Yet, those in power are either clueless or indifferent.
Though credit must be given to those Western leaders who have taken action against jihadists, these same leaders also must bear much blame for failing to identify and formulate a prudent strategy to combat that which fuels their fire: the word of Allah and the example of his false prophet.
It is not only our governmental leaders failing the People. Those in Academia and the Media who should know better--or who do know better but cravenly remain silent while the West suffocates under the mass of Muslims who by the bomb, the barb, or the ballot work to establish the Tyranny of Allah over all Mankind--are also to blame.
It is left to a few brave souls to expose the utterly disgusting barbarity of the Religion of Peace. (To Islam "peace" means the agreement that comes when all who dissent are either converted, barbarously subdued and humiliated, enslaved, or butchered.)
One of those on whom future generations will look as a hero, someone willing to risk life and limb to the dogs of Allah is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Her recent public appearance on Bill Maher's program found her correcting Representative Darrell Issa's promotion of the myth of Islamic tolerance.
Unsurprisingly, a propagandist at Newsweek has seen fit to attack her for telling the truth about the Religion of Which We Do Not Speak. That liar is Lorraine Ali.
In "Only One Side of the Story" (that's ironic and begs the question: What other side is there to "...kill the unbelievers wherever you find them"?), L. Ali writes in part:
...Hirsi Ali's exceptionally harsh life story—told in her new memoir, "Infidel"—would elicit empathy from the coldest of hearts. But that's not the book's only purpose. Hirsi Ali, a 38-year-old Dutch citizen and women's rights advocate who now lives in Washington, D.C., is one of Europe's most infamous critics of Islam. She renounced her Muslim faith after the 9/11 attacks, decried what she regarded as the religion's brutality in lectures and interviews, and rode a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment all the way into the Dutch Parliament, where she gained a seat.Why "infamous"? It is clear on which side of the truth Lorraine Ali falls.
"She regarded"? What part of the command to "...fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war);..." (Qur’an 9:5). is not brutal?
There's clearly an audience for Hirsi Ali in America too...Perhaps the American people are waking up to the fact that the source and sustenance of Islamic terrorism and the efforts to establish Shari'a is Islam itself. Perhaps the American people are not as dumb as Lorraine Ali hopes.
But Hirsi Ali's memoir is as much about her political agenda as it is her life, and in between tales of her youth she wedges harsh and uncompromising declarations: "True Islam," she writes at one point, "leads to cruelty." ...throughout the book, you can't help but feel manipulated, rather than moved. In describing the 9/11 hijackers, she comes up with an inflammatory conclusion tailor-made for her right-wing constituency: "It was not a lunatic fringe who felt this way about America and the West. I knew that a vast majority of Muslims would see the attacks as justified retaliation against the infidel enemies of Islam."Of course, "political agenda" means Hirsi Ali is lying. And everyone knows that the "right-wing" is intolerant, hateful, and Islamophobic.
Is Hirsi Ali's statement true or not? Did Muslims celebrate the fall of the Towers or not? Is Osama bin Laden a hero among Muslims or not? Do not Muslims destroy and kill (even nuns) over cartoons, historical evaluations made by emperors whose kingdoms were under siege by Islam, and factual statements from Islam's own authoritative texts about the Pedophile Prophet when those declarations come from non-Muslims without the proper deference?
It appears that Lorraine cannot assail the truth of Hirsi Ali's pronouncements, so she must impugn her character and the character of those who are at least interested in what she has to say (the last time I checked, Bill Maher was not part of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy/Constituency, and even he gets it!).
If nothing else, we know that Newsweek hires those skilled in ad hominem attacks.
Other Muslim women interested in reform aren't exactly in step with Hirsi Ali. "I wish people had been nicer to her," says Muslim author and feminist Asra Nomani. "But I don't blame Islam. I blame really messed-up people who've used religion to justify their misogyny."That would be Mohammed, Islam's founder, since the "misogyny" noted is in accord with the revelations he received from Allah.
As staunchly patriarchal strains of Wahhabi Islam infiltrate Muslim cultures outside the gulf region, many modern female followers are wondering how to embrace their religion without succumbing to its more sexist demands.Wahhabi Islam is just a more faithful, traditional version of what is often passed off as Islam in the West (and many other lands), where those who self-identify as "Muslim" are either unaware of, uninterested in, or hiding what their god and prophet demand.
