It should come as no surprise that Obama released a statement recognizing Ramadan.
If you recall, Obama failed to release an Easter statement earlier this year.
It turned into a very awkward misstep for Obama. Jay Carney's explanation for Obama's decision to ignore Easter was an absolute disaster.
When it comes to Ramadan, however, Obama has plenty to say.Statement by the President on the Occasion of Ramadan
As Ramadan begins, Michelle and I would like to send our best wishes to Muslim communities in the United States and around the world. Ramadan is a festive time that is anticipated for months by Muslims everywhere. Families and communities share the happiness of gathering together for iftar and prayers. Bazaars light up the night in many cities from Rabat to Jakarta. And here in the United States, Muslim Americans share Ramadan traditions with their neighbors, fellow students, and co-workers.
For so many Muslims around the world, Ramadan is also a time of deep reflection and sacrifice. As in other faiths, fasting is used to increase spirituality, discipline, and consciousness of God's mercy. It is also a reminder of the importance of reaching out to those less fortunate. The heartbreaking accounts of lost lives and the images of families and children in Somalia and the Horn of Africa struggling to survive remind us of our common humanity and compel us to act. Now is the time for nations and peoples to come together to avert an even worse catastrophe by offering support and assistance to on-going relief efforts.
Times like this remind us of the lesson of all great faiths, including Islam -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. In that spirit, I wish Muslims around the world a blessed month, and I look forward to again hosting an iftar dinner here at the White House. Ramadan Kareem.
At Easter, Obama could have spoken of the "heartbreaking accounts of lost lives and the images of families and children in Somalia," the Christians persecuted and murdered at the hands of Islamic insurgents.
He could have said something in celebration of Easter and raised awareness of the slaughter of Christians in Somalia, but he didn't. Obama chose silence.
Ramadan Kareem.
Sheila Jackson Lee is concerned about Christian militants.
She thinks they pose as great a threat to the security of America as Muslim radicals.
She believes that Christian militants "might bring down this country."
From CNSNews:At a congressional hearing on Muslim radicalization in U.S. prisons, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said that investigators needed to analyze Christian militants in America because they too might try to “bring down the country.”
In an exchange with witness Patrick Dunleavy, the former deputy inspector of the criminal intelligence unit, New York Department of Correctional Services, Rep. Jackson Lee mentioned the case of a man who blew up an abortion clinic and proposed that this perhaps was an attempt to undermine U.S. law that allows a woman to procure an abortion.
Rep. Lee then said, “As we look to be informational, we should include an analysis of how Christian militants or others might bring down the country. We have to look broadly, do we not?”
Dunleavy answered: “I don’t know that Christian militants have foreign country backing or foreign country financing.”
Lee then said, “I don’t think that’s the issue. The issue is whether or not their intent is to undermine the laws of this nation. And I think it is clear that that is the case. So it’s not -- your distinction is not answering the question.”
Good grief.
Democrat Lee reveals herself to be clueless regarding radical Islam and the threat of terrorism. Video.
UPDATE, May 4, 2011: WH won't release bin Laden death photoPresident Barack Obama has decided not to release death photos of terrorist Osama bin Laden, he said in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes," amid concerns that the gruesome image could prove inflammatory.
Obama's decision was reported on the CBS News Web site Wednesday after the president sat for an interview with the news magazine program.
Releasing graphic images of bin Laden's corpse after his shooting in a U.S. raid on his compound could have dispelled doubts that bin Laden is indeed dead. The worry, though, was that it would feed anti-U.S. sentiment.
More, from CBS News:In an interview with Steve Kroft for this Sunday's "60 Minutes," President Obama says he won't release post-mortem images of Osama bin Laden taken to prove his death.
...Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said Wednesday that the Obama administration should not release the gruesome post-mortem images, saying it could complicate the job for American troops overseas. Rogers told CBS News he has seen a post-mortem photo.
"The risks of release outweigh the benefits," he said. "Conspiracy theorists around the world will just claim the photos are doctored anyway, and there is a real risk that releasing the photos will only serve to inflame public opinion in the Middle East."
"Imagine how the American people would react if Al Qaeda killed one of our troops or military leaders, and put photos of the body on the internet," he continued. "Osama bin Laden is not a trophy - he is dead and let's now focus on continuing the fight until Al Qaida has been eliminated."
What's Obama talking about?
We saw images of our troops being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. We don't have to imagine what it would be like.
I want to see a photo of bin Laden dead.
Something to go with these images:
Too gruesome?
Too inflammatory?
This from Obama, the man who undermined George W. Bush and his administration at every turn, showing no concern for how it would impact the American troops on the battlefield.
Give me a break!
Hopefully, Obama has the facts wrong about the photo, too. Hopefully, the White House will realize it's a mistake to fail to release a death photo of bin Laden.
Maybe this whole thing is just a dance to make it appear that Obama was forced to release a photo, even though he really didn't want to do it.
The allegedly gutsy Obama should show some guts. _______________
I believe Osama bin Laden is dead.
I don't think Obama cooked up an elaborate scheme to jump-start his stalled presidency.
I don't think there's any attempt to fake bin Laden's death. There's no conspiracy, but I'm unsure about some aspects of how everything was handled.
There are some questioning the speedy burial at sea of bin Laden's remains according to Islamic law, like Sen. Lindsey Graham. I think it's strange that the Obama administration is stressing that bin Laden was buried in a respectful manner and in accordance with Islamic law. This evil man who slaughtered thousands deserves no respect. Why try to avoid offending Muslims on the burial issue?
Obama said Sunday night: Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.
Obama is saying bin Laden was the enemy of Muslims. Shouldn't Muslims around the world be cheering his demise and thanking the U.S. rather than being ready to criticize the U.S. for dissing him?
The U.S. hunted him down and killed him. This message that bin Laden had a respectful burial is weird.
ABC News reports:The corpse was taken to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, officials told ABC News. The ceremony, done according to Islamic law, began about 1:10 a.m. today EST and lasted about 45 minutes, according to officials.
Traditional washing of the body was followed by wrapping in white sheets. A military officer read religious remarks that were translated by a native Arabic speaker, then bin Laden was eased into the sea.
Officials said no other alternatives were available.
"We are ensuring that it is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition," an administration official said. "This is something that we take very seriously. And so therefore this is being handled in an appropriate manner."
What? That's bizarre.
And why slip his corpse into the Arabian Sea so quickly, within 24 hours of killing him, given the circumstances?
That seems a bit hurried and odd to me, but I can accept it. As lame as it is to abide by Islamic rules for the enemy of Muslims, I do accept the government's story.
However, what I need is a photo. I need to see a photo of bin Laden dead.
It has nothing to do with doubts and conspiracies. I just need to see a photo of bin Laden dead.
From ABC News:As elated crowds celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden after Navy SEALs killed the al-Qaida chief in a weekend raid in Pakistan some are asking, "Where's the proof?"
I wish I felt "elated," but I don't.
I'm glad our great, skilled, brave military brought the evil and cowardly bin Laden to justice. They're heroes.
We can be proud as one nation, but the war isn't over. This is a tremendous victory, but bin Laden's legacy concerns me.
Starting with the morning of September 11, 2001, and continuing today, we've seen many heroes, brave men and women putting themselves at risk to protect us. Thousands of Americans have died in the War on Terror, here at home and on the battlefield.
Bin Laden's dead but there is no peace.
Ending this one life doesn't begin to erase the pain and suffering of the thousands and thousands of bin Laden's victims.
Celebration doesn't seem right to me. It doesn't fit. Photos depicting a bloodied and bruised face appearing to be that of bin Laden began appearing on Twitter and Facebook last night soon after news of his death spread across the Internet. According to Reuters, an archive photo of bin Laden at a news conference proves that image was a fake. Now people are asking to see the evidence proving bin Laden is dead.
"We have released a tremendous amount of information to date," Obama's top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said. "At the same time we don't want to do anything that is going to compromise our ability to be as successful the next time one of these guys needs to be taken off the battlefield."
As for the releasing of death photographs, Brennan said that is "something to be determined." But he added they're going to do everything they can to prevent denials of bin Laden's death.
From Pakistan to the U.S. people expressed their skepticism about the death of the man who is perhaps the most infamous terrorist ever known.
"I won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes. Like Sadam I wouldn't have believed it until I saw his body," tweeted MaryGlazerOut.
