Let’s Think Again

This is a guest-post by Chris Blackburn


With the current impetuous on finding some sort of anti-thesis to war in Afghanistan and elsewhere. There has been a whole host of buzzwords and maxims coming from the media and international community of talking heads.

We all agree that since 9/11 there has been one strategic blunder after the other: from the war in Iraq to illegal renditions of terrorist suspects to Guantanamo Bay. It is clear that war is failing to help meet our strategic objectives, people are growing disillusioned, but there is an alternative answer to what is becoming the fashionable in-phrase within the conflict averse diplomatic community and apologists of radical Islamism which is less war war, more jaw jaw.

Posted in Your View | 1 Comment

White Liberals and Politically Correct Racism

This is a cross-post by Edmund Standing


The white liberal is an unhealthy type of creature that you will undoubtedly have encountered, if not in real life, certainly via the media. By ‘liberal’, I do not mean simply someone who has a generally liberal outlook, in the sense of a ‘live and let live’ philosophy, nor do I mean liberals in the sense of the classical liberals of the conservative tradition. By ‘white liberal’, I mean a white Western individual who is likely to come from a middle class background and have a university education, considers him or herself to be both ‘left-wing’ and socially ‘liberal’, and almost certainly reads The Guardian or The Independent. White liberals espouse an artificial and pretentious form of ‘egalitarianism’, a patronising and hypocritical approach to ethnic minorities and non-Western cultures, and – in a re-hash of the notion of the ‘white man’s burden’ – devote themselves to a delusional Messianism in which they seek to ‘save the world’ through protesting against war (in real terms, protesting against non-white people having a chance at freedom and democracy), Israel (the one truly liberal society in the Middle East), globalisation (thereby opposing the one great vehicle by which poorer nations can develop), and so on, while making themselves feel and look ‘good’ by flaunting their pious support for campaigns to end poverty in the Third World (which will do no such thing, as Dambisa Moyo, Stephen Pollard, Marian L. Tupy, and others rightly point out ), and boasting about how ‘progressive’ they are by showing ‘solidarity’ with genocidal Islamists in Gaza.

Posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Moral relativism, Racism, The Regressive Left | 8 Comments

Jamaat Leaders Arrested For Genocide

This is a cross-post by Tendance Coatesy


Bangladesh 1971: One of the Worst Genocides of the 20th Century

The International Crimes Tribunal yesterday issued arrest warrants against already detained four Jamaat-e-Islami leaders on charges of committing genocide and crimes against humanity and peace during the Liberation War.

“Warrants of arrest should be issued against these four people to ensure effective and proper investigation,” Tribunal Chairman Justice Nizamul Huq said allowing the prosecution prayer after submission of Chief Prosecutor Golam Arif Tipu.

The four Jamaat leaders are Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami, Secretary General Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojahid and senior assistant secretaries general Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and Abdul Quader Molla.

More Here. Hat-Tip to Enty.

Jamaat Leaders Arrested for War Crimes

By Faheem Haider

Posted in Human Rights, Islamism | 51 Comments

Pakistan leads the War on WikiLeaks

The Pakistan government has gone into damage control mode after the evidence of the ISI’s involvement in Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan was exposed and confirmed on WikiLeaks. The Pakistan ambassador to USA, Husain Haqqani has penned an article in the WSJ, to undermine the veracity of the reports.

Ambassador Husain Haqqani and the ear of US envoy Richard Holbrooke

The documents circulated by WikiLeaks do not even remotely reflect the current realities on the ground. For example, a retired Pakistani general is named as the master planner of the Afghan Taliban’s strategy. But this is a man who hasn’t held any position within Pakistani intelligence or the military for more than 20 years. For its part, Pakistan’s current leadership will not be distracted by something like these leaks. We have paid an unprecedented price in blood and treasure over the last two years. We will not succumb to the terrorists.

Posted in Afghan war, International Affairs | 15 Comments

The EDL in Bradford

This is a message by Nick Lowles from Hope Not Hate
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Day by day the violent and racist English Defence League are becoming more dangerous. This shocking video exposes the truth behind this self professed “peaceful” group. Watch this video and then share it with everyone you know:

The EDL exists for one simple reason: they want to spread fear and hatred throughout the UK – and it’s only going to get worse.

