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Posted at BigPeace.com by Dr. Marc Weisman Jun 28th 2011 at 5:17 am in Featured Story, Islam, Islamic extremism,Politics, sharia | Comments (133)

As you read this, be mindful that it could just as easily be your community—and probably will be, eventually. Farmington, Michigan’s Public School Board of Education voted unanimously to sell their vacant Eagle Elementary School to the Islamic Cultural Association (ICA) for $1.1 million. The transaction was kept secret until the sale was nearly (some say clearly) complete. Many in the community have decried this as an under-handed sale intended to circumvent the largely Christian and Jewish residents of the immediate area. Much of the controversy is the ICA’s association with the HUDA school of Franklin, Michigan—just a few miles away. The HUDA school was ultimately denied their expansion which was the intended site for the ICA two years ago. The HUDA school could not satisfactorily reconcile the charge that they secretly wanted this new structure, in the charming and historic downtown area, to be a mosque. They refuted the charge despite the fact that their website, openly but prematurely, celebrated the soon-to-be new Franklin Village Islamic Center and Mosque. They also failed to explain why cars regularly fill their parking lot until the wee hours of the morning in this “children’s” school, particularly on weekends. Another disturbing issue was their refusal to reveal the source of their funding which many believe to be Saudi-Wahhabi in origin. More recently but equally disturbing is he HUDA school’s recent invitation to the highly controversial and pugnacious anti-Israel Jew, Norman Finkelstein, to speak at their center in this largely Jewish village. So, when the ICA again claims that they simply desire to have a community center in the Farmington school for their children—although few Muslims currently live in this area—many are incredulous and believe this to be just one more example of Al-Taqiyya.

Al-Taqiyya is the Islamic equivalent to using deceit, concealment and “tradecraft” in order to advance the cause of Islam.  The Qur’an (16:106, 3:54, 3:28, 40:28) and the Hadith (49:857, 84:64-65) are replete in spelling out the circumstances when a Muslim can and should deceive infidels for a greater purpose. Al-Taqiyya must be appreciated if one is to understand the nature of nonviolent Jihad. In centuries past, Muslims practiced al-Takiyya as a means of defense and subterfuge against enemies, such as during the Spanish Inquisition. Today, radical Islam uses this as a necessary tool that extremists living in non-Muslim lands (Dar al-Harb) utilize to deceive their unsuspecting compatriots into believing they are assimilating while they are actually engaging in nonviolent Jihad against their host societies. Islamic jurisprudence has sanctioned this deception in modern times as depicted in confiscated al-Qaeda training manuals. It is said that al-Takiyya is “in tongue only, not the heart.”

We must not forget the stated mission of the Muslim Brotherhood which is to penetrate and conquer the infidel lands, most notably, America. That organizations ruling document states that Muslims are compelled to use deception to mask the intended goals;  ”The Ikhwan [Muslim soldier, in this instance a Believer in the unbeliever’s lands] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

It’s a tragic shame that we feel compelled to view our Muslim neighbors with such suspicion. There is plenty of blame to go around for this. We can blame the naysaying liberals whose blind tolerance of the world’s most intolerant people defies logic. Or we can hold the media accountable for their obsession with moral equivalency. Also complicit are the silent “Silent Majority” of Muslims who probably just want to live their lives anonymously but lose the privilege when they utterly fail to combat the Jihadist cancer in their ranks—forcing us to. Their conspicuous absenteeism simply leaves us wanting in terms of understanding their true intentions and their loyalty to America or lack thereof. Mostly, however, we should blame the radical Islamic schemers leading this slow but steady infiltration of our nation as they have so successfully done in Western Europe.

I cannot help but imagine there is a nearby map dotted with pins representing Islamist Trojan horses in cities including those of Franklin, Farmington and West Bloomfield. Maybe it’s just me but it seems ironic that on that same map, just a few miles away, resides the city of Troy.

This may be “coming soon to a theater near you”. For our community, it has already arrived.

