Hamas and Hezbollah: The Standard Response

Hamas is a US government designated terrorist organization. When confronted with an accusation that he or she supports Hamas, the standard Muslim response is, "I am not a terrorist."

Wow. What a non-sequitor!

Hamas is a Sunni Muslim political organization in the Middle East that uses various tactics to achieve its aims, including running people for elected office, offering charity to widows (especially widows of martyrs a.k.a. suicide bombers) and, yes, terrorism.

Here is the rub. Many -- and perhaps most -- Muslims do not agree that Hamas is a terrorist organization. Why?

There are a couple of reasons, I think. First, they see the situation in Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank as extremely unjust and Hamas as the most passionate fighter against that injustice. So, in their support of Hamas, they focus on the goals of Hamas and discount Hamas's terrorism methods.

Second, they deny that Hamas engages in terrorism. Terrorist attacks are defined as those aimed at innocent civilians. In the view of many Muslim apologists, no one in Israel is an innocent civilian. Thus, they define away the terrorism problem.

Hezbollah is a Shiite organization similar to Hamas with a history of committing terrorist acts (including taking hostages, and bombing the US embassy in Beirut) directly against the United States. Yet, shockingly, a local Muslim who is a former United States Marine, Mahmoud El-Yousseph, approves of Hezbollah, calling its members "freedom fighters." For an excellent rundown of the activities of Hezbollah, see Central Ohioans Against Terrorism.

What an amazing cognitive dissonance.

I do not for a moment believe that these Muslims would strap bombs on themselves in America. But I have serious concerns about them when they work for any branch of the federal, state or local government, if they can persuade themselves to overlook the terrorist activities of Hamas and Hezbollah. they are either intellectually dishonest (mostly) or they are hiding their jihadist tendencies.

We need to send a clear message to the Muslim community: if you want us to believe that you oppose terrorism, you must also denounce organizations who use terrorist tactics, even if you generally support the goals of the terrorist organizations. You cannot oppose terrorism by supporting terrorist organizations. You cannot make these organizations into non-terrorist organizations by denying that they are terrorist organizations.

Islamofascist Awareness Week Wrap-Up

Across the nation on university campuses this past week, students sponsored Islamofascist Awareness Week events. Predictably, the looney left elements and some, but not all, Muslim Organizations protested. I guess the week was a success for breeding controversy, because only through controversy do the events get widely publicized.

Let us be quite clear. The term Islamofascist does not refer to all Muslims, or the term would not even be necessary. The term refers (in oversimplified fashion) to those Muslims who believe that they have a right to kill those who will not convert to Islam after being called upon to do so. Osama bin Laden periodically makes such a call to nonbelievers in Islam.

If Muslims who reject the Osama bin Laden approach to Islam would embrace, promote and join in Islamofascism Awareness Week and similar events. the distinction between bad Muslims and good Muslims would be quite clear. There would be no better way to persuade the rest of us that to a majority of Muslims, Islam truly is a religion of peace (which I believe they believe, despite the mass of ancient Islamic scholarship to the contrary).

However, instead of acting in a manner to persuade the rest of society that United States Muslims are truly against the Islamofascists, they protested or remained silent.

Bad strategy. Unless or course, they secretly sympathize with the bin Laden camp...

For an interesting wrap-up by David Horowitz, the organizer of the week, click here.

Roanoke Times Campaigns Against Gun Rights

Congratulations to the Roanoke Times for officially joining the looney left. (I deliberately provide no link to that paper.)

First the Times on its web site published a database of all holders of Virginia concealed carry permits (subsequently removed after a firestorm of protest). Then, the Times has instituted a policy of refusing advertising for gun shows.

Read about it here.

The link above contains an email to which you may sen your protest.

Why is it that the vigorous defenders of the First Amendment are so weak on and even against the Second?

CAIR Wants Us to Hate CAIR

CAIR's behavior is so odd. There is only one way to understand it. CAIR wants non-Muslims to hate CAIR so CAIR can complain about hate. Here is the latest example of CAIR's irrationality:

A Muslim advocacy group said today that it is asking the FBI to investigate an attack on worshippers outside a Columbus mosque on Friday.

