Friday, October 30, 2009

CAIR

Frank Gaffney at Big Government.com gives us the lowdown on the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR):

The Council on American-Islamic Relations bills itself as a "civil-rights advocacy group," much like the NAACP, but for Muslims. However, the FBI says that far from being a benign nonprofit, CAIR is a front group for Hamas terrorists and the radical Muslim Brotherhood in America. And the bureau recently cut off formal ties to CAIR's national office in Washington and all 30 of its branch offices across the country.

At the same time, the Justice Department has blacklisted CAIR as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator in the largest terror finance case in U.S. history, the Holy Land Foundation trial. It ended in convictions on all 108 counts.

Prosecutors have also connected CAIR to the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement that seeks to institutionalize Shariah law (think: Taliban) in America and the West through immigration, coercion and political infiltration. "From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists," said assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg in a court filing.

The FBI last year severed ties to CAIR, citing court evidence that its leaders were participating in an "ongoing" conspiracy to support terrorists. Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York has requested that the FBI's anti-CAIR ban "should be government-wide policy."

CAIR has proven ties to terrorists. No fewer than 15 CAIR officials have been convicted or caught up in terrorism investigations since 9/11 - including its founding chairman, Omar Ahmad, and acting executive director, Nihad Awad.

As with Muslims worldwide CAIR's ultimate aim is to Islamicize the United States:

CAIR insists it has no agenda other than protecting the rights of Muslim Americans. However, the words of its own leaders reveal a hidden subversive agenda:

CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."

CAIR Founding Chairman Omar Ahmad: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in America."

There's much more on this group in Gaffney's article and everyone should read it.

There's nothing wrong with the desire to advance one's religion, of course, but when one considers the rather unorthodox means Muslims often employ to proselytize, and when one examines the tenets of shariah, one might be forgiven for feeling a bit squeamish about CAIR's aspirations. If Muslims do succeed in turning America into an Islamic nation then it's certain that we'll no longer enjoy the freedoms we now have, we'll no longer be a democratic republic, and anyone who dissents from the teaching of the Prophet (PBUH) will be relegated to dhimmi status, a kind of second-class citizenship even worse than that of ex-slaves during the Jim Crow era.

It's time to take the blindfolds off and open our eyes to the fact that we're engaged in a generational struggle for the survival of our culture and values, not just with extremist Islamists, but with much of what passes for the moderate Muslim world. They'll never rest until they have prevailed or until they're too weak to continue the fight. We, on the other hand, seem eager to latch on to any excuse to deceive ourselves about their intentions so that we can retreat into our cocoons of personal peace and prosperity. Unfortunately, Islamists will not leave that escape open to us. The moment we declare that we're tired of fighting those cocoons will cease to exist.

RLC

What Are They Afraid Of?

Anyone who believes that there is no culture war in this country just isn't paying attention. To be sure, the "war" rarely manifests itself in overt violence but it certainly does result in an alarming amount of intolerance, name-calling and malicious vandalism. One recent example occurred in Colorado where a group trying to promote a film critical of Darwinian explanations of evolution has been the target of a concerted, coordinated effort to suppress their freedom of speech. Anika Smith at Evolution News and Views explains:

Earlier this month the Shepherd Project Ministries website was breached using a "brute force attack" to break the password. The hackers then deleted webpages containing information about an upcoming conference featuring Discovery Institute speakers Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and John West.

"No question whatsoever about whom they were targeting," said Shepherd Project Executive Director Craig Smith. "That was brazen. We were a little stunned, to be perfectly honest. We had seen some hostile language about the conference, but honestly we just assumed it was cyber-flaming. We didn't really expect or anticipate any kind of actual attack."

The pages were quickly re-posted and security protocols fixed to prevent further mischief being done, but since then a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack crippled and even crashed the Shepherd Project website, preventing many from registering for the intelligent design conference. These attacks involve multiple people coordinated in an attempt to make a website unavailable, shutting down access to information in a form of modern-day book-burning.

These attacks reveal how even having a discussion about intelligent design is threatening to those who can't countenance free speech on evolution.

In today's ID the Future podcast interview, Craig Smith said, "It's stunning to me how threatened they seem to be about the conversation that is taking place. It's not a matter of, 'I disagree with the content' or 'I disagree with the conclusion,' it's 'I disagree that the conversation should be allowed.'"

That same sentiment was behind the recent canceling of the Darwin's Dilemma by the California Science Center, and you can read it for yourself in the New York Times as Daniel Dennett's recent letter blasted them for daring to be respectful to those who doubt evolution!

When a certain class of people realizes that the theory upon which their entire worldview rests is under serious assault and when there are no good intellectual arguments to summon to its defense, it's not surprising that some of these people will resort to any means they can to protect their worldview from the challenge.

For some, the battle is not a struggle to find the truth. Rather, it's a desperate attempt to preserve the myth of atheistic materialism upon which they've staked their lives, and in such a conflict there are no rules of engagement. Whatever works is right even if it means violating a fundamental principle of intellectual integrity in a free and open society - allowing all sides to express their position. Those who seek to prevent the other side from being heard are tacitly admitting that they know their own side is intellectually inferior. They know they've committed themselves to a loser.

RLC