to their homes? “The term is ever-so-slightly goofy,” says Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California, Berkeley. The paranoia conveyed by “stealth jihad” brings to mind the anticommunist campaigns of Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, Nunberg adds. Just as McCarthyites imagined a communist behind every lamppost, the word “stealth” conflates all Muslims with terrorists. In a stealth campaign you never know who your friends are.

Also, simply put, foreign words freak people out. “Jihad” and “Sharia” reinforce the sense among Americans that Muslims in general have an unfathomable world view. During World War II, formerly obscure words like “hara-kiri” and “kamikaze,” which suggested the “warlike ferocity” of the Japanese, became common parlance, Nunberg says. “There was this sense of being confronted with this hostile, alien culture.” The Japanese were “literally demonized,” he says.

Gingrich has already used the mosque debate to evoke many of America’s historic enemies, comparing Muslims indirectly with Nazis and communists and even the Japanese. “We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor,” he said on FOX recently.

But that is not true. Fourteen percent of Hawaiians call themselves ethnically Japanese, according to the U.S. Census, and dozens of Japanese temples stand near Pearl Harbor—as they have for decades. One of them, the Buddhist Aiea Hongwanji Mission, is less than half a mile away. “You can see Pearl Harbor from the roof, maybe. We’re really close,” says Wade Yamamoto, the temple’s treasurer. The temple allows people “to practice their religion from back home,” he says. Gingrich, a historian, might take a lesson here. After the attacks of Dec. 7, 1941, more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent—two thirds of them American citizens—were interned in camps in a shameful episode that later legislation called the result of “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” Last week, a New York City cab driver was stabbed for answering the question “Are you a Muslim?” in the affirmative. Our enemies are dangerous. Let’s be clear about who they are.

With Johannah Cornblatt

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Robert Spencer next to his Perpetual Serf Pamela Geller

Robert Spencer contradicts himself once again. In a recent article in the Daily Caller, Spencer is quoted as saying,

“[Kagan] would knowingly and wittingly abet the advance of Sharia, but she wouldn’t do it understanding anything about Sharia. She would do it out of her ignorance.”

Yes, because the only one who understands Sharia is Robert Spencer.

What a convoluted way of saying what he really wants to say, “Kagan will ‘advance Shariah.’”

So will she “knowingly” or “ignorantly” advance Sharia?

Spencer attributes Kagan’s fondness for Sharia to naïveté and liberalism. “There is a general tendency on the part of political liberals in the United States today to take a benign view of Islam and Islamic law,” he said. “They are generally uninformed and share a hatred of the West and Western civilization.”

Essentially, if someone disagrees with Spencer they are cast as either “ignorant” or “taking a benign view of Islam and Islamic law.” This woman has devoted her whole life to the study of law, does he not think for a second that Kagan might know more about Islamic law than himself?

According to Spencer, Kagan will be a willing accomplice in the ongoing stealth jihad — or the institution of Sharia into non-Muslim societies via non-violent means, such as the courts and mainstreaming Islamic customs — currently underway against the West. “The goal of the jihad is to assert the primacy of Islamic law over non-Muslim society and over Muslim societies where it is not fully enforced, and that can take place either through violent or non-violent means and the goal is the same,” he said.

David Wood is a Christian apologist who attempts to save Muslim souls through his organization Acts 17 Apologetics and www.answeringmuslims.com. In the past Wood and his entourage, including ex-Ahmadi Muslim* Nabeel Qureshi have targeted the Dearborn Arab Festival in Michigan for proselytism.

At the 2009 Arab Festival, David Wood made a controversial, and some claim one sided video that received over a million hits on YouTube which showed them getting kicked out of the festival. They claim that they were just engaged in free speech, whereas security at the festival stated that they were insulting and harassing festival goers.

Other Evangelical Christians criticized Wood and his group as being agitators,

“The Rev. Haytham Abi Haydar, a Christian evangelical convert from Islam with Arabic Alliance Church in Dearborn, said that a Christian group called Acts 17 Apologetics caused the problems at this year’s Arab festival.

They put cameras in their faces and were very antagonistic,” Abi Haydar said of the group that produced the controversial video that has drawn almost 1.4 million views on YouTube.

Just recently at the 2010 Dearborn Arab Festival, David Wood, Nabeel Qureshi and two others were arrested for disorderly conduct. Obviously intending to make a scene in an attempt at more YouTube success by portraying themselves as being persecuted.

Now David Wood, whose “love of  Muslims” seems to be akin to Pamela Geller’s (who he links to favorably a number of times) is joining arms with the anti-Muslim hate group SIOA in opposing the mosque and cultural center that is to be built a few blocks away from Ground Zero.

In the following video, filled with disinformation, falsehood and inaccuracies he expounds his reasons as to why he is against the mosque, and why he sees Muslims as a lurking evil attempting to take over the West. We expose it all in this series.

