'76 Blog

Eric Metaxas gave a talk on his book "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy" on Tuesday night at the John Paul II Center here in Denver. An overflow crowd of over 300 people showed, including Bill Armstrong, the President of CCU, John Andrews, the head of the Centennial Institute, Charles Chaput, the Bishop of the Arch Diocese of Denver, as well as a representation of Orthodox Priests and others. Metaxas was funny, profound, and made many points that hit home!  It is clear to me that the relation of Bonhoeffer to the German church in the 1930s, which accommodated the growing evil of Hitler with rationalizations and willful blindness, is the SAME relationship WE have to our secular society! Our secular government treats the growing evil of the vicious totalitarian Salafist Islam with the same politically correct rationalizations and willful blindness!   Many churches indulge in the same moral relativist reluctance to name and stand up to evil, glossing over everything with the bland "loving forgiving God" that requires nothing of us: what Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace"! It's clear to me that we in the Counter Jihad are called to follow in Bonhoeffer's footsteps in his uncompromising stand against the growing evil and to work to defeat it.  Bonhoeffer's prominent family had many Jewish friends. He was aware of the (then secret) "Final Solution" in progress, and helped Jewish friends and their families escape, as well as participating in the plot to kill Hitler. He was hanged by the Gestapo three weeks before the end of the war. Interesting: one man stood up and demanded to know how Bonhoeffer, as a Christian, could countenance the killing of Hitler?  The answer was superb: "was it right for David to kill Goliath?"  The question was a perfect example of the formalist church rationalizing its inaction in the face of evil. Two books highly recommended:  "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy" by Eric Metaxas. "The Cost of Discipleship" by Bonhoeffer himself

So Muhammad Ali Hasan,twice an unsuccessful Republican candidate (treasurer this year, legislature in 2008) says he is done with the GOP and now getting chummy with Nancy Pelosi. "GOP Loses Hasan," the headline says. No, I would say a better term would be the GOP has finally gotten rid of the man! In light of world-wide Islamic Jihadist violence, Mr Hasan's continual whining about Muslim "persecution and discrimination" has worn a little thin. To disagree with him in any way is to trigger shrieks of "racism", which is no more than meaningless name calling. After all, Islam is a belief attribute, NOT a biological one. He says the GOP doesn't "work for immigrants and Muslims". If he means we object to flooding our country with illegal immigrants, and fail to continually kow tow to "Muslim sensibilities", which means the implementation of their Shari'ah Law to our own detriment, then Mr Hasan is correct. For him to say he has no knowledge of Muslim persecution of gays or the Qur'anic concept of Taqqiya (permissible lying) is beyond belief! Does Mr. Hasan really think that if he ignores it, it will go away? The release of the information about Mr McInnis' business dealings with the Hasan family was precisely timed to destroy Mr McInnis' bid for Governor and throw the race to the Democrats.  It's hard to see how the Hasan family has been much of a Republican asset. Here is the story in full:Colorado GOP loses Hasan Colorado Independent by John Tomasic on 12/9/10http://coloradoindependent.com/69449/colorado-gop-loses-hasan Muhammad Ali Hasan, a member of the wealthy and influential ColoradoRepublican Hasan family and a past state House and treasurer candidate,said he is switching parties. Speaking at the University ofColorado-Boulder on his experience growing up Muslim in the AmericanWest and later in conversation with the Colorado Independent, Hasansaid he is ending his affiliation with the party for the bigotry hebelieves has shaped Republican politics over the last year. The FOXNews regular and founder of Muslims for Bush said he met recently withHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the controversial Democratic leader wonhim over. “I met her in Los Angeles. For a Republican that’s like He-Man [meetingwith] Skeletor,” he said, referencing the Masters of the Universecartoon arch-enemies. “I am impressed by her vision. She convinced methat the Democrats will work to protect and further the interests andopportunities of minority Americans. That matched with the politics ofReagan for me. He was a champion of the American dream, the idea ofAmerica as a shining city on a hill. He expanded opportunities throughsmall business credits and amnesty for immigrants. It was all aboutopportunity. “I have three top political heroes: Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush andnow Nancy Pelosi. She has such a spine, like Reagan and Bush, they allhave that in common: a spine of steel that comes from conviction.” Major financial backers of conservative causes and candidates in thestate and friends to national GOP leaders and successive Republicanpresidential administrations, the Hasans have publicly struggled withthe post-Bush Palin-era GOP. Matriarch Seeme Hasan during the “GroundZero Mosque” debate said