Eric Solochier, 22, a senior at Penn State University said his dad was one of the firefighters who helped clean up New York City the day following 9/11, so bin Laden's death would be especially meaningful to him -- he wants to believe it, but he's not convinced.
"There has to be some sort of visual or DNA test. You can obviously photoshop anything you want," said Solochier. "They should submit video. It would be somewhat gruesome but it's something we should be able to see. "
I, too, want to see a photo.
It's not that I don't trust the government, but I need an image. Even though I know a photo could be doctored, I still think the Obama administration should let the world see bin Laden dead.
Right now, the images in my mind are the planes flying into the towers, the Pentagon in flames, and the Pennsylvania field smoldering. I see the people jumping from the World Trade Center - such horrific images. And then there are the funerals, all those images from the funerals.
The bin Laden chapter of the War on Terror won't be closed for me until I see him dead.
A photo is necessary.
I'll never get the images of 9/11 out of my head. I want the dead bin Laden to be there, too.______________
UPDATE: The death photosA Senior US Official tells CNN 10 hard drives, 5 computers and more than 100 storage devices which includes discs, DVDs and thumb drives were taken from the compound.
The senior us official also says the White House received 3 sets of photos yesterday. The photos included:
1. Photos of OBLs body at a hanger after he was brought back to Afghanistan. This is the most recognizable with a clear picture of his face. The picture is gruesome because he has a massive open head wound across both eyes. It’s very bloody and gory.
2. Photos from the burial at sea on the USS Carl Vinson. Photos of OBL before the shroud was put on and then wrapped in the shroud.
3. There are photos of the raid itself that include photos of the two dead brothers, one of OBLs dead son (adult adolescent, maybe approx 18 yrs old) and some of the inside scene of the compound.
The official says the challenge is that the picture that includes the most recognizable image of OBLs face – from the hangar in Afghanistan – is so gruesome and mangled its not appropriate for say the front page of the newspaper. On the other hand, this is the one that is most identifiable as him.
I really don't like to see gruesome photos of human beings that have been mangled, even monsters like bin Laden. But this is reality. It's history.
We have the right to see the images. One should have the choice to view them or not.
Another screw-up by the Obama administration:President Obama failed to release a statement or a proclamation recognizing the national observance of Easter Sunday, Christianity's most sacred holiday.
By comparison, the White House has released statements recognizing the observance of major Muslim holidays and released statements in 2010 on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha.
The White House also failed to release a statement marking Good Friday. However, they did release an eight-paragraph statement heralding Earth Day. Likewise, the president's weekend address mentioned neither Good Friday or Easter.
...In 2010, Obama was criticized for releasing an all-inclusive Easter greeting. He reached out to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and people of no faith at all in a statement about a holiday that is uniquely Christian.
"All of us are striving to make a way in this world; to build a purposeful and fulfilling life in the fleeting time we have here," Obama said in his 2010 "Easter" message. "A dignified life. A healthy life. A life, true to its potential. And a life that serves other." "These are aspirations that stretch back through the ages – aspirations at the heart of Judaism, at the heart of Christianity, at the heart of all the world’s great religions," the president added.
When the White House released statements about Muslim holidays, no attempts were made to include Christianity or to mention a spirit of inclusivity. For example, in his 2010 statement on Hajj and Eid-ul-Adha, Obama made no references to Christianity or any other religion.
By contrast, former President Bush traditionally included Scripture passages in his Easter messages and made a point to explain what Easter is about. Like Obama, though, he did not release statements marking Good Friday.
In 2007, he said, “The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event of the Christian faith.” “On this powerful day, let us join together and give thanks to the Almighty for the glory of His grace,” he added.
In his 2008 Easter message, President Bush said: “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ reminds people around the world of the presence of a faithful God who offers a love more powerful than death. Easter commemorates our Savior's triumph over sin, and we take joy in spending this special time with family and friends and reflecting on the many blessings that fill our lives. During this season of renewal, let us come together and give thanks to the Almighty who made us in His image and redeemed us in His love.”
Why didn't Obama notice the failure to issue an Easter statement or proclamation?
Wouldn't you think Team Obama would be falling all over themselves to assert his Christianity?
On a related note:
Statement by the President on the Occasion of Ramadan
Statement by the President on Hajj and Eid-ul-Adha
Statement by the President on the Occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr
Here's video, from Weasel Zippers, of White House press secretary Jay Carney addressing the issue:Transcript, White House:Q: Thanks, Jay. Just a quick question. You guys traditionally put out statements or proclamations on various religious holidays and I don’t think I saw one from the President on Easter yesterday and was just wondering if there’s any reason one didn’t go out.
MR. CARNEY: You know, the President went to the church yesterday; it was well covered. I’m not sure if we put out a statement or not, but he obviously personally celebrated Easter with his family and went to church to celebrate that. And -- *
Q: Wait a minute. The highest Christian holiday and you don’t know if he put out a statement?
Q: Jay, come on. (Laughter.)
MR. CARNEY: I’m glad you’re asking these key important questions, guys. The fact is, the President took his family to church in a very high-profile way to celebrate Easter. I think it was highly visible to most Americans. And he -- as a devoted Christian, he believes it’s a very important holiday for him personally, for his family and for Christians around the country.
Carney's answer was such a disaster that the White House amended the transcript. It needed an asterisk.
This is at the top of the transcript:See below for an answer to a question (marked with an asterisk) posed in the briefing that required follow up.
*Last Tuesday, the President delivered remarks about Easter at an Easter breakfast he hosted in the East Room. The transcript of the President’s remarks can be found HERE.
What's funny about this is there's no link to "HERE," nothing to click as of 7:45 PM CDT.
Come on, White House. Get your act together. _________________
UPDATE, April 26, 2011: Transcript asterisk link now works. "HERE."
Good job, White House crack staff. Terrific work.
Jimmy Carter really should talk to his Hamas buddies and convince them to start producing more positive, less violent TV programming for children.
Last year, a tape surfaced of Hamas' program using a Mickey Mouse look-alike named Farfur to indoctrinate children.
Here's another bit of Hamas TV for kids:MEMRI provides a transcript:Child Stabs President Bush to Death and Turns the White House into a Mosque in a Hamas TV Puppet Show
Following is an excerpt from a puppet show, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 30, 2008.
Bush: Who are you? What brings you to my home? How did they let you in, boy? My guards! My soldiers! Get this boy out of here.
Child: Nobody will take me out of here.
Bush: Who are you to come here and threaten me?! You are on my own turf, you little child, you! Get out. My dear, bring your father, your grandfather, or your mother, so I can talk to them. Get somebody older and smarter than you. What, you came here on your own?
Child: You killed daddy in the Iraq war. It's true, you killed him in the Iraq war. As for my mom – you and the criminal Zionists killed her in Lebanon. You and the criminal Zionists also killed my younger and older brothers in the Gaza holocaust. I'm an orphan, you criminal!
Bush: What are you talking about? Where did you come from? Don't I have enough troubles already? Where did you come from?
Child: I have come to take revenge with this sword – revenge for my mother and my sisters. You are a criminal, Bush! You are despicable. You made me an orphan! You took everything from me, Bush! I must take revenge on you, with this sword of Islam, the Prophet's Al-Battar sword.
Bush: No... No, my dear. I give you my word that this is it. I repent, just don't kill me. Where are my guards? Where are my people? Help! Help! He wants to kill me. Help!
Child: There are no guards, and your people have surrendered, Bush. I have not come alone, Bush. I have brought thousands of thousands of children from Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. You have denied all these children their fathers and mothers. That's why I have come to take revenge on you and on all the criminal traitors who collaborated with you.
Bush: Okay, fine, that's enough. I will give you whatever you want from me.
Child: What can you give me? All I want is one thing. Bring back my father and mother. I don't want anything from you. I don't want anything from you, just bring back my father and mother. I place my trust in Allah. I need to kill you.
Bush: No, my dear. Enough. I will give you anything you want. I also... Enough with that. Come with all your friends to the White House. I will give you food and toys. We will sit in the White House and talk. You will get whatever you need.
Child: You are impure, Bush, so you are not allowed inside the White House.
Bush: What are you saying?! Why am I not allowed into the White House?
Child: Because it has been turned into a great mosque for the nation of Islam. I will kill you just like Mu'az killed Abu Lahab. I will kill you, Bush, because that is your fate.
Child stabs Bush repeatedly
Child: Ahhh, I killed him.
And that's how you raise the next generation of terrorists.
It's sick, and very sad.