Of Mosques and Men

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxFzFIDbKpg 350 300]

10 years later, two groups of Muslims, the Cordoba Initiative and the American Society for Muslim Advancement are planning to build a Massive 13 story mosque right here behind me.

Right off the bat we see the disinformation at work, this isn’t a “13 story mosque,” (why would Muslims need 13 stories to pray in the middle of Manhattan?). The fact is this is a cultural center, that along side a space for a mosque will contain a theater, swimming pool, restaurant and other facilities with the expressed goals of promoting tolerance and mutual co-operation between people of different and varying backgrounds.

“Understandably, many people here in the West are concerned…”

WTF? Many people in the “West” are concerned? I highly doubt the masses of people in Europe or Canada really care about this particular Islamophobia-driven agitation, unless the “many people” he is referring to is the small hate group SIOE (Stop the Islamization of Europe and parent organization of SIOA) whose main campaigns revolve around opposing mosques and other anti-Muslim initiatives.

“…this isn’t an attempt to honor the victims of 9/11 instead, it may be an attempt to build a symbol of Islamic victory. Now, I have the same concern, but mine is slightly different, my concern is slightly different, it is based on a photograph I saw, while I was still in College.

While I was in College my best friend was a Muslim named Nabeel Qureshi. Nabeel showed me some photographs shortly after the September 11th attacks, and I found them quite surprising. Muslims were passing these photographs around and Nabeel thought they were absolutely hilarious. The first photograph was a picture of George W. Bush as a Muslim, and I have to admit that was actually pretty funny,

The second photograph wasn’t so funny, it was a photo shopped picture of the Statue of Liberty covered in a full veil.

Now, this one bothered me a little bit. The Statue of Liberty, the symbol of freedom and justice, covered by a full veil, a symbol of oppression and Shariah Law, now these two pictures actually worked their way around the internet and lots of people are familiar with them.

The third picture, is the one that disturbed me however, it was a photo shopped picture of New York City covered in mosques and minarets, in the bottom corner it said New York City 2006.

The idea was that the terrorist attacks had cleared the ground for the construction of new mosques.

David Wood makes some audacious claims that we are supposed to take as veritable truth upon his word. First, that the photographs he saw originated with Muslims. Second, that Muslims at his College were passing them around, (ostensibly in “celebration of 9/11″). Third, that a burka is a symbol of Shariah Law, and fourth, that the third picture was meant to convey the “idea that the terrorist attacks had cleared the ground for the construction of mosques.”

The truth is that all three of the photographs originate from a comedy website called “www.joe-ks.com,” (a fact conveniently hidden by David Wood in the video) which claims to be the “largest source of internet humor.” The site is definitely not Muslim or terrorist sympathetic, essentially it is a website that has jokes about everything, and a lot of the jokes lampoon terrorists and extremists, and some of them even lampoon whole countries such as Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, etc.

For example one of their posts is titled Afghan Humour:

Q: What do Kabul and Hiroshima have in common?
A: Nothing,…. yet.

Q: How do you play Taliban bingo?
A: B-52…F-16…B-1…

Q: What is the Taliban’s national bird?
A: Duck

Q: How is Bin Laden like Fred Flintstone?
A: Both may look out their windows and see Rubble.

Q: Why does the Afghanistan Navy have glass bottom boats?
A: So they can see their Air Force.

Q: What do Osama Bin Laden and General Custer have in common?
A: They both want to know where those Tomahawks are coming from.

Q: Why aren’t there any Wal-Marts in Afghanistan?
A. Because there’s a Target on every corner.

David Wood must have seen the original post on Joe-KS which would put the pictures above into their proper context instead of the deceptive context that he has created. The pictures weren’t created or disseminated by Muslims after 9/11 as a means of celebrating or “dealing with the tragedy through humor”, in fact the post that first contained the pictures was lampooning terrorists. The post published in October 2001 was titled, If the Taliban wins the War #1, #2, #3.

David Wood makes a claim that Muslims were passing these pictures around when the truth is they were created by and disseminated by non-Muslims who were making fun of terrorists and extremists. He doesn’t provide any evidence of Muslims passing these pictures out, instead we are supposed to take him at his word.

In reality it is a clever ploy that omits the fact that not only were Muslims also victims of 9/11 but all major American Muslim organizations condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms. However, he wants to caste Muslims in a dehumanized image: ‘they are not part of our suffering, in fact they are mocking our suffering and enjoy and support 9/11.’

His disingenuous claim that the third picture is meant by Muslims to convey the idea “that the terrorist attacks had cleared the ground for the construction of mosques” is a cynical attempt to link the humor piece deriding the Taliban to the current construction of the Cordoba Cultural Center.

He attempts to instill in the minds of his watchers the idea that this was the plan all along. In doing so he asserts the interesting, if off the wall conspiracy theory that Osama Bin Laden was somehow in cahoots with the founder of the Cordoba Initiative Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, (a Sufi Imam who has condemned Bin Laden and supported the War in Afghanistan).