she didn’t recognize the party. Ali Hasan’sdefection comes in the wake of news that state GOP lawmakers willintroduce tough Arizona-style immigration legislation and held a highprofile hearing on the topic with a slanted roster of experts thatfeatured almost no immigrant rights groups but several with ties towhite supremecist organizations. A hardline fiscal conservative and champion of Constitutional equality,Hasan says Republicans have merely paid lip service to the former andhave effectively come to oppose the latter. “Look at what the state Republican party thinks of Doug Bruce,” he saidreferring to the controversial anti-tax crusading author of Colorado’sTaxpayer Bill of Rights. “And there is no record of fiscalconservativism on the federal level. So that’s one side and then Ithink ‘I believe in the American dream for everyone and which party isfighting for immigrants, gays, Muslims?’ The GOP has attacked them.Democrats want to work for them. ” State convention whisper campaign Hasan said he felt alienated between national Republican leaders on oneside railing against the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” and gays andillegal immigrants and, on the other, state Republican delegatesconvinced that as a candidate for treasurer he was angling to installsharia finance laws. He said the GOP convention in May was a low point. “You experience bigotry sometimes but I often just think it’s probablymy personality that the person doesn’t like. At the convention, though,that was the first time I felt the real thing. It was the worstexperience of my life.” Hasan suspects a whisper campaign swept the convention, sounding awarning against placing a Muslim in charge of investing the state’srevenues. “Some goons were telling people that there’s a passage in the Koranthat encourages Muslims to lie, that lying is considered a good thingin the service of advancing a Muslim or sharia agenda. I don’t know whowas behind the rumor, but I’ve read the Koran, and I don’t know whatthey were talking about.” Hasan said in the run up to the convention he personally called the3,500 delegates and talked to roughly 1,500 who said he could count ontheir vote. He said he ran this “informal survey” through his pollster and thenumbers made sense because Hasan was getting heavy support from theWestern Slope where he lives and has been active while his opponent,J.J. Ament, was pulling well from the eastern Front Range districts. “In the end, we guessed we’d get 40 percent support at the conventionas a basement estimate.” That didn’t happen. Hasan drew roughly 20 percent of delegate support,missing the cut off to make the ballot by 10 percent. He said the weekend of the convention he watched hundreds of supportersfall away. Delegate after delegate approached him and mentioned theKoran and said in so many words that they weren’t sure they could trusthim. “It hurt. People who had said they were voting for me were now comingup to me and saying ‘You know, I hear you could be lying to us.’ I wasshocked. I got the courage to approach some of them, people I hadtalked to and who said they were voting for me. Here they were wearingJ.J. Ament stickers. I was like, you know, wow, and they said ‘But howdo I know you’re not going to assert some form of sharia law againstColorado?’” Hasan said he was deflated after talking to one woman at length. “I told her I started Muslims for Bush. I’m proud of that. I told her Ihave been a vocal fiscal conservative for years. I said I’ve given toRepublican candidates on the federal and state level. I helped getRepublican candidates elected to House seats in 2008 when Democratswere winning everything… Finally I asked her ‘There’s nothing I can sayto win your vote because my name is Muhammad, am I right?’ and she said‘Yeah, that’s probably right.’” Hasan said he met time and again with Republican voters and leadersacross the state in campaigning for treasurer and that “in groups of20, the fact that my name is Muhammad was never a bad thing, but at theconvention, there were 5,000 people who were all suddenly suspicious ofMuslims.” As the Colorado Independent reported at the time, the Ament campaignclearly traded on anti-muslim sentiment or at least on domestic fearsof Muslim rule in the Mahgreb. Ament claimed in campaign literature,for instance, that Hasan would lift Colorado overseas investrestrictions and put taxpayer cash to work for the “genocidal regime inSudan” and to further Iranian nuclear ambitions. Yet Hasan said he doesn’t blame Ament for what happened at theconvention. The thing that got him, he said, was that GOP delegateswere so willing to believe the ridiculous rumors. In fact, he said, he shouldn’t have been surprised. Muslim cowboy Hasan said that when he was considering running for House District56three years ago, an adviser told him that his being Muslim was muchless an issue than the fact that he was a filmmaker and not a rancher.