"Surrealism at its most annoying"

S.E. Cupp pegs Obama's dhimmi fear with this piece, starting with the title Islamic extremist terrorism: The scourge that Obama dare not name. I like how she begins, comparing the administrations unrealism to French surrealism. Here's the gist:

To the average person, it's pretty clear we're at war with Islamic extremists. Yet, to hear President Obama tell it, we are not technically at war, and even if we are, he wants you to believe religion has little to do with it.

He and his surrogates have repeatedly refused to say the words "Islamic extremism" or "radical Islam" when describing our enemies in groups like Al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, ISIS and Boko Haram, just to name a few.

His administration was caught flatfooted last week when White House spokesman Eric Schultz painfully strained to justify negotiating with Taliban, insisting it was not a terrorist group but "an armed insurgency."

Surreal indeed.

Whether linguistic subterfuge or merely semantic nitpicking, it's a curious use of caution from an administration that has repeatedly gotten out over its skis on issues of foreign policy.

The list is long: Al Qaeda's been decimated. ISIS is Al Qaeda's "jayvee" team. Yemen is a success. Benghazi was about a video.

Obama is constantly speaking in brash declaratives about terrorism, and is often subsequently proven wrong. But uttering the words "Islamic extremism" is too reckless?

Here's why I don't hesitate to call Obama a dhimmi.

[T]he White House is not Islam's PR shop. It's up to moderate Muslims to denounce radical Islam. The job of the President is to clearly name our enemies, not play word tricks on the public.

The Obama White House isn't supposed to be Islam's PR shop. But it has been playing that role since his inauguration in this refusal to name the enemy properly and by properly, I mean with the proper noun Islam and its derivatives.

David Harsanyi on why Ted Cruz was right

Here's the best-written article I've found to sum up how I feel about persecuted Christians in the middle-east, the State of Israel and Ted Cruz getting booed a week ago. Here's the meat of it, but it's worth reading the whole thing:

But when it comes worldly matters, here’s what I think I know: There’s only one country in the Middle East that doesn’t persecute – or allow the persecution of – Christians. And, in today’s world, that makes them an ally of the oppressed.

As Cruz points out:

Those who hate Jews hate Christians. If those in this room will not recognize that, then my heart weeps. If you hate the Jewish people, you are not reflecting the teachings of Christ. And the very same people who persecute and murder Christians right now, who crucify Christians, who behead children, are the very same people who target Jews for their faith, for the same reason.”

No, Israel’s not going to drop commandos in to rescue the Coptic or send an airlift for the Assyrians– any more than the United States can or would. (Though, sometimes, I wonder why.) But in the Middle East, secularism is far less dangerous to Christians than theocracy. Assad, then, might be a better option than ISIS, but Israel is better option than any of them. Because, generally speaking, Israel shares the same enemies, the same broader geopolitical aims and the same moral outlook. Which, today, makes it the only nation to ally with Christians in the Middle East.*

The best testament to how Jews feel about Middle Eastern Christians can be seen in how they treat them. According to a 2013 Israeli census, the Christian population in Israel has been growing over the years. The only stable Christian population in the Middle East. There are 158,000 Christians in Israel (many of them Arab, and some of them Russians who were offered asylum through The Law of Return). And on average, they were better educated than Jews, and just as prosperous. The Israeli government has actively attempted to better integrate Christian Arabs, who are politically dissimilar from many Muslim Israeli Arabs. It must be working to some extent. According to Time magazine, there’s been a big increase in Arab Christians enlisting in the Israeli army, “doubling the number of each of the preceding three years.” Israel should do more to make it happen.

What threatens the Christian population in Israel? It’s what threatens them everywhere. According to the census takers, “there were fears that Muslim intimidation in cities in northern Israel, where many of them live, are causing large numbers to consider emigrating to the West.”

The reason I like this article so much is it addresses the usual canards thrown around about the views of people like me who support Israel. Harsanyi shoots down the idea that we think Israel can do no wrong or that we prefer secular over religious in general for some insidious reason. I'll take peaceful secular governments over murderous Muslim ones any day, thank you. As far as I can see, the countries being considered aren't Catholic and the call to prayer in these countries does not contain words from The Purpose-Driven Life translated into Arabic.

I don't claim to know why or if Cruz should have said everything he said to that specific audience. But I agree with it in substance. The elephant in the middle of the room remains the question of why do people hate Israel so much. I think there is an answer to this and you may want to go read it here if you wish, with one warning. If you didn't like what David Harsanyi and I have written you will possibly be very angry at what Aryeh Spero writes there.