You see, the plan all along to subvert and take over the West was that Bin Laden’s goons would fly planes into the Twin Towers, then ten years later Imam Abdul Rauf, (who has never spoken to or met Bin Laden) would telepathically (through secret Muslim Taqqiyah radar) communicate with Bin Laden to receive orders to stealthily build a gigantic 13 story Mosque a few blocks away from Ground Zero!

Stay tuned for part 2…

*Disclaimer: “Ahmadi Muslim,” otherwise known as “Qadiyanis” or “Mirzai,” are a heretical sect who are considered outside the fold of Islam by both Sunnis and Shias because of their belief that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a Prophet. This negates the fundamental Islamic creed agreed upon by the majority of Islamic schools of thought and sects that Prophet Muhammad was the last and final Messenger from God. A similar parallel amongst Christians would be groups such as the Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses. (Hat tip: Nazam, Jansen and Zaytoon)

Tariq Ramadan

As you know, Dr. Tariq Ramadan – Muslim scholar, writer, and thinker – has had his visa to enter the country reinstated, and he used this to his advantage: speaking at various engagements across the United States. We here at LoonWatch alerted our fellow citizens of the arrival of the “stealth jihadist,” coining the terminology of Robert Spencer. Yet, we didn’t want to stop just there. We wanted to report on what this man was saying.

So, we were able to secure a confidential LW operative to infiltrate the CAIR-Chicago Annual Banquet, his first public speaking engagement since being allowed to come to the U.S., to report on his speech. This operative approached us initially, telling us that he would be attending Dr. Ramadan’s speech.  He posed as a regular member of the Muslim community and took clandestine notes and reported them back to us. This was a unique opportunity as Dr. Ramadan was speaking to an audience largely composed of Muslims, and so he can “let loose” and not show his “taqqiya,” as he would if he were speaking to non-Muslims. We could not pass this up.

In the beginning of his speech, he thanked those who helped him come back to the United States, such as the ACLU and others, and he said that he was blocked from coming to the United States because he spoke his mind, especially about the war in Iraq (on which, it turns out, he was correct). He said that people cannot confuse a government with its people.

He mentioned that there was one Islam: unified in its principles and beliefs, but many different cultures, interpretations, and schools of thought. It is an accepted diversity in Islam’s application. At the same time, however, he noted that there was a crisis in the understanding of Islam among Muslims, and that there were many challenges within the Muslim community that needed to be addressed. The main problem with Muslims is psychological in his opinion: he affirmed the need of Muslims to examine what is wrong with themselves, but they should also acknowledge the enormous strides Muslims – especially those in the West – have made in the last 30-50 years.

He urged Muslims to become more involved in their communities and differentitate between victimhood and having a “victim mentality.” He urged his listeners to struggle (aka “jihad”…dah dah daaaaaaah!!!!) against the victim mentality. He reminded the audience that whenever you work for justice, you will be opposed. Whenever you talk about love, he said, people will respond with hate.

Dr. Ramadan also touched upon spirituality, which is more than just praying. It is being strong from within. He quoted the verse about the parable of a good word:

Are you not aware how God sets forth the parable of a good word? [It is] like a good tree, firmly rooted, [reaching out] with its branches towards the sky, yielding its fruit at all times by its Lord’s permission. And [thus it is that] God propounds parables unto men so that they might bethink themselves [of the truth]. (14:24-25)

The roots of the tree are your heart, and the fruits of the tree are your actions, he said. An activist without spirituality is an agitated man, he said. He then gave advice about how to speak to fellow Americans: speak to them softly, and he advised the audience to behave like the “The Servants of the Most Merciful”:

And the servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk on the earth with humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say, “Peace!” (25:63)

God is Beautiful, and He loves beauty, Dr. Ramadan said. Muslims’ mantra must be this: By serving the people, I serve Him. He also said that he does not like defining Islam as “submission.” In his understanding, Islam is entering into God’s peace, as the verse proclaims:

O you who believe! Enter into Islam ["peace"] whole-heartedly, and follow not the footsteps of Satan, for he is to you an avowed enemy. (2:208)

One of the first things the Prophet Muhammad said, he reminded the audience, when he entered Medinah is, “Spread peace.” That is what Muslims should do. No Muslim should say that you can’t love your neighbor if he is not Muslim. This is your home, he told the American Muslim audience. Americans are your people; you cannot call fellow Americans as “them.” When American Muslims say “we,” it must be an inclusive “we,” including all Americans. Spreading peace, justice, and ethics is the purpose of Muslims in America, not to convert non-Muslim Americans to Islam. Muslims are here to make society better; the hearts of the people are not their concern. That is the realm of God.

