Iranians For Obama

Well, is anyone surprised?

“I think people want him to win,” Shi’ite cleric Mehdi Karroubi, the reformist former parliament speaker defeated by Ahmadinejad in Iran’s 2005 presidential contest, told TIME.

It’s not only the policy expectations that account for Obama’s popularity: his Third World ethnic background and the Muslim faith of his father’s Kenyan family — even his middle name, Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and a revered figure in the Shi’ite Islam practiced in Iran — offer points of affinity that some analysts believe could give Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the political cover to make a gesture of reconciliation to the country long decried in Tehran as “the Great Satan.”

They are divided on Hillary:

… largely basing their views on the record in the Middle East of her husband, who Iranians expect would effectively be her senior foreign policy adviser. Mohammed Atrianfar, an adviser to former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, argues that Bill Clinton has a “peace-seeking image” among Iranians. Then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, now a Hillary adviser, publicly accepted American responsibility for involvement in the 1953 coup in Iran and subsequent support for the repressive regime of the Shah. Iranian diplomats complain, however, that Clinton also imposed economic sanctions on Iran.

Yeah, I wonder if they’ve heard Hillary’s “I’ll obliterate them” comment, yet.

McCain makes them nervous:

…many consider McCain a hawk and fear his experiences as an American POW in the Vietnam War may hardwire him for hostility towards revolutionary governments. All Iranians seem aware of McCain’s “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” Beach Boys imitation, and many take it as an indication of his inclinations.

The choice for Iranian officials is clear:

But it’s Obama’s declared willingness to engage in “aggressive personal diplomacy” with the Iranian leadership that has generated the most interest among senior officials in Tehran, since this would mark a sea-change in Washington’s approach. “Obama is a man of engagement, a man of negotiations,” one Iranian official told TIME. Amir Mohebbian, an analyst close to Iranian conservative politicians, argues that “the mentality of Iranian decision makers is ready for that.” He adds: “I think that the coming of Obama — maybe, maybe — helps to solve this problem, but it needs bravery, from both sides.”

I’m sure they’re chomping at the bit.

State Department Forbids Use Of Words, ‘Jihad’ And ‘Jihadist’

Oh brother.

Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch reports:

A reliable source has informed me that Condoleeza Rice has approved a new lexicon for State Department usage, absolutely forbidding the use of the terms “jihad” and “jihadist” by any State Department official.

The argument, of course, is the old Streusand/Guirard claim that by using the word jihad, we’re validating the jihadist claim to be waging jihad. Of course, it’s ridiculous to think that the U.S. State Department carries any validating authority within the Islamic world to determine what is Islam and what isn’t. This would be the first time that unbelievers have set the meaning of Islamic theology for Muslims.

Also, the claim is that by using the word “jihad,” we are insulting the peaceful Muslims who are waging the daily jihad of the struggle against sin…

Again with the argument that by using a word that implicates some of the more violent Muslims, we are insulting them all.

Just yesterday I was congratulating John McCain for refusing to cow under pressure from the ISNA to stop using the word ‘Islamic’ when describing Islamic terrorists:

Mr. Fareed, who is ISNA’s secretary-general, said such usages are wrong.

“I think this is just criminality, fair and square. We should just call them criminals. You want to call them terrorist criminals, fine,” he said. “But adding the word ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamic’ certainly doesn’t help our cause as Americans. It’s counterproductive. It paints an entire community of believers, 1.2 billion in total, in a very negative way. And certainly that’s not something that we want to do.”

Michael Ledeen countered with the obvious, clear thinking rebuttal to this type of PC tripe:

“It doesn’t group the enemy under the Islamic brush stroke because there are plenty of terrorists and extremists who are not Islamic. So it’s just a way of specifying who they are.”

Of ISNA’s criticism, Mr. Ledeen said, “They’re just silly. What a silly thing to say. I talk of Marxist extremists and nationalist extremists. They just don’t want people to say there are Islamic terrorists, which there are. Too bad.”

Sadly, bureaucrats at the State Department aren’t capable of such clear thinking.