UPDATE, March 28, 2008: LiveLeak was forced to pull the film due to "threats to [their] staff of a very serious nature," but you can still see a copy of "Fitna" here.
The quality isn't great, but it's clear enough to view. 
________________
*WARNING* GRAPHIC IMAGES
(If player doesn't load, view here.)________________
UPDATE, March 28, 2008: Muslims denounce film on Islam Hundreds of angry Muslims marched Friday in Pakistan and denounced a Dutch legislator's film that portrays Islam as a ticking time bomb aimed at the West. Dutch Muslims were more restrained, saying they had expected worse.
The 15-minute film — titled "Fitna," or "Strife" in Arabic — was made by anti-immigrant lawmaker Geert Wilders and was posted on a Web site Thursday.
...Wilders told reporters he made the film because "Islam and the Quran are dangers to the preservation of freedom in the Netherlands."
He argues in the film that Islam's objective is to rule the world and impose an Islamic order without Western freedoms, where gays would be persecuted and women discriminated against.
The Pakistani Foreign Ministry summoned the Dutch ambassador to deliver an official complaint against what it called a "defamatory film which deeply offended the sentiments of Muslims all over the world."
Small groups of demonstrators, mostly followers of hard-line religious groups, rallied in Pakistan's major cities, demanding Pakistan cut diplomatic relations with the Netherlands. A banner at one demonstration read: "We hate the uncivilized West."
Militant Qari Mohammed Yusuf warned before the film's release that revenge attacks were being planned.
"I am telling you now that after this maybe you won't be able to come to Peshawar like this. Foreigners will not be able to come so easily anywhere in Pakistan," he told The Associated Press last week in an interview in Peshawar, Pakistan.
Condemnations also came from the government of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, Iran and Jordan.
"It is not Islam that should be stopped, it is fear-mongers like Geert Wilders who should be stopped from spreading their hatred," said Zakaria al-Sheik of the Rassoul Allah Yajmana, a Jordanian group formed to protect the image of Islam.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the movie.
"There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence. The right of free expression is not at stake here," he said in a statement. "The real fault line is not between Muslim and Western societies, as some would have us believe, but between small minorities of extremists, on different sides, with a vested interest in stirring hostility and conflict."
The Council of Europe said the film was a "distasteful manipulation" that exploits fear, and three U.N. rights experts said it showed a distorted vision of Muslims.
The World Council of Churches said the film failed to distinguish extremism from mainstream Islam.
...Dutch Muslims said the film misrepresented Islam, but that Wilders had largely stayed within the bounds of acceptable political discourse. Wilders praised their civil reaction.
Mohamed Rabbae, leader of a group representing the Netherlands' large Moroccan immigrant community, said the film was "less bad" than expected from Wilders' prior comments. Rabbae called on Muslims abroad to be calm and let Dutch Muslims deal with Wilders, adding: "Harming Dutch people harms us."
"I wasn't personally offended," said Imad el Ouarti, a worshipper at El Umma mosque in Amsterdam. He said Wilders had taken Quranic texts out of context and had reused images that have been seen thousands of times since Sept. 11, 2001. "It's just tasteless and non-creative, as if a child had pasted it together."
Kurt Westergaard, the artist who has lived under police protection since the Muhammad cartoon was published two years ago, objected that Wilders had violated his copyright. "I won't accept my cartoon being taken out of its original context and used in a completely different one," he told Denmark's TV2.
A Rotterdam court said it would rule April 7 on a petition by the Dutch Islamic Federation seeking to gag Wilders and order him to publicly apologize.
Wilders' lawyer Serge Vlaar said the federation "wants to ban a point of view," which he said was not possible under Dutch law.
Federation lawyer Ejder Kose countered that "my clients are not attacking freedom of speech. This is about ending the unjustified insulting of Islam."
UPDATE, March 27, 2008: Watch "Fitna" here._____________________
There's trouble in Dutchland and Islam...THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Protesters already have torched Dutch flags in Afghanistan ahead of a new Dutch film portraying Islam's holy book as a "fascist" text that incites violence and preaches the oppression of women and homosexuals.
A Dutch Cabinet minister postponed his trip to Somalia on Friday due to "specific threats" linked to the film, and the Dutch government has urged lawmaker Geert Wilders to scrap his film for the safety of its citizens abroad.
But Wilders said Monday he has begun negotiations with Dutch broadcasters about airing the 15-minute film, "Fitna." He said he will only allow them to show it in its entirety, and if they refuse, he plans to show it to the media and post it on the Internet.
"We have never learned to be intolerant toward people who are intolerant toward us, toward cultures that are intolerant toward us," he said in a recent Associated Press interview.
The right-wing legislator previously warned of a "tsunami" of Islam swamping the Netherlands and said Muslims should tear up half of the Quran if they want to live here.
Wilders has lived under round-the-clock security since the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by an Islamic radical enraged by his short film, "Submission," a fictional study of abused Muslim women with scenes of near-naked women with Quranic texts engraved on their flesh.
The film "Fitna"—an Arabic word meaning discord—puts the centuries-old Dutch traditions of religious tolerance and freedom of speech on a collision course.
If it airs, Dutch Muslims are expected to file criminal complaints for racial or religious vilification. Prosecutors would then have to decide whether to charge Wilders with any offense.
"Our law is very clear—anybody can make a film. We have freedom of expression and you cannot restrict that," says Moroccan-born Sadik Harchaoui, chief of the Forum Institute for Multicultural Development.
"Can you offend people? The answer is yes. I'm not saying you should do it or it is desirable, but you can," he added. "But if the film is insulting and preaches hate, then the law has to take action."
The Dutch government says it cannot ban the film but is attempting to distance itself from Wilders, the leader of the Freedom Party, which holds nine of Parliament's 150 seats.
...Already the film has provoked reactions from Damascus, Tehran and other capitals of predominantly Muslim countries.
Pakistan's government ordered Internet providers to restrict access to YouTube, allegedly to prevent Pakistanis from accessing a clip of Wilders in which he makes derogatory remarks about Islam. The move inadvertently caused a brief worldwide outage of the video sharing site.
In Afghanistan, protesters set fire to Dutch flags over the weekend and Islamic clerics called for the withdrawal of Dutch troops.
NATO's Dutch secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, says he too is worried about the "potentially serious consequences" for alliance troops in Afghanistan, where 1,500 Dutch troops serve in the NATO-led force in the volatile south.
"If they are put in the line of fire because of the film, I am concerned," he told Dutch television news show "Buitenhof."
De Hoop Scheffer says people around the world, including some in the U.S. administration, have been asking him about the film.
So far, the reaction among the 850,000 Muslims living in this country of 16 million has been muted, but the Dutch government has warned municipalities to be on alert for rioting if and when the film appears.
This is Danish cartoons déjà vu all over again.
Free speech isn't always pretty.________________
Read more about "Fitna," from Reuters.
Barack Obama is afraid. He's afraid that the American people might think he's a Muslim.
So, Obama is on a mission to distance himself from the appearance of having any significant personal Muslim connections.WASHINGTON -- For Barack Obama, it is an ember that he has doused time and again, only to see it flicker anew: links to Islam fanned by false rumors, innuendo and association. Obama and his campaign reacted strongly this week when a photo of him in Kenyan tribal garb began spreading on the Internet.
And the praise he received Sunday from Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan prompted pointed questions — during Tuesday night's presidential debate and also in a private meeting over the weekend with Jewish leaders in Cleveland.
During the debate, Obama repeated his denunciation of Farrakhan's views, which have included numerous anti-Semitic comments. And, after being pressed, he rejected Farrakhan's support in the presidential race.
The Democratic candidate says repeatedly that he's a Christian who took the oath of office on a family Bible. Yet on the Internet and on talk radio — and in a campaign introduction for John McCain this week — he is often depicted, falsely, as a Muslim with shadowy ties and his middle name, Hussein, is emphasized as a reminder of Iraq's former leader.
"If anyone is still puzzled about the facts, in fact I have never been a Muslim," he told the Jewish leaders in Cleveland, according to a transcript of the private session.
...Obama has become careful in denouncing the links, lately noting that some rumors about him also have been insulting to Muslims. Jim Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, said many Arab Americans are drawn to Obama because of his cultural background.
"It is clear he wants to have a broader relationship with the Muslim world," Zogby said. "He has a biography that connects him to the Muslim world."
Jim Kuhnhenn of the Associated Press does his best to dispel those awful "links to Islam fanned by false rumors, innuendo and association."
