Thursday, October 29, 2020
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Appealing for Syria, Cardinal Zenari, Apostolic Nunzio, Repeats: 'The Hardest Way to Be Killed Is In Silence' - ZENIT - English
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Appealing for Syria, Cardinal Zenari, Apostolic Nunzio, Repeats: 'The Hardest Way to Be Killed Is In Silence' - ZENIT - English: While Calling for Hope, Warns of Heightened Risks of Fundamentalism Which Could Put Us All at Risk
Saturday, October 10, 2020
Antifa and the Muslim Brotherhood: Birds of a Feather - Crisis Magazine
Antifa and the Muslim Brotherhood: Birds of a Feather - Crisis Magazine: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” So wrote Vladimir Lenin. The Communist Revolution which he engineered did seem to pack many decades of change into a relatively short time. The old tsarist order was quickly overthrown, and, almost overnight, Russia was transformed from a Christian country to an …
Another 9/11 is Unlikely — and Why You Shouldn’t Relax
Another 9/11 is Unlikely — and Why You Shouldn’t Relax
The fact that there has been no 9/11-type attack in the U.S. for 19 years proves… what? That Islamic terrorist groups are not capable of mounting another such attack? That America’s security network is on much higher alert than in the innocent days before 9/11?
Maybe so. But another, quite likely possibility is that Islamic radicals see no need for another large-scale attack. Why bother with spectacular, violent acts of jihad when incremental, under-the-radar, cultural jihad will serve the same purpose?
Cultural jihad, which is also known as stealth jihad, is a long-term campaign to influence and even co-opt key social institutions such as schools, courts, media, political parties, and churches. In what follows, I will use the terms “cultural jihad” and “stealth jihad” interchangeably.
Many Americans think that, as long as there are no major terror attacks, then all is well. But what we need to worry about most are the day-to-day stealth attacks on our culture. These “stealth” operations don’t even need to be particularly stealthy. Americans tend to put the best possible interpretation on the activities of the multicultural “other.” Thus, when in the days immediately following 9/11, various Islamic advocacy groups managed to convince President Bush that Islam means “peace,” and that terrorists were only a tiny minority who had “hijacked a great religion,” those who noticed assumed that the advocates were only being helpful.
The 9/11 attacks ended on the same day they began, but stealth jihad influence operations didn’t stop for a minute. The suit-and-tie jihadists were back at work on September 12, September 13, and September 14, and have been busily pursuing their subversive aims ever since. That’s approximately 7,300 days of subversive activity — and most of it has gone unnoticed.
We have, of course, heard of the more publicized incidences of stealth jihad such as the infiltration of Fort Hood Army Base by Major Nidal Hasan, and the similar penetration of Pensacola Naval Air Station by a lieutenant in the Saudi Air Force. But how many remember, or have ever heard of, the purge of training materials used by the FBI at the behest of Muslim activist groups in 2011-2012? The aim was to eliminate any material that was offensive to Islam. Rather than be thought “Islamophobic,” the FBI, along with more than a dozen other security agencies, meekly complied with Muslim demands, and replaced effective programs with a see-no-Islam policy. Likewise, how many know about the Islamic influence operation on American universities? According to a Clarion Project report, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have poured billions of dollars into dozens of major American universities in recent years. The result? Many of America’s academic experts on Islam have developed a financial interest in pedaling the politically correct view of Islam. Meanwhile, students learn a whitewashed version of Islamic beliefs and history not unlike the Disneyfied version of communism they also acquire in college.
In short, radical Islamists quickly realized after 9/11 that spectacular attacks were counterproductive. They had the effect of waking people up, when, as it turned out, it was more desirable to put them to sleep.
This is a lesson that leftists in America are just now learning. The violence in the streets is waking up voters to the dangers of leftism and communism. Many on the left have decided it is better instead to revert to the leftist version of cultural jihad, and double down on it. Like Islamists, the left has for decades been engaging in a highly successful, Gramscian-type, long march through the institutions — schools, media, entertainment, political parties, even corporations.
In the current cultural revolution, the left may have shown its hand too soon — its violent hand, that is. So, in the days ahead we can expect more emphasis to be placed on cultural intimidation — indoctrination in the classroom, self-criticism sessions at the office, re-education programs on race and privilege in government agencies, and fake narratives from the media.