“You gotta go work on a ranch to be able to relate to these people,”the adviser told him. So Hasan did. Dressed in a suit, cowboy boots andmatching turquoise bolo tie and enormous belt buckle, Hasan said he isproud of the work he did just bringing salt licks out to the animalsand watching the weather. “What I learned is that a cowboy is a person who says the same thing nomatter the setting. I also learned that nature is the same way, honest.” In 2008, Muhammad Ali the Rancher won the support of lots of voters onthe Western Slope. He lost to Democrat Christine Scanlan by a fewpercentage points, and the problem, he said, was Republicans. “I would have won if not for Republicans. Polling was through the roofwith independents and we made huge inroads with Democrats. But we neverbroke 65 percent with Republicans, who cast between 90 percent and 95percent for [U.S. Senate candidate Bob] Schaffer and [presidentialcandidate John] McCain. You need that 90 percent to win. “Republican voters cost us 56. I should have learned from that.” The “Ground Zero Mosque” Hasan said that although his experience at the convention wasdispiriting, it wasn’t actually a turning point. He said he’s forevergrateful to the 20 percent delegates who voted for him and who woreHASAN tee-shirts around the convention and notes that in the weeksafter the convention he enthusiastically endorsed GOP primary winnerWalker Stapleton and gave generously to GOP candidates across the state. It was national politics that set him over the edge. “When Bush left, it seems like a vacuum opened up and into it rushedbigotry.” He ticks off topics that have shaped national GOP politics this year:Support for anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 in California; Arizona’stough SB1070 immigration law; support for repealing the naturalizedcitizenship granted by the 14th Amendment; and what he calls “theMosque issue.” He said he couldn’t believe the way the plans to build the CordobaCenter Mosque escalated. “I dismissed it as a joke. It was crazy people. Then it was oneRepublican leader after another looking to strip Constitutional rightsout of just bigotry.” He pointed out the change that had come over leaders like Newt Gingrichand Sarah Palin, onetime Muslim defenders, he said, whom he now sees onthis topic as the worst kind of pandering politicians. “The ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ was never about the mosque, which was reallyjust a health club, a swimming pool…. That was all about rallying thebase.” He eventually wrote a popular blog on the topic for the Huffington Postcomparing the move to ban the mosque to so-called red-lining racistzoning laws in the pre-Civil Rights era. “I was okay after the convention. I decided all that was just anaberration and that I would just let it fade. But the 14th Amendmentdebate, the ugly mosque politics, that just killed my hopes.”   The Polis-Pelosi connection In the wake of the mosque flap, Hasan said he emailed his friendCongressman Jared Polis, a man he said he has admired for years. “If you want to convince me to become a Democrat, you have your chance.” Polis said he had someone he wanted Hasan to talk to and then he set upthe meeting with Pelosi. “I thought to myself, ‘Well, I’m not a socialist, so I don’t think Ican be a Democrat,’” Hasan said, joking. “But Nancy Pelosi’s peoplecalled me up and said she wanted to meet with me and I talked about itwith my mom. She said ‘Baby, when the third most powerful person in theworld asks you to join her party, you better think about it.’” Hasan said his mother said she was committed to the Republican partybecause she wants to work to change it but she told Hasan that hisopportunities lie with the Democrats. “You can’t win office as aRepublican,” she told him. “You deserve a chance to win.” Hasan said he knows he has to put in the same “blood and sweat” for theDemocratic party now that he has put into the Republican party over theyears. He’s looking at running again for office in six to eight years.He said he’s “thinking in election cycles.” His first step is going tobe to form a group to fight to protect the rights of and expandopportunities for minorities. “If we fight on a Constitutional basis and not on emotion, we willwin,” he said. “I don’t defend Muslims because I’m Muslim. I’m not evena good Muslim. I’m a sinner. I’m a political hack and an interfaithpractitioner…. I defend Muslims because I stand against bigotry,because I don’t want bigotry to exist.” [        

('76 Contributor) As the Republicans take the House and try to regain control of those issues so many Americans felt were detrimental to the country, many conservative Christians are awaiting the political and financial rebound. As we watch the exchange on Capitol Hill and stay updated on issues, it is important to keep a cautious eye out for enemies of the state and of the church hidden within the Conservative party. One of those worthy of a weathering eye is Suhail Khan. I would like to take this time to encourage readers not to give him a “pass” just because of his seemingly spotless resume. There are several examples of individuals dangerous to the state that have made their way up the political chain of command in Washington; it is our responsibility to keep these individuals in check. In times of such grandiose corruption of language and abuse of flattery within the American political sphere, a vivacious vetting process is necessary. With a wide array of experience on the Hill in DC, Mr. Khan holds a very impressive, and pubic resume. He is former Policy Director and Press Secretary for U.S. Congressman Tom Campbell (R-CA), and White House Office Public Liaison as a religious