He provides a list of some "rumors and allegations about Obama [that] are clearly not true, yet still spread, often anonymously."
Ooooooh. Islam. Scary.How embarrassing! I think it's disrespectful for Obama to downplay the reality of his Muslim ancestors.
Here we have this African-American candidate making history, a giant leap for the country, breaking down barriers.
On the flip side, we have that same candidate and his supporters acting like there's something wrong with being a Muslim.
I can understand why Obama would want people to know the truth about him. He's a Christian, not a Muslim. OK. Lies are lies.
Still, there's something troubling about the way he and his campaign have equated connections to Islam as something so negative and derogatory.
Uttering his middle name is a slur. Apologies are required if one strings Hussein between Barack and Obama. That makes no sense to me. Why is it OK to say his first and last names? Why aren't they also unmentionable. They aren't exactly white-bread names.
Underlying all of this is a weird bigotry, not only on the part of those disseminating the Obama/Islam rumors but also on the part of Obama's camp. I don't think it's wise for the campaign to consider connections to Islam to be a terrible affront. That in itself smacks of bigotry.
Furthermore, the assumption by the Obama campaign is that Americans are bigots. Apparently, they've determined that Americans wouldn't vote for a Muslim or someone they perceive to have connections with Islam.
Why? I thought Obama believed in the American people. I thought the country, meaning the people, made wife Michelle Obama proud for the first time in her adult life. Something doesn't add up here.
It's unfortunate that Obama rejects his Muslim heritage, sending out aides to put as much distance as possible between himself and anything related to Islam.
Why?
Another candidate was dogged by an M-word -- Mitt Romney. The mainstream press were constantly bringing up his Mormonism, chanting the mantra that Americans won't vote for a Mormon, and all the while promoting Mormonism as a dark cult. They were on a mission to keep Romney on defense. Members of the press and political pundits actively attacked the religion.
For example, Lawrence O'Donnell went completely berserk and mercilessly bashed Romney and disparaged all Mormons.
Where was the outrage then?
The Associated Press certainly didn't come to Romney's aid. I didn't hear any presidential candidates condemn O'Donnell's shameful remarks the way John Sidney McCain condemned what Bill Cunningham had to say -- Obama's middle name. In spite of the thoroughly despicable slams on Mormonism, by the press and by at least one Republican candidate, Romney's campaign made no orchestrated effort to muzzle anyone. Romney didn't back away from his faith. Instead, he displayed great character, integrity, and patience.
It's a totally different story with Obama.
Only Obama can make reference to his Muslim roots when it's convenient and politically expedient. If anyone else does, it's hateful and fear-mongering.
That's very, very wrong.
UPDATE, February 14, 2008: Copenhagen police arrest six in fifth night of riots Six youths were arrested in Copenhagen for setting cars and dumpsters ablaze and throwing stones at police in a fifth night of riots in a predominantly immigrant area of the Danish capital, police said Friday.
"We've had six arrests so far. They've been charged with throwing stones at police and setting fires to cars and waste containers," Chief Inspector Henrik Olesen of the Copenhagen police told AFP.
At least 11 cars were torched in various neighbourhoods of Copenhagen, and 10 others in the nearby town of Kokkedal.
On Thursday, 17 youths were arrested for rioting the previous night.
"We don't know why they're rioting. I think it's because they're bored. Some people say it's because of the cartoons but that's not my opinion," Olesen said.
He was referring to the reprinting of a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed in 17 Danish newspapers on Wednesday.
...Protests have flared up again in several Muslim countries including Kuwait and Pakistan following the reprinting. The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas also condemned the publication.
The caricature was reprinted this week after Danish police uncovered a plot to kill the cartoonist.
Three people were arrested for planning the murder, including two Tunisians who have lived in Denmark for more than seven years and whom Denmark has decided to expel without a trial.
That decision has been heavily criticised by human rights associations and some politicians and legal experts in Denmark.
________________
It's been two years since the controversy over the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed caused worldwide protests, rioting, and violence.
Muslim extremists have been working to assassinate one of the cartoonists. Thankfully, they've been unsuccessful.COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Danish authorities on Tuesday arrested three people suspected of plotting a cartoonist's assassination for his depiction of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban that enraged Muslims two years ago.
Three of Denmark's largest newspapers said they would reprint the cartoon on Wednesday to show they would not be intimidated by fanatics. It was one of 12 Muhammad cartoons published in 2005 and then again in 2006 that led to protests in Muslim countries.
Investigators said they foiled the plot in its early stages in a pre-dawn raid in the western Denmark city of Aarhus. The police intelligence agency, PET, said two Tunisians and a Danish citizen of Moroccan origin were arrested.
"The case shows that, unfortunately, there are in Denmark groups of extremists that do not accept and respect the basic principles on which the Danish democracy has been built," Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.
Tuesday's arrests were meant "to prevent a terror-related assassination of one of the cartoonists behind the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad," PET chief Jakob Scharf said. Investigators believe the plot had not advanced far enough to try the suspects.
Scharf said the 40-year-old Danish suspect faced a preliminary charge of violating a Danish terror law, but will likely be released after questioning. The two Tunisians will be expelled from Denmark, he said.
He did not name the intended target, but Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten said it was the paper's cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard.
Westergaard, 73, drew one of the 12 Muhammad caricatures that were first published by the paper on Sept. 30, 2005, and then reprinted by other Western media in early 2006.
...The cartoonist and his wife, Gitte, 66, have been living under police protection for more than three months because of "concrete murder plans" against him, Jyllands-Posten reported.
Westergaard told Denmark's TV2 News network that the couple had been forced to move between several locations, both in Denmark and abroad. He praised the intelligence service for their protection.
"They have certainly saved my life, I am convinced of that," he said.
Westergaard drew a cartoon. As a result he and his wife are under police protection and they can't live in one location too long.
Free speech sometimes comes at a very high price. _____________________
Michelle Malkin: Mohammed cartoon reprint: Show your solidarity
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former member of the Dutch Parliament and a critic of Islam, has an op-ed piece in today's New York Times.
It's a call for moderate Muslim voices to shout.
(I wonder if UWM's Muslim Student Association dashed off a letter to the Times, "demanding" that this critical column not be published, for fear of inciting violence toward Muslims.)
Hirsi Ali begins her column by citing the Koran:The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (Koran 24:2)
"Let no compassion move you."
NO COMPASSION.
As a Catholic, I find that to be stunning.
Hirsi Ali continues:IN the last few weeks, in three widely publicized episodes, we have seen Islamic justice enacted in ways that should make Muslim moderates rise up in horror.
A 20-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, reported that she had been abducted by several men and repeatedly raped. But judges found the victim herself to be guilty. Her crime is called “mingling”: when she was abducted, she was in a car with a man not related to her by blood or marriage, and in Saudi Arabia, that is illegal. Last month, she was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane.
Two hundred lashes are enough to kill a strong man. Women usually receive no more than 30 lashes at a time, which means that for seven weeks the “girl from Qatif,” as she’s usually described in news articles, will dread her next session with Islamic justice. When she is released, her life will certainly never return to normal: already there have been reports that her brother has tried to kill her because her “crime” has tarnished her family’s honor.
We also saw Islamic justice in action in Sudan, when a 54-year-old British teacher named Gillian Gibbons was sentenced to 15 days in jail before the government pardoned her this week; she could have faced 40 lashes. When she began a reading project with her class involving a teddy bear, Ms. Gibbons suggested the children choose a name for it. They chose Muhammad; she let them do it. This was deemed to be blasphemy.
Then there’s Taslima Nasreen, the 45-year-old Bangladeshi writer who bravely defends women’s rights in the Muslim world. Forced to flee Bangladesh, she has been living in India. But Muslim groups there want her expelled, and one has offered 500,000 rupees for her head. In August she was assaulted by Muslim militants in Hyderabad, and in recent weeks she has had to leave Calcutta and then Rajasthan. Taslima Nasreen’s visa expires next year, and she fears she will not be allowed to live in India again.
I think these punishments qualify as torture. It is often said that Islam has been “hijacked” by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates.
But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted — and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?
I want to believe that the vast majority of Muslims are moderates.
I give that very silent majority of Muslims the benefit of the doubt. I sincerely believe they're out there, but I just haven't any proof that they exist. I guess I take it on faith. ...[W]hile the incidents in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India have done more to damage the image of Islamic justice than a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the organizations that lined up to protest the hideous Danish offense to Islam are quiet now.