Not going to happen

Catholic Culture reports the pleading of the Prelate of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq, Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako. Excerpt:

The same is true with regard to the Muslim community, whose statements about the barbaric acts in the name of their religion practiced against the life, dignity and freedom of Christians were not according to our expectation, knowing that Christians have contributed and fought for this country, living in partnership with their Muslim brothers alongside the Islamic civilization.

Religious fundamentalism is still growing in its power and force, creating tragedies, and making us wonder when the Islamic religious scholars and the Muslim intellectuals will critically examine this dangerous phenomenon and eradicate it by educating a true religious consciousness and spreading a genuine culture of accepting the other as brother and as an equal citizen with full rights.

I applaud the Prelate for his appeal, but there is a big problem. "[A]ccepting the other as brother and as an equal citizen with full rights" is not an Islamic teaching. "The Other" in an Islamic society is at best a dhimmi, not an equal anywhere in society including in a court of law. True, having this status might be reasonably considered better than having an unprotected status whereby you can be killed—dhimmi literally means protected. And that makes sense since they have to pay protection money to keep this status.

But the Prelate is asking the Muslim community to go against the traditional interpretation of the Koran 3:110: "You are the best nation produced [as an example] for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah. If only the People of the Scripture had believed, it would have been better for them. Among them are believers, but most of them are defiantly disobedient." Traditionally, this has been coupled with the belief that Christians and Jews must be humiliated and not given full status due to their "unbelief". Here's a good primer on this topic.

So in order for the Muslim community to take the Patriarch's words and follow them, Islam will have to be first changed, or you can say "reformed" if you want. Like that will make it any easier. It will have to be admitted that Mohammed was wrong. Yeah, good luck with that.

I myself see little chance of that and NO CHANCE of that while the Islamists are in the strong horse position and decorating airfields with the heads of their conquered foes. Many individual Muslims have come to see that their religion is wrong in the practice of dhimmitude and the subjugation of those with other religions. But ironically, it doesn't help Islam to reform when these individuals convert to Christianity.

Boston, your dhimmi leaders set you up.

So, Bostonians, citizens of Massachusetts, your tax dollars are funding radicalization of the youth via shady deals and quid pro quos with everybody smiling and looking the other way. All so these Democrats can look sensitive in photo ops. Watch it; the pictures don't lie.



Gee, whiz, how could these nice young boys have gotten radicalized? How can anybody be surprised--that's a better question.

Joseph Hippolito compares Mark Shea and Ezra Pound

Joe and I have argued on the web before, and one thing I think everyone can agree on is that the man brings a lot of passion to all the subjects on which he writes. That's why it is impressive to me that he can be so thoughtful and measured in his FrontPageMag critique of Mark Shea, a man who has baited him and made fun of him for years. Here's an excerpt:

In “6 B.S. Myths You Probably Believe About America’s ‘Enemies,’” Cracked.com’s Mark Hill wrote that 1) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comment about obliterating Israel was mistranslated and taken out of context 2) Iran has a smaller military budget than either Greece or Australia and 3) Ahmadinejad can be overruled by his superiors and has no significant power.

“It’s sad when the writers of Cracked,” Shea wrote, “know more about the Imminent Threat that is not Iran than the warmongers of the Right and the combox cowards who…defend their rhetoric in favor of cold-blooded murder of innocent human beings.”

Shea ended by asserting that “all the panic about Ahmadinejad with his finger on the button is pure provincial ignorance…using his stupid blather as a justification for praising cold-blooded murder of civilians as ‘wonderful’ is both ignorant and evil.”

However, the German newspaper Die Welt reported in May 2011 that Iran was building bases in Venezuela for intermediate-range missiles, complete with anti-aircraft batteries and commando facilities. Engineers from a firm owned by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard visited the site three months earlier.

The purpose, reported Die Welt, was to attack Iranian enemies — likely the United States — if Iran itself was attacked.

Since Shea’s post, the Washington Post reported on Jan. 31 that “Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States,” according to intelligence officials testifying before Congress. On Feb. 24, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Iran’s accelerated production of enriched uranium that could be converted easily into weapons-grade stock.

The Revolutionary Guard’s own news service published an article on Feb. 4 by Alireza Forghani, a strategic analyst who advises Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. Forghani called Israel “this corrupting material” and stated that “it is a ‘jurisprudential justification’ to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”

It is sort of amazing that Mark Shea gets a paycheck from EWTN for his uninformed rants. You can email them at viewer@ewtn.com, or use this page to tell NC Register what you think.