Now comes the “smoking gun” (pun intended): Dr. Ramadan spoke of Jihad! (dah dah daaaaaaah!!!)
Jihad, he said, did not start with fighting, or qital. The first act of Jihad in the Qur’an was knowing how to use the Qur’an against those who opposed the message:

Hence, do not defer to [the likes and dislikes of] those who deny the truth, but strive hard against them, by means of this [divine writ], with utmost striving. (25:52)

He then ended his speech by turning a critical eye toward the Muslim community itself, which, he said, is very important. He bemoaned the many divisions in the Muslim community: divisions along ethnic lines, cultural lines, class lines, and economic lines. He said that there should be “Americans” in the mosques: people from all cultures. Muslims from different cultures should mix together, he said. He pointed out that many African-American Muslims feel like they are second class Muslims, and many converts feel they have to Arabize, and he criticized both phenomena. Muslims must also improve in their treatment of women, as well. If you want America to be better, he said, then Muslims must start in their own communities.

His final words were this: Never forget that you Muslims are American. He urged them to speak about Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, and do so as Americans, not Muslims. Moreover, Muslims need to institutionalize their presence in America: Muslims need institutions, and they must work with all people. The key is confidence and humility: be confident about your position, but be humble at the same time.

There you have it, folks. Those were the words (paraphrased by our operative) of Dr. Ramadan at his speech to the CAIR-Chicago banquet. As you can see, it was full of intolerance, hatred, Islamism, and Jihadism. What was the American government thinking when it let him in?

Manya Brachear

The Seeker, Manya Brachear’s blog about religion on the Chicago Tribune website has a post, Chicago welcomes once-banned Muslim Scholar, about the upcoming trip of Islamic scholar/reformer and Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan to the United States (hat tip: iSherif).

You may remember that Tariq Ramadan had his visa revoked by the Bush administration, ostensibly because he donated money to a charity organization that it was later charged had links to Hamas. The charge was clearly fallacious as the organization was not listed as a banned charity in America at the time that Tariq Ramadan made his contribution.

The real reason seems to be that Tariq Ramadan was banned by Bush due to a policy of ideological exclusion and Ramadan’s fierce opposition to the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was further confirmed when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered Ramadan’s visa to be reinstated.

Unfortunately the blog post quoted Robert Spencer, one of the leading Islamophobes in the West today.

But author Robert Spencer says that popularity is dangerous. In interviews, he has criticized Clinton for making an exception to U.S. law that prohibits supports of terrorist groups from entering the country. Spencer said Ramadan should still be barred for donating money to a group that funds Hamas.

Spencer contends that the scholar has the same goals as Osama bin Laden–to impose Shariah law in the West. While Ramadan paints himself as a moderate intellectual, Spencer said, he is actually a “stealth jihadist.”

It is a severe lapse in judgement for Brachear to quote Spencer’s claims since they are false on their head. It is an attempt on Spencer’s part to “poison the wells.” The fact is Ramadan has never supported Hamas or terrorism, in fact he has been one of the most outspoken critics of both. “Stealth Jihad” is just paranoid new speak that serves bigots who wish to cast normal, law abiding Muslims as evil villains who are secretly working behind the scenes to take over the West. It is in fact the new “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

Our website has copiously dissected many of Robert Spencer’s blog posts exposing his unsavory associations, pseudo-scholarship and blatant bigotry against Muslims and Islam. One of our premiere contributors, Danios has gone through whole chapters in Spencer’s books and revealed how shoddy and inaccurate a lot of his work has been. To quote Robert Spencer on Muslims and Islam is equivalent to quoting David Duke on Judaism or Jews.

One instructive point in regards to all of this is that one of Spencer’s closest friends and a co-founder with Spencer of The Freedom Defense Initiative, Pamela Geller has gone to the extreme (and insane) level of calling Tariq Ramadan, “a cold blooded Jihadists.” An exercise in hyperbole that the worst enemies and strongest critics of Ramadan won’t even engage in. However, one must ask Spencer if he agrees with that characterization by his friend Geller who he cross-posts from regularly? It also seriously puts into doubt the objectiveness of Spencer and whether he should ever be quoted by mainstream media.

I urge our readers to contact Manya and to politely express their disappointment at the inclusion of a bigot such as Spencer on a professional blog such as hers.

Contact: mbrachear@tribune.com

Here is some information that may be helpful to share with Manya (remember to be polite and topical):

The fact is Spencer is not taken seriously by academia especially in the field of Islam: He has been repudiated over and over. Take a glance at our archives:

Academics and members of the American Library Association condemn Spencer and his work: Robert Spencer Rejected by Academics, still Supports Geert Wilders

DePaul Law Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni condemns Spencer

His former friend and ally Charles Johnson has also condemned Robert Spencer as an “Anti-Islamic Bigot:”

Robert Spencer goes postal on Charles Johnson

Spencer’s association and fervent support for anti-Muslim European neo-Fascists and supremacists also disqualifies him from being mentioned as a true neutral observer and commenter on Islam or radical Islam:

Robert Spencer Teams up with Euro-Supremacists Again

Spencer has also joined a genocidal Facebook group which called for the extermination of Turks:

Robert Spencer: Wanna be Conquistador

Robert Spencer’s arguments have been shown to be filled with errors and excessive prejudice:

The Church’s Doctrine of Perpetual Servitude worse than Dhimmitude

Robert Spencer Misrepresents Facts — Again

Robert Spencer Worried about ticking ‘Muslim Demographic Time Bomb’

There is more information exposing the bigotry and anti-Muslim motive that mars the work of Robert Spencer in our archives, if Manya Brachear truly cares about the information she wishes to present to readers then she should take a serious look at who she chooses to quote as an expert.