The initial reaction to 9/11 was, indeed, one of heightened alertness and sudden awareness of the possibility that we were faced with a clash of civilizations. The Islamists had played their hand too soon, and they quickly realized that it was not a good idea to wake a sleeping giant.
Thus, they resumed their cultural jihad. It proved to be a highly successful program. After 9/11, one would have expected that Islamic beliefs would have come under increased scrutiny. Initially, that was the case. But suspicion quickly gave way to affirmation as jihadists in business suits began a campaign to emphasize the kinder, gentler side of Islam. They were particularly successful in converting American educators to the idea that 9/11 had nothing to do with Islam. Before long, schools were presenting Islam as a victim of hatred, discrimination, Western imperialism, and Islamophobia. And not long after, any critique of Islam became strictly off-limits — even among members of our security establishment.
What’s next? That’s difficult to say. But one thing is certain. As a result of the current leftist cultural revolution, cultural jihadists will have observed that Americans are far more submissive than anyone had previously supposed. Many Americans have been schooled to be ashamed of their culture and their heritage. They don’t see anything of value in it worth defending. In short, they appear ready to submit to any powerful ideology that seems to offer an alternative.
Exactly how Islamists will take advantage of our lack of cultural confidence and our willingness to submit to intimidation is hard to say, but it’s almost certain that they will try. After all, the word “Islam” means “submission.”
Don’t discount another 9/11 type attack. But the more likely move is a ramping up of the daily efforts to hollow out our cultural confidence and sap our will to resist.
This article originally appeared in the September 15, 2020 edition of The American Thinker
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Photo credit: Pixabay
Leftists, Islamists, and America’s Weakened Resolve
Leftists, Islamists, and America’s Weakened Resolve
Right now, the greater threat appears to come from the left, but don’t discount Islam’s 1400-year record of cultural and geographical conquest.
Until three months ago, an attempted leftist takeover of American cities seemed a remote possibility. It seemed even less likely that, as the lawlessness spread, prominent voices in our society would join the radicals in calls to defund and even abolish the police. And who would have imagined that, like well-trained seals, giant corporations and wealthy sports teams would jump through whatever hoops the radicals held before them?
No one, it seems, was prepared for what happened. Yet it did happen, and there are many indications that the situation could grow worse. The end result might well be the establishment of a permanent revolutionary government. A future that seemed highly improbable yesterday is now materializing before our eyes.
Meanwhile, for more than a decade, a number of scholars, journalists, and historians have been warning of another, seemingly improbable, future event—an Islamic takeover of our society. If your immediate reaction is to dismiss the notion as preposterous—as something that can’t possibly happen here, consider this: how prepared were you for the leftist insurrection that is currently engulfing our cities? How prepared were you for the capitulation of many social and commercial institutions to the cancel culture? Did you foresee that a Red Guard-type cultural revolution would sweep through our society, resulting in toppled statues and forced oaths of allegiance to the new order?
For that matter, how prepared were you for a once-in-a-century pandemic that resulted in a national lock-down which, in turn, brought unemployment to depression-era levels?
Can’t happen here? A number of disastrous events that were not on anyone’s radar just did happen here.
Don’t be too quick to dismiss the possibility that more unexpected and unpleasant surprises are on the way from another quarter. After all, the raison d’être of Islam is the spread of Islam. In case you haven’t consulted the Koran recently, the long-term goal of Islam is to subjugate the whole world to Allah. If that sounds like the megalomaniac delusion of a villain in an Ian Fleming thriller, consider that Islam has made far more progress in the world-takeover department than SMERSH or SPECTRE could ever hope for. And, indeed, in almost every corner of the globe, Islam keeps extending its reach—in Nigeria, the Central African Republic, the Philippines, Lebanon, India, and, of course, in Europe where appeasement of Muslim demands has become the order of the day.
Many Americans, however, would insist that we are immune to Islamization. We’re different from all those other places. One of our first flags featured a rattlesnake and a “Don’t Tread on Me” warning. We cherish our liberty and will fight to defend it. Or so we tell ourselves. On the other hand, America has not proven itself immune to leftist propaganda and intimidation. Leftists of various stripes have been treading all over our cities with impunity in recent months. And when suburbanites post “Black Lives Matter” signs on their lawns in the hope that the vandals will tread on someone else’s lawn, it signals that something has gone out of the national character. If we can’t resist the threat from the left, why suppose that we will be able to resist Islamic intimidation and propaganda—especially when Islamists already enjoy the support of the “progressive” left and their many institutional backers?
