Those of us who follow websites like Jihad Watch, Gates of Vienna and Raymond Ibrahim have a significant advantage. We can see the future. Coming to a town near you. Just give it time. 

​A 5 minute video from Robert Spencer on the chap in Oklahoma who converted to Islam, read the Qur'an and beheaded his "oppressive" middle-aged lady co-worker in obedience to its clear commands.

The Police prosecutors say it has absolutely nothing to do with Islam. The defence lawyers agree and claim he was schizophrenic. While I can understand the defence lawyer taking that tack I'm really left wondering if the Prosecutor & the Court have realised what this decision implies.


>>>>>>>>>>>
Robert Spencer: Oklahoma beheading case shows incoherence of our response to jihad threat
Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer discusses the case of Alton Nolen, the Oklahoma Muslim who beheaded a coworker and justified his actions by invoking the Quran. The case shows the incoherence of the official response to the jihad threat.

I know a lot of people - interestingly they are mostly not church-goers - who think the current Pope is the best thing since sliced Crusaders. A huge improvement over the last guy who was rather doctrinaire. This one seems to understand the needs of the modern world far better and talks quite a lot of sense.

Yeah, got a problem with that.

I think that, despite popular opinion, Francis' underpinning Socialist worldview - or more accurately his Marxist worldview - is not entirely complementary to Christianity. In fact it can be quite antagonistic. This is the same common worldview which seems to truncate an acute understanding of Islam infecting the general population at the moment. Most worryingly though it is the leadership of almost every Christian denomination that is failing to engage. When it comes to facing what has been for the last 1400 years the greatest existential threat to the Church (and I would add, to what we blithely assume to be some sort of nebulous but somehow intrinsic "Western" set of freedoms) I think we should expect a lot more from Church leaders.

Pope Francis doesn't seem to have much faith in his Faith as it has been historically understood. Nor does he seem to have the same priorities as his Lord. Priorities like "whatever you did for the least of these my brothers you did for me" - which he seems to ignore regarding the millions of persecuted Christians under Islam today. He has also said that there is a justification for physical violence in response to unkind words (in contrast Anglican Canon Law states that any clergy doing this would be dismissed) and that "Muslim terrorism does not exist". The first statement defies the teachings of Christ. The second logic. Both are covered in the following video.

The way we are headed the Church is in the process of being crushed. If the Church is crushed then the West will be crushed. I think there is already abundant of evidence of this.

I have yet to hear a pronouncement on Islam from all Pope Francis' statements that shows he's done any more than flick through a Reader's Digest version of the Koran while he was sitting in a Doctor's waiting room one day. Benedict had an accurate grasp of Islam and of the history of Christianity's experience with it. Francis does not. In these times this should alarm us in the extreme.

In this 6 minute video Robert Spencer goes through some of the Pope's statements and attitudes toward Islam. A Catholic himself, Spencer handles the issue with a commendable humour & grace. Nevertheless the content is quite shocking.

I'd call this a "must watch".

To those who will: let's pray for the leadership of the Catholic Church. You don't even have to be a Catholic to do that.


>>>>>>>>>>>
Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer discusses the praise Pope Francis has received from Muslim leaders for his false claims that Islam is a religion of peace that has nothing to do with terrorism, and his ignoring of the plight of persecuted Middle Eastern Christians.

Unashamedly pinched from the Gates of Vienna (which I hope you regularly check!). That fast-talking Italian is back with a few choice words about reciprocity and the distinctiveness of Islam compared to other religions. It's short and sweet but it still covers the basic problems we in the West have with Islam.


>>>>>>>>>
​ITALIAN PSYCHIATRIST VS MUSLIM ON ITALIAN TV
Alessandro Meluzzi is an Italian psychiatrist, writer, politician, and academic. In the following video recorded last year, Dr. Meluzzi confronts a young Muslim named Saif Eddine Abouabid on a TV panel show.

The translator includes this note:
Instead of a professional credential, the title under the Moslem’s name reads “Young Muslim”. When I googled him I looked at his twitter, it doesn’t appear that he has any official group. I’m guessing he’s just an activist.

Many thanks to Elle Bowlly for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling.

Video transcript:

00:00 We must have the courage to tell it like it is, in spite of whatever sympathies
​00:03 we may have for our friend who stands in front of me. It’ll be perfectly fine
00:07 with me to fill up Italy with mosques when someone
00:10 who has become Muslim considers mosques to be like any other temple of any other
00:15 religion. Which one is allowed to freely join and freely leave.
00:19 The moment Muslims are able to freely convert
00:23 to Christianity, Buddhism, Shintoism without getting sanctioned
00:27 by a fatwa (something that our friend has
00:31 good knowledge of), it’ll mean that Islam has become a religion
00:34 like all others, and that it can be treated
00:37 like all other religions. Like Hinduism, Buddhism,
00:41 Christianity with all its denominations, and Jews.
00:44 The problem is that Islam is first and foremost (and our friend knows it well)
00:47 a major judicial system for which
00:50 adultery is not a SIN, but a CRIME. When adultery
00:54 ceases to be a crime and has become merely a sin
00:58 of the conscience, then I’ll want to fill up Italy with mosques!
01:02 The other principle is the one of reciprocity! My thoughts
01:05 can’t help but go out to my 700,000 Chaldean-Assyrian Christian brothers
01:10 who are victims of a genocide that is a hundred times
01:14 as great as Srebrenica (for which we prosecuted [Bosnian Serb Radovan] Karadžić)!
01:18 Who have been massacred in Northern Iraq and Syria.
01:21 Let’s see YOU go to one of those lands to build a Christian Church,
01:25 and you’ll see what’ll happen!
01:28 When all this is allowed, we will fill up Italy with mosques! When this is allowed.

How lovely! What a great example of be willing to enter into dialogue and identify with the Other. Now we just need some prominent person from the political Right to do the same with those on the political Left and we will start to get somewhere. There are many forces these days seeking to divide people. I think we need to be aware of that and actively work towards understanding. 

NPR is America's National Public Radio which sounds like it has a lot in common with the BBC & Radio New Zealand National. It's wonderful that he was ethical & professional enough to be aware of his own biases and be prepared to do something about them. That attitude seems to be pretty rare these days.

​Perhaps someone in RNZ's leadership might like to try something similar? Hey you're welcome to come to church and go hunting & motorcycle racing with this "right wing" Evangelical "Islamophobe" any time!

In the interests of getting barriers removed & getting people talking I offer you the following article from Hot Air and the 5 minute video clip at the end.


>>>>>>>>>>>
Former NPR CEO spends time with Republicans, changes his mind
by John Sexton.

Yesterday I wrote about a group of researchers for the moderate Democratic group Third Way who traveled to Middle America looking for signs of unity and found mostly partisanship. Today I want to highlight another effort by someone on the left to cross partisan lines in an effort to learn something. Former NPR CEO Ken Stern spent a year living like a conservative, going hunting, going to church, attending NASCAR races. His purpose was to write a book about the other America but also, he says, to see if maybe he could learn something. From the New York Post:

               For an entire year, I embedded myself with the other side, standing in pit row at a NASCAR race, hanging out at Tea Party meetings and sitting in on Steve Bannon’s radio show. I found an America far different from the one depicted in the press and imagined by presidents (“cling to guns or religion”) and presidential candidates (“basket of deplorables”) alike…

At Urbana, I met dozens of people who were dedicating their lives to the mission, spreading the good news of Jesus, of course, but doing so through a life of charity and compassion for others: staffing remote hospitals, building homes for the homeless and, in one case, flying a “powered parachute” over miles of uninhabited jungle in the western Congo to bring a little bit of entertainment, education and relief to some of the remotest villages you could imagine. It was all inspiring — and a little foolhardy, if you ask me about the safety of a powered parachute — but it left me with a very different impression of a community that was previously known to me only through Jerry Falwell and the movie “Footloose.”