Posted on BigPeace.com by Dr. Marc Weisman May 24th 2011 at 12:55 pm in Foreign Policy, History, Islamic extremism,Israel, Middle East, Obama, Politics | Comments (7)

Posted on BigPeace.com by Dr. Marc Weisman Mar 31st 2011 at 2:27 am in Featured Story, Foreign Policy, Islamic extremism,Obama, Politics, Strategy, Terrorism |

When I hear the phrase “rebel fighter” it conjures up images of Star War’s Luke Skywalker fighting the evil empire. So that must mean we are on the right side of this Libyan “kinetic” action, right? Perhaps. In regional conflicts as in most things in life, the facts surrounding them are not one dimensional or even two; they are complicated. On the one hand we know that without intervention Qaddafi will continue to massacre his own people-he actually told us he would. If the US is able to thwart another madman from killing thousands of his people, many say that we are obligated to intervene. On the other hand, we are bogged down in three wars (including the War on Terror that our administration denies exists) and we are broke. Before we risk more US lives and treasure on yet another Middle East escapade, it might be wise to learn a little more about these so-called rebels we are rescuing.

The chief opposition to most Middle-Eastern despot’s are not very Luke Skywalker-like—they are Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood and their ilk. The National Review’s Andy McCarthy and others have been researching some of the ignoble characters in the Libyan opposition. One example is a Libyan leader Abdul Hakim al Hasadi, a recent “guest” of the US Marines in Pakistan. Hasadi proudly says that he was picked up after leaving Afghanistan where he was fighting the foreign invaders (us). He was eventually handed over to Libya in 2008. Although he claims to oppose terrorism, he is no friend of America. He is not only a violent Islamist; he is one who boasts of his conscription of some twenty-five fellow “rebels” to kill the “American invaders” in Muslim lands. Did I mention that Hasadi belongs to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which is an al-Qaeda ally?  Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy to aid and abet this “rebel” doesn’t it?

In contradistinction to upstanding citizens like Hasadi is this story. I have a 60 year-old patient, we’ll name him David C, who has worked for a myriad of oil companies. His latest deployment happened to be just south of Benghazi eight months ago. After he recalled for me his harrowing trek last week through the desert to escape Libya on a British warship, I asked about the people of Libya. David has read my book, Re-United States and he well understands the concept of Islamism. He finds the people of Benghazi to be “decent, very friendly to American’s and definitely non-Islamist”.

No doubt the truth about these rebels probably includes each of these paradigms and everything in between. So where does this leave us? Wishful that the more secular, freedom-desiring young Libyan “rebels” will win out over the Jihadist’s? Hopeful that our intervention to save Arab lives will curry favor in the Muslim world? Or resigned that many Muslims will continue to despise us and that the Islamists will fill every vacuum we create?

I don’t know the answers to these questions but of this I am certain. We should have negotiated that at $0.6M-$1.2M a pop for Tomahawk missiles, we be reimbursed our expenses. Why are we funding the liberation of yet another oil rich Arab nation from its tyrannical dictator? It would be nice to retrofit that agreement to Iraq as well. I for one would endure the image of impropriety for hundred’s of billions of dollars returned to the national coffers.   Whoever said that freedom is free?

I was interviewed to discuss my book, Re-United States on Saturday, March 12, 2011. The radio interview on WGCH 1490 aired in CT and NY the week of March 14, 2011

Posted on BigPeace.com  by Dr. Marc Weisman Feb 28th 2011 at 5:03 pm in Islamic extremism, Israel, Media Criticism,Middle East, Politics, Terrorism, sharia | Comments (20)

I’m thankful that more and more people and their governments seem to be finding their voice as they speak out against the blight that is radical Islam. It remains, however, very much a mixed bag—more on that in a minute. Islamism versus the rest of us is a classic example of good versus evil or white hat versus black. And the stakes are high because what hangs in the balance is the 5,000 year odyssey of human civilization. So, what exactly has changed?

