Hello Friends,

Here's an interesting article that shows the ineptitude and desire of B Hussein's lackeys to mislead and misinform the American public about Islam and its "teachings". The author Raymond Ibrahim is kind to the subject of his article John Brennan but I believe that it's because of Brennan's ideology that B Hussein has him around; like all the other members of his goon squad.

It's a good read and very informative full of FACTS and not propaganda.

Shalom,

Peter

"The greatest hurdle Americans need to get over in order to properly respond to the growing threat of radical Islam is purely intellectual in nature; specifically, it is epistemological, and revolves around the abstract realm of 'knowledge.' Before attempting to formulate a long-term strategy to counter radical Islam, Americans must first and foremost understand Islam, particularly its laws and doctrines, the same way Muslims understand it—without giving it undue Western (liberal) interpretations. This is apparently not as simple as expected: all peoples of whatever civilizations and religions tend to assume that other peoples more or less share in their worldview, which they assume is objective, including notions of right and wrong, good and bad. …. [T]he secular, Western experience has been such that people respond with violence primarily when they feel they are politically, economically, or socially oppressed. While true that many non-Western peoples may fit into this paradigm, the fact is, the ideologies of radical Islam have the intrinsic capacity to prompt Muslims to violence and intolerance vis-à-vis the 'other,' irrespective of grievances…. Being able to understand all this, being able to appreciate it without any conceptual or intellectual constraints is paramount for Americans to truly understand the nature of the enemy and his ultimate goals."

Such were the words that opened my testimony to Congress. One year later, none other than President Obama's top counter-terror adviser, John Brennan, has come to to personify the approach I warned against, that is, the misguided phenomenon of westernizing Islamic concepts.

A Fox New's report, titled "Counterterror Adviser Defends Jihad as 'Legitimate Tenet of Islam,'" has the details:

During a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, John Brennan described violent extremists as victims of "political, economic and social forces," but said that those plotting attacks on the United States should not be described in "religious terms."

In other words, despite the fact that Islamists describe all their goals in "religious terms," Brennan sees them—you know, people like Osama bin Laden who murdered 3,000 Americans—as naught more than victims of the system. And why is that? Because Brennan believes that "political, economic and social forces"—the three I specifically stressed in my excerpt above—are the only precipitators to violence. So jihadists can openly articulate their violent bloodlust through religious terms all they want, it matters not: Brennan and his ilk have their intellectual blinders shut tight and refuse to venture outside the box.

Next, our counter-terror adviser evokes the perverse logic behind the administration's recent decision to censor words offensive to Muslims (which I closely explored here):

Nor do we describe our enemy as "jihadists" or "Islamists" because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children.

Inasmuch as he is correct in the first clause of that sentence—"jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community"—he greatly errs in the latter clause, by projecting his own notions of what constitutes "holy," "legitimate," and "innocent" onto Islam. In Islam, such terms are often antithetical to the Judeo-Christian/Western understanding. Indeed, the institution of jihad, according to every authoritative Muslim book on Islamic jurisprudence, is nothing less than offensive warfare to spread Sharia law, a cause seen as both "legitimate" and "holy" in Islam. As for "innocence," by simply being a non-Muslim infidel, one is already guilty in Islam. Brennan understands the definition of jihad; he just has no clue of its application. So he is left fumbling about with a square peg that simply refuses to pass through a round hole.

Fox News continues:

Brennan defined the enemy as members of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and "its terrorist affiliates." But Brennan argued that it would be "counterproductive" for the United States to use the term, as it would "play into the false perception" that the "murderers" leading war against the West are doing so in the name of a "holy cause."

Fine, do define the enemy as members of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and "its terrorist affiliates," but do also define the cause that binds these "terrorist affiliates" together in the first place. Of course, one need only read their writings to know that they adhere to one and the same cause: the establishment of a hegemonic caliphate that governs the world according to Sharia. As for Brennan calling the terrorist affiliates "murderers," would he also be willing to apply that epithet to their prophet Muhammad, who was wont to send assassins to, well, murder his critics, including poets and one old woman whose body was dismembered by her Muslim assailants—assailants who were no less convinced that they were involved in a "holy cause" than were the 9/11 hijackers?