Christian Stealth Jihad?

A favorite theme of the right-wing nutjob community in the US is to fantasize about the threat of an Islaimc Shariah takeover of the United States.

They accuse every effective Muslim leader and every successful Muslim organization in one way or another of scheming to institute Islamic law (Shariah) as the official law of our government.

The pictures they paint in their books, radio shows, and blogs range from Muslims conspiring for a hostile takeover (through violent Jihad) to Muslims conspiring for a peaceful takeover of the United States (through perfectly legal means).  The latter is what the sages of the nutjob community – yes I am aware that’s an oxymoron – are terming stealth Jihad.

Stealth Jihad of course is the take over from within, the slow and gradual but forced transformation of American government from our current constitution to Shariah (Islamic law), a process to be achieved through the system, in the light of day, in a perfectly legal and peaceful manner.

There are many problems with this old wife’s tale of which the following are a few:

• - Muslims constitute less than 3 million people according to the Pew Research Center, that’s less than 1% of the United States. So whatever effort they are going to invest in, it had better subdue more than 99% of the American people, that’s 297 million free, discerning, intelligent people.
• - If Muslims indeed are working on a peaceful takeover of the country, what does that assume about the 3 million, that they have superhuman ability to influence and brainwash everyone else? And what does it assume about the 297 million others, that they are hapless, helpless, gullible morons that can easily be brainwashed?
• - There is in fact not a single Muslim organization of note that has as its mission “the Islamization of our legal system” or anything even close to suggesting replacing the US constitution with the Shariah. Not ISNA, not CAIR, not MPAC, not MAS, not MSA. The claim originates from lifelong detractors of American Muslim organizations and leaders and their efforts to enfranchise their minority communities, never from the mission statements of Muslims themselves. (I challenge any of those detractors to point LoonWatch to any of the mission statements of the above organizations that would prove us wrong.)

So far so good.

Well so what about working to replace our secular constitution that separates between Church and State with some religious canonical rules and regulations that does not? Are there any organizations out there that in fact claim such a thing as their mission?

The answer is yes.

One such organization is a radical group by the name of Reclaim Oklahoma For Christ (reclaimoklahoma.org). Here is the mission statement from their website:

To educate our pastors, legislators, educators, students and all citizens as to the truth about America’s Christian Heritage and the role of fundamental, Biblical Christianity in the establishment and function of our legal, legislative and educational systems; and to work towards the successful reestablishment of these values in our society today.

Hmm, America’s Christian Heritage? So America only has one heritage? There are no Jewish Americans, Muslim Americans, Buddhist Americans, Atheist Americans, etc? We are all one big homogeneous group with a single religious heritage determined for us by this group. If you are anything but Christian, tough luck for you, drop your heritage and get in line to assume THE American heritage as this group sees it.

More importantly, notice the explicit language involved in the phrase: the role of fundamental, Biblical Christianity in the establishment and function of our legal, legislative systems.

So basically, the goal of this group is not just see the US government, schools, universities and society at large dominated with their religion and it’s holy book, the Bible, but with a “fundamental” interpretation thereof.

So, here’s a pop quiz, what does one call working to subject America – its “legal, legislative, and educational systems”, as well as “all citizens” to the “fundamental” teachings of someone’s religious holy book, its values, rules, etc? Oh yes, “working to dominate America with Sharia via a stealth Jihad!”

That’s right folks, there is an ongoing stealth Christian Jihad out there for Christian Shariah to dominate US government and society.

Mind you, unlike with the Muslims, it’s not a mother population of 3 million mostly struggling immigrants we are talking about here, but a mother population of 70 million linguistically native, religiously fervent, politically savvy mainstream looking citizens. Talk about stealth.

And guess what? The “reclaiming America for Jesus” bible-thumping bunch ARE in fact in full “infiltration” (to use a favorite Spencer term) of our government, our educational system, and society at large. It’s a population that does not just have 2 members in congress like with the Muslims, but dozens in congress and the senate, not to mention the sprawling mega-churches, the business tycoons, media conglomerates, universities, and well-funded lobby groups. Their tangible effect can be seen from changing tax-payer funded school curricula and student history books in Texas to affecting our federal laws on abortion, to influencing our foreign policy (including the push for misguided wars in the Middle East some of which have occurred like Iraq and others for which they are still pushing).