It’s true that the word, Jihad has more than one meaning, violent Jihad being just one, but the primary one. Muslihoon who wrote a series of posts about the meaning of the word ‘Jihad’, back in February put it this way:

… there are technically a number of types of jihad. However, in general and across Muslim peoples, jihad by force (“jihad bi-s-sayf”, “jihad by the sword”) is the type that is assumed by default.

By not allowing officials to use the word, ‘jihad’, the State Department is like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. Everybody knows what it means, but they’re going to deny it and hope it goes away.

Hat tip: Weasel Zippers

UPDATE:

The inimitable Nick has a different take on this:

While I am generally appalled at political correctness or anything resembling it, this could be viewed in a different light. I can see how the term “Jihadist” could be viewed by a terrorist in a positive and emboldening light. Also, against political correctness doctrine she didn’t mandate an alternative term to replace teh forbidden words as is customary in enlightened circles, leaving the budding state department snob to use their own imagination to replace it.

UPDATE (May 1st):

Robert Spencer addresses this issue in a Jihad Watch video:

Andrew McCarthy On Islam

He appeared on Hannity and Colmes to promote his book, Willful Blindness, which I need to read because it deals with some important questions that most people are too shy to ask, like this one from Hannity: “What percentage of people (practitioners of Islam) buy into the radical views?”

Notice how indignant Colmes gets at McCartnety’s answer to Hannity’s question. Notice the strawman that pops up (”So everyone who’s a practicing Muslim wants to kill us?)”. And note the extreme condescension in Colmes’s voice as he patiently informs McCartney that there are millions and millions of Muslims living in the United States, (as if that’s some kind of revelation).

Colmes can’t match the faux outrage theatrics of fellow libtard, Keith Olbermann, but he manages to be just as annoying in my book.

Hat tip: Hyscience

RELATED:

Mosquewatch has come up with 7 questions to ask of Muslims who profess to oppose terrorism. An answer of yes to any of these questions puts the lie to their claims of moderation.

Via: Infidels Are Cool

ISNA: Not Supporting McCain

Well, that’s just a hunch.

The Islamic Society of North America, (recently named an “Unindicted Co-conspirator” for a the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas) is in a snit over McCain’s use of the word, “Islamic” when describing Islamic terrorists.

I don’t get it. Do they prefer “islamofascist”?

The Washington Times reports:

A coalition of American Muslim groups is demanding that Sen. John McCain stop using the adjective “Islamic” to describe terrorists and extremist enemies of the United States.

Muneer Fareed, who heads the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), told The Washington Times that his group is beginning a campaign to persuade Mr. McCain to rephrase his descriptions of the enemy.

“We’ve tried to contact his office, contact his spokesperson to have them rethink word usage that is more acceptable to the Muslim community,” Mr. Fareed said. “If it’s not our intent to paint everyone with the same brush, then certainly we should think seriously about just characterizing them as criminals, because that is what they are.”

So….every time there’s a terrorist act in the name of Islam, we’re supposed to just say, “Criminals did it?”

Excuse my French, but are they shitting me?

An aide to Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who is counting on his pro-Iraq war stance to attract conservative voters, said the senator from Arizona will not drop the word.

Thank you, Maverick.

The two remaining Democrats in the presidential field, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, generally shun such word usage.

No surprise there; what do you expect from Dhimmicrats?

I honestly don’t understand the line of thinking, here:

Mr. Fareed, who is ISNA’s secretary-general, said such usages are wrong.

“I think this is just criminality, fair and square. We should just call them criminals. You want to call them terrorist criminals, fine,” he said. “But adding the word ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamic’ certainly doesn’t help our cause as Americans. It’s counterproductive. It paints an entire community of believers, 1.2 billion in total, in a very negative way. And certainly that’s not something that we want to do.”

Well, I’m sorry, the truth hurts. How about reforming your religion so it stops inspiring so many of its adherents into killing infidels. That would do more to improve people’s perception of Islam, then these campaigns of intimidation designed to chill free speech.

Steven Emerson, who directs the Investigative Project on Terrorism, recently wrote that the silence of ISNA and other Muslim groups after Hamas killed eight Israeli students “shows their unwillingness to condemn the terrorist act and its glorification.”

