The Search For Moderate Muslims Continues

World Net Daily has this story on a group of American Muslims who produced a video that shows its members on a New York City street corner declaring Islam's dominance over America as they tread on a U.S. flag and then rip it apart. Some excerpts:

In the video, released by the New York-based Islamic Thinkers Society, one of the Muslims is shown placing a sign on the flag that says, "Oh Muslims! Do you know your enemy? Isn't it obvious?"

The five-minute piece begins with a man speaking in clear English: "Just to show where our loyalty belongs to -- you see this flag here? It's going to go on the floor [sic]. And to us, our loyalty does not belong to this flag, our loyalty belongs to Allah ... ."

Later, after noting he has a legal permit for the demonstration, the speaker shouts, "You Muslims who are hiding in your houses, don't be afraid. Come and join us. Join us in the revival of all Islam. ... Join us to revive the Muslims from darkness into light."

Another speaker refers to the mandate for "Islam to dominate over all other religions, to dominate the world, even though the non-Muslims may hate it."

At one Al-Muhajiroun event at Queensborough Community College sponsored by the MSA and attended by WND, a Muhajiroun speaker working with Yousuf said, "We reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order. Don't lobby Congress or protest because we don't recognize Congress! The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it!"

The speaker continued, "The so-called terrorists are the only people who truly fear Allah. ... They are the only worthy causes, and the mighty superpower only fears them."

In a private interview with WND, a Queens based Al-Muhajiroun leader said he would be "absolutely honored" to give up his life in a "martyr operation" against American civilians. The leader warned that "a jihad is coming to America because of the moves of the Bush administration."

Last year, Al-Muhajiroun planned a convention in London titled, "The Choice is in Your Hands: Either You're with the Muslims or with the Infidels," to mark the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In 2003, the group had planned a similar anniversary event called "The Magnificent 19 [Suicide Attackers]," but canceled it at the last minute.

We assume that the lack of publicity about this demonstration in the MSM is due to the fact that the Muslims didn't urinate on the flag while they were stomping on it so there's really no call, to their way of thinking, for outrage.

To those who don't work in the newsrooms of the liberal media, however, this demonstration is a sickening affront to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 and in the war on terror being waged by American forces. It tells us much about the mind-set of many American Muslims that the community would allow this sort of thing to be done in the name of Islam without distancing themselves from it.

The video itself has apparently been taken off the Islamic Thinkers web-site since we couldn't access it when we went to see for ourselves what the religion of peace is up to these days.

The EMP Threat

Some months ago we wrote about increasing fears in the defense community about this nation's vulnerability to EMP. EMP stands for Electromagnetic Pulse and refers to the powerful surge of radio waves produced by a nuclear detonation. These waves have the potential to overwhelm any electrical/electronic system within a line of sight of the blast so that a detonation about 300 miles over the center of the U.S. could conceivably shut down everything in the country that runs on electrical power. This would take months or years to repair and in the meantime the nation would probably be thrown into chaos.

Winds of Change has a piece by Frank Gaffney which describes the nature of the threat and discusses what must be done to prevent what would certainly be a national catastrophe should even a single nuclear weapon be detonated in space above the United States.

Grounds For Hope

The Strategy Page has the results of an Al-Arabiya News poll taken throughout the Arab world that give grounds for hope that the struggle against Islamist tyranny is succeeding.

What do Arabs really think about the problems that afflict them, and how is this related to the issues Islamic terrorists are fighting and dying (and killing) for? A recent "Opinion Survey of the Arab Street 2005" by Al Arabiya news network provides some interesting answers. The survey sought to see what Arabs thought about the relative lack of economic progress in the Arab world. In answer to the question, "What is stalling development in the Arab world?," 81 percent chose "Governments are unwilling to implement change and reform", 8 percent citing "The ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict," 7 percent "Civil society is failing to convince governments", and 4 percent chose "Terrorism".

Another question, "What is the fastest way to achieve development in the Arab world?", had 67 percent choosing "Ensuring the rule of law through justice and law enforcement", 23 percent chose "Enhancing freedom of speech", and 10 percent chose "Resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict".

Islamic terrorists represent a small minority of Arab thinking, and interests. But most Arab media and governments, for obvious reasons, avoid the "bad government" issues and instead concentrate on the Arab-Israeli conflict as the cause of all that is bad in the Arab world. While few Arab governments support all Islamic terrorists, many support some (like the Palestinian terrorists, or Hizbollah in Lebanon).

An Arab government will support terrorists as long as there is no terrorist attacks against themselves, and the terrorists are working against the government's enemies. Syria has played this game enthusiastically, perhaps too much so, for decades. By getting behind terrorism and hostility towards Israel, Arab dictatorships believe this will distract their people from problems closer to home. But this ploy is working less well of late. The invasion of Iraq in 2003, the forcible removal of an Arab dictator and enthusiastic participation in democratic elections has terrified Arab despots throughout the Middle East. The Islamic terrorists are generally hostile to Arab dictators, but have made deals with the devil in order to survive. Increasingly, Arab people are fed up with the tyrants and terrorists, and are willing to do something about it.

Let's hope.

The Need For Vigilance

Michelle Malkin has lots of information and some good links on the story coming out of Lodi, California about the arrest of a possible father/son terror threat.

One does not wish to see a repeat of WWII internment camps filled this time with Muslims instead of Japanese, but we also have to face the grim reality that many Muslims in this country do not see themselves as Americans. Nor do they want to be Americans. Many of them feel a solidarity with Islamist jihadis around the globe and see their situation here in the States as an opportunity to strike a blow for Allah against the infidels.

That being the case, it's hard to fault those who look upon Arabs and other Muslims in our midst with suspicion, PC abhorrence of "profiling" notwithstanding. We can only hope that law enforcement and the larger Arab/Muslim community are vigilant and able to preempt any act of terrorism which may be planned to take place on our soil.

If they're not, it will surely be difficult to dissuade enraged Americans from tragic and pointless reprisals against innocent Arabs.