It should be further noted that this tendency to project one's own cultural norms and priorities onto others is the height of arrogance and ethnocentrism—precisely what liberals constantly warn against. Yet the irony is that "open-minded" proponents of cultural relativism are also the ones most prone to westernizing Islam. When Brennan insists that jihadists are really not motivated by religion but rather are products of "political, economic and social forces," is this total dismissal of the "other" and his peculiar motivations (in favor of Western paradigms) not arrogant?

In the end, Brennan is not all to blame. After all, though he and I were both born and raised in North Bergen, New Jersey, perhaps my dual Middle-East/Western background gives me the advantage to understand both the Islamicate and American mindsets equally. No, seems the greater blame lies with the president whose campaign denounced ignorance and arrogance as leading us astray—only to hire a counter-terror adviser who epitomizes both.

Quote:
Hello Friends,

Here's an interesting article that shows the ineptitude and desire of B Hussein's lackeys to mislead and misinform the American public about Islam and its "teachings". The author Raymond Ibrahim is kind to the subject of his article John Brennan but I believe that it's because of Brennan's ideology that B Hussein has him around; like all the other members of his goon squad.

It's a good read and very informative full of FACTS and not propaganda.

Shalom,

Peter

Obama's Top Counterterror Adviser's Inability to Think Outside the Box Bodes Disaster

by Raymond Ibrahim
Pajamas Media
May 29, 2010

http://www.raymondibrahim.com/7544/obamas-top-counterterror-advisers-inability-to

"The greatest hurdle Americans need to get over in order to properly respond to the growing threat of radical Islam is purely intellectual in nature; specifically, it is epistemological, and revolves around the abstract realm of 'knowledge.' Before attempting to formulate a long-term strategy to counter radical Islam, Americans must first and foremost understand Islam, particularly its laws and doctrines, the same way Muslims understand it—without giving it undue Western (liberal) interpretations. This is apparently not as simple as expected: all peoples of whatever civilizations and religions tend to assume that other peoples more or less share in their worldview, which they assume is objective, including notions of right and wrong, good and bad. …. [T]he secular, Western experience has been such that people respond with violence primarily when they feel they are politically, economically, or socially oppressed. While true that many non-Western peoples may fit into this paradigm, the fact is, the ideologies of radical Islam have the intrinsic capacity to prompt Muslims to violence and intolerance vis-à-vis the 'other,' irrespective of grievances…. Being able to understand all this, being able to appreciate it without any conceptual or intellectual constraints is paramount for Americans to truly understand the nature of the enemy and his ultimate goals."

Such were the words that opened my testimony to Congress. One year later, none other than President Obama's top counter-terror adviser, John Brennan, has come to to personify the approach I warned against, that is, the misguided phenomenon of westernizing Islamic concepts.

A Fox New's report, titled "Counterterror Adviser Defends Jihad as 'Legitimate Tenet of Islam,'" has the details:

During a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, John Brennan described violent extremists as victims of "political, economic and social forces," but said that those plotting attacks on the United States should not be described in "religious terms."

In other words, despite the fact that Islamists describe all their goals in "religious terms," Brennan sees them—you know, people like Osama bin Laden who murdered 3,000 Americans—as naught more than victims of the system. And why is that? Because Brennan believes that "political, economic and social forces"—the three I specifically stressed in my excerpt above—are the only precipitators to violence. So jihadists can openly articulate their violent bloodlust through religious terms all they want, it matters not: Brennan and his ilk have their intellectual blinders shut tight and refuse to venture outside the box.

Next, our counter-terror adviser evokes the perverse logic behind the administration's recent decision to censor words offensive to Muslims (which I closely explored here):

Nor do we describe our enemy as "jihadists" or "Islamists" because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children.

Inasmuch as he is correct in the first clause of that sentence—"jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community"—he greatly errs in the latter clause, by projecting his own notions of what constitutes "holy," "legitimate," and "innocent" onto Islam. In Islam, such terms are often antithetical to the Judeo-Christian/Western understanding. Indeed, the institution of jihad, according to every authoritative Muslim book on Islamic jurisprudence, is nothing less than offensive warfare to spread Sharia law, a cause seen as both "legitimate" and "holy" in Islam. As for "innocence," by simply being a non-Muslim infidel, one is already guilty in Islam. Brennan understands the definition of jihad; he just has no clue of its application. So he is left fumbling about with a square peg that simply refuses to pass through a round hole.

Fox News continues:

Brennan defined the enemy as members of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and "its terrorist affiliates." But Brennan argued that it would be "counterproductive" for the United States to use the term, as it would "play into the false perception" that the "murderers" leading war against the West are doing so in the name of a "holy cause."