Michael Ledeen, a terrorism analyst at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, backed Mr. McCain’s definition of the enemy. “Islamic terrorism is purely descriptive,” he said. “It doesn’t group the enemy under the Islamic brush stroke because there are plenty of terrorists and extremists who are not Islamic. So it’s just a way of specifying who they are.”

Of ISNA’s criticism, Mr. Ledeen said, “They’re just silly. What a silly thing to say. I talk of Marxist extremists and nationalist extremists. They just don’t want people to say there are Islamic terrorists, which there are. Too bad.”

Some info on the ISNA from Discover The Networks:

According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, ISNA “is a radical group hiding under a false veneer of moderation”; “convenes annual conferences where Islamist militants have been given a platform to incite violence and promote hatred” (for instance, al Qaeda supporter and PLO official Yusuf Al-Qaradhawi was invited to speak at an ISNA conference); has held fundraisers for terrorists (after Hamas leader Mousa Marzook was arrested and eventually deported in 1997, ISNA raised money for his defense); has condemned the U.S. government’s post-9/11 seizure of Hamas’ and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s financial assets; and publishes a bi-monthly magazine, Islamic Horizons, that “often champions militant Islamist doctrine.”

Sooo, if the ISNA isn’t supporting McCain, I wonder who they do support?

Hint.

Hat tip: The Astute Bloggers

Coptic Priest Causes Islamic Clerics Heartburn…

When he’s not converting them to Christianity:

Meet Father Zakaria Botros, Islam’s public enemy #1:

Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East.

Botros is an unusual figure onscreen: robed, with a huge cross around his neck, he sits with both the Koran and the Bible in easy reach. Egypt’s Copts — members of one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East — have in many respects come to personify the demeaning Islamic institution of “dhimmitude” (which demands submissiveness from non-Muslims, in accordance with Koran 9:29). But the fiery Botros does not submit, and minces no words. He has famously made of Islam “ten demands,” whose radical nature he uses to highlight Islam’s own radical demands on non-Muslims.

The result? Mass conversions to Christianity — if clandestine ones. The very public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam — who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday — is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them persuaded by Botros’s public ministry.

His M.O.? He broadcasts in Arabic, (enabling him to reach a broad audience through the new media). Muslims can ask questions about Islam without fear of reprisal, unprecedented in the Islamic world. And he uses a technique that has proven irrefutable:

Each of his episodes has a theme — from the pressing to the esoteric — often expressed as a question (e.g., “Is jihad an obligation for all Muslims?”; “Are women inferior to men in Islam?”; “Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?” “Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?”). To answer the question, Botros meticulously quotes — always careful to give sources and reference numbers — from authoritative Islamic texts on the subject, starting from the Koran; then from the canonical sayings of the prophet — the Hadith; and finally from the words of prominent Muslim theologians past and present — the illustrious ulema.

Botros treats the question as open, and invites the ulema, (the revered articulators of sharia law) to respond.

More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence — which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers. The ulema who have publicly addressed Botros’s conclusions often find themselves forced to agree with him — which has led to some amusing (and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV.

Read the entire article for examples of some of these moments.

Incapable of rebutting Botros, the only strategy left to the ulema (aside from a rumored $5-million bounty on his head) is to ignore him. When his name is brought up, they dismiss him as a troublemaking liar who is backed by — who else? — international “Jewry.” They could easily refute his points, they insist, but will not deign to do so. That strategy may satisfy some Muslims, but others are demanding straightforward responses from the ulema.

Here’s a video I found on Youtube, no doubt made by some frustrated Jihadi jerkweed:

Just pitiful…….as DPUD would say… FAIL!

Kudos to this mighty Christian warrior. God speed Father Botros.

Hat tip: The Jawa Report

Another Questionable Connection For Obama

They’re starting to pile up.

Aaron Klein, the Middle East correspondent for WND, and author of the book, Smoozing With Terrorists, has the scoop:

The board of a nonprofit organization on which Sen. Barack Obama served as a paid director alongside a confessed domestic terrorist, granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a “catastrophe” and supports intense immigration reform, including providing drivers licenses and education to illegal aliens.

