Well, it's been another quiet week in Lake Mobegone...

I haven't revisited this little series of mine in about a year, as other things and essays intervened in the meanwhile (also, the construction of these pieces, using cut-&-paste from the Jihad Watch site, proved to be tediously cumbersome, due in great part to the bells and whistles of that site).

I first thought of the idea after I wrote a cheeky satire of Garrison Keillor's "News from Lake Wobegone" back in December of 2011 -- and shortly thereafter, when it occurred to me one day (more consciously than heretofore) that the mere, sheer effect on a person of being presented the horrible mountain -- or at least one small, bloody, jagged peak -- of the data which the Muslim world churns out on a daily, weekly basis would, or could, be useful.

At any rate, I now offer this latest installment of my series as one hopefully novel and palatable way to get the horrible point across, with a tip of the hat to Garrison Keillor's "News from Lake Wobegone" -- where the pun "Mobegone" (the "Mo" of course, referring to the Prophet of Islam) plays upon the double meanings of "begone", as I explain in the footnote of my first installment.

Speaking of which, I remind the reader to take a look at my four previous installments, which I have  linked at the bottom of today's post, way down below the long, horrifying list I now, without further ado, present:

Jerusalem: Muslim who rammed car into Jews says “I sought to kill Jews”

Jerusalem Post, April 21, 2015

Somalia: Islamic jihad suicide bomber murders at least ten at Mogadishu restaurant

Reuters, April 21, 2015

South Carolina Syrian-American teen, Islamic State supporter, plotted to murder U.S. soldiers

Associated Press, April 21, 2015

Alabama Muslima who joined Islamic State exhorts Muslims: “Go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood…Kill them”

by Billy Hallowell, The Blaze, April 21, 2015

UK Muslim groomed friend to murder British soldiers

BBC, April 20, 2015

 

Turkish cops detain UK Muslim family thought to be headed for Islamic State

Reuters, April 20, 2015

Montreal Muslims had explosives, accused of trying to join jihad group

by Allan Woods, Toronto Star, April 20, 2015

San Diego: Muslims who tried to join Islamic State held without bail

FOX 5, April 20, 2015

UK cops arrest 14-year-old Muslim in connection with Australia State jihad plot

AFP, April 20, 2015

Muslims in Minneapolis, San Diego arrested in jihad terror probe
by Amy Forliti, Associated Press, April 19, 2015

Egypt’s Mufti going to Europe to fight “radical Islam” by meeting with non-Muslims
by Menna Zaki, Daily News Egypt, April 19, 2015

[What other religion has a major national representative of their faith making international trips to try to rectify an international problem of “radical” violence among its members?]

Pakistan: Muslim husband burns wife to death for visiting her sister without permission
AFP, April 19, 2015

Islamic State: “You will not have safety even in your dreams, until you accept Islam”

More on this story: “‘You Will Not Have Safety Until You Accept Islam': ISIS Kills 30 Ethiopian ‘Followers of the Cross’”

by Heather Clark, Christian News

Bangladesh: Muslim mob attacks Christians, stabs priest during Easter Mass

by Sumon Corraya, Asia News

Pakistan: Muslims on motorcycles open fire on Christian school
by Samuel Smith, Christian Post, April 17, 2015

Islamic State in Libya murders Ethiopian Christians

by Jane Onyanga-Omara, USA Today, April 19, 2015

Islamic State murders 33 (over 100 wounded) with jihad suicide bomb at bank in Afghanistan

by Lydia Willgress, MailOnline, April 18, 2015

Muslim male model from Australia dies fighting for Islamic State; Australia PM says Islamic State “not about religion”

by Jonathan Pearlman, Telegraph, April 16, 2015

Australia: Muslims plotted Islamic State-inspired jihad attack; Victoria Premier says they’re “not people of faith”

ABC.net.au, April 18, 2015

Australia: Muslims discussed killing Jews and Muhammad cartoonists

by Grant Taylor, The West Australian, April 18, 2015

Thousands of Iraqis flee as Islamic State makes gains in Sunni heartland

by Loveday Morris, Washington Post, April 17, 2015

Female genital mutilation persists in Indonesia

by Marie Dhumieres, GlobalPost, April 16, 2015

93% of Muslim women in Malaysia have suffered genital mutilation

by Gabrielle Paluch, Al Jazeera, April 2, 2015

“You must kill children without compassion” for the “path of Allah”

Asia News, April 16, 2015

[This is the testimony of a young Tajik, recruited in Moscow by the militia of the Islamic State (IS) to fight in Syria and who managed to escape.]

