Europe is the Mother of the West. When she dies at the hands of the Mohammedan fanatics she has invited in -- the host she hosts -- her prodigal sons (not least that fabulous invalid, America) will be betrayed to the same doom.
There are 1,001 reasons why I've given up the ghost, hope for the West. And for each of those reasons there are 1,001 more, like some maddening, Oriental jigsaw puzzle.
One of those reasons is the stupidity of the Counter-Jihad, as became clear to me recently when I removed not so much my rose-colored glasses, as my blue glasses (the color of secular hope, hope for the Age) and saw that stupidity with regard to the pseudo-reformer with the good hair, clean-shaven face, nice Western suits, and seductively moderate rhetoric, Zuhdi Jasser.
Stupidity times three: Frank Gaffney, Diana West, and Baron Bodissey (of the Gates of Vienna blog).
1) Frank Gaffney
Frank Gaffney's reckless naivete is on display on his Secure Freedom Radio podcasts, where he has featured Jasser numerous times, and where he makes clear how profoundly he respects and trusts that emollient snake who every time he talks about the problem of Islam, cannot mask the torturous incoherence engendered by the immiscible oil & water of the Islam he's essentially defending juxtaposed to the Secular Reform he's claiming to support. One of many examples occurs at the 29-minute mark of this long interview (scroll down to the December 17th podcast) where Gaffney begins to ask Jasser pointed (albeit softball) questions about Muhammad himself. Gaffney pretends to ask him tough questions, all the while couched in the utmost respect, almost as though he were handling a precious objet d'art. Gaffney's ignorance of Islam 101 is painfully clear in his failure to spot the sophistry in Jasser's replies (example: right out of the box, where Jasser deflects the question of Muhammad's pernicious character -- which Gaffney broaches far too timidly -- with the kitman red herring "Muslims don't worship Muhammad") . UPDATE: I finally got around to writing a detailed analysis of just one part of that Gaffney interview with Jasser.
2) Diana West
Knowing that Diana West is a close colleague and longtime friend of Frank Gaffney, and having received a few email replies from her before, I thought I'd ask her point-blank about this problem. Here's our exchange:
[Me:]
Hello Diana,
I'm just curious where you stand on Zuhdi Jasser. I keep seeing (i.e., hearing) Frank Gaffney feature Jasser on his Secure Freedom ratio show and treat him with the utmost, unctuously gingerly respect; when it's clear that Jasser must be either clinically insane or lying to us -- there is no third alternative.
It's deeply dismaying to me when I see even stalwart, intelligent people in the Counter-Jihad get fooled by pseudo-reformers like Jasser -- or like Maajid Nawaz (Sam Harris, Douglas Murray, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali all throwing caution to the winds in that regard). Please give me a shred of hope for the West. I'm hanging on by my fingernails. Tell me you see through Jasser, and that you have, or will have, a talk with your friend Frank about his reckless naivete.
Regards,
Hesp
[Diana:]
Hi, Hesp —
I sure do. Talking doesn’t always change things!
Best,
Diana
[Me:]
Thanks Diana, and Happy New Year!
"Talking doesn’t always change things!"
Since the most important facet of this war we are in is the war-of-ideas theater by which the few of us canaries-in-a-coalmine are trying to wake up the vast majority around us (including those who pat themselves on the back for being canaries but who are on one level no less asleep), talking is all we have. And if it won't change things, I fear the West is ultimately doomed to be overrun by Mohammedans. And shame, ultimately, on the Counter-Jihad, for betraying its great-grandchildren and their children. On its epitaph it can carve (or scratch): "At least I wasn't prejudiced against All Muslims!"
Cheers,
Hesp
[No answer from Diana, two days later. UPDATE: No answer from Diana, weeks later...]
So apparently, Diana doesn't think the issue is that urgent that she needs to talk to Frank more assertively about this. Wow.
When Bodissey featured an exposé of Maajid Nawaz by Vikram Chatterjee on his Gates of Vienna blog, I pointed out what a couple of others noticed -- namely, that Chatterjee was curiously soft on Jasser contrasted to how cynically critical he was of Nawaz. I wrote:
"Just for starters, I would ask Baron Bodissey and Vikram Chatterjee to listen to how Zuhdi Jasser resonds to the oh-so gingerly and respectfully polite Frank Gaffney’s gentle questions about the Koran and Muhammad — beginning at the 29 minute mark of his interview of Dec. 17:
[Baron Bodissey replied:]
As I said, I don’t know enough about Zuhdi Jasser to have an opinion on whether or not he is a “stealth jihadist”. My point was not that he is “moderate”, but that his operation is modest (to put it mildly) and impact is miniscule, compared to that of Maajid Nawaz and others at his level of influence. There’s lots of money behind those masters of taqiyya.
[Mustering all my patience to restrain my rational fury, I wrote:]
The mere fact that Jasser is Muslim makes him suspect. Add to that the sophistry he responds with when articulating his supposed “moderation” and ideas for “reform” and that should clinch it. As for his influence, he is regularly featured on mainstream news media soliciting his opinion; and he has fooled major figures of the Counter-Jihad. His influence thus is significant enough quantitatively; and qualitatively, it serves to tend to lull the Counter-Jihad (the members of it fooled by him) into an attitude reinforcing their feeling that the ongoing presence of multitudes of Muslims in the West is a fait accompli modus vivendi about which we cannot do anything, and perhaps don’t need to do anything, since most of those Muslims “just wanna have a sandwich” and are not presenting a demographic out of which an exponential, metastasizing threat of terror attacks throughout the West, numerous and far worse than 911 in the coming decades of this 21st century will not devolve (and do not require precisely the presence of that demographic).
The mere fact that Jasser is Muslim makes him suspect. Add to that the sophistry he responds with when articulating his supposed “moderation” and ideas for “reform” and that should clinch it. As for his influence, he is regularly featured on mainstream news media soliciting his opinion; and he has fooled major figures of the Counter-Jihad. His influence thus is significant enough quantitatively; and qualitatively, it serves to tend to lull the Counter-Jihad (the members of it fooled by him) into an attitude reinforcing their feeling that the ongoing presence of multitudes of Muslims in the West is a fait accompli modus vivendi about which we cannot do anything, and perhaps don’t need to do anything, since most of those Muslims “just wanna have a sandwich” and are not presenting a demographic out of which an exponential, metastasizing threat of terror attacks throughout the West, numerous and far worse than 911 in the coming decades of this 21st century will not devolve (and do not require precisely the presence of that demographic).
Conclusion:
The point is, Baron Bodissey was still waiting for more data on Jasser. That's why the West is doomed. We're sitting around waiting for more data on Muslims. There is no more data to expect. Jasser is a Muslim. We should damn him for that. Bodissey and his Gates of Vienna community are too cowardly to go there; instead they fulminate against the "Leftists" and "Marxists" of our society without any of the restraints they accord to the likes of Jasser.
http://securefreedomradio.podbean.com/
Tell me that Zuhdi isn’t responding with the same kind of tissue of sophistry Maajid routinely indulges in."