There’s definitely a ‘gorillas in the mist’ aspect to this but often that phrase is a reference to the tone of something as much as the process. In this case, the tone isn’t ‘look at these curious savages’ it seems to be more humble than that, i.e. ‘I’ve really misunderstood some good people.’ It’s not clear whether Stern is a convert on any particular issue but he does seem to have come a long way on at least one key issues dividing left and right, gun control:

      Over the course of this past year, I have tried to consume media as they do and understand it as a partisan player. It is not so hard to do. Take guns. Gun control and gun rights is one of our most divisive issues, and there are legitimate points on both sides. But media is obsessed with the gun-control side and gives only scant, mostly negative, recognition to the gun-rights sides.

Take, for instance, the issue of legitimate defensive gun use (DGU), which is often dismissed by the media as myth. But DGUs happen all the time — 200 times a day, according to the Department of Justice, or 5,000 times a day, according to an overly exuberant Florida State University study. But whichever study you choose to believe, DGUs happen frequently and give credence to my hunting friends who see their guns as the last line of defense for themselves and their families.

Again, I doubt Stern is joining the NRA and starting a gun collection, but he certainly seems to have moved to a position from where he can at least see both sides of the debate as opposed to what usually passes for fairness at NPR.

​When it comes to the issue of media bias Stern tells Tucker Carlson he still believes people who work at NPR try to be fair and give both sides, but he now knows that living inside the Democratic-media bubble means many reporters “don’t tell the stories of half the country.” Is it still bias if you’re only partly aware how biased you are? I think it is. If Stern’s effort shows anything it’s that it is possible to encounter the world outside the bubble, it just takes some effort.

Here’s the full Tucker Carlson interview from last night’s show:

No TV? How can I live?! Ah but many people do have TVs and it is for you that I provide the following clip.

In 8 minutes David Wood explains how TV-land is in AWE of all the yummy goodness of the Religion of Peace™. He also manages to expose some of the pesky falsehoods people who live in that wonderful make-believe place accept. Things like taking verses of the Qur'an out of context and inventing verses from the Qur'an to make it sound even nicer.

​Walking dead indeed...

>>>>>>>>>>>>
AMC’s “The Walking Dead” made four intriguing claims about Islam, but the writers went INSANE with #4!

​Following the introduction of a Muslim character (Nabila) at the end of Season 7, the Season 8 premier introduced the show’s second Muslim character (Abbud, played by Avi Nash). But when the writers started explaining the Quran to us, it wasn’t long before they started making some standard blunders. David Wood discusses the program. 

From the Gates of Vienna.


>>>>>>>>>>>>
Massimo Giannini is the presenter of the weekly politics and current affairs TV talk show Ballarò on RAI 3 in Italy. Alessandro Meluzzi is an Italian psychiatrist, writer, politician, and academic.

In the following clip, Dr. Meluzzi discusses the coming Islamic colonization of Italy and the rest of the West. The program aired in May 2017, just after the terrorist bombing in Manchester.

Many thanks to Elle Bowlly for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

​Video transcript (very useful, these Italians talk fast!):
00:00 I’ll ask you this: isn’t it possible that immigration
00:04 may enlarge this huge pool, making it ever more…
00:08 Islamic immigration! —…difficult to detect those who are radicalized? —Islamic immigration!
00:11 Yes, what you’re asking is right, and in the question you already have half the answer.
00:17 Obviously, the more you have in your territory, the more the risk can increase.
00:23 However, the question I ask is this; prefacing it with this:
00:27 that all the attacks we’ve had from 9/11
00:30 on in the West (in the US and Europe) were carried out by citizens of the very same countries
00:38 against which the attack was perpetrated. In no case was it migrants coming from other countries!
00:41 Of course! Of course! --It was always people who were born there! They had foreign origins, but they
00:49 were born there. —How do you respond to that? —This shows that the problem is even more severe!
00:53 I respect Islam so much so that…Well, I actually know it a bit because I’ve travelled throughout
00:57 the Islamic world. I was a guest for a week at Hassan al-Turabi’s house in Khartoum, Sudan.
01:03 He was the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. This was back when I was a Senator with Cossiga.
01:06 And I had an extremely intense conversation in which this educated, sophisticated, powerful and
01:10 frightening man explained to me that Islam will inexorably conquer the West. For demographic
01:15 reasons, which are obvious, and secondly for a matter of values. Because ours is a weak culture,
01:21 while theirs is a strong one. In reply to Ms Casati Modignani: maybe Father Benoit was an attentive
01:31 scholar of Islam, but perhaps he did not read the Koranic Surahs because in all the Meccan Surahs
01:38 this concept is written precisely. There are two facts
01:41 that tell us that Islam, before being a religion,
01:44 is a colossal and rigid judicial system: one cannot change religion because the act of repudiation
01:52 leads to a death fatwa; which doesn’t even have to be issued by an imam, but which
01:56 any good Muslim can issue; and above all, blasphemy is a sin that is punished immediately
02:04 by the Shari’a (Islamic law) with a death fatwa. —But the Shari’a is not the Koran, though.
02:09 No, but… —Careful. They’re two different things. —But the Koranic Surahs say it! You only need to
02:13 take the Meccan ones where these things are written and are not modifiable. It’s not ME saying
02:17 these things! They were said by General al-Sisi’s Mufti
02:20 of the Al-Azhar Mosque, which is the biggest center of
02:23 theological elaboration of the Sunni world. He said that the
02:28 specific contents of the religion of 1.8 billion people.
02:32 That what is written there shouldn’t be used to bring terror to the remaining 6 billion
02:36 HE said that, and he is a Muslim, never mind us! —Let’s see what.
02:40 Therefore, we can’t deal with this just by bending over and not calling things by their name!
02:45 We don’t have to bend over, but what can we do!? Do we kick them all out? This is the question!
02:50 What can we do? Giannini asks… —Because the fact that they’re third generation demonstrates that
02:54 it’s an unassimilable culture! Or we should at least ask. —But it has been assimilated in many countries
02:58 You didn’t mention Germany, which has six million Turks. A large portion of them are Muslims. Perfectly.
03:03 The Turks are a bit different —It’s always Islam though, and nothing ever happened with them.
03:07 Integration is possible. —The Turks went through the civilizing campaign of
03:11 Kemal Atatürk who made their state secular.
03:14 Turkey’s a different reality --But they’re still Muslims. —What I want to say anyway is that
03:17 the true big threat is nonetheless posed by this very culture. Which is unassimilable,
03:20 but because it ITSELF doesn’t want to be assimilated, at all!
03:23 It wants to assimilate US! Do you want to get it through your heads,
03:26 yes or no!? This is the fundamental point. —What does the Minister think of…
03:30 They previously said we couldn’t defeat it because it was just a madman, now it’s because there’s a
03:34 complicated network. —Well, I believe in using the correct terms, because I see fascism.
03:39 Well, I think Giannini didn’t hold back. —No, no I agree with what he said, the whole of it.
03:43 I’d add a clarification to the Islam script. We applied the term “Islamic fascism” to
03:47 this category. I would leave fascism out, since it falls under a 1900s category of the West.
03:51 I mean, Islam is a darned serious thing that has 1,600 years of history,
03:55 which were all marked by sudden and violent expansionistic flare-ups.
04:01 Giovanni Sartori, who was an extraordinary political scientist that we’re all students of
04:06 in some way, shortly before dying, he wrote what I believe to be
04:10 a memorable sentence: From 630 AD till now,
04:13 there’s no record in history of even one case of an Islamic community that was inserted in a
04:17 non-Islamic society and integrated itself, was able to co-exist peacefully, that didn’t end up in
04:25 the conquest and overpowering of the place where they installed themselves.
04:29 It’s ALWAYS been like this. Well, if history, the end of the great empires
04:33 and the end of great civilizations teach us anything,
04:37 this major, terrible geopolitical conflict, as the late Oriana Fallaci would have said
04:44 between the West and its values, its civilization,
04:48 democracy, tolerance, aesthetics, taste, concerts,
04:51 its monuments, paintings, etc., etc. and Islam, has reached a crucial point. We can’t pretend that
04:56 it isn’t so! Although Trump may sell arms to the Saudis for various geopolitical reasons,
05:05 it doesn’t alter the terms one bit! What we’ve installed in the West (notably in the ex-colonial
05:11 countries like England and France, who’ve traditionally had strong relationships)
05:14 are a bunch of Islamic communities that are impregnable enclaves by now; from a values standpoint,
05:19 and from that of control, of democracy and when it comes to law enforcement, too!