UK: Boney M singer’s brother, a convert to Islam, arrested for jihad terror offenses

by Justin Davenport and David Churchill, Express, April 16, 2015

Moderate Malaysia: Cops hunting for two men over Facebook insults to Islam

Bernama, April 17, 2015

Muslim refugees throw Christian refugees overboard during crossing from Libya to Italy

Associated Press, April 16, 2015

Ohio Muslim who waged jihad in Syria indicted: discussed attacking Texas military base and killing U.S. soldiers

by Adam Goldman, Washington Post, April 16, 2015

Muslim ex-rapper from Germany threatens Charlie Hebdo-style attacks: “We want your blood, it tastes so wonderful”

by Justin Huggler, Telegraph, April 15, 2015

Canada: Muslim teens in custody until Monday for fear they’ll wage jihad

The Canadian Press, April 15, 2015

Muslim from Jamaica detained in Suriname, was trying to join Islamic State

PTI, April 13, 2015

Kenya: Imam charged with recruiting youths to jihad mass murder group
The Star via AllAfrica.com, April 11, 2015

42% of Muslims in Canada think Islam and West “irreconcilable”

by Dalit Halevy and Ari Yashar, Arutz Sheva, April 13, 2015

New Islamic State video calls for attacks in US, promises another 9/11

by Patrick Poole, PJ Media, April 11, 2015

Islamic State beheads “blasphemer” with meat cleaver

South Asian Media, April 13, 2015

UK Pro-jihad Muslim group boasts: “negotiating with Tory & Labour leadership”

by Andrew Gilligan, Telegraph, April 4, 2015

Why is the FBI whitewashing the Saudi connection to 9/11?

by Paul Sperry, New York Post, April 12, 2015

Now between 5,000 and 6,000 Muslims from Europe waging jihad in Syria

Sputnik International, April 13, 2015

UK Muslim: Asking Muslims to stop others from joining ISIS will drive them to ISIS

by Mohammed Kozbar, International Business Times, April 13, 2015

Islamic State abducts almost 120 schoolchildren in Mosul

Al-Bawaba, April 12, 2015

Spanish hairdresser converts to Islam, plots to bomb Jewish bookstore

by Daniel Greenfield, FrontPage, April 12, 2015

Islamic State demands $30 million for Christian hostages

by Ariel Cohen, Jerusalem Post, April 12, 2015

Afghanistan: Jihadis murder 5 aid workers, may have poisoned 100 students

by Mirwais Harooni, Reuters, April 11, 2015

Pakistan frees mastermind of Mumbai jihad massacre

FoxNews.com, April 10, 2015

Australia: Islamic State hackers take over Hobart Airport website

by Chloe Booker, Sydney Morning Herald, April 13, 2015

UK: Muslim politician’s son arrested for trying to join the Islamic State

by Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith, Independent, April 15, 2015

Afghan Colonel was paid $250,000 to kill US personnel, Pentagon coverup ensued

by Sara Carter, senior investigative reporter for The Blaze

UK Prison Service allowing jihadi book to be distributed to inmates

by Felicity Capon, Newsweek, April 15, 2015

France: more women than men leaving for jihad in the Islamic State

ANSAmed, April 15, 2015

Danish queen: “It is vital that we give Islam opposition”

from a recent interview given in connection with the Queen’s 75th birthday (translated by Nicolai Sennels, via 10news.dk

Islamic State close to taking Ramadi, just 70 miles from Baghdad

by Hamdi Alkhshali, Arwa Damon and Jethro Mullen, CNN, April 15, 2015

Islamic State camp a few miles from Texas

Judicial Watch, April 14, 2015

New Jersey: Muslim screaming “Allahu akbar” throws lit firecrackers at synagogue

by Stefanie Dazio, Bergen Record, April 12, 2015

Seven Muslims from France in jihad suicide attacks for the Islamic State

Arutz Sheva, April 13, 2015

UAE: Indian man charged with insulting Islam on Facebook

IANS, April 14, 2015

Afghan president admits he’s losing troops to Islamic State

Associated Press, March 21, 2015

Previous Articles in This Series:

March 15, 2014

March 22, 2014

March 28, 2014

April 5, 2014

Buckley must be buckling his grave...