The co-founder of the Arab group in question, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, also has held a fundraiser for Obama. Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel, has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group.

In 2001, the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, for which Khalidi’s wife, Mona, serves as president. The Fund provided a second grant to the AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.

Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund’s website. According to tax filings, Obama received compensation of $6,000 per year for his service in 1999 and 2001.

Obama served on the Wood’s Fund board alongside William C. Ayers, a member of the Weathermen terrorist group which sought to overthrow of the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971.

Discover the Networks sums up Khalidi, thus:

• Controversial professor of Middle East Studies at Columbia University
• Holds violently anti-Israel views
• Former PLO operative
• Has justified as legitimate Palestinian “resistance” that results in death of armed Israelis
• Contends that “American Likudniks” control American foreign policy while posturing as a moderate
• Rejects the possibility of a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Much more on Khalidi at the Discover the Networks site.
Aaron Klein goes on:

AAAN co-founder Rashid Khalidi was reportedly a director of the official PLO press agency WAFA in Beirut from 1976 to 1982, while the PLO committed scores of anti-Western attacks and was labeled by the U.S. as a terror group. Khalidi’s wife, AAAN President Mona Khalidi, was reportedly WAFA’s English translator during that period.

Rashid Khalidi at times has denied working directly for the PLO but Palestinian diplomatic sources in Ramallah told WND he indeed directed WAFA. Khalidi also advised the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Conference in 1991.

In case you were thinking that the Woods Fund donation to WAFA was just a one-time, incidental, run in with Obama, think again:

According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the Democratic presidential hopeful first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003 while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.

Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama’s failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi.

Not surprisingly, Khalidi supports Obama for President.

UPDATE: 

Obama raised funds for the Palestinian Deheisha camp, described as a ‘Very active’ terror apparatus.

Louis Farrakhan: Obama Is “The Hope Of The Entire World”

I wonder if Farrakhan’s “space brothers” have been communicating with him again:

In his first major public address since a cancer crisis, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said Sunday that presidential candidate Barack Obama is the “hope of the entire world” that the U.S. will change for the better.

The 74-year-old Farrakhan, addressing an estimated crowd of 20,000 people at the annual Saviours’ Day celebration, never outrightly endorsed Obama but spent most of the nearly two-hour speech praising the Illinois senator.

“This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better,” he said. “This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. (What? No white???) If you look at Barack Obama’s audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed.”

No, I believe the word is fooled.

Farrakhan compared Obama to the religion’s founder, Fard Muhammad, who also had a white mother and black father.

“A black man with a white mother became a savior to us,” he told the crowd of mostly followers. “A black man with a white mother could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall.”

A…..Messiah, perhaps?

Gateway Pundit said it best:

It’s now an official mutual admiration party: Obama loves his minister- His minister loves Farrakhan- Farrakhan loves Obama.

A Circle of Hope!

Farrakhan also leveled small jabs at Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama’s rival for the Democratic nomination, suggesting that she represents the politics of the past and has been engaging in dirty politics.

************

Finally, an endorsement she’s not going to get, that she doesn’t actually want.

Seriously though….is the McCain campaign taking notes? This needs to come back and haunt him as does so many other things.

Study Shows 3 Out Of 4 U.S. Mosques Hotbeds Of Anti-West Extremism

This is alarming:

The Mapping Sharia in America Project, sponsored by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, has trained former counterintelligence and counterterrorism agents from the FBI, CIA and U.S. military, who are skilled in Arabic and Urdu, to conduct undercover reconnaissance at some 2,300 mosques and Islamic centers and schools across the country.

“So far of 100 mapped, 75 should be on a watchlist,” an official familiar with the project said.

Many of the Islamic centers are operating under the auspices of the Saudi Arabian government and U.S. front groups for the radical Muslim Brotherhood based in Egypt.

Frank Gaffney, a former Pentagon official who runs the Center for Security Policy, says the results of the survey have not yet been published. But he confirmed that “the vast majority” are inciting insurrection and jihad through sermons by Saudi-trained imams and anti-Western literature, videos and textbooks.