Fine, do define the enemy as members of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and "its terrorist affiliates," but do also define the cause that binds these "terrorist affiliates" together in the first place. Of course, one need only read their writings to know that they adhere to one and the same cause: the establishment of a hegemonic caliphate that governs the world according to Sharia. As for Brennan calling the terrorist affiliates "murderers," would he also be willing to apply that epithet to their prophet Muhammad, who was wont to send assassins to, well, murder his critics, including poets and one old woman whose body was dismembered by her Muslim assailants—assailants who were no less convinced that they were involved in a "holy cause" than were the 9/11 hijackers?

It should be further noted that this tendency to project one's own cultural norms and priorities onto others is the height of arrogance and ethnocentrism—precisely what liberals constantly warn against. Yet the irony is that "open-minded" proponents of cultural relativism are also the ones most prone to westernizing Islam. When Brennan insists that jihadists are really not motivated by religion but rather are products of "political, economic and social forces," is this total dismissal of the "other" and his peculiar motivations (in favor of Western paradigms) not arrogant?

In the end, Brennan is not all to blame. After all, though he and I were both born and raised in North Bergen, New Jersey, perhaps my dual Middle-East/Western background gives me the advantage to understand both the Islamicate and American mindsets equally. No, seems the greater blame lies with the president whose campaign denounced ignorance and arrogance as leading us astray—only to hire a counter-terror adviser who epitomizes both.

Quote:
I think this article is over the head of your typical reader here at Adland, Peter, it makes them think and comprehend big words that aren't often used in the daily vocabulary of most here. As it doesn't pass the cheerleader test for easy and simple to read, Plus definitely not a topic of conversation typically. Just a thought.

Hello Friends,

Here's a forwarded email you might find interesting. The difference in mindset between the Israeli soldier and Israel in general in regard to captives and the injured should be obvious but the word should is the main point here.

While Israel treats enemy wounded as if they were their own citizens or soldiers they do no such thing. Quite the opposite as we've seen in the past but as usual MSM and the world's governments ignore these facts and major differences. They will behead, torture and in some cases much worse while Israel treats them to the best medical care possible.

With that in mind read the below email sent by an Israeli soldier that participated in the boarding of the Marmara to his American uncle. I wonder if you'll understand the difference in mindset between the sides?

Shalom,

Peter

From an IDF Soldier Who Was on the Flotilla

2010 June 9

by David Horowitz

I received this forwarded to me in my email:

first hand account from Amir, an Israeli soldier who was there.

“Hello Uncle Erwin,

This is Amir writing you after reading what you sent to my father, Eitan. As you know, it was my unit and my friends who were on the ship. My commander was injured badly as a result of the “pacifists” violence. I want to tell you how he was injured so you could tell the story. it shows just how horrible and inhuman were the activists. My commander was the first soldier that rappelled down from the helicopter to the ship. When he touched ground, he got hit in the head with a pole and stabbed in the stomach with a knife.

When he drew out his secondary weapon-a handgun (his primary weapon was a regular paintball gun: “Tippman 98 custom”) he was shot in the leg. He managed to fire a single shot before he was tossed from the balcony by 4 Arab activists, to the lower deck (a 12 feet fall). He was then dragged by other activists to a room in the lower deck were he was stripped down by 2 activists. They took off his vest, helmet and shirt, leaving him with only his pants and shoes on. When they finished they took a knife and expanded the wound he already had in his stomach. They cut his ab muscles horizontally and by hand spilled his guts out. When they finished they raised him up and walked him on the deck outside. He was conscious the whole time. If you are asking yourself why they did all that, here comes the reason. They wanted to show the soldiers their commander’s body so they will be demoralized and scared. Luckily, when they walked him on the deck a soldier saw him and managed to shoot the activist that was walking him down the outside corridor. He shot him with a special non-lethal bullet that didn’t kill him. My commander managed to jump from the deck to the water and swim to an army rescue boat (his guts still out of his body, and now in salty sea water). That was how he was saved. The activists that did this to him are alive, now in Turkey, and treated as heroes.

I’m sorry if I described this with too many details, but I thought it was necessary for the credibility. Please tell this story to anyone who will listen. I think that these days you are one of Israel’s best spokesman.

Thanks uncle Erwin, Shabbat shalom!

Amir