How is it that some Muslims choose to follow the violent verses of the Qur'an when there are so many other Muslims that choose to follow the peaceful verses of the Qur'an? How can it be that some Muslims even attack & kill other Muslims? Fourteen minutes on the pivotal doctrine of Abrogation. One central plank of Qur'anic interpretation that we all must understand.


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Muslims in the West are quick to point to passages such as Qur'an 109:6 (“You shall have your religion and I shall have my religion”) and 2:256 (“There is no compulsion in religion”) as evidence that Islam is a religion of peace. When confronted with harsher passages such as 9:5 (“Slay the idolaters wherever you find them”) and 9:29 (“Fight those who believe not in Allah”), Westernized Muslims interpret these verses in light of the more peaceful teachings of the Quran, typically saying something like: “Well, the Quran can’t be commanding us to kill unbelievers, since it says that there’s no compulsion in religion.”

Hence, Westernized Muslims pick the verses of the Quran they find most attractive, and they use these verses to sanitize the rest of the Quran. But is this the correct way to interpret the Quran?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. The Quran presents its own method of interpretation—the Doctrine of Abrogation.

Quran 2:106—Whatever verse we shall abrogate, or cause [thee] to forget, we will bring a better than it, or one like unto it. Dost thou not know that God is almighty?

According to the Quran, then, when Muslims are faced with conflicting commands, they aren’t supposed to pick the one they like best. Rather, they are to go to history and see which verse was revealed last. Whichever verse came last is said to abrogate (or cancel) earlier revelations.

What happens when we apply this methodology to Quranic verses on peace and violence? In "Islam Explained: Understanding the World's Deadliest Doctrine," Christian apologist David Wood and former Muslim Al Fadi discuss the issue.

Subscribe to Al Fadi's channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zG...

It's been another one of those days. Just when you believe that things cannot possibly become any more ludicrous you see this stuff...

I offer you the following headache inducing news items. The first two from the Anglosphere and the third from our moral exemplars, the advanced & enlightened Scandinavians.


Exhibit A.

UK anti-terror chief: UK is “integrating,” not prosecuting, Islamic State returnees
by Christine Douglass-Williams at Jihad Watch
​
            "A senior government adviser has told the BBC that the authorities are not prosecuting many Islamic State volunteers, believing they should be reintegrated rather than punished."

Britain continues to expose its citizens to danger and jihad attacks. The UK is currently facing the most severe terror threat ever.

If Britain is hoping to enter these Islamic State jihadists into deradicalization programs, they don’t work. Professor Boaz Ganor, from the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism once stated that deradicalization is “practically impossible”; the London Tube jihad bomber had attended a deradicalization program; and France’s only jihadi deradicalization center was closed because it was based on voluntary participation as it should be, and it was empty.

Quite some time ago, Jihad Watch reported the real reason why returning jihadists were not being prosecuted. It was because UK officials feared seeming “anti-Muslim.”

“UK Anti-Terror Tsar: UK Authorities Not Prosecuting Islamic State Returnees to Avoid Creating a ‘Lost Generation”, by Jack Montgomery, Breitbart, October 21, 2017:

A senior government adviser has told the BBC that the authorities are not prosecuting many Islamic State volunteers, believing they should be reintegrated rather than punished.

Max Hill QC, who acts as the government’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, told Radio 4 that “we do have a significant number [of Islamic State volunteers] already back in this country who have previously gone to Iraq and Syria” — currently estimated at something over 400.

“That means that the authorities have looked at them, and looked at them hard, and decided that they do not justify prosecution, and really we should be looking towards reintegration and moving away from any notion that we’re going to lose a generation thanks to this travel.”

“But that’s fascinating,” responded the BBC presenter.

“Because there is a school of thought, isn’t there, that looks and these people and thinks, ‘Well hang on a second they’ve gone to a place where mass murders were being committed, they’ve gone there voluntarily, they’ve gone there presumably because they have some enthusiasm for what was happening there’ — it is odd to treat them as if they’ve committed no offence,” he said.

“And it’s not a decision that MI5 and others will have taken lightly,” responded Hill.

“But they have left space, and I think they’re right to do so, for those who … travelled out of a sense of naivety, possibly with some brainwashing along the way, possibly in their mid-teens … We have to leave space for those individuals to diverted away from the criminal courts,” he insisted.

Having previously played Devil’s Advocate, the presenter appeared to accept this at face value.

“That’s a thoroughly interesting one isn’t it Richard Barrett,” he said to his other guest, a former MI6 global counter-terrorism director. “Actually, surprising numbers, possibly, of these people, are actually not necessarily a danger to us.”

“I think that’s absolutely right,” agreed Barrett. “Many of them, I think, went to join something new, something that looked bright and attractive … and came back highly disillusioned,” he suggested. [Graeme: and many of them just plain old came back!]

Hill conceded that there was no doubt that some of the people in question will have carried out “the most serious criminal offences” in Iraq and Syria, but assured viewers that “in any case where there is evidence of that” they would appear before a criminal court.

How evidence of crimes committed in a jihadist-controlled warzone might be gathered was left unexplained, however……

Exhibit B
More on this post of mine from August. The Mosque had copies of a publication of Abul A'la Maududi's publication "Jihad in Islam". Maududi! The founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami. How could they possibly not see this as a problem?
​
Robert Spencer video: Why are police ignoring evidence that mosque is preaching jihad?

In this new 7 minute video, I explain what happened when an investigator found that a New Hampshire mosque was preaching jihad: instead of investigating, police cried “Islamophobia.”

​Of course, the Manchester, New Hampshire police themselves don’t want to appear “Islamophobic,” and put that imperative above any responsibility they may have to protect their citizens. Find out how and why this fear of appearing “Islamophobic” became so all-pervasive in my new book, Confessions of an Islamophobe. Preorder your copy here now.

Exhibit C
Meanwhile the Swedes are way out of step with the US & Britain. Why might that be? Actually, it may simply be due to the fact that that they have some areas that are 10 years further down the road. Sure this story likely includes a political party stirring up an issue for its own gain. But look at the supporting evidence. This is a real issue. All employ the same nonsensical averting of the eyes to the obvious problems and a few years later, in Sweden, we have this...

​Swedish politicians call for Army to be deployed to No-Go Zones

            Twenty members of the Moderate Party in Sweden have proposed the government deploys the armed forces in some of the country’s most dangerous no-go zones to combat “gang violence”.