The "conservatives" are at it again: Ron Capshaw writing for National Review (the legacy of the great William Buckley, Jr.), -- producing an egregiously sloppy and petty hatchet job on Diana West's book American Betrayal.  (West says it is Capshaw's fifth time he's flailed at her book.)

West's rejoinder ably capsizes Capshaw's pathetic little schooner, and exposes it for the mean and paltry excuse for a critical review it is.  For a book such as American Betrayal that, among other monumentally useful historiography, defends the credibility of Whittaker Chambers (a friend of Buckley's and contributor of fascinating articles to the early National Review) and along with M. Stanton Evans helps to restore the reputation of Joe McCarthy, it is unconscionable that Buckley's seminal flagship magazine can't even muster a coherent, intelligent, suitably respectful analysis of it.

Shame on National Review and its editor-in-chief, Rich Lowry!

Further Reading:

El Escándalo de los Calumniadores de Diana West

The Cure for the Communist Cold

Old News

Stealth Communism

Deprogramming: Muslims, or the West...?

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Before we deprogram individuals who have been “radicalized” by an “extremist Islamism” that “has nothing to do with Islam”, we need to deprogram our mainstream West. How do you deprogram tens of millions of people from all walks of life spread out in dozens of countries?

That's a quote from the conclusion of an older essay of mine -- Deprogramming in order to "de-radicalize" Muslims -- which I have dusted off and rebooted for today's post. 

I don't answer the question, of course, as it reflects a vast and complex problem that cannot be solved in one blog post.  But the problem it points to is the most important problem of this 21st century, and we better start thinking about the best way to address it.



 

Pop goes the weasel...

A fascinating article by Eric Fleury -- "Muhammad Ali and the Myth of a Civil Rights Hero" -- popping the balloon of Muhammad Ali who for decades virtually no one would question as a winsomely charismatic pop icon and civil rights champion (aside, of course, from his skillful prowess as a boxer).

So many interesting nuggets in this article, such as:

The Nation of Islam could not have possibly selected a better mouthpiece than the obnoxious young contender Cassius Clay, a name which he would later disavow as his ‘slave name,’ an amusing irony since he was named after a famed abolitionist.  

This inclusion on my blog reminds me of another exposé I published here on another sainted pop icon -- perhaps the gold standard of sainted pop icons -- Gandhi.  If someday in the near future I come across a third (and I can guarantee my readers it won't be Christopher Hitchens' vicious tissues of calumny against Mother Theresa), maybe I'll start a series.

P.S.:  I recently discovered Eric Fleury on the website dedicated to philosopher Eric Voegelin, where it was noted that he will be among the academics giving papers at the 31st annual conference they hold (this time in September, in San Francisco).  His slated paper is titled "Prudence, National Interest and Counter-Terrorism" and I would be interested to learn if he has broken ranks with the largely PC MC tenor of most of his fellow Voegelinians on this issue of the problem of Islam.  (I won't be holding my breath, however; and frankly I would fall off my chair if that turned out to be the case...).

The Dynamic of Cool

 

Jihad Watch recently reported a HuffPoll which found that:

Overall, 55 percent of Americans had either a somewhat or very unfavorable view of Islam, while one in four said they were not sure how they viewed the faith. Just 7 percent said they had a very favorable view of the religion, and 14 percent said they saw it somewhat favorably.

Assuming that breakdown accurately reflects America at large, the more important concern for the Counter-Jihad is to clarify with more precision where these various groups so imprecisely described are situated. For instance, what does it mean to have a "somewhat" unfavorable view of Islam?  How was that measured?  And how many among the overall unfavorables did they represent?  And can we be sure there do not exist further gradations or granularization along a spectrum among the unfavorables?  And to begin to do that, one would likely need to re-interview / re-question the respondents with more precise questions. Those more precise questions, in turn, need to be crafted by people who themselves have a sure sense of the various ways and degrees by which people can range on a spectrum from one extreme to the other.