outreach leader. He was the Assistant to the Secretary for Policy under U.S. Secretary Mary Peters with the Department of Transportation where he received several metals. He is on the boards of several non-profit organizations and political action committees, including: the American Conservative Union, the Islamic Free Market Institute, the Muslim Public Service Network, the Indian American Republican Council, and the Buxton Initiative Advisory Council. He is known for his wide involvement in senior political and social organizations, including the Conservative Political Action Conference, the Council for National Policy, the Harbor League, and the National Press Club. He is also an occasional contributor to the Washington Post and Newsweek Forum on Faith. He is a vocal advocate for freedom of religion, for free market economies, and the Republican Party, and is currently the Chairman for the Conservative Inclusion Coalition. The beginning of Khan’s suspicious activity begins with his fellowship for the Christian-Muslim Understanding at the Institute for Global Engagement. I encourage you to explore the website, you will find that IGE is a direct partner of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talaal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Bin Talaal is the millionaire Saudi Prince, famous for wealth, and known more specifically for his offering of $10million to the city of New York just after the attacks of September 11, 2001. In 2003 it was found that bin Talal gave a $500,000 gift to proven Hamas entity, the Council on American Islamic Relations. As Hamas is a registered terrorist organization by the United States, and there is proof that Talal gave financial aid, he is an entity with hostile intentions toward the United States. Khan’s association with bin Talal is made clear through his deep involvement with IGE. Mr. Khan was a representative and a board member for the Islamic Free Market Institute, founded by Grover Norquist, and supported by convicted terrorist, Abdurahman Alamoudi. Alamoudi was arrested in Heathrow airport after he was found with $340,000 meant to aid the assassination of the former Saudi Arabian prince. He was found to be an al Qaeda operative, with dangerous influence inside the White House and influential political circles. Norquist has similar associations, being tied to Alamoudi through political and business circles, yet Norquist has another factor of the story, as told by Frank Gaffney. Khan’s work with either of these men severely taints his reputation as a credible source; his declination of distance between himself and these alarming individuals is a red flag, especially due to their very public record of associations with jihadists. Khan has supported other known terrorists in recent years; Sami al Arian was another example of a seemingly friendly face on the conservative front on Capitol Hill with hostile intentions for the United States. Throughout his investigation and trial, it became known that he was the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in North America, and a secretary of the PIJ Shura Council. On a more personal front, Khan’s mother, Malika Khan, was an executive committee member for the California branch of the Council on American Islamic Relations, giving him yet another tie to the terror organization, Hamas. On his father’s side, Mahboob Khan was a founding member of the Muslim Student Association in America, another branch of the terror support system for Hamas. He also founded the Muslim Community Association in California, where #2 al Qaeda operative, Aman al-Zawahiri, attended. Mahboob also served on the Majlis a’Shura Council for the Islamic Society of North America. Moreover, at an ISNA event in 2008, Jamal Barzinji, known Muslim Brotherhood leader and al Qaeda supporter, was presented with an award named after Mahboob Khan. All three Khans, Suhail, Malika and Mahboob, have all been involved in events sponsored or hosted by that same organization, the Islamic Society of North America, the umbrella organization created by the Muslim Student Association for the Muslim Brotherhood in America. With connections like these, intentions can be difficult to determine. Khan‘s influence is impossible to deny, especially among policy makers, and his pedigree is questionable, at best. Khan politics on Capitol Hill for conservative ideals, claiming his stand for true American values including freedom, justice and peace; values not so different than those the Centennial Institute and Colorado Christian University proclaim. Khan’s affiliations and history draw a clear line where his loyalties truly lie.  We have seen the effects of people like Suhail Khan within the American policy making arena before, with a gracious presentation of hostile information campaigns; these influences are deadly. It will be wolves such as these, dressed in sheep’s clothing, that will destroy our great republic. I encourage you to do your own research on Mr. Khan to fully understand his intellect. He is currently very active on Capitol Hill among conservative circles; make your representatives known of his past affiliations and keep his power limited.  Susan Brown is a Washington-based investigative reporter specializing in Muslim subversive activities here and abroad.  