I wish there were more Islamic moderates. For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image. We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up.
The evidence does mount up.
Groups are so concerned about Islam's image, yet these same groups fail to speak out against Islamic justice, such as hundreds of lashes with bamboo canes or beheadings.Hirsi Ali argues that it's a lack of compassion that traps Muslims in the extremism that rules in the Islamic world:Islamic justice is a proud institution, one to which more than a billion people subscribe, at least in theory, and in the heart of the Islamic world it is the law of the land. But take a look at the verse above: more compelling even than the order to flog adulterers is the command that the believer show no compassion. It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme.
She asks:If moderate Muslims believe there should be no compassion shown to the girl from Qatif, then what exactly makes them so moderate?
Excellent question.
It really troubles me that Muslim groups are so quick to complain about affronts to Islam's image.
Walid Shoebat's appearance at UWM earlier this week is an example.
The MSA protested that Shoebat's message is hate-filled and supposedly incites people to violence, but there weren't incidents of violence against Muslim students as a result of Shoebat's lecture.
I don't understand why the groups don't mobilize to condemn the torture meted out by Islamic extremists. A 20-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, reported that she had been abducted by several men and repeatedly raped. But judges found the victim herself to be guilty. Her crime is called “mingling”: when she was abducted, she was in a car with a man not related to her by blood or marriage, and in Saudi Arabia, that is illegal. Last month, she was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane.
No compassion.
So often it's said that U.S. needs to win the hearts and minds of the Islamic world.
Isn't that backwards?
Shouldn't the onus be on Islam to win over the hearts and minds of people who consider Islamic justice, with its lashings and beheadings, to be barbaric? "The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."
--MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
It was point/counterpoint last night at UWM.
Accusations of hate speech came from both sides.
Former terrorist Walid Shoebat was accused by the Muslim Student Association of hate mongering.
For his part, Shoebat accused Muslim Student Associations of "supporting Hamas and promoting hatred toward Jews."
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's account of the event is found here.Self-described former terrorist Walid Shoebat told an audience of about 750 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Tuesday night that Muslims in the Middle East are raised to believe in the destruction of Israel.
But after his speech, which got a standing ovation, the question-and-answer session became raucous and heated.
One questioner, Abd Elhamid Elsayed, a Muslim opposed to Shoebat's message, didn't get to his question quickly enough for some people, who shouted at him to finish. Security officers pulled him away from the microphone.
Another man yelled, "Hallelujah!"
Shoebat said he was born in Bethlehem to a Muslim father and an American Christian mother held in the Middle East against her will. As a young man, he said, he committed acts of terror against Israel, including throwing a bomb at a bank in Bethlehem that he said killed no one.
He later moved to Chicago, where he said he openly advocated for the Palestinian group Hamas. He converted to Christianity in 1993 and lives under an assumed name.
"The idea of destroying Israel never left our minds," Shoebat said. "We didn't have any of the critical thinking you enjoy here in the West. . . . We had the idea that Israel must be wiped out, and we must establish a state."
The event was sponsored by the UWM Conservative Union. After the event, the Muslim Student Association held a counter-forum. Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, described Shoebat's speech as historically inaccurate and one-sided.
"What's his qualifications? He's not a scholar or even a Muslim," Rehab said. "He's an ex-terrorist, and you can guess what that says about him."
John McAdams gives a more detailed account than what the JS provides.
McAdams concludes:We see his views as an authentic response to the real, virulent extremism and real anti-Semitism that he has seen. He is extremely passionate – some would say fanatical. But passion is an appropriate response to what he has seen.
But that’s not to say that his outlook on Islam is fair and balanced. It’s a legitimate response to an unbalanced set of experiences he has had. It’s not all of Islam, and probably not even most of Islam. It is too much of Islam.
That's very well said. "It is too much of Islam."
I think it's important to get some perspective on Ahmed Rehab and the Council of American-Islamic Relations. CAIR has been given legitimacy by the mainstream media, propped up as a civil rights group. But the organization is far from squeaky clean.
Read more here. Speaking of hate peddlers....
Remember the MSA tried to keep Shoebat from speaking by arguing that his appearance would be a threat to student safety.
The MSA wrote to the UWM administration:[Shoebat's] writing and speeches have deliberately rotated around inciting Americans with fear of Muslims and Arabs, associating them with terrorism. The ramifications of allowing such hate-mongers to spread hate has been clearly driven in the physical attacks on Muslims, Arabs, or anyone with Middle-Eastern appearance following the events of September 11 th.
The Muslims at UWM feel that their safety will be in danger if the above mentioned event takes place on the UWM campus. We ask the UWM Administration to cancel the event due to these circumstances for the safety and comfort of the students. We take such an event as a direct attack on us and will hope the university will ask the sponsoring organizations to discontinue the program.
Well, the event did take place.
Things may have been heated at times during the question and answer period, but I'm not aware that the safety of any students was compromised.
Shoebat said what he wanted to say. Ahmed Rehab said what he wanted to say.
Ideas were freely exchanged, free speech and more free speech.
No violence.
I guess the sky didn't fall after all.
All's well that ends well, right?KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Sudan's president on Monday agreed to pardon a British teacher jailed after letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammad, and officials said she would be released and would fly back to England later in the day.
Lord Nazir Ahmed and another Muslim representative from Britain's House of Lords, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir Monday at his presidential palace to plead for Gillian Gibbons' pardon.
"The president has told us he has already signed the papers for her pardon," Ahmed told reporters afterward.
Sudanese presidential spokesman Mahzoub Faidul told The Associated Press that Gibbons would "be released today and will fly back to England today."
Gibbons had been sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation for insulting Islam because her students gave the teddy bear the same name as Islam's revered prophet — a violation under Sudan's Islamic Sharia law.
The case inflamed passions among many in Sudan, where demonstrators called for her to be put to death.
In a written statement released by the presidential palace and read by Warsi to reporters, 54-year-old Gibbons said she was sorry if she caused any "distress."
"I have a great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone," Gibbons said in the statement. "I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends, but I am very sorry that I will be unable to return to Sudan."
I think it's stunning that Gibbons is apologizing for causing "distress."
THOUSANDS of protesters called for her head!...Sudan's ambassador in London, Khalid al-Mubarak, said he was "overjoyed" by the news.
"She is a teacher who went to teach our children English and she has helped a great deal and I am very grateful," al-Mubarak said. "What has happened was a cultural misunderstanding, a minor one, and I hope she, her family and the British people won't be affected by what has happened."
Demonstrations in Khartoum on Friday, in which some participants called for Gibbons' execution, "were an argument from the fringe," al-Mubarak said.
WHAT?
I wouldn't call this teddy bear thing a "minor" cultural misunderstanding.
When THOUSANDS of Sudanese arm themselves with clubs and knives, take to the streets, and say, "No tolerance: Execution," and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad," that's sort of a big deal.
Last week, the protesters left their mosques -- THEIR MOSQUES -- after Friday sermons and demanded that she be executed.
These THOUSANDS of people that wanted Gibbons dead are from the fringe?
Based on the number of participants and the intensity of their protests, it seems like that fringe is awfully wide.
Thankfully, Gibbons is expected to return safely to England. But I don't think this episode should be excused or readily forgotten.
The fringe is a serious threat and can do a tremendous amount of damage. That's the reality.
It took only nineteen members of the so-called fringe to hijack four American civilian airliners, completely destroy the World Trade Center, damage the Pentagon, and slaughter nearly 3000 people.
"Kill her, kill her by firing squad."
(AFP/FR-HO/File)MOHAMED OSMAN, Associated Press Writer, reports on "Calls in Sudan for execution of Briton."
Mohamed Osman writes: "Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad."
Did Osman's parents name him Mohamed because they wanted to insult Islam?
He's not a teddy bear; but still, it's a slippery slope. Perhaps Osman should use a pen name. Thousands of Sudanese could turn on him.
Cassius Clay was lucky that when he changed his name to Muhammad Ali, crazed mobs didn't call for his head.
When a class of children decide to name a teddy bear after a popular student, is that really an insult to Islam? Should the teacher of the class be arrested and convicted for the offense?KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad."
In response to the demonstration, teacher Gillian Gibbons was moved from the women's prison near Khartoum to a secret location for her safety, her lawyer said.