Perhaps the essential factor in our failure to stand up to the leftist mobs is a lack of cultural confidence. After decades of educational and media indoctrination, many Americans have come to believe that America really is a racist and discriminatory society without any redeeming qualities. They believe, in short, that America is not worth defending.
So, when statues are torn down, churches vandalized, and America’s founders maligned, a good many of our miseducated citizenry conclude that we had it coming. When communist-style purges are conducted against those who won’t assent to leftist doctrine, the woke among us don’t recognize it as such. They haven’t been taught much about communism or about purges. But they have been taught about the sins of America. In fact, that’s pretty much all they know. And so, the purges being conducted by the cancel culture seem perfectly justified to those who are only shallowly rooted in their own culture.
Likewise, the woke don’t know much about Islam except that it’s a religion of peace, a victim of Western imperialism, and a protected diversity. From the woke point of view, only an “Islamophobe” would question the intentions of Islamic activists.
The best indication that Islamization can happen here is that it’s already happening in large parts of Europe. A number of observers are predicting that several European countries will fall under Islamic control within two decades. This slow-motion takeover is partly due to Islamic immigration and high Muslim birthrates, but also to the fact that Europe’s aging native population is losing the will to resist. That’s understandable. It’s difficult to resist when your hands are occupied with maneuvering your walker.
But the will to resist is not simply a factor of age. It’s also bound up with one’s sense of meaning—something that is usually found in religious faith and in family life. Unfortunately, Europe is a post-Christian, post-family society. The fastest growing segment of the population is Muslim and the vast majority of newly built houses of worship are mosques. It’s beginning to look like the future of Europe will be an Islamic future.
How about the U.S? The situation is different isn’t it? Well, yes. The population is younger than Europe’s. Although family ties are frayed, people still believe in having families. And, although church attendance has declined, Christianity is still a powerful force in many people’s lives.
So, a sudden turn to Islam would seem unlikely. Yet, a sudden turn to Marxism also seemed unlikely. What needs to be understood is that the hard-left lurch we are now experiencing didn’t come out of nowhere. It was the result of long planning and gradual infiltration. For decades, leftists have been tunneling under the foundations of American Society—school, family, church, and free enterprise. It should come as no surprise that we would eventually suffer a collapse of some of our key social institutions.
Likewise, Islamic activism is not a recent development in America. Cultural (or stealth) jihadists have been active since the mid-sixties, carefully laying the groundwork for the eventual triumph of Islamic values over American values. A Muslim Brotherhood memorandum which was dated May 22, 1991, but not discovered by the FBI until years later, envisioned a “grand jihad:”
The Ikhwan [Brotherhood] must understood that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within…so that…God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.
Under the Obama administration, the grand jihad flourished. Hillary Clinton’s State Department worked closely with the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation to censor criticism of Islam. And, with American support, the Muslim Brotherhood quickly came to power in Egypt. Meanwhile, Islamic activist organizations came up with their own version of “defund the police”—one that could more accurately be described as “defang the security establishment.” In 2011, a coalition of these groups demanded a purge of training materials used by the FBI, Homeland Security, the Pentagon and more than a dozen other security agencies. The aim was to eliminate any material that was offensive to Islam, and the result was that these agencies were forbidden to draw any connection between Islamic terror and Islamic doctrine. One consequence was that numerous jihad terror attacks which might have been prevented were not.
In some places, the police were also targeted. In New York City, one coalition of Muslim groups actually did manage to abolish one police unit—the highly effective division that was in charge of surveilling the Muslim community for signs of radicalization.
As with the left, another main target of the cultural jihadists was the universities. Since 2012, according to a Clarion Project study, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Arab states have poured billions of dollars into dozens of major universities with the result that American students are graduating with both pro-left and pro-Islam sentiments.
There’s not enough space here to go into the various alliances between leftists and Islamists, but let’s consider one important, but little-known example. During the lead-up to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, leftists and Islamists worked together to overthrow the Shah. Many in the West don’t recall that the Iranian Revolution was initially a secular/leftist/progressive revolution which was then hijacked by a relatively small group of fundamentalist Muslims led by Ayatollah Khomeini.