Sweden is being overtaken by Islamic no-go zones. Moderate Party politician Mikael Cederbratt declared:

   “It is absolutely necessary to do something, because these gangs are like cancerous tumours in our country, and it is urgent. My absolute belief is that we, the nation of Sweden, must declare war on criminal gangs."

Jihad Watch reported in June that authorities in Sweden have also admitted that large areas in the country are under Islamic rule and that 150,000 women there undergo FGM.

Sweden is reportedly on the verge of civil war due to its migrant crisis. Its National Police Commissioner, Dan Eliasson, spoke on national television and pleaded for assistance back in June, when he warned that Swedish police (80 percent of which want to quit their jobs) no longer could keep order. He pleaded for help from the military and from any “good force” that could help. Eliasson exclaimed: “Help us, help us!”

Yet as Sweden’s leaders mismanaged Muslim migration, they turned their backs on a Christian needing refuge. Swedish courts decided to deport a Christian convert back to Iran to face abuse and possible execution as an apostate. Aideen Strandsson said she was told: “It’s your problem you decided to become a Christian.” Hungary eventually stepped in to help her.

“Swedish Politicians Call For Army to be Deployed to No Go Zones to Keep Peace”,
​by Chris Tomlinson, Breitbart, October 20, 2017:

Twenty members of the Moderate Party in Sweden have proposed the government deploys the armed forces in some of the country’s most dangerous no-go zones to combat “gang violence”.

​Moderate Party politician Mikael Cederbratt made the proposal this week saying: “The situation in our areas of exclusion has deteriorated. The gangs have taken over and the police have had to retreat. Swedish law no longer applies there.”

Cederbratt was backed up by 19 other Moderate party members who signed a motion to deploy members of the Swedish armed forces in the heavily migrant populated Stockholm suburbs of Hallunda-Norsborg, Tensta, Rinkeby, and Husby Botkyrka Direct reports.

“It is absolutely necessary to do something, because these gangs are like cancerous tumours in our country, and it is urgent. My absolute belief is that we, the nation of Sweden, must declare war on criminal gangs,” Cederbratt said.
“It is the responsibility of the state to maintain the law, especially the police. But the police today do not have the numerical ability to maintain public order,” he added.

In certain no-go zones, police have been brutally attacked, some of which has even been caught on video. In Rinkeby, police have been trying to build a new, more secure police station for months but have been unable to find building contractors due to the danger of working in the area.

Cederbratt said that the military could take on police functions in the areas. “For example, a police bus and a night in Norsborg could be manned by four to five soldiers led by a police inspector,” he said.

“Military police are perfect. We also have a group of UN military unions who have learned this kind of work in very difficult situations abroad. If they receive supplementary education, they can work very well under the guidance of a police officer in Sweden.”

The situation for Swedish police has become dire with Swedish National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson begging for help from the government earlier this year….

Dr Gad Saad discusses Quebec's recent move to ban the wearing of Islamic face coverings in relation to receiving public services and entering government buildings. He does a great job of outlining the "liberal" arguments for Muslim women to wear whatever they wish and, in just over 10 minutes, supplies very useful responses (bit of a language warning here).

Where does the freedom of choice start and end in this matter? What is a healthy response to the Niqab or Burqa? What is the intellectually consistent position? How is it that we see women burning their veils when they are liberated from the domination of Sharia compliant men? What is the end result for our freedoms in the West if the trend in face coverings continues to increase?

I really do highly recommend this. It is just a matter of time before we will have to deal with the same issue here in Godzone. Thinking through the issues beforehand will be of great use.

Dr Wood spends more time (28 minutes) eviscerating the fabulists Qasim Rashid's article on the pro-women prophet of Islam.

Excellent stuff! Well worth a watch.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Independent recently published an article titled, "How the Teachings of Islam Could Help Us Prevent More Sexual Abuse Scandals," by Qasim Rashid (an apologist for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community). Rashid argues that the Qur'an and the teachings of Muhammad would be a tremendous benefit to women in the West.

In this video, David Wood goes through Rashid's claims, point by point, to see if he's telling the truth. The topics discussed include the creation of women according to the Quran, the inheritance of wives, beating women, the importance of wearing the hijab (or burqa or niqab), the value of a woman's testimony, the intellectual capacity of women, and Muhammad's comments about the ideal woman.

For more on this topic, watch these videos:
"How Islam Can Prevent Sexual Abuse Scandals": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njPcf...
"Three Quran Verses Every Woman Should Know": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NXtI...
​"Women in Islam": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csl0g...

I had the real honour of meeting an Anglican Bishop from north-central Nigeria some years ago. It was a terrifically humbling experience. Here was a man "the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie." I mean that. I felt that way more than once with some of the older men I met in Africa. This Bishop had to look after his persecuted church members, try to build bridges with Muslim leaders to end the violence and also put up with ugly distortions in the Western media of what was going on.

He said that time and again the Christians were attacked by the Fulani & Boko Haram and did not retaliate. When finally some of the young men did retaliate he had to counsel them not to - instead they should do as Jesus taught and pray for their enemies. In one extreme situation where Fulani fighters attacked one village the men got their families to safety while they defended the withdrawal with spades and hoes against AK47s. This the Western media depicted this as a battle between two evenly matched and equally wrong forces - "sectarian violence".

He told the Muslim leaders he met "we don't want to fight. If you kill us you will have no-one to tell you the Good News! If we kill you we have no-one to preach to!" He did mention the Pagan tribes that still follow Primal religions - involving spirit worship - these people had no compunction fighting. In fact if they were provoked they would paint up and attack the Muslim villages killing every single person. These were also sometimes depicted in Western media as Christian attacks.

So once again we see the followers of the prophet carrying out the commands of their religion and having this core point obscured as the nominally Christian West turn its back on the real victims.

From Jihad Watch.

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Nigerian Christian: “Why do they think Islam is a religion of peace? These people have been killing us for decades.”

​“Why do they think Islam is a religion of peace? These people have been killing us for decades and your media just ignores it. Now they are killing you and still your President Obama called it a peaceful religion. We see Western leaders saying that over and over again. Why?”

Good question. And it’s true: Western leaders are largely indifferent to the Muslim persecution of Christians. They are all so very solicitous of Islam as Muslim migrants inundate their countries; perhaps they think that concern for these Christians would be “Islamophobic.” 

“The forgotten Christians of Nigeria — faithful while enduring incredible persecution,”
by Larry Alex Taunton, Fox News, October 15, 2017:

…I had been invited there by my friend, Jwan Zhumbes, the Anglican bishop of Bukuru.  Jwan and I had done our doctoral work together.  He had asked me some years ago to come and teach the members of the diocese on issues of faith and culture.  Jwan is shepherd to a diocese that has been attacked by the Boko Haram and another Islamic group, the Fulani Herdsmen Militia.  He was, in my estimation, a great man doing a great work.

Now, months later, the mission was complete and it was time for me to leave the country.  My time in Nigeria had been one of great blessing.  The experience defies a simple description or even a simple narrative.  These are Christians whose churches, homes, families and friends have been bombed, burned, and persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ.  Indeed, just last month, 20 Christians were slaughtered by the Fulani only a short drive from where I was staying.  This is not uncommon.  And yet, optimism prevails with them where self-pity and a spirit of defeat might rule a lesser people….