Virtually all Western European leaders are publicly decrying the mortal danger that their appeasement of Islam has brought them. Some Muslims in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan and even Iran are challenging the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood and the radical Iranian hardliners. That said, make no mistake; the democracy that many in the region are calling for isn’t the Jeffersonian variety. A solid minority continues to abhor Christians and Jews, America and Israel, and the West in general. Nonetheless, this still represents progress. The people of Oklahoma passed legislation (currently stayed by a federal injunction) banning the implementation of Shari’a in their state.  Germany’s Angela Merkel, England’s David Cameron and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy have all openly confessed the abject failure of Europe’s attempt at so-called Islamic multiculturalism. Each has vociferously lamented what political correctness has brought them—a large and growing segregated Muslim population that rejects assimilation into their respective societies. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is holding hearings on the floor of congress to assess the threat that stealth Jihad poses. Senator Mark Kirk is educating his colleagues in the other house on the dangers of Shari’a. All of these instances suggest a new era of speaking out against Islamism.

On the other hand, our president has not added his voice of condemnation to those of our European allies. Once again he missed an opportunity to create “change you can count on”, I mean desirable change, you know, the kind that most of us actually want to occur.  Iranian Mullahs are racing toward nuclear weapons even as they are killing protesters in the street while the world pretends not to see. Holland and Austria are suspending freedom of speech as they prosecute those who speak out against radical Islam. Then there is the truly unbelievable United Nations. This esteemed body is pursuing their pathetic Defamation of Religions Resolution. This abomination of international law whose putative goal is to protect religion is really an invention by Islamists and other shady characters to do quite something else. Its actual purpose is to promote Islam as it enervates Christianity and Judaism; the latter via the de-legitimization and eventual destruction of the state of Israel. Once again, Obama is curiously—or not so curiously— AWOL as he watches silently from the bleachers. Moreover, the UN Security Council met last Friday, in serious deliberation regarding the situation in the Middle East. That seems reasonable considering that nearly the entire region is on fire with civil unrest, riots, revolution and mass murder. The problem is that the Council turned a blind eye to the seven Muslim nations in the midst of chaos and revolt—no, they met to condemn the state of Israel for its settlement-building policies. Settlements while Arabia burns? Is that the best they can do? For the UN to choose this issue at this time is ineffably absurd. Once again, the mainstream media is not touching this monumental hypocrisy.

So, as I said, it is a mixed bag but at least some are finding the courage to address the madness of Islamism in the bright light of day. I guess we should celebrate every victory, however dwarfed by those who promulgate hate and their enablers who work so hard to ignore it. One step forward, two steps back.

Posted at BigPeace.com by Dr. Marc Weisman Feb 7th 2011 at 4:59 am in Congress, Featured Story, Foreign Policy, Islamic extremism, Middle East, Obama, Terrorism, sharia Comments (87)

Most Americans agree that democracy is a desirable system of government for most people in the world. The route to reach it, however, is anything but simple. With current events in Arabia, the Obama administration once again finds itself out of its depth—and once again it is reactionary. Worse yet, the reaction is wrong.

Chaos anywhere on earth is usually a harbinger of disaster. This is especially so in the dry kindle of the Middle East, where most disasters invariably concern the expansion of Islamism. Consider Iran (whose 1979 revolution had many of the same features as Egypt’s does today) and the crazy Mullahs. Think about Lebanon: a country that was recently “acquired” by Iran’s surrogate, Hezbollah. Similarly, ponder the expansion of Hamas into the Gaza strip. Let’s hope we don’t add Jordan to this list of chaos-stricken nations in the upcoming weeks. For now, however, the world turns its attention to Egypt, which is in many regards the largest and most important Muslim nation.

In geopolitics, there are no cookie-cutter solutions to political problems. But make no mistake: careful, insightful, morally clear, and competent statesmanship often pays off. Unfortunately, American policy seems to be lacking all of the above.