After decades of social reform under the two shahs, Iran had become largely secularized and Westernized. Nevertheless, Iranian utopians could still conceive of a more democratic and progressive government than the one provided by the Shah. What most couldn’t conceive of was a return to the despotic and oppressive rule of the ayatollahs and imams. But that’s what they got.
Complacent in the belief that fundamentalist Islam could never make a comeback, the progressives made a bargain with the Devil—and suffered the consequences.
There’s a lesson in this bit of not-so-ancient history for our own uncertain times. In light of all that’s happened in the last seven months, we can’t afford to be sure of anything. And we certainly can’t afford to be complacent about Islam.
Right now, the greater threat appears to come from the left, but don’t discount Islam’s 1400-year record of cultural and geographical conquest. Islamic activists are laying low for the time being, observing how the leftist revolution will play out. By now, they have undoubtedly noted that America’s will to resist is much weaker than anyone had previously imagined.
This article originally appeared in the September 6, 2020 edition of Catholic World Report.
Pictured above: Karl Marx Ensemble Monument, Chemnitz, Germany
Photo credit: Pixabay
William Kilpatrick’s new book, What Catholics Need to Know About Islam, is now available from sophia institute.com/Islam.
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What Catholics Need to Know About Islam
What Catholics Need to Know About Islam
(An excerpt from my new book)
Nothing facilitates jihad like ignorance of Islam. And since there is so much ignorance, jihad has been spreading rapidly. But we don’t seem to notice. We hear scattered reports about the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, and Iran. We know or should know about the daily knife and vehicle attacks in Europe. Yet we are somehow sure that such things can’t happen in America. But it is precisely our naïve nonchalance that practically guarantees that it will. Meanwhile, Church leaders do nothing to dispel the ignorance. While the Vatican deludes itself with talk of common ground, Islam continues to devour ground—both geographical and cultural.
Of course, it’s not just Catholics who aren’t facing up to unpleasant truths about Islam’s spread. After thirty-six thousand deadly jihad attacks since 2001, complacency is still the order of the day. This complacency is due in large part to the fact that we underestimate the extent of jihad. That’s because we never hear about the vast majority of jihad attacks, and also because we tend to quickly forget about the ones we have heard. The threat is real, but our memory is short.
But maybe you’re still not convinced that the threat is as extensive as I’ve suggested. So, to make the point, let me test your memory about some large-scale Islamic terror attacks that you might have forgotten. For instance, do you remember the first attack on the World Trade Center? For many of you, that’s an easy question. But younger readers may be scratching their heads: “What first attack? There was only one, wasn’t there?” Many members of the “woke” generation hadn’t yet been born in 1993. That’s when Islamic terrorists detonated a massive truck bomb in the parking garage underneath the North Tower. It blew a hundred-foot-wide hole through four sublevels of the building, sent smoke to the 93rd floor, and resulted in six deaths and more than a thousand injuries (many from smoke inhalation).
Now, let’s make the questions a little more difficult. Do you remember the bombing of four commuter trains in Madrid? It happened in 2004 and resulted in 191 deaths and 1,800 injuries. It was big news at the time, but today’s fast-spinning news cycle tends to drive old events quickly out of memory to make room for new ones.
How about the massacre in Beslan, Russia? Do you recall that? In 2004, thirty Muslim terrorists took over a large elementary school in Beslan. More than 330 people—many of them children—were left dead before the army finally dispatched the terrorists. At the time, it seemed like one of those heart-wrenching stories that one never forgets. But it’s a good bet that, outside Russia, many have forgotten it.
Mumbai? The attack in Mumbai by a team of Muslim terrorists was a four-day siege that left 164 dead and 300 wounded. One of the main targets of the attack was the iconic Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, large sections of which could be seen on TV news engulfed in smoke and flames. If the attack on Mumbai is still fresh in your mind, perhaps it was recalled to your memory by the release of the film Hotel Mumbai in February 2018.
The Bataclan Theatre attack? The London tube and bus bombings? The Brussels Airport attack? All of these were large-scale attacks with massive casualties, yet you probably have to strain your memory to bring up even a dim recollection.
Now, for the sixty-four-thousand-dinar question. Do you remember the coup attempt on the government of Trinidad? No? Well, neither did I. I came across the story only recently, and then, with a little help from Wikipedia, it slowly came back to me. In 1990, 115 members of a radical Muslim organization took over the Parliament and the island’s only television station. After six days, they finally surrendered to the army, but not before 24 people had been killed.