Speaking at a conference in London some years ago, Peter Akinola, the Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Nigeria, boldly chastised the West:

       “You came to my country and told us there is only one God through whom we could be saved, Jesus Christ, and we believed you, and followed Him.  You told us there is only one true book to know him, the Bible, and we believed you, and read it.  Now you tell us Allah of Islam is also god, and that we can use the Qur’an to learn about God.  You invited the Muslims here as guests, and they have now become your hosts.  So now I come to your country to remind you of what you have forgotten.”…

“Why do they think Islam is a religion of peace?” another man asked me.  “These people have been killing us for decades and your media just ignores it.  Now they are killing you and still your President Obama called it a peaceful religion.  We see Western leaders saying that over and over again.  Why?”…

Here we go again - another hateful Islamophobe picking on a group of oppressed people who just want to get along. Well no actually - according to Dr. Zakir Naik, we should NOT criticise or study Muslims to understand Islam, we should study Islam itself.

So let's do that shall we?

The 10 minute video below is David Wood's rather forthright response to an article written by the Ahmadi Muslim Qasim Rashid. Mr Rashid writes that Islam would have prevented such abuse of women taking place. If only Harvey Weinstein was a Muslim! Islam teaches respect, love and care for women you see. 

The most pathetic thing about this ridiculous assertion is that some people will actually believe it.

Using Islam's primary texts Dr Wood carefully dissects this pestilent & disgusting falsehood. Now of course, once again (sigh) I have to point out that this is not to imply that all Muslims are rapists or some such piffle. Any belief system is comprised of a wide range of people. We are simply following the instructions of one of the most prominent Muslim apologists in the world to study the real teachings of Islam. So how could we possibly go wrong? Islam is perfect after all...

One note: Ahmadi Muslims are not accepted by Sunnis as true Muslims. In fact they are heavily persecuted in places like Indonesia & Pakistan because of this. It seems to me that Mr Rashid is devoting his life to publicly defending Islam partly in the hope that mainstream Sunni Muslims will begin to accept Ahmadi Muslims as mainstream too & thereby gain peace for his community. This is disingenuous. He cannot be relied upon for a truthful public explanation of any contentious aspect of his religion. You have been warned.

Robert Spencer offers this introduction. 
​The superlatively brilliant David Wood takes apart the jaw-droppingly dishonest article by Islamic apologist Qasim Rashid, ““How the teachings of Islam could help us prevent more sexual abuse scandals.”

Wood says: “You have to hand it to Qasim. Whatever he lacks in honesty and integrity, he more than makes up for in arrogance and stupidity.”

I can’t stop laughing.

You can find my response to Qasim Rashid’s appalling article here.


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David Wood video: How Islam can prevent sexual abuse scandals (thanks, Qasim Rashid!)
The Independent recently published an article titled, "How the Teachings of Islam Could Help Us Prevent More Sexual Abuse Scandals," by Qasim Rashid. For once, David Wood actually agrees with Qasim Rashid. So, in this video, David presents ten ways Islam can help prevent sexual abuse scandals.​

Know your Shariah law.

This is an excellent discussion of the Dhimmi. That is, the historical understanding of non-Muslims under Islamic law; and also how this tradition reveals itself in contemporary inter-faith relationships. If you are not familiar with this term you will find the following 1 hour video of great use. It features Raymond Ibrahim & Bill Warner and has a great deal of accurate history and theology. Included in the discussion is a "Qur'an only" Muslim, which adds an interesting dimension, if only briefly before he does what so many Muslims do when challenged: takes offence and leaves.

Ibrahim in particular is brilliant - all his study shows through. 

This discussion covers:

• the origin & meaning of the Arabic term Kafir (often translated as "Infidel");
• the lies about the privileged status of the "People of the Book" compared to the actual subjugation & persecution of the "People of the Book" when they were under Islamic rule;
• the ignorance of Islam by many of its own followers;
• the place of deception & taqiyya on the part of Muslims among non-Muslims;
• what the obstacles are for any Muslim who wishes to throw out the Hadith collections and live as "Qur'an only" Muslims - why they are anathema to all today's mainstream Islamic scholars;
• why we need to rely on history & theology rather than move immediately into moral equivalence between Islam & Christianity and the use of violence;
• how is Dhimmitude manifested in the Church today? This point starts at 48:44 and is extremely telling. It includes why "love your enemies & turn the other cheek" is not anything like enough of an intelligent response to either Islam or Muslims where "be nice" seems to be all most of us have to offer. This is termed "useful idiot" Christianity & is rampant (I love this much needed & rigorous criticism of the Church);
• the American experience of the Barbary pirates and how the Ottoman leadership explains their war of aggression as fulfilling the commands of the Qur'an - very interesting;
• how our extreme eagerness not to offend Muslims is a de facto implementation of Shariah law.

​Get through the first 4 minutes of rather dramatic introduction and you will get a lot from this.
I encourage you not to miss it.
​

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Video: Raymond Ibrahim on “The History of Dhimmitude”

Last week I appeared on ABN’s 2nd International Apologetics Marathon, hosted by Tony Gurule, and with Dr. Bill Warner, Beshar Shukri, and Edip Yuksel. In the video that follows, we discuss the history of dhimmitude.

​"If you’re a violent, war-mongering person, you can find justification in any scripture. If you’re a peaceful, pluralistic person, you can find justification for your views in the exact same scriptures" - Dr. Reza Aslan.

Is that statement as true as I think many of us would wish it to be?

But what if you were once a violent, war-mongering person who became peaceful when he found "religion"? (I have known many such people who have become peaceful Christians for example - perhaps you know of one or two as well). Or what if, you're a peaceful, pluralistic person - as Cat Stevens seemed to be before he became a follower of Muhammad - who became someone willing to murder a man who insulted the long-dead leader of his new religion?

For interest do compare a couple of my previous posts on two men who converted to new religions - one to Islam & the other to Christianity. I think this speaks for itself. 

But if you're still in two minds or if you think, like the PhD mentioned in the article, that a person's view of the Cosmos, Nature and themselves has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with how they live their lives I offer you the following article as food for thought.

​
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Three Converts, Three Religions: George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and Cat Stevens
By Robert Spencer October 16, 2017 via PJ Media.

The imminent release of “Trouble No More” -- the latest installment of Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series; this one covers his controversial 1979-81 “Christian period” -- recalls the long-gone age of high-profile rock star conversions.

Dylan became a Christian, George Harrison dived into Krishna consciousness, and Cat Stevens embraced Islam, and each demonstrated, yet again, that Leftist dogma is false. The content of one’s religious beliefs does matter, and influences those who take their religions seriously.

Both Harrison and Dylan were widely criticized for their sanctimony. Reviewing Harrison’s 1973 album “Living in the Material World” in New Musical Express, Tony Tyler called the record “so damn holy I could scream.” In their book The Beatles: An Illustrated Record, Tyler and his co-author Roy Carr say of Harrison:

        [I]t’s difficult to see why he travelled all the way to India to import a God who, by the sound of him (“The Lord Loves the One [That] Loves the Lord”) is as intractable and selfish as the petulant Jehovah of Victorian Sunday schools. 

Reviewing Harrison’s “Extra Texture” album in Rolling Stone in 1975, Dave Marsh criticized the album’s “vague cant and astral pomposity,” and concluded:

      Finally, we are faced with the fact that Harrison’s records are nothing so much as boring. They drone, and while chants and mantras may be paths to glory in other realms, in pop music they are only routes to tedium. 

Harrison’s first wife Pattie may have agreed: she cited as one of the reasons for the breakup of their marriage his “obsessiveness” with his devotional practices.

Born-again Bob Dylan was similarly received. Performing in San Francisco on November 1, 1979, his first concert after his conversion, Dylan played only his new, Christian-themed songs. Reviewing the concert for Rolling Stone, Robert Palmer opined that “the unrelenting sermonizing grew tedious.” Reviewing Dylan’s 1980 album “Saved” for Rolling Stone, Kurt Loder called him “a perfect caricature of a Bible-thumping convert.”

