THE REFUGEE CRISIS: FAILURE OF EUROPE, ARABS, AND ISLAM

Walter Russell Mead. The Wall Street Journal.  "The Roots of the Migration Crisis."

The Syrian refugee disaster is a result of the Middle East’s failure to grapple with modernity and Europe’s failure to defend its ideals.

What we are witnessing today is a crisis of two civilizations: The Middle East and Europe are both facing deep cultural and political problems that they cannot solve. The intersection of their failures and shortcomings has made this crisis much more destructive and dangerous than it needed to be—and carries with it the risk of more instability and more war in a widening spiral.

The crisis in the Middle East has to do with much more than the breakdown of order in Syria and Libya. It runs deeper than the poisonous sectarian and ethnic hatreds behind the series of wars stretching from Pakistan to North Africa. At bottom, we are witnessing the consequences of a civilization’s failure either to overcome or to accommodate the forces of modernity. One hundred years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and 50 years after the French left Algeria, the Middle East has failed to build economies that allow ordinary people to live with dignity, has failed to build modern political institutions and has failed to carve out the place of honor and respect in world affairs that its peoples seek.

Charles Paul Freund.  Reason.com  "The Arab Press Reacts to the European Refugee Crisis."

"We are a nauseating nation," wrote the Saudi journalist 'Ali Sa'd Al-Moussa in Al-Watan on September 5, in reaction to images of Syrians and other refugees fleeing to Europe. The "nation" he was angrily condemning was not only Saudi Arabia, but the greater Arab world. It is a world, he lamented, "that kills people for their opinions or affiliation. Compare [this] to the parallel image: in the central train station in Munich, dozens of German citizens gather to welcome the first train arriving from Budapest carrying hundreds of immigrants...

"Stop talking about the hypocrisy of [Western] morals and values, because reality exposes nothing but our own ugly countenance."

BRITISH IMAM

Quotes from Anjem Choudary, a "radical" British Imam.  He has led several Muslim protests in London.

"In the Quran it is not allowed for you to feel sorry for non-Muslims. I don't feel sorry for him."

"Eventually the whole world will be governed by Shari'ah & Muslims will have authority over China Russia USA etc This is the promise of Allah."

"Under the Koran the sale of alcohol is prohibited and if one were to also drink alcohol, that would be 40 lashes."

"We [Muslims] take the Jizya, which is ours anyway. The normal situation is to take money from the kuffar [non-Muslim]. They give us the money. You work, give us the money, Allahu Akhbar. We take the money."

HOLY WAR IN GERMANY

From the Gatestone Institute.  Religious and ethnic clashes are spilling over into Germany.  And the German press seems to be reporting this problem (unlike the U.S. media).

Supporters of the jihadist group "Islamic State" [IS] have clashed with Kurdish Yazidis in North Rhine-Westphalia, the state with the largest Muslim population in Germany.

The violence—which comes amid threats by a German jihadist to blow up an American nuclear weapons storage facility in Germany—has counter-terrorism officials concerned that radical Muslims are deliberately exploiting the ethnic and religious tensions in the Middle East to stir up trouble on the streets of Europe.

Police say the Muslim-Yazidi clash was triggered after six Islamists stormed a restaurant in the eastern Westphalian town of Herford at around 4 pm on August 7. The Muslims were attempting forcibly to remove a poster inviting people to join a demonstration in support of the Yazidis in Iraq.

CHRISTIANS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

From an op-ed in the New York Times:  "Who will stand up for the Christians."

WHY is the world silent while Christians are being slaughtered in the Middle East and Africa? In Europe and in the United States, we have witnessed demonstrations over the tragic deaths of Palestinians who have been used as human shields byHamas, the terrorist organization that controls Gaza. The United Nations has held inquiries and focuses its anger on Israel for defending itself against that same terrorist organization. But the barbarous slaughter of thousands upon thousands of Christians is met with relative indifference.

ISIS BANNER WAVED IN FERGUSON, MISSOURI

From Gateway Pundit.  It happened during a CNN broadcast.

ISIS IN IRAQ

VICE video of ISIS on spreading the Caliphate.

VICE video on Kurds as they face ISIS.

National Journal:  "The World Will Blame President Obama if Iraq Falls."