So far 102 Mosques and schools have been looked at. Preliminary findings include:

• Ultra-orthodox worship in which women are separated from men in the prayer hall and must enter the mosque from a separate, usually back, entrance; and are required to wear hijabs.

• Sermons that preach women are inferior to men and can be beaten for disobedience; that non-Muslims, particularly Jews, are infidels and inferior to Muslims; that jihad or support of jihad is not only a Muslim’s duty but the noblest way, and suicide bombers and other so-called “martyrs” are worthy of the highest praise; and that an Islamic caliphate should one day encompass the U.S.

• Solicitation of financial support for jihad.

• Bookstores that sell books, CDs and DVDs promoting jihad and glorifying martyrdom.

Of course, Mapping Sharia In America isn’t alone in its concern. Congressman Peter King (R. NY), puts the number of extremist mosques at 85%.

Here he is on The Neil Caputo Show last year, making his case:

Related:

A recent video posted at Mosquewatch.

Islamic Prayer Tower Erected In South St. Louis

And damn, is it ugly!

Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit was skeptical when he first heard about it on the blog, Republican Riot. So he went down there to take a look at it, himself. And yep…it was right where it was supposed to be in front of the Islamic Community Center, and from it’s loudspeakers the Islamic calls to prayer will be broadcast up to five times a day.
A naive commenter at Gateway pundit said, “Ok, I really don’t like this either but how is this different from a church steeple and the chiming of bells?
TwentyThousandTons (not PJ Momma) had this to say:

I see you have no experience with these “prayer towers”. Having spent quite a bit of time in the middle east, I know what these things sound like. And comparing them to church bells is just laughable. I could hear the damn thing IN my apartment shouting out the call to prayer several time a days, clear as anything. These things are LOUD. And the call is repetitive and never seems to end. It definitely got old, real real fast.

So what, you hear church bells once a week maybe, on Sunday? Get ready for up to FIVE TIMES A DAY, repeated over and over each time.

This is in a neighborhood where many Muslim Bosnians have relocated. Any non Muslims left in that area will probably be relocating in short order.

UPDATE:

As practically everyone in the right-wing blogosphere has seen by now, CAIR has put out a press release (sort of)* naming Little Green Footballs as a “Hate site”, and has asked the FBI To Investigate:

Hate Site Comments Suggest Violence Against Missouri Mosque.

The four comments in question (out of thousands) were in response to the LGF post about the St. Louis prayer tower, or minaret, and they’ve already been deleted.

Pat Dollard had some choice words for CAIR about the whole affair…(language warning)!

*… this CAIR press release is not a news story from the wires, although it’s not obvious at Yahoo News—it shows up in a news search for ‘CAIR’, for example. But it’s not from a news wire—it’s from a company called PRNewsWire, a very expensive paid press release service with wide distribution. That’s why CAIR always uses it for their smear jobs—and their Saudi funding pays for a lot of smear.

UPDATE 2:

Jim Hoft reports that the Imam says that there will be no loudspeakers on the minaret at this time.

UPDATE 3: 

No, wait…. a commenter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

 The city should never have issued a permit for a broadcast tower that wasn’t to be broadcasting. The notion is absurd, they will be broadcasting. And according to city officials at my last neighborhood meeting, the story has changed, they will be using the tower to call to prayer “on special occasions”. I asked if that’s weekly or what, they said it’s up to them. It’s not very nice for a religious organization to come into neighborhood and deceiving the community on their intentions. If it does become daily I’m sure it will get old quickly with the non Muslim community.

UPDATE 4: 

Great behind the scenes intrigue between LGF’s Charles Johnson, and (personal friend of CAIR rep. Khaled Hamid), Tim Townsend, the reporter for the Post-Dispatch who wrote the smear story about the blogs writing about the prayer tower.

Muslim Inbreeding Causing Uptick In UK Birth Defects

Environment Minister Phil Woolas brought up the sensitive issue, hoping increase “awareness” among the Pakistani community:

According to today’s Sunday Times, the minister, who represents Oldham East and Saddleworth said: “If you talk to any primary care worker they will tell you that levels of disability among the . . . Pakistani population are higher than the general population. And everybody knows it’s caused by first cousin marriage.