The recent Iranian uprising desperately needed the US’ moral, political, and perhaps material support. What did the people clamoring for our help in the streets of Teheran receive? Words. Idealistic, simplistic, and unrealistic words. We utterly failed to support the opposition to the Mullahs and probably squandered a singular opportunity for Iranian regime change from within.

Egypt, a different case for sure, also needs support—and I believe moral direction—from the US.  What has it received? More words, and  ill-considered words at that. As Robert Spencer puts it, this week the Obama administration “gave the green light” to include the Muslim Brotherhood in any new Egyptian government. What a colossal mistake.

I remind readers of the Muslims Brotherhood’s (MB) long-term motto:

Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.

The Muslim Brotherhood spawned virtually every major radical Islamic movement on earth. Exercising Islamist Al Taqiyya (deception), they have recently renounced terrorism even as they continue to fully support Islamism and the terror groups they birthed. This is the apotheosis of Stealth Jihad: the conversion and defeat of the secular West by exploiting our embarrassing policies of appeasement.  A sad example of this is the current mainstream media’s frenetic attempt to “sanitize” the MB as a reformed and “moderate”, whatever that means, organization.

On the senate floor, Senator Mark Kirk introduced Mohammed Badi, a top MB leader, as having been “elected the Eighth General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in January 2010.”  A few months ago, Mr. Badi said, “We will continue to raise the banner of Jihad and the Koran in our confrontation with the enemy of Islam.” This week, another MB leader, Muhammad Ghannem, purportedly told the Al-Alam Iranian news network that he “would like to see the Egyptian people prepare for war against Israel.” He went on to say that the Suez Canal should be “closed immediately… in order to bring about the downfall of the Mubarak regime.”

Kirk again: “While we support human rights and democracy, we must heed growing warnings about the Muslim Brotherhood, their leaders, and plans for taking Egypt back to the 13th century. We have seen this movie before—in Iran, in Lebanon, and in Gaza…  An Egypt locked under Sharia law and oppressing women, Christians and Jews would be a catastrophic setback for progress in the Middle East. Such a state could renounce the Camp David peace accords or even start yet another war with Israel.”

Can anyone please explain to me the logic behind inviting this group to participate in the “new Egypt”? Here’s a novel idea: how about the president actually promulgating American values, such as real freedom, liberty, minority rights, women’s rights and at least tolerating the continued existence of those who practice a different faith? Is this asking too much from an American president? Must Obama always pander to these backward, hateful zealots? Let’s all hope that our newly elected Congress (including people like Senator Mark Kirk) will result in a  more balanced and rational policy.

For a while, I thought that Obama’s conciliatory stance toward radical Islam was just a symptom of the president tripping over his inveterate ideology. Now I am not so sure.

Take a look at some of his appointments and associations.  On the very first day of his presidency, Obama showed a readiness to accept the Muslim Brotherhood by choosing Ingrid Mattson, president of The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), to offer a prayer at the National Cathedral during inaugural festivities. Mattson, a convert to Islam who describes herself as a moderate spokesperson, might have seemed to be a reasonable choice but for one disturbing fact—the ISNA has recognized ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and radical organizations like Hamas.

In a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government a year before the inaugural, Mattson tried to create enmity between Jews and Christian conservatives by stating that “Right-wing Christians are very risky allies for American Jews, because [Christians] are really anti-Semitic. They do not like Jews.” Mattson was clearly an agenda-driven and divisive choice. To be fair, after it was publicly revealed that Mattson secretly met with Hamas, Obama fired her in 2009.

The Obama administration’s chief adviser on Islamic affairs is another enigma. This woman, Dalia Mogahed, serves on the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; in addition, she is a firm supporter of CAIR and ISNA and is an admitted pro-Sharia Muslim, so reports Robert Spencer and Nonie Darwish.