The following year, reviewing Dylan’s subsequent album, “Shot of Love,” also for Rolling Stone, Paul Nelson quoted a lyric from one of the songs, “Trouble”:

    "Nightclubs of the brokenhearted / Stadiums of the damned," Dylan intones, and you wonder if these places could possibly be any worse than being trapped in a room with this record. 

After Cat Stevens converted to Islam and started calling himself Yusuf Islam, there were no scathing reviews from Rolling Stone, because there was no music. Stevens/Islam quit the music business, as Islam forbids music except for nasheeds, songs praising Allah that are usually performed a cappella.

Islamic tradition records: 

         [T]he Prophet said that Allah commanded him to destroy all the musical instruments, idols, crosses and all the trappings of ignorance. (Hadith Qudsi 19:5) 

Muhammad is also depicted as saying: 

          Allah Mighty and Majestic sent me as a guidance and mercy to believers and commanded me to do away with musical instruments, flutes, strings, crucifixes, and the affair of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance. ( Reliance of the Traveller r40.0).

Islamic apologists in the West like to claim that only “Islamophobes” think Islam forbids music, but Cat Stevens certainly believed it did. Nothing was heard from him for decades. Then he began to resurface. Now he is a respected and venerated elder star, calling himself “Yusuf” without the “Islam” and singing pop music again. But as recently as 2010, there was published on YouTube a nasheed in which the author of “Peace Train” sang:

I’m praying to Allah to give us victory over the kuffar (unbelievers).

This bellicose prayer was in line with Yusuf Islam’s earlier post-conversion behavior. In 1989, he enthusiastically endorsed the Ayatollah Khomeini’s death fatwa against Salman Rushdie for insulting Islam. In a BBC panel discussion, he said that, rather than burning Rushdie in effigy:

         I would have hoped that it’d be the real thing.

He further explained that if he were in an Islamic state and was ordered by the relevant authority to kill Rushdie, he would do so.

In 2004, Yusuf Islam was barred from entering the United States because of suspicions that he had been financing jihad terrorism. He acknowledged that some of his money may have gone to jihadis, but he claimed to have given money to them unwittingly.

Yusuf Islam has worked hard to soften his image, as George Harrison and Bob Dylan also did after the enthusiasm of their conversions wore off. But Harrison and Dylan had only to fight against perceptions that they were preachy and self-righteous. The former Cat Stevens had to try to demonstrate he was not a supporter of jihad terrorism and mass murder.

After their conversions, George Harrison and Bob Dylan became, at least in the eyes of some, annoying; Cat Stevens, by contrast, became dangerous. Harrison and Dylan never called for or approved of violence against anyone. Yusuf Islam did.

This is because of the content of the religions they each embraced.

Cat Stevens took up a religion that exhorted him to “kill them wherever you find them” (Qur’an 2:191, 4:89, 9:5) and “strike the necks” of the unbelievers (47:4). Given that the Islamic religion mandates death for blasphemers, it is not in the least surprising that Yusuf Islam endorsed the death fatwa against Salman Rushdie. Yusuf Islam became an endorser of brutality and murder because his new religion endorsed brutality and murder.

The ... media darling and renowned pseudo-intellectual “scholar of religions” Reza Aslan has claimed that religions are entirely what their followers make of them:

                If you’re a violent, war-mongering person, you can find justification in any scripture. If you’re a peaceful, pluralistic person, you can find justification for your views in the exact same scriptures. 

The conversions of George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and Cat Stevens show that Aslan is, as always, wrong.

Have you heard that Balochistan is under Pakistani oppression? This is yet again where I ask the question: I wonder why we have not?

This brilliant 6 minute video is an interview with a human rights activist regarding Pakistan & Balochistan in particular, but also the affect of Pakistan & Islam on Western politics in general.

Mr Ahmar Mustikhan, director of the American Friends of Balochistan, discusses the "Rohingya" people in Burma (he states that Saudi money & Pakistan's Intelligence service, the ISI, are backing the Bengali insurrection there); he points out that the ISI has 18,000 paid agents that work on attacking critics of Islam & Sharia online; he urges all people, regardless of political affiliation, to unite in the struggle against "Islamo-fascism"; he discusses the split loyalties of some Muslim politicians in the West.

​It really is well worth watching!


>>>>>>>>>>>>
​Tommy Robinson of TheRebel.media visited Geneva, where he spoke to Ahmar Mustikhan, from the American Friends of Balochistan, who explained their struggle and warned against Pakistani influence in Britain and the West.

MORE: https://www.therebel.media/baloch_act...

It is true that, according to the most trustworthy Muslim sources, Muhammad married Aisha and had sex with her when she was 9.

Let me repeat.

It is true.


OK, now you're grumpy with me.
Good.

Watch this 17 minute video from Dr David Wood then...


>>>>>>>>>>>>
I spent years discussing Christianity and Islam with my friend Nabeel Qureshi before he converted. Since I kept his written defenses of Muhammad, I thought it would be nice to share some of them. In this video, I share Nabeel's defense of Muhammad's relationship with Aisha.

This Rally against extremism, racism & terrorism should unarguably be seen as a bona fide good thing shouldn't it? 

Up to 60,000 soccer supporters held a Rally in London last Saturday. Surely you heard about it? No? Hmm... I wonder why that would be? Not of interest to the broader public? Or was it simply because the participants were largely from the wrong demographic? Let's find out...

Below is a video clip of some coverage of the Rally from a small Canadian media outlet. I've cued it up at the point where a Persian chap who fled Iran during the revolution is talking about the similarities between Iran then and Britain now. The whole 6 minute clip is worth it just for this one valuable moment. But do watch the whole thing.

Later there's a revealing little chat with a BBC reporter who states that the Rally would be reported as being "far-right" if "people have labelled it as such". "People?" What "people"? Why should anyone care what these "people" think? What was the Rally in actuality? Ordinary non-journalistic types like me are left wondering: if PM Teresa May was labelled by "people" as a Cheese & Pineapple toasted sammie would the BBC report that or would they simply dismiss it as a silly allegation? That question will go into the BBC's "too hard" basket I think. Or perhaps I just don't understand the nuanced world of journalism.

Things are getting pretty bad when a multi-racial march against Islamic terrorism is either a) ignored by the media because there was no violence or b) dishonestly reported as something that it plainly was not.

What is going on here?

Well lots of people seem sure it wasn't.

Most especially (and extremely quickly!) the requisite American law enforcement agencies have said that Mr Paddock was a "lone wolf" and had psychological problems. How they could almost immediately dismiss the claim that he was a closet convert to Islam as ISIS stated is a little bewildering. Especially given his tiny online footprint.

Of course we, the public, do not have all the information they have. But we've heard this sort of thing before in cases of jihad violence & mass murder haven't we? How many times have we been assured by Police and other security authorities that a jihad attack was no such thing? How many times have such attacks been blamed on mental instability?

Remember Major Nidal Hasan? He was the Fort Hood mass murdering jihadi whose 2009 attack killed 14 (I include the unborn child of one of the ladies in that number) and injured over 30. At the time this was one of the worst mass shootings in American history.  

Jihad Watch has an article here which links to the Power Point presentation Maj. Hasan gave on Jihad to his colleagues before the attack. Yet the law enforcement agencies at the time maintained that it was a matter of "workplace violence" done by a man suffering from PTSD. A man who had never gone into combat. A man who was a well educated psychiatrist - seemingly highly intelligent and hardly in poverty. The American authorities have only recently changed their tune and awarded the appropriate decorations and monetary compensations to those who suffered from what has always obviously been a jihad attack.

It doesn't exactly fill one with confidence does it?