I bring up the Trinidad coup attempt because it demonstrates just how widespread jihad is and how long it has been going on. At this point, I’m tempted to launch into a discussion of the several jihad attacks on beach resorts and tourist attractions. But I don’t want to spoil your next vacation, and besides, violent jihad is not even the main problem.
The main focus of this book is not on armed jihad, but on another kind of jihad that is even more threatening. I call it “cultural jihad,” but it’s also referred to as “stealth jihad.” This kind of jihad is more dangerous because it’s more widespread and because most of us are hardly aware of its existence.
Cultural jihad is a long-term campaign to spread Islamic law and culture by influencing key cultural institutions such as media, political parties, schools, and churches. Take the influence operation that Arab states have been conducting on American universities. Since 2012, tiny Qatar has donated $376 million to Carnegie Mellon University, $351 million to Georgetown, $340 million to Northwestern University, $275 million to Texas A&M, $41 million to Virginia Commonwealth University, and lesser amounts to two dozen other major universities. Saudi Arabia has donated similar sums to more than sixty universities.
Why would Islamic donors give large sums of money to already wealthy American colleges? What do they hope to get out of it? Does the emir of Qatar hope that Harvard will name a building after him? Are Saudi princes hoping to get their sons into Princeton despite low test scores? Or are they, perhaps, trying to bribe the Mideast Studies Departments, the Islamic Studies Departments, and the History Departments to present Islam in a favorable light?
Of course, the politically correct answer to the last question is: “Bribes? That’s ridiculous. Who ever heard of an American university accepting bribes?”
The reality is that there are hundreds of such influence operations reaching into all our major social institutions. Some of them aren’t even very stealthy, because they don’t have to be. Western citizens have learned to keep their heads down and not notice things. If you notice and make a fuss, that means you’re an “Islamophobe.” And that could mean big trouble.
Does cultural jihad stand a chance of transforming the culture? Well, here’s an analogy. Ten years ago, it didn’t seem as if the LGBT movement had a chance of enforcing its nuttier notions. If six years ago, you were told that libraries all over the country would someday be sponsoring drag-queen story hours for kids, you wouldn’t have believed it. Likewise, you wouldn’t have believed it if you were told that doctors and professors would be fired for failing to address bearded men as “Miss.”
But now we’re all believers. All of a sudden, the drag queens are calling the shots. This is fairly amazing when you consider that the LGBT slice of the population is only about 2 percent, and the drag queen and bearded lassies segments are smaller still.
Muslims in America are less than 2 percent of the population, but they are backed by a worldwide Muslim population of 1.7 billion. They are also backed by the same powerful forces that back drag-queen story hours and boys in girls’ locker rooms—namely media, academia, courts, big business, big tech, and prominent politicians. In addition, like the LGBT lobby in America, Muslim activists in the United States use the same successful tactics. At first, they say that they’re simply civil rights groups whose only desire is for equal rights. They assure you that all they want is a place at the table. Then the demands ramp up, and if you don’t go along with them, you are—depending on which group you’re offending—either a homophobe or an “Islamophobe.”
It almost seems as though the Islamists and the leftists have been—what’s the word?—“colluding.” In fact, a tacit alliance has long existed between Islamists and leftists in the West. And both groups have been highly successful in their efforts to hollow out the culture from within.
Many people are unaware of this alliance. And here we come back to the knowledge-gap problem. Curiosity, they say, killed the cat, but it is lack of curiosity about Islam that is killing the West. One can’t entirely fault the average citizen for his incuriosity, however, because when it comes to Islam, the press gives him little to be curious about.
Take the plot to blow up the railroad bridge over the Niagara River gorge as a New York to Toronto passenger train crossed over it. What’s that? You never heard of the plot to blow up the bridge over the Niagara River? That’s strange. If successful, the plot would have resulted in hundreds of deaths. Luckily, it was foiled by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the FBI. But don’t feel bad if you didn’t know. Outside of New York, the plot got very little news coverage. Apparently, the media decided it wasn’t important for you to know.
According to the old saying, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” But what you don’t know about Islam can hurt you very much. The Niagara River gorge is hundreds of feet deep, but not nearly as deep as our ignorance of the faith founded by Muhammad.
This excerpt from my new book originally appeared in the September 1, 2020 edition of Crisis.
Pictured above: Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi
Photo credit: Pixabay
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