(CCU Faculty) In a speech on Nov. 7 during his recent trip India, President Obama stated: “The phrase jihad has a lot of meaning within Islam and is subject to a lot of different interpretations, but I will say that first Islam is one of the world's great religions.  More than a billion people practice Islam and an overwhelming majority view their obligations to a religion that reaffirms peace, fairness, tolerance. I think all of us recognize that this great religion, in the hands of a few extremists, has been distorted by violence.” President Obama’s assertion that Islam is a great religion demands further consideration.  Most importantly, what makes a religion “great”?  Before turning to that specific question, two caveats: first, President Obama delivered his speech just a few days before moving on to Indonesia, a Muslim nation.  In the political context, he may very well have simply been making an overture to the next stop on his Asia trip.  Second, this is not meant as a partisan questioning of Obama.  In a speech on September 17, 2001, President Bush stated: “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam.  That's not what Islam is all about.  Islam is peace.”  A few days later, in a meeting with American Muslim leaders, Bush stated that “the teachings of Islam are the teachings of peace and good." Let’s return to our central question: what are the qualities of a “great” religion?  There are two approaches to this question: one from a Christian perspective and the other from a political one. First, consider the Christian approach to this.  Christian faith teaches that there is only one way to salvation and eternal connection to God: a personal faith in Jesus Christ.  Any religion that teaches otherwise is false.  Can a Christian recognize another religion as “great”?  If the followers of other religions are destined to eternity in hell and permanent separation from God, then the answer is obviously no. The second, geo-political, approach to considering whether Islam is great is a bit more complicated.  It is estimated that there are over between ¾ and 1 ½ billion Muslims in the world. If we were to measure greatness based solely on numbers, then with approximately 20% of the world’s population, Islam would be considered a “great” religion.  However, if we are simply using popularity as our standard, then we can agree that “popular” does not always coincide with “right” or “great”. If we look at the countries who have Islam as the official religion and those that are governed by Islamic rulers, there are approximately 25 countries.  When we add to that number those countries where Islam is the predominant religion, the number rises to 47.  Again, this suggests that Islam is indeed popular and influential in many countries.  But does popularity and influence translate into right and great? Does size and influence equate with greatness?  While it certainly does make the religion impactful, we obviously need to measure the impact to determine greatness.  No American can deny that racism was a widely held belief in American history, and that the racism that existed was significantly impactful on American culture.  However, we would certainly not describe it as “great”. Finally, we must consider what some of the political mandates of Islam and Sharia are so that we can better judge the impact.   The list of Muslim political mandates is often quite disturbing, including: the second class citizenship of non-believers, women  and homosexuals; a Fatwa against Salman Rushdie and of cartoonists who dare to draw Mohammad; the harboring, encouraging and sanctioning of violent terrorist attacks against innocent civilians; etc.  A study done by the Pew Research Center in 2005 of Muslims around the world found widespread support for terrorism and of Osama bin Laden.  For instance, Muslims in Jordan, Indonesia and Pakistan supported suicide bombings and violence against civilians at a rate of 57%, 15% and 25%, respectively.  For the same countries, confidence in bin Laden was 61%, 36% and 52%.  Does this behavior translate to a “great” religion? Not only is Islam associated with great wrongs, but the accomplishments of the faith also need to be questioned.  James 1:27 states: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Are the deeds of Islam “great”?  When horrible natural disasters occur around the world, is Islam the first to respond?  When terror reigns, do they condemn?  When women are oppressed, do they step in and stop?  When people of other faiths dare to worship their God, do they fight for this right? President Obama owes the public an explanation of exactly what it is that makes Islam “great”.