Biden calling Iraq "one of the greatest achievements of this administration."  What Democrats were saying about Iraq since the late 1990s.

NBC News.  Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.

Ann Althouse believes Obama is trapped by his rhetoric.  She "pictures the enemy laughing" at Obama's speech on August 7, 2014.

A.B. Stoddard in The Hill calls Obama an "impotent president."

Obama promises never to allow genocide to go unpunished.

Michael Crowley at Time:  "How Obama Evolved on the Issue of 'Genocide' in Iraq."

CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION

The Gatestone Institute has a comprehensive list of all the locations in the world where radical Islam is killing Christians.  It is not just ISIS in Iraq and Syria where Christians face death.

Despite all these atrocities, exoduses, and even genocides, the mainstream media seems to spend every available moment airing images of displaced Palestinians and demonizing Israel for trying to defend itself. Yet Israel does not kill Palestinians because of their religion or any other personal aspects. It does so in the context of being rocketed and trying to defend itself from terrorism.

On the other hand, all the crimes being committed by Muslims against Christians are simply motivated by religious hate, because the Christians are Christian.

It is to the mainstream media's great shame that those who slaughter, behead, crucify, and displace people for no other reason than because they are Christian, rarely if ever get media coverage, while a nation such as Israel, which kills only in the context of being self-defense, and not out of religious bigotry, is constantly demonized.

MEDIA & CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION

The media is silent about Christian persecution.

The United Nations, Western governments, media, universities, and talking heads everywhere insist that Palestinians are suffering tremendous abuses from the state of Israel.  Conversely, the greatest human rights tragedy of our time—radical Muslim persecution of Christians, including in Palestinian controlled areas—is devotedly ignored.

 

The facts speak for themselves. Reliable estimates indicate that anywhere from 100-200 million Christians are persecuted every year; one Christian is martyred every five minutes. Approximately 85% of this persecution occurs in Muslim majority nations. In 1900, 20% of the Middle East was Christian. Today, less than 2% is.

COPTS IN EGYPT

The future for Egyptian Copts is rather grim.  So much for Islamic compassion.  Dhimmni status is the goal.

Patterns of persecution continued after the revolution and were reinforced. The number and scope of the attacks swelled dramatically and they were no longer limited to obscure villages or shantytowns but spread to the streets of Cairo and in front of the official TV headquarters. Church buildings were attacked and burned, mob violence against Copts was on the rise, and the new horror of forced evacuations from villages was becoming more common. Copts in small villages were increasingly forced to adhere to the Islamists’ standards and vision enforced on the ground. Accusations of blasphemy and insulting religion rose with Copts as their primary targets. Seven Copts today linger in Egyptian prisons as a result of court verdicts due to such accusations. The most worrisome aspect for Copts remains the participation of their neighbors, coworkers, and people they had grown up with in attacking them. Even if the Egyptian state ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood miraculously decided to intervene, the local hatreds are now impossible to contain.

CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

According to Diarmaid MacCulloch writing in the Daily Beast, it is Jews and the Christians themselves who are responsible for the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. . .it is not Muslims.

IRAN vs. SAUDI ARABIA

This confrontation has building for years as Sunni and Shia argue Islamic theology.  It appears to have escalated recently.  The Iranian news agency is calling for the destruction of the Saud family.

What the world needs to realize is that the House of Saud is not just an enemy of Islam, it is indeed the arch-enemy of the entire human civilization. Whether you are a Christian, Jew, or Hindu, you are fit only to be killed as per Salafist theological edicts.   Time to break the last idol threatening the house of Allah.

UPDATE from The Daily Mail.

Upset at President Barack Obama's policies on Iran and Syria, members of Saudi Arabia's ruling family are threatening a rift with the United States that could take the alliance between Washington and the kingdom to its lowest point in years.
Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief is vowing that the kingdom will make a 'major shift' in relations with the United States to protest perceived American inaction over Syria's civil war as well as recent U.S. overtures to Iran, a source close to Saudi policy said on Tuesday.

THE WHITE WIDOW

A discussion of converts to Islam and the radicalization that takes place.  Based on the role Samantha Lewthwaite has played in Islamic terrorism.

Lewthwaite is a convert. There is a theory that the ranks of radicalized Muslims are disproportionately filled by converts. And there is an understandable resentment on the part of converts that they are considered a “suspect” category.