​Local media here in NZ seem happy to simply jump on the "guns-are-bad-Americans-are-stoopid" bandwagon. (By the way, as much as I too wonder about the American gun laws the guy could have just as easily used a truck to kill even more people. What then?) They insist that although ISIS claimed Paddock as one of their own they have a history of claiming any old jolly attack as theirs just to get the credit. But is this true? The media seem to only really cite the one instance and this is taken apart very well in the video I link to below and in the Jihad Watch article which follows it.

​I hope you watch this 9 minute video clip from a security expert outlining the reasons to believe that this was actually a jihad attack. I would add that the murderer had apparently seriously looked at another open air concert as a target in Las Vegas a couple of weeks earlier - one that would attract a very different kind of audience. A more ethnically, religiously & politically diverse audience. To me this indicates that he didn't care too much about those things. This would militate against the murderer being a "left-wing" nut who simply hated a crowd likely to be mostly white, gun-owning Republican, Christians.

Either crowd would however make sense if  he only wished to attack a soft target where perhaps the number of Muslim casualties would be at a minimum.

​I would urge you not to dismiss the idea of a convert launching a jihad attack before viewing the clip and reading the article below. The IS has now claimed several times that Paddock was their man. They don't seem to be worried about being proven wrong. The attack indicates meticulous planning. There was careful organisation & provision of supplies involving both guns & bomb making material and there are signs of accomplices like the woman who warned concert goers that they would soon die. There is also some video here by some people in another hotel quite a long way from the main site who detail how the front doors of their huge hotel were shot in and all the guests were aware of this. This would seem to indicate extra attackers at a very different location. For some reason this did not make the news in a big way. But watch it and see if you think these people are telling the truth or not.

To be honest this all looks exactly like a jihad attack & I would have considered it such from the outset were it not for the protestations of law enforcement.

​This is a murky issue indeed but I think the following information is helpful.
​See what you think.

​“It isn’t true that ISIS has a history of claiming others’ attacks as their own”
October 2, 2017 2:25 pm
By Robert Spencer​

This is very interesting: Graeme Wood notes here that “the idea that the Islamic State simply scans the news in search of mass killings, then sends out press releases in hope of stealing glory, is false,” and that those who claim that ISIS is in the habit of taking credit for attacks it had nothing to do with “do not have a preponderance of prior examples on their side.”

Wood does, however, note one false ISIS claim: “In June, a gambling addict shot up and torched the Resorts World casino in Manila, Philippines. The Islamic State claimed credit, with a dubious follow-up alleging that Jessie Javier Carlos, 42, converted to Islam some months before, without telling anyone. That explanation appears to be a total lie.”

However, there is a considerable number of terror analysts who believe that the Resorts World casino attack was indeed an Islamic State jihad attack. And in the course of this report, we learn this: Sidney Jones, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, says, “It isn’t true that ISIS has a history of claiming others’ attacks as their own.” And Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaeda and head of the International Centre for Political Violence & Terrorism Research, adds: “The propaganda organs of ISIS such as Amaq exaggerate but do not falsely take credit for attacks mounted by other entities.”


“ISIS ‘sanctioned, if not directed’ Resorts World attack – expert,”
​by Maria A. Ressa, Rappler, July 2, 2017 (thanks to the Geller Report):

MANILA, Philippines – One month after the Resorts World attack in Manila, terrorism experts tell Rappler they believe the Philippines prematurely dismissed claims by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, IS, ISIL or Daesch, and asked for an investigation into its claim the Resorts World gunman was a recent convert to Islam.

The June 2 attack was “at the very minimum sanctioned – if not directed – by the Islamic State,” Veryan Khan, editorial director and founder of Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC), told Rappler. TRAC is a digital intelligence repository focused on global terrorism and political violence.

“It’s very likely that the Resorts World was a terrorist operation,” said Sidney Jones, director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, cautioning authorities against dismissing ISIS claims as “propaganda.”

“It isn’t true that ISIS has a history of claiming others’ attacks as their own,” added Jones. “There’s usually a basis for it, even though their media departments don’t always get the details right.”

Khan and Jones are echoed by Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaeda and the head of the Singapore-based International Centre for Political Violence & Terrorism Research.

“The propaganda organs of ISIS such as Amaq exaggerate but do not falsely take credit for attacks mounted by other entities,” said Gunaratna, who, based on his study of ISIS, warned Philippine authorities of possible attacks a month before Resorts World and Marawi. (READ: ISIS planning more attacks in PH and region – terror expert)

Experts who closely track the Islamic State agree: an ISIS claim of responsibility usually means the attack might have been planned, funded and directed by ISIS or inspired by the group’s sophisticated propaganda….

“Why Did the Islamic State Claim the Las Vegas Shooting?,”
by Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, October 2, 2017:

…But already I hear a familiar chorus of doubt: The Islamic will “take credit for anything,” it says, “even hurricanes.”

The doubters do not have a preponderance of prior examples on their side. The Islamic State does not claim natural disasters. Its supporters rejoice in them, but they reserve their official media for intentional acts. Of course, insurance agents and Christians, too, sometimes consider the weather “an act of God.”

The vast majority of the Islamic State’s claimed attacks were undertaken by men acting in its name, often after leaving short video statements confirming their intentions. The Amaq news agency is the preferred venue for the initial claim, usually within a day. (Sloppy reporters sometimes mistake the rejoicing of online supporters, meteorological or not, for an official claim.) If they were really so promiscuous with their claims, we would long since have ignored them, as we do claims from other yahoos who have tried to take credit for atrocities authored by others. The idea that the Islamic State simply scans the news in search of mass killings, then sends out press releases in hope of stealing glory, is false. Amaq may learn details of the attacks from mainstream media—and often gets those details wrong, also like mainstream media—but its claim of credit typically flows from an Amaq-specific source.

This Las Vegas claim may yet turn out to be false as well. They have offered no evidence—no cell-phone video from the killer, pledging allegiance in broken Arabic; no selfies of him, raising a finger of monotheism. Another absent sign of Islamic State involvement is videos from Paddock’s rifle-scope. At attacks like the Holey Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the killers have uploaded real-time images, exclusive and corroborating imagery for Amaq. As with many subsequently verified attacks, we have not yet, in these early hours, seen any such evidence.

If their claim is a rare false one, it will not even be the first false claim to feature a casino. In June, a gambling addict shot up and torched the Resorts World casino in Manila, Philippines. The Islamic State claimed credit, with a dubious follow-up alleging that Jessie Javier Carlos, 42, converted to Islam some months before, without telling anyone. That explanation appears to be a total lie. A false claim of credit in Las Vegas will effectively shred the Islamic State’s news agency’s credibility. It will become a news agency that was once reliable, and now associates itself indiscriminately with heavily armed crazy people in casinos….

Well because the Qur'an says to. Even though Muslims believe the Bible to have been thoroughly corrupted and "a bunch of old wives tales" (as one Muslim chap told me). Actually Muhammad is mentioned - but is clearly described as a false prophet. Oops.

Al Fadi and David Wood continue their excellent series. This one is 27 minutes. My dear Muslim friends, you will not enjoy this experience, so be ready to be challenged.


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​Countering Muslim Claims, Episode 7: Is Muhammad Mentioned in the Bible?

According to the Quran (7:157), Jews and Christians find Muhammad mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel. Muslims have been searching for these references in the Bible for nearly fourteen centuries, and their favorite passages are Deuteronomy 18:15-18 and John 14:16. But what happens when we read these passages in context? In the latest episode of "Countering Muslim Claims," former Muslim Al Fadi and David Wood discuss the issue.

For other installments in this series, visit the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OntQ6...

Visit Al Fadi's YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zG... 