The protesters streamed out of mosques after Friday sermons, as pickup trucks with loudspeakers blared messages against Gibbons, who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more serious punishment of 40 lashes.
They massed in central Martyrs Square outside the presidential palace, where hundreds of riot police were deployed. They did not try to stop the rally, which lasted about an hour.
"Shame, shame on the U.K.," protesters chanted.
They called for Gibbons' execution, saying, "No tolerance: Execution," and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad."
Gibbons' chief lawyer, Kamal al-Gizouli, said she was moved from the prison for her safety for the final nine days of her sentence.
"They moved this lady from the prison department to put her in other hands and in other places to cover her and wait until she completes her imprisonment period," he said, adding that she was in good health.
Thousands of Sudanese, many carrying knives and sticks, protest in Khartoum, Sudan, after prayers Friday Nov. 30, 2007, calling for the execution of a British teacher Gillian Gibbons convicted of insulting Islam for letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammad. (AP Photos/Abd Raouf)
Let's cut to the chase.
These people are absolutely deranged.
They left their MOSQUES AFTER FRIDAY SERMONS and with clubs and knives in hand, they chanted, "Kill her, kill her by firing squad."
"No tolerance." No kidding.
And I think it's bad when people leave Mass and get out in the church parking lot, get behind the wheel, and act like jerks, cutting others off and behaving in a rather uncivilized, unchristian fashion. At least I've never seen anyone brandishing clubs and knives or calling for a fellow parishioner's execution. ...The protest arose despite vows by Sudanese security officials the day before, during Gibbons' trial, that threatened demonstrations after Friday prayers would not take place. Some of the protesters carried green banners with the name of the Society for Support of the Prophet Muhammad, a previously unknown group.
Many protesters carried clubs, knives and axes — but not automatic weapons, which some have brandished at past government-condoned demonstrations. That suggested Friday's rally was not organized by the government.
What self-control!
The protesters left the automatic weapons at home!A Muslim cleric at Khartoum's main Martyrs Mosque denounced Gibbons during one sermon, saying she intentionally insulted Islam. He did not call for protests, however.
"Imprisoning this lady does not satisfy the thirst of Muslims in Sudan. But we welcome imprisonment and expulsion," the cleric, Abdul-Jalil Nazeer al-Karouri, a well-known hard-liner, told worshippers.
"This an arrogant woman who came to our country, cashing her salary in dollars, teaching our children hatred of our Prophet Muhammad," he said.
Really, is there any talking to or negotiating with such people?
They're uncivilized. They're hypocritical. They are radical Islam. They're perhaps the greatest threat to peace in our time.
620 WTMJ reports that UWM has refused to give in to the Muslim Student Association and its demand to cancel Walid Shoebat's appearnce.
The Shoebat event scheduled for December 4 is a go.
University officials really had no choice once they were outed and the story became major news. UWM had to reverse course when their under-handed attempt to ensure the cancellation of Shoebat's appearance by charging the sponsor of the event, student group the Conservative Union, an exorbitant security fee was revealed. The University of Wisconsin Milwaukee has decided it will no longer charge a student organization a security fee for a speech planned on campus next week. The speech by Walid Shoebat caused controversy after a Muslim student group argued that it could cause hate toward Muslims on campus.
Here's UWM's explanation for its flip flop:Statement from UW-Milwaukee Administration:
UWM Union Modifies Policy on Speaker Security Charges
From the beginning of our planning for the Dec. 4 appearance of Walid Shoebat at the UW-Milwaukee Union, campus officials have been most concerned with the safety of students and the others who will be coming to our university to attend the event. A safety plan for the event was created by the Division of Student Affairs after reviewing the experiences of other universities where Mr. Shoebat appeared. The cost for the required additional security services was based on a fee-recovery program developed by UWM Union officials over the summer.
It has become clear, however, that the additional security expenses have been perceived by some as a means to discourage speakers from visiting the UWM campus. Simply stated, that is not the case. UWM is committed to its long-standing practice of welcoming and encouraging discussion and debate of all issues no matter how controversial.
To ensure that the UWM Union remains a place where ideas are freely exchanged, the Union will explore other methods to recover such expenses. As a result of this policy change, the Union is canceling the additional security charges that were to have been applied to next Tuesday’s Shoebat speech sponsored by the Conservative Union and to a forum on the same day sponsored by the Muslim Student Association.
Throughout its history, UWM has kept its doors open to people expressing a myriad of perspectives. A particularly significant example was the Nov. 23, 1965, appearance of Martin Luther King, Jr. at UWM, which required extraordinary safety measures. In the following years, the university has welcomed numerous speakers who represented many perspectives. We will continue to do so in order to preserve and protect the right to free speech and, when necessary, we will take precautions to ensure the safety of all involved.
Blah, blah, blah.
You know the administration feels its back was against the wall on this one if it felt the need to raise civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. as an example of the campus opening its doors to speakers with different perspectives. It seems tossed in there to deflect attention from the controversy at hand.
As far as the added security required for the Shoebat event, there's really no reason for "campus officials [to] have been most concerned with the safety of students and the others who will be coming to [UWM] to attend the event."
Shoebat has appeared all over the country and the world without incident.Including: Chile, Mexico, Canada, UK and South Africa. He has appeared on national television also all over the world including CNN, CNN International, FOX News, ITN, RTE, NBC, CBS, and ABC. He has also been featured on BBC radio 4 and 5.
Speaking Highlights:
Harvard Law School lecture
Special forum on Capital Hill Washington DC
Columbia Unversity lecture
Concordia University
UCLA, USC, University of Georgia, Washington University, Penn State, San Diego State and many others.
Keynote address to more than 700 Jewish leaders and rabbis from all over the world and North America at its Partners Conference in Stamford, CT, which is the highlight of Aish's calendar, and again in New York later in November.
Encounter conference, largest gathering of orthodox Jews in UK.
Jewish communities of St Petersburg, Memphis, St Louis, Scranton, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Albany, Dallas, Tampa, W. Palm Beach, Seattle, Cincinnati, Toronto, Motreal, Winnepeg, Calgary, Vancouver, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Rockville MD, Atlanta, St Louis, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and soon Las Vegas and Cleveland.
The safety excuse is exactly that -- an excuse.
The UWM administration is putting on a holier than thou act now, but I think they were hostile to the idea of Shoebat speaking on campus.
For some reason, some vocal students and officials consider it threatening to have an event featuring a former terrorist who has seen the error of his ways. There's no evidence to suggest that having Shoebat come to the university to speak out against Jihad poses a security risk and endangers students.
Shoebat's message doesn't incite violence.
RADICAL Islam's message is the security risk.
It always seems to work out this way.
Some group tries to shut someone up, cancel an appearance, something like that.
What follows is a backlash.
The target of the attempt at censorship actually ends up getting more press.
Case in point: If UWM's Muslim Student Association had not tried to silence Walid Shoebat, none of this would be happening.Friends
The Story concerning the UWM event has mushroomed into a major local media event. The Journal Sentinel was a Front Page story today http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=690732,
CBS 58 will interview Walid on the 10 pm CST bulletin this evening Nov 28.
We have 4 major radio shows booked: Nov 29, Charles Sykes WTMJ at 8.30 am central, Crosstalk at 2 pm central, Nov 30, Vickie Mckenna WISN at 10 am central and Eric Von on Friday at 3 pm WMCS
We expect local affiliate TV will be covering the event on Tuesday along with live interviews with Walid.
If you want the truth to be heard loud, clear with no political correctness, just hire our people to speak at your local university.
If you wish to attend the UWM event please email us at walid@shoebat.com, give the names of all attendees and a working tel number.
On February 25th 2008 we will have a 3 ex terrorist public event to be held in Melbourne, Florida. Ticket reservations for our Florida followers can be requested at the same email address. There are only about 2000 tickets available for this venue. Tickets will be $16.00 each or $100 for VIP sponsor tickets which include a desert reception to meet personally the participants of the event. We expect this event to be sold out within a few weeks of the tickets being available.
Thanks for your support
Keith Davies
Director
I guess that attempt to shut up Shoebat pretty much backfired.
Such efforts usually do.
When a controversial figure is scheduled to speak at UWM, and the Muslim Student Association is pressuring the university to cancel the event, how do officials deal with the situation?
They take the easy way out.
They try to kill the event in a roundabout way by applying an unusually high security fee.
UWM officials are raising the price on free speech.