Engaged in research into the dynamics of radicalization at the Home Office from 2008 to 2010, I interviewed converts who had journeyed in and out of extremism. I learned three big things about the relationship between conversion and extremism.

CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION IN SYRIA

From the Independent.  Christians feel betrayed by their Muslim neighbors.

The Diab family can never return to Maaloula. Not since the Christians of this beautiful and sacred town saw their Muslim neighbours leading the armed Nusrah Islamists to their homes. Georgios remembers how he peered over his balcony and saw Mohamed Diab and Ossama Diab and Yasser Diab and Hossam Diab and Khaled Turkik Qutaiman – all from Maaloula – walking in the street with men whom he said were dressed in Afghan-Pakistani clothes. “One of them had a Kalashnikov rifle in one hand and a sword in the other,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief.

FEMALE CONVERTS TO ISLAM

An analysis of Samantha Lewthwaite, an Englishwomen who converted to Islam:

It’s unknown at this point, but it’s thought that Samantha may have been killed as a result of her participation in the Nairobi, Kenya shopping mall terrorist attack.  Who is Ms. Lewthwaite you ask?  She may very well be the most unassuming terrorist you’ve ever seen, one that is known to British intelligence as the ‘White Widow’.  Born in Ireland and converting to Islam as a teen, she went on to marry her (now deceased) husband Jermaine Lindsay.  Jermaine killed himself in a London suicide bombing in 2005 and took 26 innocent lives with him.  The White Widow has been on the run ever since.

LIFE IN AN AFGHAN HAREM

The story of an American woman who married an Afghani and how she managed to get out of the harem when she traveled to Kabul.

TERROR ATTACK IN KENYA

This report from the Daily Mail is the best coverage I have seen.

The terror attack on a Kenyan shopping centre that has left 68 dead was being led by the white English widow of a 7/7 bomber, it was claimed last night.

Soldiers said a white woman wearing a veil was shouting orders to gunmen in Arabic during the bloody massacre inside the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi.

REZA ASLAN'S BOOK

Reza Aslan is a Muslim who has written a popular book debunking Christianity.  Here is a response from Robert Spencer noting the errors in his writings.

CONTRASTING OBAMA STATEMENTS

Listen to what President Obama says about Muslims and what he doesn't say about Christians persecuted in Egypt. 

FBI INVESTIGATION OF NIDAL HASAN

From Mother Jones.  The FBI investigation blew it.  It had information at least one year in advance regarding what kind of person he was.  I am sure no one will be held accountable for the lives that could have been saved by being less "politically correct."

MALAYSIA BANS CHRISTIAN USE OF "ALLAH"

From Andrea Ryan. The links in the article deal with the legal case as well as the issue that the generic word for "God" in many Islamic cultures is Allah. 

… from the very beginning, the word ‘Allah’ has been used in the liturgy, prayers and worship of those Christians who speak Bahasa Malaysia.  But for centuries, there has been no opposition or uproar about their use of ‘Allah’.
As stated earlier, the word ‘Allah’ pre-dates Islam. It is not a creation of the Muslims and its existence does not begin in the Al-Quran. …
- See more at: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/08/malaysia-bans-christians-from-using-word-allah/#sthash.mhUgeOyA.dpuf

… from the very beginning, the word ‘Allah’ has been used in the liturgy, prayers and worship of those Christians who speak Bahasa Malaysia.  But for centuries, there has been no opposition or uproar about their use of ‘Allah’.
As stated earlier, the word ‘Allah’ pre-dates Islam. It is not a creation of the Muslims and its existence does not begin in the Al-Quran. …
- See more at: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/08/malaysia-bans-christians-from-using-word-allah/#sthash.mhUgeOyA.dpuf

… from the very beginning, the word ‘Allah’ has been used in the liturgy, prayers and worship of those Christians who speak Bahasa Malaysia.  But for centuries, there has been no opposition or uproar about their use of ‘Allah’.
As stated earlier, the word ‘Allah’ pre-dates Islam. It is not a creation of the Muslims and its existence does not begin in the Al-Quran. …
- See more at: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/08/malaysia-bans-christians-from-using-word-allah/#sthash.mhUgeOyA.dpuf