And isn't this an admission that it is not just a few "messed-up people"?
And they're coming up with answers that don't require them to abandon either their religion or their culture. In the Middle East and South Asia, a strong majority of Muslim women recently polled by Gallup believed they should have the right to work outside the home and serve in the highest levels of government. Here in the United States, dozens of scholars like Ithaca College's Asma Barlas, Harvard's Leila Ahmed and Notre Dame's Asma Afsaruddin have challenged widely accepted interpretations of the Qur'an. "They are Islam's Martina Luthers," jokes Nomani. "They are my heroes."Here again is an admission that Hirsi Ali is correct: these "reformers" are not appealing to Qur'an, Sira, and Hadith for a less violent, less tyrannical faith, they are perverting and misinterpreting the word of Allah and the words and deeds of his apostle in an attempt to change traditional, historic Islam.
And is this not acknowledgement that violent, fascist, totalitarian understandings of Islam are widely accepted? So much for that vaunted "tiny minority of extremists" and their equally mythical counterparts the "vast majority of moderate Muslims" to whom President Bush, Secretary Rice, Hugh Hewitt, et al so quickly, eagerly, and uncritically appeal!
It is also worth noting here an error/lie common among many commentators: to compare those who want to remake Islam in the image of a pluralistic, human rights respecting, tolerant West (which traditions are a natural result of the Christian religion) with someone like Martin Luther is a grave error. Martin Luther strove to move Christianity toward obedience to the word of Christ, while these "Martina Luthers" seek to move Islam away from the doctrine of Mahomet.
But that sort of error is all you can expect with the mushy thinking (moral equivalence) that often passes for Reason nowadays.
Hirsi Ali is more a hero among Islamophobes than Islamic women. That's problematic considering she describes herself in "Infidel" as a woman who "fights for the rights of Muslim women, the enlightenment of Islam and the security of the West." How can you change the lives of your former sisters, and work toward reform, when you've forged a career upon renouncing the religion and insulting its followers?Here again is a lie common among Islam's apologists, whether they are devout Muslims or Useful Infidel Idiots--telling the truth about what Islam's god and founder said and did is not "insult" nor is it "phobia," it is...telling the truth about what Allah and Mohammed demand.
If their religion is so grand, so peaceful, so enlightened, so divine, why is it that Muslims are so terrified at the truth being told to Infidels? Is it that their God-given conscience is making their espousal of Mohammed's murderous, genocidal, hate ideology uncomfortable for them? Or is that they don't want us to wake up to the existential threat posed to us by their faith since so much of the West is not only completely unaware of the true nature of Islam, those who dare to tell the truth about it are punished?
Hirsi Ali says overhauling Islam is not her responsibility: she just lays out "the facts" and leaves it to others to go about fixing this supposedly broken faith.And it is the clear, calm laying out of those facts that so disquiets L. Ali and her ilk.
But her facts are often subjective: at one point she characterizes "every devout Muslim who aspires to practice genuine Islam" as a follower of the Muslim Brotherhood. That may have been true in Hirsi Ali's experience, but it hardly speaks for the globe's 1.3 billion other followers.One thing facts can never be is subjective.
If a person swears fealty to the god of Mahomet, to what do they promise their love, faithfulness, and service? Among other things, they promise to do as their prophet did. And what did he say?
...Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war...When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action.... Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them...If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them...'" (Muslim Book 019, Number 4294).So, there may be moderate (Apostate) Muslims, but every devout Muslim promises to aid this ideology. Every devout Muslim adores a god and founder who require the fighting against, subduing and humiliating, and killing of non-Muslims to make the world Islam.
It's ironic that this would-be "infidel" often sounds as single-minded and reactionary as the zealots she's worked so hard to oppose.
Commitment to truth in the face of the tireless bloodlust of Allah requires single-mindedness. And the atrocities committed at the behest of Allah and his heretical prophet require resistance (unless you're Muslim, then you must approve).
To equate someone who tells the truth about Islam's authoritative texts and historical practice with those who actually butcher, rape, and enslave for Allah is the nadir of deceit.