Yet another curious appointment is Arif Alikhan. He is serving as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development at the Department of Homeland Security. Alikhan is affiliated with the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). The problem is that MPAC is widely reported as having links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

To recap: the Obama administration’s contentious appointments, repeated missteps in Middle Eastern policy, and a de facto invitation for the Muslim Brotherhood to participate in the next Egyptian government certainly reveal a disturbing pattern. At best, these are sophomoric attempts to show Muslims at home and abroad that our war against radical Islam is not a war against Islam itself. At worst, might there be some deep seated pro-fundamentalist Muslim psyche at play—perhaps from his childhood—that the president just can’t shake off? Frankly, I no longer care what Obama’s motivations are for his actions. I just want the madness to stop before we suffer irreparable harm.

Posted on BigPeace.com by Dr. Marc Weisman Jan 13th 2011 at 1:32 am in Featured Story, Islamic extremism, Politics,Terrorism, sharia | Comments (16)

Few noticed a disturbing and remarkable comment made by Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton yesterday. While taping a satellite television show for Arab women at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, Ms. Clinton compared the alleged psychotic killer in the tragic Arizona shootings, Jared Loughery, to Islamic extremists. Her comments; “look, we have extremists in my country,  a wonderful, incredibly brave young woman Congress member, Congresswoman Giffords, was just shot by an extremist in our country. We have the same kinds of problems.” These comments are not as insignificant or benign as they may seem. All indications are that Loughner is a crazed killer, not a terrorist. Clinton’s comments draw a kind of “immoral equivalency” between a severely mentally ill person and Islamic Jihad; an organized, worldwide and religiously motivated extremist movement bent on destroying the West and replacing it with their view of what the world should be.

Although par for the course for the ever-placating Obama administration, these statements which were uttered on Arab soil, are emblematic of the perfectly wrong approach adopted by the current administration in their dealing with Islamism. Rather than hold Muslims accountable for the heinous Islamist ideology that plagues their religion, Ms. Clinton gives the sick culture of global Jihad yet another pass by comparing them to a mentally deranged individual.The implication is that they’ve got a few crackpots in a cave somewhere and we’ve got a few too. Personally, I prefer the past two days reprehensible leftist comments blaming Loughners alleged shooting spree on the political right’s usual suspects to Clinton’s words that effectively deflate the significance of Islamists and thereby insulate them. The ridiculous and desperate attempts to exploit this tragedy for partisan gain by the political left have no real promise for traction. The Secretary of States comments, on the other hand, intensifies the very real threat we face from radical Islam.

Posted by Dr. Marc Weisman Dec 20th 2010 at 8:47 am in Islam, Islamic extremism, Media Criticism,Obama, Terrorism, Uncategorized, sharia | Comments (82)

When undeniable information is released that reveals the true radical face of Islamism at home or abroad, leftists simply cannot accept it for what it is—the truth. They say that even if a link between Islam and violent action can be incontrovertibly proven “over there,” in America there is no such problem. We are at the crossroads of the same path that Europe traveled a few years ago; we can choose to move right or left. Western Europe turned left on that path, and it led to a radical Islamization of much of the continent. I pray that we have the wisdom to turn right.

For those of you who do not know, there is a somewhat rare type of stroke that leaves a patient completely unaware of their entire right side. In the medical profession, we call it Right Hemiagnosia, or more colloquially, “right neglect.” I finally figured out what the heck is wrong with the Obama administration: they suffer from right neglect.

Last month, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel had this to say about Islam in Germany: “Our experiment with [Islamic assimilation and] ‘cultural pluralism’ has utterly failed.” Other European nations have begun to reaffirm this. Sweden recently passed laws outlawing minarets, France has enacted tough new laws limiting the immigration of Muslims who do not seem to desire assimilation into French society, and the Danes are looking to similarly restrict radical Muslim immigration.

This month, the Pew Research Center provides some interesting information, specifically with regards to why Islamic multiculturalism has failed. Their most recent poll on this subject is titled, “The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims view each other.” Two distinct populations were surveyed: six Muslim-majority countries and four Western European countries, each with large and growing Muslim minorities.

