Future of Terror: One year after Osama bin Laden killed, it's time to take stock

Special to Human Events: As al-Qaeda’s influence grows, Dr. Michael Rubin, Middle East expert, tells Intersec magazine’s Robert de la Poer that the Western countries must co-operate and continue to take the lead in the fight against Jihadist terrorists. These excerpts from the interview, published last week, are reprinted with permission of the author.


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If CAIR’s Attacking You, You Must Be Good

We should honor moderate Muslims like Zuhdi Jasser. By Mona Charen ‘Where are all the moderate Muslims?” It’s a question often posed by Americans who watch with disgust as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other apologists for radical Islam hog all of the attention. CAIR, which was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror-financing Holy Land Foundation case, and which regularly denounces any effort to combat radical Islam as anti-Muslim prejudice, is routinely described in the press as a Muslim “civil rights” group. Moderate American Muslims exist though. And it’s not that hard to find them. Just see who CAIR and MPAC (the Muslim Public Affairs Council) are denouncing. This week, they are after Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Senator Mitch McConnell has appointed Dr. Jasser to serve on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and this has sent the most prominent Muslim American organizations to the barricades. A dishonest character-assassination campaign has been launched against Jasser, urging Muslims to protest the appointment. CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told The Blaze that Jasser “has long been viewed by American Muslims and the colleagues in the civil liberties community as a mere sock puppet for Islam haters and an enabler of Islamophobia.” Click here for the full story.

Ten Questions for the Council on American Islamic Relations

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has launched a propaganda campaign attacking a state legislative initiative that is designed to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans, including Muslims.

That initiative is known as American Laws for American Courts (ALAC).

CAIR claims this bill would have the opposite effect — infringing upon Muslims’ and others’ right to freedom of religion. CAIR’s real motivation, however, is not to safeguard the U.S. Constitution, but rather to promote the insinuation here of Shariah, a totalitarian Islamic political-military-legal doctrine. Shariah requires and enforces discrimination against women, children, homosexuals, atheists, members of other religions such as Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians, as well as Muslims who repudiate the dictates of that doctrine.

A review of the actual language of the American Laws for American Courts legislation shows that CAIR is deliberately and falsely characterizing it as anti-Shariah. As we shall see, ALAC is not targeted at either Shariah or Islam. Unlike a constitutional amendment to the State of Oklahoma’s constitution that was approved in 2010 by seventy percent of the voters, neither term is mentioned anywhere in ALAC’s bill language. (A complete comparison can be found here:http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/american_laws_for_american_courts.html_.)

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Brotherhood Too Tame for Egyptian Presidential Contender

It's the dawn of a new age in Egypt for Salafist presidential contender Hazem Salah Abu Ismail (pictured above). The confidence exuded by the popular 50-year old lawyer-turned-preacher says as much.

He has praised al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden as a "martyr," called on the United States to release convicted terrorist mastermind Omar Abdel Rahman (aka the "Blind Sheikh"), and has said the 9/11 terror attacks were "fabricated from the outset." Israel, he says, is a "false state" and Egypt should nullify the peace treaty with it. His political platform closely mirrors the strict Salafi reading of Islamic law, which denies the very existence of personal freedoms and attempts to set society back to the way it was during the time of the early Caliphs.

His views appear to be striking a chord in Egypt. He is soaring in polls six weeks before the election.

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Iran and Syria are Getting Blown Up. And Sometimes Shot.

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Par for the course. No wonder it’s impossible to have a serious debate about Iran. We don’t acknowledge simple facts: Iran is at war with us, Iran and Syria are tied at the belly button and are engaged in a joint massacre of the Syrian people, there’s a very lively resistance movement (or movements) inside Iran (as inside Syria), and our national “strategy” consists of asking these two terror masters to make nice so that we can retreat further.

“Lead from behind” is a long way of saying “retreat,” don’t you think? Or is there still some geopolitical genius who believes we can get a meaningful and credible deal with these mass murderers?

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The Taliban’s Mob Rules: The Taliban is a Mafia-like crime syndicate, not a religious movement.

Reports from Monday’s New York Times of the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) stepping up its ransom-kidnapping campaign are a reminder of one of the reasons we have failed to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and will continue to do so: Most of us believe that we are at war with a paramilitary outfit mainly inspired by a fundamentalist Deobandi interpretation of Islam. We are in fact engaged with a very different kind of entity: an organized-crime syndicate acting out of interests that are largely economic, rather than religious or ideological. There are, to be sure, terrorist and paramilitary organizations inspired by a sincere commitment to Islam. Al-Qaeda is one. The senior leadership of the Taliban, on the other hand, bears at least as much resemblance to the old Sicilian Mafia — or to the present-day FARC, another misunderstood organization — as it does to martyrdom-minded jihadists in the mold of Osama bin Laden. Click here for the full story.

Are Egypt's Islamists Heading for a Fall?

by Daniel Pipes
February 4, 2012

Terrified of the secular/modern/liberal demonstrators who made their presence known in Tahrir Square, as well as of the soccer hooligans, Mohamed Tantawi and Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces have forged a mutually beneficial relationshipwith the country's Islamists, thereby blocking their joint opponents from power. Very clever – but maybe too clever by half. Here's why:

In Egypt, which imports more than half its caloric intake, wages must keep up with the price of food or people begin to starve. Yet the country appears to be heading for a monumental financial collapsein 2012, and perhaps by the summer. If Islamists strut about as though they rule Egypt, the population will blame them and their SCAF allies – not the Tahriris – for its hunger. The anger could quickly turn ferocious. After waiting 84 years to attain legitimacy and power, the Muslim Brotherhood may find it got suckered into taking over the ship's helm just as it heads into an iceberg.

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