A group of teenage boys threw rocks at the Masjid AsSahaaba mosque, 795 E. Hudson St. in South Linden, hitting one worshipper and breaking mosque windows, in what police said was a “biased attack on Muslim men leaving the mosque after prayer during the Ramadan season.”

Ramadan is a holy month in which Muslims fast during daylight hours and say extended evening prayers at mosques.

The mosque's imam, Abdiiaziz Abdi, and a witness, Robert, who would give only his first name, say the boys were simply looking for trouble. They don't think they were targeted as Muslims.

But Romin Iqbal, staff attorney for the Council on American- Islamic Relations in Ohio says he's asking the FBI to investigate it as a hate crime.

Columbus police are investigating, said spokeswoman Amanda Ford.

The Muslims witness say it was not a hate crime, but what does CAIR do? Demand a hate crime investigation. Based on nothing.

There is certainly nothing lovable about CAIR's behavior.

Abukar Arman and Support for HAMAS

Akubar Arman was a member of the Franklin County, Ohio justice commission which has oversight of homeland security in Franklin County. After Patrick Poole exposed Akubar Arman’s support of HAMAS, the Franklin county officials discovered that Mr. Arman was not a United States citizen and therefore prohibited from serving on the commission.

About the same time, Barbara Carmen, a Columbus Dispatch reporter, wrote an article about how Mr. Arman had been “cleared” of terrorism charges. That was of course absurd, because no one had charged Mr. Arman with any terrorism charges.

There is no doubt that Mr. Arman is a HAMAS supporter. He is not shy about his support having written one or more supportive published articles.

Memo to Barbara Carmen: The Clinton administration accurately identified and designated HAMAS as a terrorist organization. Mr. Arman, therefore, is a supporter of a terrorist organization. That does not mean he is about to strap bombs around his own waist. But if he supports a terrorist organization, he necessarily and logically supports terrorism.

Mr. Arman says it is his constitutional right to free speech to support HAMAS. Maybe so, but speech has consequences. And the consequences of his speech are that he supports terrorism, so I don’t want him anywhere near my government. This is not about hate. It is about right and wrong, and supporting terrorism is wrong.

Message to Muslims: if you support HAMAS, you support terrorism. Conversely, if you wholly reject terrorism, you must wholly reject HAMAS.

Immigration Reform

I have only minor quibbles with the article quoted in Chuck Muth's blog. This one come the closest to reality that I have seen published.

The article outline a framework for immigration reform that woudl work so much better than anything Congress has put on the table.

We Return

No posts for two and a half months. but ther is simply too much going on in the world to shut up now.

I am frustrated by immigration reform. I don't think either side gets it really. Immigration reform needs to be based upon principles. but no one articulates the principles very well. The immigration problem is not about cheap labor or letting people get away with something. It is about real human problems and about our national security. Here is my humble attempt to articulate the principles upon which immigration reform should be based.

1. National Security. We need to keep terrorists out. At least we need to make it difficult for foreign terrorists to enter the country. Our borders need to be secure. Bear in mind that we are not seeing any Catholic terrorists in recent years.

2. Compassion. We need compassion for those within our borders, however they arrived, who are here to work hard, assimilate and achieve the American dream. Many who arrived here "illegally" did so at great risk and with great hardship, because they wanted a better life. We need to have compassion, not condemnation, even if they jumped to the head of the line. Many conservatives falsely assume that entering the country illegally is a crime. I found no such crime in the United States Code.

3. We need to cease giving away our social services from our tax dollars, to those who arrive illegally. We need to be a magnet for the right reasons: Be productive and succeed. Not the wrong reasons: Free health care and welfare.

4. If people arrived illegally and commit crimes, they should be deported. that is a risk of coming in illegally.

5. We need to provide a reasonable path to citizenship for those who are here and are productive and who assimilate into our culture. Making arrangements on any unpaid back taxes on the same basis as any citizen should be a prerequisite.

6. It should be easier to get in the country legally than it is illegally. At least we can keep track of those in the country legally. Issue them credit cards, maybe. Make them really easy to track.

I am sure there are others. I will post as I think of them.