Many of its findings are unsettling to say the least. In every Muslim nation surveyed, the majority does notbelieve that Arabs carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks against America. They actually believe that Americans, Israelis, or some other undefined group of people carried out the attacks. Just think about the level of disinformation and mind-boggling self-deception that must prevail throughout the Muslim world to generate this wacky notion. As Daniel Pipes alluded to in an essay earlier this week, Islam remains immersed in conspiracy theories and other wild acts of collusion. Because this fiction is far more palatable than the truth—apparently to a majority of Muslims—one sees how today’s brand of Islam has been slow to embrace modernity.

On the ever-popular and revelatory subject of terrorism, there is a host of troubling poll findings. Osama Bin Laden is still widely revered in most Muslim communities. Favorable views of Al Qaeda, although down considerably, are still nearly 20% in Pakistan and Egypt, 23% in Indonesia—which is the most populated Muslim country—34% in Jordan, and nearly 50% in Nigeria. Muslim support for suicide bombings, although lower than previous polls in some countries by double digits, remains ominously popular. Amongst German Muslims, there is still a 13% approval rating of suicide bombings; in Lebanon, 39%; in Nigeria, 34%; in Egypt, that figure is just over 20%. Let’s not forget that the PEW poll two years ago in America revealed that among young U.S. Muslims, 1 in 4 approve of suicide bombings.

Even more disturbing to the discerning reader are the responses to questions that undeniably reflect the chasm between the modern world and much of Islam. Hundreds of millions of Muslims reject civility for the crude violence of yesteryear. 80% of Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan, as well as 70% of those surveyed in Jordan and 56% in Nigeria, are supportive of ferocious whippings and the cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery. 82% in Pakistan and 77% in Egypt favor making this type of punishment the law in their countries, as do 65% of Muslims in Nigeria and 58% in Jordan. Even more revealing is that more than three-quarters of all Muslims in Jordan (86%), Egypt (84%), and Pakistan (76%) say they would favor a law that would kill any Muslim that forsakes Islam. Is it really any wonder why so many Muslims have difficulty assimilating?

Is anyone shocked that there has been a lack of worldwide press coverage of these damning findings?  I think not. We have grown so accustomed to this bias that we barely recognize it anymore.  This complacency actually worries me more than the senselessness of these Muslims themselves. I am still waiting to hear from the “moderate” Muslims that I know are out there (although many of you disagree). Frankly, I’m also waiting for more of us to scream from the rooftops that this is a serious problem—one that requires our attention, not our appeasement.

Instead of common-sense action and shouts of righteous indignation, I awakened yesterday to an almost unbelievable story that involves U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. His Justice Depatment is suing a suburban Chicago public school system for declining the outrageous demands from a Muslim teacher, Safoorah Kahn, of just 9 months employment to take a three-week hiatus from school to attend “The Pilgrimage,” or Hajj: a trip to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which is a tenet of Islam. He is demanding they reinstate Khan with back pay and pay her compensatory damages. Are you kidding me? Can you imagine Holder taking to task a school that denied a Christian a 4-week trip to the Vatican for Lent?  Or a Jew demanding a trip to Jerusalem for the High Holidays? I have come to expect Islamist appeasement from this president, but this is beyond the Pale. I ask again: is anyone surprised at this outrageous action? Where is the mainstream media in covering this latest abomination (or Obama-nation)? Again, I suggest that we have grown so accustomed to the media’s and this administration’s right-neglect that we barely react to it anymore.

We need to urge our president and left-leaning Americans to wake up, smell the Turkish coffee, and join us in national conversation on how we can avoid the disaster unfolding in Europe. I can assure you that this administration’s unabashed mollification to slow (stealth) Jihad is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Posted on BigPeace 11.19.2010

Posted by Dr. Marc Weisman Nov 19th 2010 at 8:29 am in Homeland Security, Islamic extremism,Obama, Terrorism, sharia | Comments (8)

All over the planet, Islamic extremists are plotting the murder of Americans by blowing airplanes out the sky. “Aviacide” seems to be the preferred method of terror by these hateful idiots whose minds have been poisoned by jihad. In recent years (and at a rapidly increasing rate) we have seen  planes crashed into skyscrapers, underwear bombs, shoe bombs, bombs shoved into the rectums of both people and dogs, bombs in luggage, bombs in printer cartridges—and who knows where else. Pardon the apophasis, but if it weren’t such a serious subject I might quip about how writing about these kinds of assorted explosives feels like writing part of a Dr. Seuss book.