Hutaare (Christian Warriors) Militia

And guess what, it turns out it’s not all stealth. There are pockets of this population that is willing to go the violent terrorist route to reclaim America for Jesus!

Where is the excitable hairball known as Robert Spencer? Why the silence, Bob? This is totally up your ally if indeed your beef is with “stealth jihad” and “religious shariah” taking over the US, and not necessarily Muslims per se as you often claim? Do you see why people think you are a blabbering hypocrite?

And where are the screeching wails of your foul-mouthed sidekick, Pamela Geller? Cat got your tongue Pam?

Where is Brigitte Gabriel, and Nonie Darwish and Wafa Sultan and the other sweaty cheerleaders of the big cry against the imminent “Islamic takeover”? No good book deals here for you ladies? No speaking tours opening up where you get cash bags and back pats from your ringmasters?

Where are the monitoring websites, and the blog craze, and the concerned members of congress, and the warnings of the expert talking heads, and the tell-all books? No money in this business? Thank God for the Muslims!

Russelll Wiseman, Republican mayor of Arlington

We all know how Pamela Geller and company claim(ed) that Barack Obama is/was a Muslim.  Russell Wiseman, the Republican mayor of Arlington, Tennessee, believes not only that President Obama is a Muslim, but that he waged a calculated stealth Jihad against the Charlie Brown Special.  It never ceases to amaze me how such high level Republicans can think such insane stuff.

I know that this is a bit old, but better late than never:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cvxmkZEt-s 300 250]

What a loon.

The Moral Contortionist

On November 25th, we wrote about a wacky article that the failed academic and full time Likud apologist, Daniel Pipes wrote for the Jerusalem Post, in which he argued that US Congressman Keith Ellison, intellectual Tariq Ramadan and President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan were a greater threat to Western Civilization than Al-Qaeda.

We wrote at the time,

According to the illogic of Pipes the greatest threat doesn’t come from Al-Qaeda, Ayatollah Khomeini or Nidal Hasan but rather from people like Dr. Tariq Ramadan and Congressman Keith Ellison. He accuses the two of being part of something he terms “Islamism 2.0.” This ridiculous term translates essentially into what Islamophobe Robert Spencer calls “Stealth Jihad,” or the subtle takeover of the West by peaceful, law-abiding Muslims who have a secret, sinister (stealth) goal to takeover the West and replace Democracy with Shariah law: in other words it’s a conspiracy theory.

Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden, and Nidal Hasan represent Islamism 1.0, Recep Tayyip Erdogan (the prime minister of Turkey), Tariq Ramadan (a Swiss intellectual), and Keith Ellison (a US congressman) represent Islamism 2.0. The former kill more people but the latter pose a greater threat to Western civilization. (emphasis mine)

That Erdogan, Ramadan and Ellison can even be mentioned in the same sentence as equivalent to, or even more dangerous and threatening to the West than Bin Laden speaks volumes about Pipes’ preposterous agenda. Would Bin Laden have Turkey make peace with Armenia as Erdogan did? Would Bin Laden affirm Democracy as the way forward to better governance and equal rights as all three do? Would Bin Laden pledge to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America on Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an as Keith Ellison did?

We never imagined Daniel Pipes would offer a response, as he usually isn’t too keen to get into a debate with anyone who challenges his weak and biased arguments. However, it seems this time Pipes couldn’t hold himself back. Prompted by a reader of his website, Aliya, who alerted Pipes to our rebuttal of his article, he responded by bringing the all too familiar response of those who have no arguments: comparing your subject to Hitler.

The questioner sounds like another loon that we know, Pamela Geller who surmised that Loonwatch was a George Soros funded website, but she takes it a step further and includes all the possible conspiracy theories she can think of, not only are we George Soros funded but we are an, “Islamist Jewish/Eurabian (apparently George Soros and Saudi funded) website.” I love these loons, if half of what they said were true (Alas, my meager pockets) we would be rolling in the dough!!  Soros and company we are still waiting on our checks!

Notice that Daniel Pipes really didn’t answer any of the arguments or questions in our article, my guess is he probably didn’t even read it. He looked at the way Aliya framed the question and answered it by equating Keith Ellison, Tariq Ramadan and Recep Erodogan, all fierce proponents of Democracy to the greatest mass-murderer of the 20th century. Quite despicable, and it seems to have become Daniel Pipes’ forte to side on the side of the despicable.

The real question however is, if Pipes is truly interested in “protecting Western Civilization,” why is he as silent as a mouse on the real threat: the new little Hitler’s springing up all over Europe? Why does Pipes ignore neo-fascist Geert Wilders who calls for the deportation of Mooslims, banning of the Quran, taxing the hijab, etc? Why does he not speak out against the fascist Northern League, why does he give his tacit approval of the minaret ban in Switzerland which he charachterizes as a vote against “Islamization?”

The new amendment also validates and potentially encourages resistance to Islamization throughout the continent.