In a few weeks the EDL will be invading Bradford for what they’re calling “The Big One.” Once again they plan on attacking the Muslim population.

We’ve been down this route before – the riots in Bradford in Oldham were sparked by small groups of violent racists attacking the local community.

Posted in Activism, Anti Muslim bigotry, Racism | Leave a comment

When Jew hatred is dressed up as faith

The video that follows are excerpts from a religious program hosted by Egyptian cleric Hussam Fawzi Jabar, which aired on Al-Nas TV on July 11, 2010.

Here we see a cleric in traditional ‘mufti’ attire expounding on the “nature of Jews” in the most egregious terms possible. But his words and opinions are considered acceptable, even laudable, to the Muslim laity because he is a religious figure, and because he is speaking in Arabic. The fact that he is expounding his political views and not purely religious ones is immaterial.

And yet these kinds of views expressed in this kind of language will pass without comment amongst Muslims. And why? Because of the received belief that there is no distinction between religion and politics and because the political views of some cleric in Egypt are supposedly the views of all Muslims everywhere else.

Transcript from MEMRI:

Posted in Antisemitism, Islamism | Leave a comment

The General and the Taliban

Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, center, the former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, getting roughed up

What the Guardian’s WikiLeaks article is less voluble about is the extent of Pakistan’s complicity with the Taliban and the regional insurgency. What the leaked documents uncover is the existance of a rogue element, the ‘S Wing’ of Pakistan’s national intelligence services, the ISI , which has near-complete autonomy in Pakistan’s ungovernable tribal regions and the volatile border with India.

In the midst of these massive leaks emerges the name of General Hamid Gul who ran the ISI and who is profiled in this NYT report.

Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul ran the ISI from 1987 to 1989, a time when Pakistani spies and the C.I.A. joined forces to run guns and money to Afghan militias who were battling Soviet troops in Afghanistan. After the fighting stopped, he maintained his contacts with the former mujahedeen, who would eventually transform themselves into the Taliban.

Posted in Islamism | Leave a comment

Afghan WikiLeaks: “Catastrophic Lack of Human Intelligence”

Alex Thomson on Channel 4 News blog:

The point is that this is according to WikiLeaks from the horse’s mouth and if it is verified it is NATO validating the above conclusions from reporters like me who take (small but significant) advantage of the embed system of allowing reporters some limited access to the war.

Had we the Vietnam era of wide and free-ranging access across Afghanistan then much more of this picture of confusion and off-hand civilian killing would have come to more strongly than it now has.

What comes across most striking is the catastrophic lack of human intelligence which is the single biggest factor as to why this war can never, ever, be won. I know that I go on banging this point home but it really cannot be said forcefully enough.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“Violent” and “Non Violent” Islamists

This is a cross-post by Lucy Lips at Harry’s Place


So, it is almost that Global Peace and Unity time of year again.

Regular readers of Harry’s Place will remember that, every year, the Islam Channel invites some of the most extreme and nasty Islamists – supporters of attacks on our troops, of terrorism (outside the UK, of course), Holocaust denial, wife beating, and so on – to bunfight. Each year, leading politicians from all three parties are invited. Sometimes, they attend.

Labour’s performance on this matter has ranged from excellent to terrible.

The Lib Dems have been atrocious – not only did they attend the event, they rubbished Policy Exchange’s attempt to brief leading politicians on the nature of the invitees to the conference.

The Tories’ Dominic Grieve did turn up, and very impressively expressed his disappointment at the nasty views espoused by some of the attendees. If you are going to attend, that is the way to do it.

Posted in Islamism, UK Politics | 11 Comments

Old Red Eyes is Back

The IFE stalwart and major Anwar al-Awlaki fanboy, Azad Ali, has resurfaced as the newly elected president of the Muslim Safety Forum. Andrew Gilligan writes:

Scotland Yard will now face pressure to renounce Azad Ali, the new chair of the Muslim Safety Forum, which is recognised by the Met under a formal written agreement as “the principal body in relation to Muslim community safety and security”.

The deal says that the Met will “use the MSF as a consultation body to help formulate policy or practice”. Mr Ali was the founding chair of the MSF in 2006, but left that job in 2008 and resigned entirely from the group last year after publicity over his extremist comments. Last week, he was quietly reappointed as its chairman.

Posted in Islamism | 2 Comments