While there exists no way to fully protect us from these murdering zealots, we do have new technology and a new approach to this problem that the Obama Administration has apparently sanctioned. On the technological side are two new scanning devices: the millimeter beam and the backscatter. While these technologies appear to be safe, I am a seasoned enough physician to know that everything deemed to be safe is only really safe until the inevitable next study that refutes its safety.

I am pleasantly surprised that the President—in between mea culpa’s and apologizing to Muslims around the world for the horrors that America has allegedly perpetrated against them—approved aggressive but respectful “pat-downs” of passengers who refuse scanning.

It comes as no surprise that The Council on American-Islamic (Islamist?) Relations, CAIR, recently issued a travel caution to Muslim airline passengers on U.S. aircraft in response to the Transportation Safety Administration’s heightened “pat down” policy that went into effect in October. In the “special recommendations for Muslim women who wear hijab,” it advises: “Before you are patted down, you should remind the TSA officer that they are only supposed to pat down the area in question, in this scenario, your head and neck. They SHOULD NOT subject you to a full-body or partial-body pat-down.”
It also points out that: “Instead of the pat-down, you can always request to pat down your own scarf, including head and neck area, and have the officers per form a chemical swipe of your hands.”  So, it seems, if any Muslim terrorist wants to be certain to escape either scanning or a body pat down—they now simply need to wear a hijab. Thanks again CAIR, for doing what you do best: exploit the American obsession with appeasement. Can we blame CAIR? They know from our pattern of response that we’ll trip over ourselves to provide extremist Muslims with special privileges if they fall under the umbrella of bogus religious protection or “tolerance.”
Many conservatives have come out strongly against both airport scanning and pat-downs. It seems that for these folks, the “small and unobtrusive government” tenet of conservatism wins over the overarching responsibly that every government has to protect its citizens. While I generally denounce what I believe to be the more destructive and divisive ideology of the left, in this instance, the right is wrong. I understand that most conservatives oppose having “choices” made on our behalf by the hand of government, but life is full of contradictions; in this case, one of the screening technologies (scanner vs. pat-down) should be mandatory if one is to fly to or within the US. While I’m well aware of Ben Franklin’s well-known adage, “He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither,” in the real world compromise is necessary. As I point out in my book, Re-United States, while most Americans object to the inconvenient sacrifices of certain privacies associated with air travel, we would object much more to being blown out of a plane’s fuselage at 35,000 feet above the ground.

In summary: we should ignore CAIR, get our priorities straight, and welcome the greater scrutiny that just may prevent the next tragedy.

Posted at BigPeace.com by Dr. Marc Weisman Oct 23rd 2010 at 8:30 am

Islam, Islamic extremism, Media Criticism,Politics, Terrorism, sharia | Comments (19)

As a few of you may already know, Juan Williams, the liberal Fox News commentator and civil rights champion, wasabruptly and rudely fired on Thursday after the Council of Arab Islamic Relations (CAIR) not-so-subtly urged NPR to cut him loose.

What egregious act caused the axe to drop on Williams? The Monday before Williams was fired the commentator appeared on The O’Reilley Factor. Responding to a question posed to him by O’Reilley, Williams said that he, too, experiences anxiety about flying in a Post- 9/11 world. “When I get on a plane ,” Williams said, “I’ve got to tell you—when I see people who are in Muslim garb, and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

Williams’ statement was an attempt to demonstrate that people’s fears—fears many of us hold, regardless of how rational they may be—need to be reconciled with the rights afforded to us under the constitution. However, in the twisted minds of the super-tolerant left, the die was cast.