Within days of the Oct. 25 briefing at CCU on America's struggle with Al Qaeda and the Taliban by Bill Roggio, Army veteran turned freelance war correspondent, some of his warnings were realized in headlines about bombs on US-bound airliners from Yemen. Addressing a full house of students, faculty, and guests at the Beckman Center, Roggio told how his personal blog evolved after 9/11 into the respected news site LongWarJournal.org -- so named because of his belief that the West faces a generational conflict with radical Islam, in which Iraq and Afghanistan are not separate wars but merely battlefronts in a single war encompassing ten or more countries from Africa through the Arab world and into Central Asia. Roggio's briefing slides, linked here... Roggio at Centennial Institute 102510.ppt (50.50 kb)  ...concluded with a note that Al Qaeda affiliates seek to hit the United States from several points, with Yemen foremost.  That was on a Monday, and by the following Friday packages with PETN explosive allegedly sent by two Yemeni women, and linked to the same bomb maker who planned the attack on Detroit last Christmas, had triggered a global terror alert. Here is full audio of the Roggio briefing.   Here is a student report on the event by ROTC cadet Jacob Delargy.  His exclusive photo report on a truck bombing in Mosul, Iraq, carried out by a released Guantanamo detainee (see one of the photos below) can be viewed in full here.    

(Centennial Institute Fellow) National Public Radio has fired Juan Williams, and first off, the people who did the firing should get fired if they don't hire him back, and next, the federal government should yank all its funding from the outfit. This firing is political correctness gone bananas, a blatant, in-your-face, cowardly, utterly mindless assault on free speech coming not from a private entity that has to earn its way in a competitive world, but from a public, government-financed organization whose money comes largely from taxation. Even though NPR does first-class journalism, it is suddenly waging a war on words that were unexceptional, and given its special obligations, that is unacceptable. Some background is in order. Bill O'Reilly of Fox TV was on ABC's "The View," said it was Muslims who crashed planes into the World Trade Center on 9/11 and that this was reason not to build a mosque nearby. In protest, two of the show's denizens -- Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg -- strode huffily off the set. Since then, O'Reilly has devoted major time on several of his own shows to self-exoneration, emphasizing the literal truth of what he said and then contending on the one hand that he did not mean to demonize all Muslims while arguing on the other that millions of Muslims are self-declared enemies of America. Enter Williams, a news analyst with NPR who is also a liberal regular on various Fox shows. Generally outnumbered by conservatives, he calmly, charmingly argues his points. I've seen him numerous times, and though I usually disagree, he has earned my respect. He did again the other night as he managed to squeeze in a few words during an O'Reilly rant, observing once that you'd never condemn all Christians because homegrown terrorist Timothy McVeigh was so identified. He also said this: "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous." Then the Council on American-Islamic Relations said Williams seemed to believe all Muslims could be considered security risks and NPR said Williams' remarks were "inconsistent with our editorial stands." I say why don't you all try to be responsible, thoughtful, fair and open-minded adults, no matter how that conflicts with paranoia or editorial stands. The fact is that Muslim terrorists have done terrible things on airplanes and are still slaughtering innocent Western humanitarians in Afghanistan. It's perfectly normal for people who know that a disastrous "B" has sometimes followed the appearance of "A" in a certain setting to then act disconcertedly when they see "A" in that same setting. To admit as much is not to be prejudiced or to say that "B" always follows "A," but to help explain emotions, to move the conversation to new, productive possibilities. But these are days during which you are only supposed to say one obvious truth concerning any Muslim, namely that most are perfectly decent human beings. If a smooth-talking New York imam repeats the fiction of Americans killing a half million Iraqi children, says we were accessories to 9/11 and warns of Islamic retaliation if a mosque is not built near Ground Zero, we are supposed to applaud his purposes. If Muslim terrorists threaten to kill possible satirists, we aren't supposed to make a big deal of one going into hiding. When Muslims threaten wholesale slaughter of Americans if a truly misguided pastor burns Korans, we are supposed to see how understandable that reaction is. And if a TV commentator says something perfectly innocent with the word "Muslim" attached, someone is supposed to come up with a Little League version of the Netherlands trial of a politician for hate speech against Muslims. Or at least that's what NPR did, thereby earning a right to do what most radio organizations do, strive for audience and survival advertising in a free market. (Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and editor of dailies in El Paso and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at speaktojay(at)aol.com.)  