In fact, research has shown that British Pakistanis accounted for 3.4 per cent of all births but have 30 per cent of all British children with recessive disorders.

Chief Whip Geoff Hoon backed him up….carefully choosing his words…

“It is important that we look at that in terms of scientific expertise and the extent to which it is actually causing problems.

“But it obviously is a very sensitive matter and no one, no one, would suggest this is a problem for the wider Muslim community.

“I am confident that what he has said will have been said with sensitivity and with proper regard to his Muslim constituents and Muslims right across the United Kingdom.”

“If you are supportive of the Asian community then you have a duty to raise this issue.

“Awareness does need to be raised but we are very aware of the sensitivities,” he added.

Hopefully he said “sensitive” enough to not have a fatwa issued against him.

See The Jawa Report for the obligatory, insensitive photoshops.

More insensitivity at Pat Dollard.

Tsk!

The ultimate in insensitivity:

Ex-Terrorist Speaking At U.S. Air Force Academy threatened by Muslim Student

Three former terrorists,  Walid Shoebat,  Kamal Saleem and Zak Anani addressed cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy,  during their annual political forum. These three men have dedicated their lives to speaking out against terrorism, and explaining the terrorist mindset:

             
 During the event a Jordanian college student, identified as Omar Khalifa of Metro International, approached Kamal Saleem and spoke to him in Arabic, “you are an enemy of Islam and you must die.” The incident was reported to Military Police, who  investigated Khalifa’s  threat.
 
“The men receive threats of this nature all of time and we take each one very seriously,” said Keith Davies, Executive Director of the Shoebat Foundation. “That is why each of the men live in seclusion.”
 
Numerous media outlets (New York Times, the Associated Press, The Colorado Springs Gazette, the Rocky Mountain News) did not report on the former terrorists’ message, but instead focused on the [inaccurate] media statements distributed by CAIR (Council for American Islamic Relations), in an all-out campaign to discredit the speakers credentials and background. 
 
“We have all been told that Islam has been hijacked by extremists,” said Walid Shoebat. “Yet CAIR, who professes to be ‘Moderate Muslims’ are the Three Ex Terrorists biggest critics, and pull out all stops to try and keep out voices from being heard.  I beg to ask the question; if CAIR is indeed moderate as they claim, then WHY are they not supporting our campaign against ‘extremists? If they are sincerely against the Fundamentalist Muslim agenda why do they oppose us?”
 
According to the Air Force Academy’s public affairs office CAIR spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper, contacted them numerous times criticizing the scheduling of the three men, and requesting an opportunity to have a CAIR representative share with cadets information about the Islamic faith.  The Academy informed Hooper that the event was not about religion, but about terrorism, and he denied CAIR’s request.

 Liberals use sneer quotes around the term “ex-terrorist” when referring to these three. No true blue terrorist worth his salt would ever consider converting to Christianity. Frankly, they would like them better if they hadn’t converted.  So the men are constantly having to defend their “terrorist creds”.
 

 Read Shoebat’s Op-Ed response to claims made by journalists and reporters , here .

UPDATE:

In case you’re wondering about Kahlifa’s outfit, Metro International, Geoff checked it out:

Here’s their mission statement:

Metro International creates global citizens and inspires a peaceful world through one-of-a-kind programs in classrooms and communities.

. And here’s their take on the meeting (written beforehand):

As Tracy Snyder, Executive Director of Metro International points out, “Metro International’s delegation plays a special role in this Assembly by adding a critical international perspective to the student deliberations and discussions. Metro delegates enrich the conference with their various national and cultural perspectives, as well as their academic experience.”

And they’re sponsored by the State Department!!

About Jihad

Muslihoon has written an extensive essay on Jihad which he has divided into 10 sections, (smart thinking Muslihoon…for those of us who suffer from ADD).

The first installment, dealing with the varying definitions of Jihad, was posted today.

Muslihoon, as many of you know, was raised in both Pakistan, and the U.S., and is a convert to Christianity.

If this is a subject that interests you, keep checking his site for the next 10 days for each installment.