The reality is ever clearer, Mr.Pipes doesn’t give two hoots about Democracy, for him Democracy is convenient when it fits his agenda but should be discarded the moment it is no longer of use.

Only dhimmis eat shawarmas!

Fellow comrades, this week we sent a powerful message to the stealth jihadists by banning minarets in Switzerland.  This was truly a watershed issue, one which I believe saved the country from the imminent stealth jihadist takeover and their terrorist plot to store nuclear warheads in their minarets.

But we must not stop here.  Rather, it is time to ride this wave of awareness to pass further legislation to curb radical Islam–and by this, I mean Islam in general.

It has come to my attention that Muslims use cemeteries to bury suicide bombers–often plotting future attacks from such locations and other ground based areas.  Furthermore, several Muslim cemeteries were funded by groups connected to someone whose brother knew someone whose neighbor was an unindicted co-conspirator in the WTC bombing, who also attended the same mosque that the mother of a member of CAIR attended–and as we all know, CAIR is a part of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda, a Wahhabist-Hezbollah and Al-Baik run organization, headed by Tariq Ramadan, Usama bin Ladin, and Haifa Wehbe.

The Jewish news source JTA.org reports:

Swiss leader calls for Jewish cemetery ban

December 3, 2009

BERLIN (JTA) — A mainstream Swiss political leader is calling for a ban on separate Muslim and Jewish cemeteries.

Christophe Darbellay, president of the Christian Democratic People’s Party of Switzerland, made the statement in a television interview Tuesday, two days after Swiss voters passed an initiative to ban minarets.

The anti-minaret initiative came from the opposition ultra-conservative Swiss People’s Party and other right-wing political organizations. Critics say Darbellay is starting a “crusade” to attract voters by proposing similarly xenophobic measures.

Mainstream politicians and religious leaders across Europe have reacted with dismay to the anti-minaret vote.

According to the Swiss online daily Tagesanzeiger, Darbellay also wants to ban the wearing of burkas, head-to-toe veils worn by some fundamentalist Muslim women.

Darbellay reportedly said that existing cemeteries would not be affected by a ban, but that there should be no separate cemeteries in the future.

The Swiss People’s Party called for crackdowns on expressions of Muslim fundamentalism in 2006. Observers said the demand for separate cemeteries is an escalation.

Yesterday, the minarets.  Today, the cemeteries.  Tomorrow, shawarmas.  My research indicates that shawarmas are the number one food source of terrorists, and cutting off this supply will cause them to suffer from severe hypoglycemia, which shall considerably weaken their capacity to commit terrorism.

Jewish bagels are very close to the burqa wrapped jihad-shawarmas, so those ought to be banned too.  We must not slacken in our resolve.

Cordially,
Obert S. Pencer.

Disclaimer: The letter by “Obert S. Pencer” is fictional but the news story about cemeteries is real.

Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes, the academic who dropped academia long ago to pursue anti-Islam polemics and apologia for Israeli policy is at it again. In a Nov, 24, 2009 article in the Jerusalem Post, Pipes writes about his favorite topic, “the Muslim threat to Western Civilization.”

According to the illogic of Pipes the greatest threat doesn’t come from Al-Qaeda, Ayatollah Khomeini or Nidal Hasan but rather from people like Dr. Tariq Ramadan and Congressman Keith Ellison. He accuses the two of being part of something he terms “Islamism 2.0.” This ridiculous term translates essentially into what Islamophobe Robert Spencer calls “Stealth Jihad,” or the subtle takeover of the West by peaceful, law-abiding Muslims who have a secret, sinister (stealth) goal to takeover the West and replace Democracy with Shariah law: in other words it’s a conspiracy theory.

Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden, and Nidal Hasan represent Islamism 1.0, Recep Tayyip Erdogan (the prime minister of Turkey), Tariq Ramadan (a Swiss intellectual), and Keith Ellison (a US congressman) represent Islamism 2.0. The former kill more people but the latter pose a greater threat to Western civilization. (emphasis mine)

That Erdogan, Ramadan and Ellison can even be mentioned in the same sentence as equivalent to, or even more dangerous and threatening to the West than Bin Laden speaks volumes about Pipes’ preposterous agenda. Would Bin Laden have Turkey make peace with Armenia as Erdogan did? Would Bin Laden affirm Democracy as the way forward to better governance and equal rights as all three do? Would Bin Laden pledge to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America on Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an as Keith Ellison did?

All of the above are of course rhetorical questions because there is an obvious wide gulf that separates the likes of a Bin Laden and a Keith Ellison. Keith Ellison, is an American whose family history in the Americas goes back centuries, longer even than Pipes’ family history. He is a liberal Democrat who believes in Democracy, the rule of law, universal suffrage and equal rights for all. That is why his district in Minnesota overwhelmingly voted for him.