It's a cowardly move.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:A student group at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that invited a controversial speaker to campus is protesting the school's demand for extra security fees, saying the university is trying to kill the event and stifle free speech.
UWM's Conservative Union, a student group that promotes conservative issues, invited Walid Shoebat, a former Palestinian Liberation Organization member who speaks on "Why I Left Jihad," to lecture on campus Dec. 4.
Shoebat, who has spoken at several universities, has raised the ire of some Muslim organizations because of his anti-Islamic message. At a speech in Missouri in September, Shoebat equated the religion with the Antichrist.
"We wanted to bring him in as an example of how a person can change and bring him in to speak about terrorism," said A.J. Piwarun, 23, president of the Conservative Union.
UWM imposed a $2,500 fee about two weeks ago on the Conservative Union, a figure UWM Union Director Scott Gore acknowledged is unusually high but said is required to pay for extra security, including campus police and metal detectors.
"The idea that we're trying to impede the process is wrong," Gore said. "We have to maintain some level of security in case there (is) a protest."
...Tyler Draheim, chairman of UWM's student-run Senate Appropriations Committee, said the price varies for what student organizations must pay to bring in a speaker. He said the "usual" price is between $300 and $500, and no higher than $1,000.
"(The price) kind of does surprise me," he said. "It's good that they're looking at security, but forcing the group to pay this out of pocket kind of hinders this event from happening."
Piwarun said the fee is exorbitant and the need for security is overhyped. He accused the university of discriminating against his group for its views.
"They've been creating many hoops and hassles for us," Piwarun said. "We believe they're picking us out because of our political beliefs."
It appears that the university is bowing to the demands of the MSA.
I don't think there's any question that the exorbitant fee is an effort to prevent Shoebat's appearance. ...If the Shoebat program happens as planned, the Muslim Student Association will not protest but plans a forum after the lecture, where speakers will address questions on Islam, Elsayed said.
"The main issue is safety for us and for others on campus," he said. "Where is the boundary between freedom of speech and hate speech?"
No protest has been sanctioned by the MSA. Does that mean there wouldn't be a protest?
If so, there's no need for the excessive security and the high price tag for the Shoebat speech.
However, if Shoebat does speak at UWM, there will no doubt be protests. They just won't be officially organized by the MSA, a convenient to shirk responsibility and give the appearance of taking the high road.
These claims of Shoebat's program raising serious safety concerns for Muslim students and others are crap.
They should worry about being the victim of a robbery on campus (a much more likely occurrence), not being the victim of violence because Shoebat speaks out against Jihad.
What's really stupid about this whole thing is no one needs Shoebat to point out the reality that there are radical Muslims engaged in Jihad against the United States.
The MSA should consider every suicide bomber in the Middle East as a threat to their safety. Every time there's a reference to the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., they should feel threatened.
In fact, the greatest threat to their safety may be the Mujahideen, the very people that Shoebat is condemning.
Daughters of Muslim immigrants to America are joining the Girl Scouts.
As the New York Times reports, the Girl Scouts are being more than accommodating to their needs.Sometimes when Asma Haidara, a 12-year-old Somali immigrant, wants to shop at Target or ride the Minneapolis light-rail system, she puts her Girl Scout sash over her everyday clothes, which usually include a long skirt worn over pants as well as a swirling head scarf.
She has discovered that the trademark green sash — with its American flag, troop number (3009) and colorful merit badges — reduces the number of glowering looks she draws from people otherwise bothered by her traditional Muslim dress.
“When you say you are a girl scout, they say, ‘Oh, my daughter is a girl scout, too,’ and then they don’t think of you as a person from another planet,” said Asma, a slight, serious girl with a bright smile. “They are more comfortable about sitting next to me on the train.”
This article depicts Americans as bigoted.
Muslim girls in traditional dress have to put up with glowering looks from intolerant Americans. But when the girl is wearing a Girl Scout sash, everyone is happy. ...By teaching girls to roast hot dogs or fix a flat bicycle tire, Farheen Hakeem, one troop leader here, strives to help them escape the perception of many non-Muslims that they are different.
Scouting is a way of celebrating being American without being any less Muslim, Ms. Hakeem said.
“I don’t want them to see themselves as Muslim girls doing this ‘Look at us, we are trying to be American,’ ” she said. “No, no, no, they are American. It is not an issue of trying.”
The parents and their daughters aren't looking for a way to assimilate into American culture. Not at all.
The parents have reservations about allowing their daughters to participate. ...[A] more common concern among parents is that the Girl Scouts will somehow dilute Islamic traditions.
“They are afraid you are going to become a blue-eyed, blond-haired Barbie doll,” said Asma, the girl who at times makes her sash everyday attire. Asma noted that her mother had asked whether she was joining some Christian cabal. “She was afraid that if we hang out with Americans too much,” the young immigrant said, “it will change our culture or who we are.”
Troop leaders win over parents by explaining that various activities incorporate Muslim traditions. In Minneapolis, for instance, Ms. Hakeem helped develop the Khadija Club, named for the first wife of the Prophet Muhammad, which exposes older girls to the history of prominent Muslim women.
What's wrong with this picture?
A Muslim mother would only allow her daughter to join Scouting as long as she was assured that it wouldn't turn her into a "blue-eyed, blond-haired Barbie doll."
The mother asked if her daughter was "joining some Christian cabal."
Girl Scouting a Christian cabal?
What a tolerant mother!
What's the problem with being blue-eyed, blond-haired, and Christian? I used to be a blue-eyed, blond-haired, Christian Girl Scout.
Muslim mothers freak out over the thought of blue eyes and blond hair?
That's bigoted.
Can you imagine if a Christian mother had been quoted saying she didn't want her daughter "joining some Muslim cabal"?
The outrage would be ricocheting from sea to shining sea. The mother would be condemned. Organizations like UWM's Muslim Student Association would probably protest. They would probably fear for their safety.
Notice the leader Ms. Hakeem is quick to point out that the girls are definitely American. Then, scout Asma Haidara says her mother doesn't like the idea of her hanging out with Americans too much because it might change who she is.
Let me get this straight...
Participating in Girl Scouting is meant to give young immigrant Muslim girls a feeling of belonging, "to help them escape the perception of many non-Muslims that they are different."
Nothing wrong with that.
It's a way to assimilate to their new country.
BUT--
The immigrant parents fear assimilation.
They don't want to be "American."
These immigrants WANT to be different, yet they want to escape the perception that they are different.
That's a dramatic difference from past immigrants.
So much for the melting pot. ...Troop leaders win over parents by explaining that various activities incorporate Muslim traditions. In Minneapolis, for instance, Ms. Hakeem helped develop the Khadija Club, named for the first wife of the Prophet Muhammad, which exposes older girls to the history of prominent Muslim women.
Suboohi Khan, 10, won her Bismallah (in the name of God) ribbon by writing 4 of God’s 99 names in Arabic calligraphy and decorating them, as well as memorizing the Koran’s last verse, used for protection against gossips and goblins. Otherwise, she said, her favorite badge involved learning “how to make body glitter and to see which colors look good on us” and “how to clean up our nails.”
Scouting is OK as long as it incorporates Muslim traditions.
It's a positive thing.
The Times is applauding the Muslim troop leaders for transforming an American tradition to fit their needs.
Are these the same libs that get bent out of shape whenever there's a relationship between Scouting and Christianity? I guess they see the Muslim version of Girl Scouting as a victory over Christians.
This is priceless:Predominantly Muslim troops do accept non-Muslim members.
Can you imagine predominantly Christian troops NOT accepting non-Christian members?The Girl Scout Promise
On my honor, I will try:
To serve God* and my country,
To help people at all times,
And to live by the Girl Scout Law.
* The word "God" can be interpreted in a number of ways, depending on one's spiritual beliefs. When reciting the Girl Scout Promise, it is okay to replace the word "God" with whatever word your spiritual beliefs dictate.
Members of Hamas's "Protectors of the Homeland" police band sing in Gaza Nov. 4, 2007. (REUTERS/Suhaib Salem)
Don't expect music by Protectors of the Homeland to be topping any charts anytime soon.GAZA (Reuters) -- Wearing blue camouflage fatigues and crooning about Islamic holy war, the five members of Hamas's Protectors of the Homeland police band are trying to boost morale in Gaza with an arsenal of anti-Israel numbers.
Standing bolt upright and staring straight ahead in their Hamas uniforms, the bearded men -- in their 20s and 30s -- are not quite Gaza's answer to international boy bands like Backstreet Boys or 'N Sync.