This is an excerpt featuring Douglas Murray from a longer debate. He is, I think, fair & measured and brings a necessary change in perspective on "populism".

Some excellent points are made, some valuable statistics are shared (and there is a useful short question time in the full version linked to below). Given just after the recent French elections, this is a very worthwhile 9 minute talk which I do commend to you.


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Can Europe survive the new wave of populism? - Bernard Henri-Lévy with Douglas Murray. ​
Original 29 minute video is here:~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm2jT... 

Fascinating short talk by Canadian atheist lecturer Jordan Peterson on this question.

He notes that things have changed so much that "egalitarianism and conflict avoidance" now constitute the West's two highest virtues. He considers how this has come about. He still believes though that the only countries in the world worth living in are predicated on the Judeo-Christian tradition as manifested in the Western body of laws. Why would that be? Does that mean that not all cultures are equal? This verges on heresy in some circles today.

Many more interesting views.
Seven minutes well worth a look!

A further 20 minute video in the series, "Countering Muslim claims, Episode 6: The Rapid Growth of Islam."

​So the spiel goes: Islam is growing faster than other religions at the moment - therefore it must be from God? Come again?

So if there is one sect of Islam that is growing the fastest should all other Muslims change to that sect? If it is the Ismai'li Shi'a sect should all Sunnis then become Ismai'li Shi'a because this must be the right path?

There are many more arguments in this video. Very good chance to critically think through the issues. However, critical thinking is dangerous for Muslims as they are taught never to think critically about Muhammad or the Qur'an. Muslims are not to interrogate these things lest they risk being seen as Murtad - apostate. And we all know what that might mean.

But if the only choice left is to be wrong together with a lot of other uninformed people then what?

>>>>>>>>>>
According to some studies, Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion. Many Muslims use these studies to argue that Islam must be true due to its rapid growth. But does a movement's growth show that it's from God? Al Fadi and David Wood discuss the issue.

Subscribe to Al Fadi's channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zG...

Dr Saad chats with an Atheist ex-Muslim for 68 minutes.

This is yet another thoughtful discussion between two people whose positions we can easily understand and (hopefully) empathise with. Listen to this man talk about his experiences leaving Islam and his opinion of the West - the West which is so taking for granted its freedoms and is in the process of rapidly losing those freedoms.

Mohammed Alkhadra promotes free speech to an extreme. He also encourages us with his stories of how open to free speech many Middle Eastern Muslims are to Western freedoms & intellectual enquiry. Gad was led to interview him through seeing a video of Mr Alkhadra speaking at a conference on Secularism. This is linked to at the end of this post. It is a short 10 minute clip which is very powerful. In it he says that: "While we die there (when we leave Islam) all you think about is Islamophobia". Why do we permit Sharia Courts and Sharia compliant Faith schools here? Why are we surrendering our freedoms while ex-Muslims are giving up their lives?

Indeed. 

He pleads with us not to be silent when our very foundational freedoms are under attack.
​
Topics covered include:~

• The guest states that Muslims are either "activists or supporters" of Sharia. This idea of "moderate" or "fundamentalist" is amiss;
• he warns westerners who are unaware of the threat from Islam, including the encroachments on free speech and "Islamophobic" laws and motions - like Canada's M103. Trying to one day walk back these laws & motions will lead to Muslims feeling aggrieved and beleaguered which will lead to even more problems and violence;
• Portraying Islam as a race is leading to the death of our freedom of speech;
• don't give up on the battle of ideas to an enemy who would not give any ground to you if they were in your place;
• 3 ways for Islam to conquer the West are mentioned - Demography, immigration & using your miserable freedoms against us (this one per the Muslim Brotherhood's Strategic plan for America);
• the non-distinction between Islam and "Islamism": Islam=Islamism=Political Islam;
• the classical Islamic distinction between the House of Islam (the Dar al-Islam) lands dominated by Islam and the House of War (the Dar al-Harb, those are the places where non-Muslims dominate - that means you kafir);
• he has an interesting story about being afraid to display that he is an ex-Muslim in London;
• he notes that if, as is often & somewhat pathetically argued, the "extremist" leaders that have dedicated their lives to understanding & preaching Islam do not understand Islam and are not true Muslims then what about the Qur'an or the Hadith? These are full of troubling things - if they don't represent Islam then nothing does;
• it is not necessary to understand classical Arabic as the Qur'an is given as a clear book that Allah says is easy to understand - so the argument that such passages are being misunderstood will not hold up with real Islamic scholars;
• the popular Arab understanding of the "filthy" Jews as it arises from the religion of Islam - very valuable insights from a local on the Middle Eastern Muslim mindset for international relations today;
• the guest notes that wherever Islam spreads in strength freedoms are eroded or vanish;
• they discuss a solution to importing "refugees" that may later become "radical" or whose children may become "radical" (orthodox);
• the Middle East however is becoming more secular while the West is becoming Islamised!;
• the guest is so keen on free speech that he even wants hate preachers to be free to publicly promote hate so that we can all see it and decide what to do in response;
• he discusses how his family have responded to his leaving the Faith (and is therefore doomed to Hell). Leaving Islam makes a person "immoral", making life for women who leave the Faith particularly precarious due to the assumed immorality of the woman and consequent loss of honour for the family;
• "We are dying and all you think about is Islamophobia"

Lots of interesting and valuable insights from a man with a perspective as an ex-Muslim.

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​Mohammed's address at the Secular 2017 conference is HERE
​Mohammed's Twitter account: @Alkhadra69

Here's Episode 12 of "Answering Islam," where David Wood answers the question: "What Does the Quran Say about the Bible?" Again, 5 minutes only.

​For the rest of the videos in this series, visit this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDsMn...

If this is "one of the most moderate Sunni clerics" I'd hate to meet the hard-liners.

Are our politicians actually impressed by this guy's credentials & reputation? Or are they just pretending to be as that's what politicians have to do? I don't know about that, but I do wish somebody had the spine to challenge his obvious duplicity and his hateful, murderous utterances.

Watch the 4 minute video clip at the link below to get a whiff of his moderation regarding gays & Apostates. Hint: it's entitled "Unrepentant Apostates Should Be Killed; Homosexuality Is a Disease" - getting the idea?

The former President of Sunni Islam's foremost learning institution in the world, al-Azhar University, and its current Grand Imam should have a decent grasp of Islam yes? Straight from the mouth of a real Moderate© folks...

From the Gates of Vienna.

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Paths to peace.
You know you’re at a world peace meeting when you’re sitting next to a sheikh who advocates death for apostasy — after all, what could be more peaceful than a dead apostate? Just ask Angela Merkel.
​
Paths to Peace
by Egri Nök
Angela Merkel opening a ‘World Peace Meeting’ in Münster, Germany, on September 10. The gentleman to her left is Sheikh of Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyeb.
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Ahmad Al-Tayyeb explained on TV last year that the punishment for leaving Islam is death, and quite rightfully so:~

An original translation of the dpa (Deutsche Presseagentur, German Press Agency) release on the event:

              Münster (dpa/lnw) — The international World Peace Meeting is starting today in Münster, Westphalia, with prominent guests. Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), the president of the republic of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, and the president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, will be speaking at the festive opening.

The three-day event in the Cathedral cities Münster and Osnabrück intends to promote peace in the world. Its motto is “Paths to Peace”. Leading church and religious representatives and around 5,000 participants from all over the world are expected.

​The international World Peace Meeting is organized by the Catholic community Sant’ Egidio, based in Rome. It takes place at a different location each year. For the first one, Pope John II asked religious leaders from all over the world to a World Peace Meeting in Assisi, Italy, in 1986.