The most condescending aspect to the vile piece from Pipes and what he ignores or fails to mention is that Erdogan, Ramadan and Ellison are Westerners. In fact, they represent all that is good about the West, they are consistent on their values, are educated, active and participatory citizens: one doesn’t have to agree with their beliefs or ideas to see the common values in that. They call on their fellow citizens to be active and educated and they foster understanding between different communities while also being self-critical; that is more than we can say for Daniel Pipes.

Pipes goes on to state that “lawful Islamism” is growing in the West and may be worse than “violent Islamism” which is retreating,

Other once-violent Islamist organizations in Algeria, Egypt, and Syria have recognized the potential of lawful Islamism and largely renounced violence. One also sees a parallel shift in Western countries; Ramadan and Ellison represent a burgeoning trend.

In conclusion, only Islamists, not fascists or communists, have gone well beyond crude force to win public support and develop a 2.0 version. Because this aspect of Islamism undermines traditional values and destroys freedoms, it may threaten civilized life even more than does 1.0′s brutality.(emphasis added)

Instead of bizzarely bemoaning the fact that these once violent organizations have renounced violence, Pipes should see it as most sensible people do, a positive development which brings these groups into the system and opens them up to the scrutiny of checks and balances and eventually the electorate. Also notice the highly disingenuous way in which Pipes again lumps these once violent organizations onto the same wavelength as Ramadan and Ellison who, yes, are proud Muslims (not a crime by the way) but at the same time are staunch Democrats who are the fiercest and most affective opponents of the violent ideology that motivates groups such as Al-Qaeda.

Ellison and Ramadan stand as a strong counter example against Bin Laden and his cohorts for Muslims, especially young Muslims. They see two Muslims, strongly grounded in their faith, belonging to their society and giving back on various levels from the social to the political; instead of deriding them Pipes should be encouraging them. As more examples such as theirs increase in the West it will enable Muslims to better fight those minority elements within their faith that seek to cause chaos and violence and that is what really threatens Daniel Pipes who seems to be motivated by the paranoid fear that the “enfranchisement of American Muslims…will present true dangers to American Jews.”

So what does Daniel Pipes propose? How do we stop this “stealth Islamism 2.0?” Do we restrict the free speech of Tariq Ramadan and deny him entry into the US? ( Pipes does support that) Do we disallow Muslims such as Keith Ellison from holding public office? Do we not allow Muslims to enter into the military? Do we watch Muslim peoples’ every move? What practical solutions is Pipes proposing from this highly opinionated and doomsday scenario article?

We can only assume that he is in league with other believers in these conspiracy theories who do put forward pratical solutions to the “stealth Muslim problem.” Believers like Geert Wilders whose solutions include: no religious freedom for Muslims, banning the Quran, taxing Muslim women who wear the Hijab, deporting Muslim citizens etc.

One must ask Daniel Pipes, does he agree with such a program? Some of his colleagues and friends such as Robert Spencer have already given their backing to Wilders, where does Pipes stand? Does he stand for Democracy, equal rights, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion or is he a hypocrite cloaking himself as a champion of Western civilization when in reality with every word he undermines it?

Frank Gaffney

Frank Gaffney is at it again, this time he’s writing for that favorite of warmongers everywhere, The Washington Times. Gaffney stuck a real “unbiased” note right off the bat by titling his article Understanding Islam’s Threat to the U.S. Vital. Yes, in case you didn’t know, that Faith that holds sway over 1.8 Billion people around the world is a threat to the USA. For this former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy nuance is synonymous with unnecessary. It isn’t extremism or radicalism but Islam itself that is to blame for all the problems we face.

The article takes umbrage at the new policies ushered in by the Obama administration. In fact, it starts out by stating that John Brennan, the assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism was wrong when he approvingly recalled a key point in Obama’s speech, “America is not and never will be at war with Islam.” To most reasonable people that statement just sounds like common sense but for Gaffney the real question is whether or not “Islam is at war with us?”

The obvious question is: how does a belief system which has been around longer then America, which has many interpretations and practitioners get cast as the antagonist in a war against America? How do you pit a religion against a whole nation, a nation which itself has many Muslim citizens? The nuanced answers coming from Obama and John Brennan is that we are not at war with Muslims and Islam but against “violent extremists” such as Al’Qaeda. This not only makes more sense but is also more accurate which means it will also be more effective in combating extremism and violence around the world.

The other point of Gaffney’s article, borrowing a term from Robert Spencer, is that even those Muslims who are not violently propagating their murderous vision for the world are engaged in a “stealth Jihad” to undermine America. This is a common and dangerous tactic by those in the Muslim-bashing industry. It asks you to suspend your better judgment and believe that you still have to be aware and afraid of those peaceful Muslims who are law abiding citizens because they are secretly planning to take over America and the world. It is the same kind of rhetoric that was used by Jew haters to further propagate anti-Semitism. The argument went that the peaceful Jew is plotting behind the scenes to destroy the gentiles, this kind of thinking gave birth to the infamous blood libels which eventually contributed to the horrific Holocaust.