"Our duties are to boost the spirits with entertainment and encourage the forces," Hussam Abu Abdu told Reuters after a band rehearsal at the Hamas-run Gaza Strip's police headquarters.
Hamas's top police commander, Jamal al-Jarah, who is wanted by Israel, formed the band after the Islamist group seized control of Gaza in June following violent clashes with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction.
...The policemen shun the bump-and-grind dancing and sugary love songs favored by boy bands around the world. They sing about heroic fighters, Islamic values and love of the homeland, all recorded over backing tracks played from a laptop computer.
"O Jerusalem, rest assured we are the sacrifice," goes one song. "I will not retreat from my Jihad, I will not back down."
...The Protectors of the Homeland hope to boost their influence by releasing a cassette of their music, and are working on a video clip to showcase work done by Gaza's police force.
"We aim to entertain," Abdu said. "To help ease the people's suffering and at the same time we deliver a message about morals and values."
Boosting morale of suffering people is a noble undertaking.
Delivering the message of Jihad and death to Israel is not. _____________________
Watch the boys perform here.
SOME faithful Muslims are observing the end of Ramadan by wallowing in hate.
It's been a tradition since 1979, when Jimmy Carter helped usher in the era of Islamic extremist rule In Iran.
Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day was the brainchild of Ayatollah Khomeini. In August of 1979, he said:"I invite Muslims all over the globe to consecrate the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan as Quds Day and to proclaim the international solidarity of Muslims in support of the legitimate rights of the Muslim people of Palestine." "For many years, I have been notifying the Muslims of the danger posed by the usurper Israel which today has intensified its savage attacks against the Palestinian brothers and sisters, and which, in the south of Lebanon in particular, is continually bombing Palestinian homes in the hope of crushing the Palestinian struggle. I ask all the Muslims of the world and the Muslim governments to join together to sever the hand of this usurper and its supporters. I call on all the Muslims of the world to select as Quds Day the last Friday in the holy month of Ramadan - which is itself a determining period and can also be the determiner of the Palestinian people’s fate - and through a ceremony demonstrating the solidarity of Muslims world-wide, announce their support for the legitimate rights of the Muslim people. I ask God Almighty for the victory of the Muslims over the infidels."
The faithful have followed Ayatollah Khomeini's call to "consecrate the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan."
Today, millions of the religious spilled out into the streets to participate in rallies to support Palestinians via the destruction of the "usurper and its supporters" (AKA Israel and the United States).
According to the Islamic Republic News Agency:On the occasion of the World Qods Day, the Iranian senior officials by participating in a rally condemned crimes of the Qods occupying regime and its supporters and supported the oppressed Palestinians.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here Friday condemned the atrocities of the Zionist regime against the oppressed Palestinian people and said, "Why don't you let the black box of the Zionist regime be decoded? He asked supporters of the Zionist regime while addressing ralliers in the World Qods Day rallies.
"If the Western leaders are not members of the Zionist party, they should allow an international fact finding group decode the black box," he added.
"Nations should be allowed to conduct research on crimes of the Zionist regime and decode the black box for its atrocities," Ahmadinejad continued.
"They violate sanctity of prophets and insult human dignity and democracy and say they have nothing to do with these acts.
"You have turned what you call Holocaust into a holy issue and do not let anybody raise any question about it."
Ahmadinejad stated, "Events took place in the World War II.
Later, they committed a historical genocide in Palestine. They ratified unlimited and holy rights for themselves and introduced all nations as criminals.
"They allowed themselves to commit whatever crimes under the pretext of the Holocaust. They even built secret prisons in Europe and attacked and imposed economic sanctions against a nation who did not officially recognize the Zionist regime."
"Today, Qods is not an issue only related to Palestine and the Middle East but a case of world of humanity," Ahmadinejad said.
He stated that creation of the Zionist regime, continuation of its existence, its performance and unlimited support for the regime (by the US) are an insult to human dignity.
...[Minister of Culture and the Islamic Guidance Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi] said, "Qods Day is a day of confrontation between the whole blasphemy against the whole Islam and a symbol of shouting of the world oppressed people against arrogant powers."
Well, those are inspiring words from Ahmadinejad. It boggles my mind that the end of the "holy" month of Ramadan is devoted to rallies calling for the annihilation of Israel.
How holy!
What a message!
Love and Peace!Is this what Islam is really about?TEHRAN (AFP) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday launched a new tirade against Israel amid growing tensions with the West, vowing to work to abolish the Jewish state and questioning the scale of the Holocaust.
Ahmadinejad said Iran would strive to liberate "all of Palestine" from Israeli hands, in a speech to mark the Quds day, where Iran holds its annual mass protest marches in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Tens of thousands of Iranians turned out for the march in central Tehran, carrying anti-Zionist banners, chanting "Death to Israel" and burning Israeli and American flags.
"The Palestinian people are standing firm. The Iranian people and other peoples will not stop until all of Palestinian territory is liberated," Ahmadinejad told the faithful at Tehran University.
...Despite the heavily politicised nature of the Tehran demonstration, there was a festive mood with the numerous children present having their faces painted as cats and rabbits in entertainment laid-on by the municipality.
"I come every year because the Palestinians are helpless and they cannot defend themselves. I come here to here to attract the world's attention to their plight," said Somayeh Salim, 27.
She was carrying an Israeli flag in her rucksack: "I am going to burn it."
Some photos of the Muslim faithful:
An Iranian demonstrator prays in front of an anti-Israel banner during Friday prayers, after a demonstration to mark Jerusalem Day in Tehran October 5, 2007. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl (IRAN)
Palestinian supporters of Islamic Jihad burn representations of the American flag, as they march during rally marking Jerusalem Day in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, Friday, Oct. 5, 2007.(AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
Lebanese women wave Hezbollah and Palestinian flags as they gather at the Fatima Gate border fence with Israel to stage a demonstration for 'Al-Quds Day', Jerusalem day, in the southern town of Kfar Kila, Lebanon Friday, Oct. 5, 2007. Last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan is observed in many Muslim countries as 'Al-Quds Day,' as a way of expressing support to the Palestinians and emphasizing the importance of Jerusalem to Muslims. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari) 
Pakistani women stage a demonstration for 'Al-Quds Day' (Jerusalem Day), in Karachi, Pakistan on Friday, Oct. 5, 2007. (AP Photo/Jamal Ahmed)
Protesters shout slogans to mark the International Al-Quds Day during a demonstration in front of Fatih Mosque in Istanbul October 5, 2007. The banner reads "Intifada in Palestine, struggle in Iraq will win". REUTERS/Fatih Saribas (TURKEY)
Protesters attend a demonstration in front of Fatih Mosque in Istanbul, October 5, 2007, to mark the annual Al-Quds Day. The banner reads "Killer Israel get out of Palestine. Jerusalem has been under Zionist invasion for 40 years." REUTERS/Osman Orsal (TURKEY)
Palestinians children take part in a rally to mark the Jerusalem Day at the Yarmuok refugee camp near Damascus October 5, 2007. REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri (SYRIA)
Afghan students at Kabul University burn an effigy of U.S. President George W. Bush, as they shout anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans during an anti-Israel demonstration to mark the Jerusalem Day in Kabul, Afghanistan on Friday, Oct. 5, 2007. Hundreds students show their support to Palestinian people. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)
Afghans carry effigies of the U.S. President Geroge Bush (L) and Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during an anti-Israel rally to mark Jerusalem Day in Kabul October 5, 2007. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood (AFGHANISTAN)How are we to deal with this sort of extremism?
FIRST, there should be unconditional denouncement of Ahmadinejad's remarks. No wishy-washy, Dr. Phil-type analysis. None of that "Let's understand what makes them hate Israel and the U.S." stuff.
Ahmadinejad is a thug. Those buying into his philosophy are thugs. There should be zero-tolerance for Ahmadinejad's comments.
ZERO.
SECOND, any world leader or group who sympathizes with Ahmadinejad is as dangerous as he is. Any world leader or group who cozies up with terrorists in the name of helping the Palestinian people is a disgrace. Jimmy Carter comes to mind.
The civilized world cannot look the other way while the ideology of hate and war that Ahmadinejad and like-minded thugs promote gains momentum.
They are evil. There should be no hesitation to designate them as such.
THIRD, absolutely no nukes can be allowed to get in the hands of unstable warmongers like Ahmadinejad.