Perhaps more importantly in the long run for the war-of-ideas theater of the Counter-Jihad—which continues to be the most important theater if only because awakening the West from its PC MC somnambulance would most effectively begin the process of taking the wind out of the sails of the Jihad Armada swelling in its global revival—this latest HuffPoll indicates that young people in America are more warmly disposed to Islam.  One of their findings stated:

Younger Americans are the most likely to have positive views on Islam, be interested in learning about the religion and have Muslim friends.

If this accurately reflects the orientation of the younger demographic on this issue, it would indicate what I have been arguing for years: namely, that the biggest war-of-ideas problem the Counter-Jihad has is the “cool factor”—which in turn bifurcates into two closely related trends:

a) for a certain apparently significant demographic, it remains “cool” to be favorably disposed to Islam (as a non-Western, perceptually “ethnic” culture) and to Muslims (as non-Western, perceptually “ethnic” and therefore culturally “diverse” peoples)—largely out of the irrational Reverse Racism meme of PC MC

b) more subtly, it remains “cool” to be not anti-Islam—which is not necessarily directly to be pro-Islam—because, apropos of (a) above, it remains “cool” to be not bigoted, and one overwhelming meme of the dominant and mainstream PC MC continues to paint the Counter-Jihad as “bigoted”.

And, as many observers and analysts of our post-modern culture have noted (though one doesn't need to be an expert analyst with lofty degrees and think-tank metrics to see this), in many ways our society has become more youth-oriented than ever before, where people who should be leaving adolescence behind and growing up seem to be cultivating a kind of arrested development (Diana West, for example, discussed this in her book, provocatively and incisively titled, The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization).  This, needless to say, would be a major factor in the West's continuing myopia to the problem of Islam, insofar, as I argue here, being anti-Islam has been decided by pop cultural fiat to have the worst possible thing:  the Cooties of Uncool.

Certainly, the cool dynamic is a flimsy phenomenon intellectually speaking; but, unfortunately, it’s enormously influential socioculturally and therefore sociopolitically, Sure, it would be nice if our societies behaved as superlatively as Plato envisioned the ideal Republic in his dialogue of the same name; but unfortunately, various degrees of mediocrity are an unavoidable—and sometimes influential—part of the life of the public.

As I pointed out in an older essay on my blog, in recent history, America (and perhaps parts of the rest of the West) went through the amazing sociocultural (and hence sociopolitical) process of smoking becoming uncool. Smoking had been cool for so long, nobody could have predicted such a major change in smoking habits in society without totalitarian measures. As George Will noted in the 90s, when signs of the remarkable change were visible enough (if not dominant by then) to be noticed, the cultural reversal was really amazing. Certainly, there are pockets in culture that continue to promote an alterative cool aspect of cigarette smoking (e.g., a few Hollywood actors and rock stars), but those are the exceptions that prove the rule.

The point is that the definitive critical mass of the sociological reversal on smoking habits didn’t seem to have happened because people became reasonably persuaded by the facts through patient arguments reiterated in various media over the decades—but mainly through the phenomenon of smoking becoming “uncool”.

Now if only Islam would lose its “cool”...

It would really help if just a few ostensibly “cool” celebrities—actors and musicians—began to break ranks and slowly, glacially got the snowball rolling.  One Bill Maher isn't enough, I'm afraid.

Prison Jihad

An important article written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali on this subject, published as an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on March 31, 2015:

 

* * * * * 

Less than a year after I moved to the United States in 2006, I was asked to speak at the University of Pittsburgh. Among those who objected to my appearance was a local imam, Fouad El Bayly, of the Johnstown Islamic Center. Mr. Bayly was born in Egypt but has lived in the U.S. since 1976. In his own words, I had “been identified as one who has defamed the faith.” As he explained at the time: “If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death.”

After a local newspaper reported Mr. Bayly’s comments, he was forced to resign from the Islamic Center. That was the last I would hear of him—or so I thought.

Imagine my surprise when I learned recently that the man who threatened me with death for apostasy is being paid by the U.S. Justice Department to teach Islam in American jails.

According to records on the federal site USASpending.gov and first reported by Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller, the Federal Bureau of Prisons awarded Mr. Bayly a $10,500 contract in February 2014 to provide “religious services, leadership and guidance” to inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Md. Ten months later he received another federal contract, worth $2,400, to provide “Muslim classes for inmates” at the same prison.