That National Public Radio fired liberal commentator Juan Williams this week for publicly expressing on the Fox News Channel his anxieties about Muslims in America is appalling, but not surprising. NPR has long been hostile to the views of evangelical Christians and conservatives. Now, apparently, they are even hostile towards liberals who express personal sentiments on a conservative TV program. But the dustup is important not simply because it exposed once again the left-wing bias of NPR and demonstrated yet again why the network should not receive a dime of public funding. It was important because of the chilling implications over free speech in this country. Are we really not allowed to say in a post-9/11 world that Muslims traveling on planes make some Americans uneasy? What else are we not allowed to say? Should we not discuss the threat of Radical Muslims to Judeo-Christian civilization? Are we not allowed to express our concerns about what would happen if Radical Muslims acquired nuclear, chemical or biological weapons? What happened to free speech in this country? The vast majority of Muslims in the U.S. and around the world (upwards of 90 to 93 percent) are moderate, peaceful people. They don't believe in jihad. They are not suicide bombers or terrorists. They want good jobs, good schools for their kids, and the right to practice their faith without persecution or government interference. But there is a small but important percentage of Muslims that are highly dangerous. They believe that Islam is the answer, and violent jihad is the way. Americans need to talk about both groups. We need to learn about and discuss the differences. We need to understand who the Radicals are, and who the Reformers are. At the same time, we need to understand that there is a subset of Radical Muslims who are even more dangerous. They don't simply want to terrorize us; they want to annihilate us. Chief among them are the "Twelvers," a Shia Muslim cult who believe that end of the world is at hand, that the Islamic messiah known as the "Twelfth Imam" is coming to earth at any moment, and that the way to hasten the arrival of the Twelfth Imam is to annihilate two countries - Israel, which they call the "Little Satan," and the United States, which they call the "Great Satan." What makes these Twelvers especially dangerous right now is that they are running the current government of Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is a Twelver, and says he actually met with the Twelfth Imam last July. Iranian President Ahmadinejad is a lifelong Twelver, and is actively seeking to build nuclear weapons. Both have publicly called for the annihilation of the U.S. and Israel, and they are doing so for expressly religious purposes. The world is doing precious little to stop such men. The Obama administration certainly isn't taking decisive action to stop Iran from getting the Bomb. So every day the danger grows that the Twelvers will get nuclear weapons and either use them against Israel, and then the U.S., or give those weapons to terrorist groups who will seek to obliterate their enemies. Now is precisely the time to talk about such things. Now is precisely the time to talk as Americans about our anxieties and our fears. This is why I wrote a new political thriller entitled, The Twelfth Imam, to help foster such a national conversation and to take people inside the story and to help them imagine what might happen if the world ignores the threat posed by the leaders of Iran. NPR apparently wants to silence Americans who are concerned about the threat of Radical Islam. Thankfully, there are a multitude of other media outlets who permit a national conversation about Radical Islam to take place. Such a conversation is, after all, more needed than ever. [For more, and the latest headlines from the Middle East, please go to Joel Rosenberg's weblog -- http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/]

John Guandolo, former FBI counter-terrorism expert who is now a Centennial Institute Fellow, warned in a national security briefing at CCU on Sept. 22 that the Muslim Brotherhood's efforts to erode America's liberty from are advancing with little awareness -- and even less opposition -- from all levels of government, media, and civic organizations.  He likened the situation to a football game where one team, the proponents of a global caliphate harshly governed by sharia law, is on the field and leading 56-0 while the other team, our country's entire leadership class, is on the sidelines in baseball uniforms -- and it's still the first quarter.  Exaggeration?  You won't think so after hearing the full audio recording of Guandolo's presentation, linked hereif (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget('9084e7a3-4cc6-45a7-8de2-5c57c666c21d');Get the Mp3 Player Widget widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info). Guandolo addressed an audience of 80 from the campus and community on Sept. 22 in his third appearance at CCU in the past 18 months.