But let’s really examine how illogical or prejudiced William’s admission actually was. Are we to forget that there have been at least six credible attempts to blow up airplanes by Islamic extremists in the past few years alone? Should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the current administration and the “mainstream” media have never pushed the silent majority of so-called moderate Muslims to speak out against extremism?  Or that they castigate those who do?

The Williams affair comes on the heels of an episode of the view, where those oftentimes less-than-irreproachable women from ABC’s The View—Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Beyhar— literally got up and walked off their live set on October 15th. The stunt was an attempt to paint Bill O’Reilley a xenophobic bigot by feigning disgust.

As I think the entire world now knows, The View incident occurred when O’Reilley had the audacity to point out that the 9/11 terrorists were actually Muslims.

Now, we have this equally bizarre incident with Williams. I must admit that I’m both puzzled and delighted by these stories. I am puzzled because no matter how hard I try I just cannot wrap my head around the naïve, Islamist-denying drivel that is flooding America today. I am delighted because this provides yet two more indefensible, ideology-driven, and irrational examples of the political left attempting to exercise their self-appointed roles as the politically correct guardians of radical Islam.

Let’s recap: CAIR, a Muslim activist group widely acknowledged as an Islamist organization itself, calls upon NPR to discipline a liberal, black commentator and champion of civil rights for sharing his widely-held fears about Muslims in the post 9 /11 world. They demanded this in response to his candid and reasonable admission that he feels angst when boarding a plane if fellow passengers include traditionally-garbed Muslims.  Then—the unabashedly liberal (and partly federally funded) NPR—terminates Williams’ ten-year employment with a text message followed by a phone call. Being the class act they are, they declined to meet him face to face to discuss his termination.

Maybe it’s just me, but this seems odd. Especially when Williams clarified on the same program that “We have an obligation as Americans to be careful to protect the constitutional rights of everyone in our country and to make sure that we don’t have any outbreak of bigotry—but that there’s a reality. You cannot ignore what happened on 9/11 and you cannot ignore the connection to Islamic radicalism.”

What Williams’ termination proves once again is that any dissent or outrage to Islamic extremism won’t be challenged in an open forum. Instead, the debate will be limited and the entire thing will be swept under the rug. And if you don’t think it will ever happen to you, let me share a story of my own:

As some of you know, I spent two years writing a book, Re-United States, which was recently published. The entire book is dedicated to exactly this issue: divisions within America and among Americans—some of which are real and some of which are imagined—and how these divisions cripple our approach to understanding radical Islam. I just learned that Re-United States will not be endorsed by my local community’s Jewish Book Fair this fall and that I, a new local author, will not even be listed in the new local authors section. No one had the civility to notify me or explain to me why I am being excluded, so I can only speculate. Could it be that my book’s message is incongruent with the local ideology?

My situation is not unique, and Williams’ termination is only the most recent example of it to grace national headlines. Dissent, even when it applies to opinions that the left is quick to label with ugly words like “xenophobic” or “fear mongering,” lead to a more mature national dialog. The left needs to be held to the fire and forced to defend their beliefs rather than allowed to (literally) walk off the set.

In fact, this kind of discourse might lead to Americans stop appeasing and start demanding the “silent majority” of Muslims to pick a side–hopefully ours. Many believe there is no moderate majority of Muslims, but I vigorously demur. Muslims the world over may be taught far too frequently to feel superior, to promulgate Islam by hook or by crook, and even to abhor infidels, but they are not all buying into this. It is this silent majority of which I speak. I believe that if we engage them, hold them accountable and even shame them to join the battle, we can defeat Islamic extremism. If you look at the numbers, it’s the only chance we’ve got, folks.

Juan Williams spoke his mind truthfully, and as an American, and he was silenced. I am not sure if we have yet reached peak awareness on this dangerous, self-destructive, politically correct and politically motivated bullying but we must be getting close. Williams may be fired, but I’m just getting fired up. How about you?