This isn’t a story about one problematic imam, or about the misguided administration of a solitary prison. Several U.S. prison chaplains have been exposed in recent years as sympathetic to radical Islam, including Warith Deen Umar, who helped run the New York State Department of Correctional Services’ Islamic prison program for two decades, until 2000, and who praised the 9/11 hijackers in a 2003 interview with this newspaper.

That same year, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism held hearings on radical Islamic clerics in U.S. prisons. Committee members voiced serious concerns over the vetting of Muslim prison chaplains and the extent of radical Islamist influences. Harley Lappin, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the time, said that “inmates are particularly vulnerable to recruitment by terrorists,” and that “we must guard against the spread of terrorism and extremist ideologies.”

Yet it is not clear what measures—if any—were taken in response to those concerns.

Testifying in 2011 before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Michael P. Downing, head of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau, said that in 2003 it was estimated that 17%-20% of the U.S. prison population, some 350,000 inmates, were Muslims, and that “80% of the prisoners who convert while in prison, convert to Islam.” He estimated that “35,000 inmates convert to Islam annually.”

Patrick Dunleavy, retired deputy inspector of the Criminal Intelligence Division at the New York State Department of Corrections, said in testimony that prison authorities often rely on groups such as the Islamic Leadership Council or the Islamic Society of North America for advice about Islamic chaplains. Yet those groups can and have referred individuals not suited to positions of influence over prisoners. As Mr. Dunleavy pointedly testified: “There is certainly no vetting of volunteers who provide religious instruction, and who, although not paid, wield considerable influence in the prison Muslim communities.”

The problem isn’t limited to radical clerics infiltrating prisons. Radical inmates proselytize and do their utmost to recruit others to their cause. Once released, they may seek to take their radicalization to the next level.

Kevin James formed the Assembly of Authentic Islam while in New Folsom State Prison in California. In 2004 James recruited fellow prisoner Levar Washington to his cause. After being released, James developed a list of possible targets including an Israeli consulate, a Jewish children’s camp in Malibu, Los Angeles International Airport and a U.S. military recruiting station in Santa Monica. The two men pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges; Washington was sentenced to 22 years in 2008, James to 16 years in 2009.

Michael Finton converted and radicalized in an Illinois state prison while serving time for aggravated assault. Finton wanted to attack a federal government building and spoke of the need to attack members of Congress. He pleaded guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and was sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2011.

In 2009 the “Newburgh Four”—James Cromitie, Laguerre Payen, David Williams and Onta Williams—were arrested for plotting to bomb synagogues in New York City. The men also intended to shoot down military aircraft with Stinger missiles. All four had converted to Islam in prison, where they developed radical sympathies. The men didn’t know each other while in prison but met after their release while attending a local mosque connected to a prison ministry. All four were convicted on conspiracy charges and received 25-year sentences in 2011.

In January 2010 John Kerry, who was then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a report warning that “three dozen U.S. citizens who converted to Islam while in prison have traveled to Yemen, possibly for al Qaeda training.”

Europeans have known for some time that prisons can be breeding grounds for Islamists. The British “shoe bomber,” Richard Reid, is thought to have been radicalized while in prison for smaller crimes. Two of the gunmen in the Paris terror attacks in January—Chérif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly—came under the religious influence of Djamel Beghal, a convicted terrorist and charismatic Islamist, when serving prison sentences. Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers, three small children and a rabbi at a Jewish school near Toulouse, France, in 2012, apparently became a jihadist while in jail. The list is depressingly long.

The problem is that experts tend to be concerned about prison radicalization only to the extent that it ultimately results in some type of violent attack. Yet there are good reasons to be concerned about the inmates who come to cherish a radical interpretation of Islam while refraining—for the time being—from the use of violence. The boundary between nonviolent and violent extremism is much more porous than conventional wisdom allows.

. . .

The fact that Fouad El Bayly, an imam who publicly called for my death, was chosen to provide “religious services, leadership and guidance” at a federal prison shows that U.S. authorities haven’t learned the right lessons from a growing list of prison-convert terrorists. 

* * * * * 

Further Reading:

My analytical review of the cable drama Oz (in which Muslim prisoners figure in key roles of the ongoing plot).