Markos Moulitsas, influential founder of the Daily Kos leftist website, takes moral equivalency to new and sickening depths in his new book, American Taliban: How Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists to the Radical Right. According to a synopsis of the book that he wrote for the Huffington Post, Markos has decided that conservatives are not significantly different from the murderous gangsters who terrorize Afghanistan.  Following are some of his elaborations on that equivalence, with clarifying questions I'd like to ask him: Theocracy: Opposition to the Ground Zero mosque is apparently equivalent to a nation that has 48,000 mosques and zero churches.  But Markos, New York City alone has a hundred mosques and the United States has 2,000 of them for its small Muslim minority.  But you can’t tell the difference between 2,000 and zero?  You need to work on Obama’s new debt commission. Violence:  Conservatives use violent rhetoric, wear intimidating T-shirts, and oppose illegal immigration.  That’s equivalent to an American Muslim who guns down thirteen of his colleagues at Fort Hood?  Without mentioning the ten Western missionaries systematically executed by the real Taliban for helping impoverished Afghanis with eye care?  Without mentioning the tens of thousands around the world who have been murdered by the real Taliban?  Here’s an experiment you can run, Markos, to test your thesis:  For your next book, instead of trashing your right-wing countrymen, trash Islam.  Run pictures lampooning the prophet.  Cite sneeringly from the Koran.  See if you notice any subsequent differences in the behavior of Jihadists and the American right who are supposedly just like them. Sex and Women:  Conservative Christians favor sexual chastity and oppose gay rights.  The real Taliban share those views and add to them “arranged marriages, spousal abuse, subjugation of women by force, denial of education to females, and female genital mutilation.”  (Source)  See any difference here, Markos? Truth: People who believe in Intelligent Design and deny Global Warming are as oppressive as the real Taliban who teach nothing but the Koran in tens of thousands of madrasas.  Of course, the people who control higher education in America and deny access to those who disagree with them are Markos and his buddies. As usual, the Left is far more guilty of the sins it finds in others.  Markos is no exception.  He can write this screed because he lives in a Western, Christian culture.  If we were really like the Taliban Markos would have been a pile of warm ashes a long time ago.  As it is, we grant him his right to speak because he has inalienable rights endowed by his Creator.  And as a member of the American Taliban I will fight for his right to be wrong.   

Freedom of religion settles it as far as building the Ground Zero mosque is concerned, says Susan Barnes-Gelt in the August round of Head On TV debates; so ignore the “dittohead” opposition and build it. Absolutely not, says John Andrews. “To erect a Muslim shrine on a Muslim killing field is just wrong.” John on the right, Susan on the left, tape five mini-debates each month for Head On which has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here is the script for their mosque debate: Susan:  This country is defined by commitment to freedom of religion.  Siting of a Muslim community center two full blocks and around the corner from the 9/ll site in Lower Manhattan is a tempest in a teapot brewed by dittoheads.  You can’t even see Ground Zero from the proposed Cordoba House. John: The Ground Zero Mosque should not be built.  Muslim holy warriors attacked on 9/11 in hope of destroying America.  Muslim peacemakers, if they care about America, will join the vast majority of us who oppose this jihadist victory shrine on New York’s hallowed ground.  This isn’t religious, it’s a political provocation. Susan:  John, you are too smart and too reasoned to mau-mau the dittoheads on this tough and emotional issue. There are no ‘but fors’ in the de facto motto of these United States is‘e pluribus unum’  - out of many, one. That means my people, your people and their people. John: The Ground Zero mosque should not be built. Most New Yorkers and most Americans overwhelmingly agree.  No one who understands America or loves America would set out to erect a Muslim shrine on a Muslim killing field.  The sponsorship isn't identical, but the symbolism is just wrong.  Put the mosque somewhere else.