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| What's the opposite of a Fifth Column? | |
| 2012-02-14 | |
| A Second Look at 'The Third Jihad' By Jeff Jacoby Did the New York City Police Department use "terrible judgment," as Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, when it showed a documentary about Islamist extremists -- The Third Jihad -- to more than 1,400 officers undergoing counterterrorism training? You might think so if you took your cues from a New York Times editorial calling the documentary a "hate-filled film about Muslims," or from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which declared that it "defiled our faith and misrepresented everything we stood for." Dr. Zuhdi Jasser fervently disagrees.
"As a devout Muslim I saw it as my responsibility to expose the radicals," Jasser says in The Third Jihad, which he narrated. "I resented that they were exploiting the religion I love." After al-Qaeda's murder of 3,000 Americans, Jasser recalls in the film, "I had expected to see Muslims in America taking to the streets and protesting against [Osama] bin Laden. Instead, in the years that followed, we saw many Muslim leaders standing up to defend or support the radicals." So he launched the American Islamic Forum for Democracy to defend American values, promote the separation of mosque and state, and expose the Islamist agenda behind certain influential Muslim organizations. Happily, he is not fighting alone. During the recent furor over the film, New York City Councilman Robert Jackson, a Muslim, refused to toe the CAIR line. "I initially thought from reading about it that it cast a negative image on all Muslims," he said. "In my opinion it does not. It focuses on the extreme Muslims that are trying to hurt other people." Similarly, the American Islamic Leadership Coalition issued a strong statement defending The Third Jihad as "factually accurate and important." You needn't take their word for it. Watch the film for yourself at TheThirdJihad.com, and gain crucial insight into one of the central struggles of our time: the war of ideas within Islam. | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #14 Rantburg? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2012-02-14 17:58 |
| #13 Anguper Hupomosing9418: While aware of the internecine conflict in Christianity, it was a fight internal to Christianity. And indeed, such an internal brawl can very well happen within Islam. That is, a Sunni and Shiite fight. However, Islam is surrounded by "not Islam", and that is less a doctrinal fight than a Darwinian struggle of natural selection. While Islam is focused on fighting infidels, however, it also has a fight on its hands with Muslims who are only Muslims because they are *imprisoned* within the ummah. For example, Africa is now being split, because blacks who formerly *had* to be Muslims now have a choice, mostly to become Anglicans. And Islam is hemorrhaging in the region because of it. And that situation could expand to many places, where Muslims could abandon Islam, without fear that other Muslims will track them down and kill them. And that is a grave threat to Islam. This has no parallel with the religious wars of Christianity. And remember, that while Islam has to contend with this, it also has to contend with the rest of the non-Muslim world. And their purpose in doing so is to defend barbarity against modernity and civilization. Dictatorship against democracy. Whimsical, cruel and corrupt theocratic rule against good government. Controlling people who do not want to live that way. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2012-02-14 16:39 |
| #12 Bill Clinton, why did you add a t to my name? |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2012-02-14 14:45 |
| #11 This type of religious reform didn't start to happen in Christianity in earnest until the 18th Century and the Age of Enlightenment. However, it is likely to happen much faster in Islam, because it has the western model to work from. You left something very important out of your history capsule -- the Euro religious wars from about 1517 to whenever the Enlightenment started, where hundreds of thousands were either murdered or executed in an overflow of religious zeal and a good percentage of the population of what is now modern Germany was exterminated. An a-historical quote from the movie "The Last Valley" summarizes it best: "We killed God at Magdeburg." Islam has always been more bloodthirsty than Christianity has been about matters like apostacy, blasphemy, heresy. Certainly it is in the interest of the rest of the world to be aware of the downside of Islam, and to encourage reformers like Zuhdi Jasser (who is under a death sentence just from what he has said so far). I think the Spenglerian prediction is the most accurate: America will prevail, provided the Muslim world does not take us down with it first. p. 96 How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam is Dying Too) |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2012-02-14 14:14 |
| #10 #9 ROTFL |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-02-14 12:49 |
| #9 This is a very important development. While it does not (advisedly) get a lot of press, there is a growing movement in Islam to reinterpret its doctrines away from barbarity, violence and primitiveness, to modernity and coexistence. This type of religious reform didn't start to happen in Christianity in earnest until the 18th Century and the Age of Enlightenment. However, it is likely to happen much faster in Islam, because it has the western model to work from. Efforts to avoid modernity with self imposed isolationism, ghettos, and that sort of thing is much harder to pull off if society as a whole is not segregationist. All it takes is the realization that "If I go 'over the wall', I can live in peace and not have to put up with this primitive b.s. any more." This is why right now there are so many 'honor killings' in the west, because with just one look, smart kids decide the prefer modernity, and their parents cannot deal with that. Eventually, the kids will figure out that if they leave home, there is no going back. But that is just one more factor in the equation. If they are willing to accept that, they are home free. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2012-02-14 11:52 |
| #8 The fourth estate is the same as the fifth column these days. I don't know what the opposite is. Patriot would be a good opposite. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2012-02-14 10:58 |
| #7 Schwartz, If you study the Russian Revolution, you find out thr "useful idiots" are executed FIRST. |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2012-02-14 10:09 |
| #6 That explains the tactic, but still doesn't answer if they are blind to the threat or ignoring it. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2012-02-14 10:08 |
| #5 rjs, The media takes their orders from the Left/Dems. The idea of a patriotic Muslim doesn't fit the narrative anymore than a patriotic, conservative black does. They have to a) hype the crisis and b) hype that it is all our fault. That way they can clamor for more power and control over everyone and everything. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2012-02-14 09:25 |
| #4 Opposite of Fifth Column is a patriot. The media should be holding this guy up as an example that not all Muslims are against us rather than vilifying him in defense of the indefensible. I don't know if the media is blind to the threat, or if they just hope they'll get eaten last. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2012-02-14 07:59 |
| #3 Hawaii Five-Oh? |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2012-02-14 05:57 |
| #2 One fifth column? Negative fifth column? I dunno.... |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2012-02-14 02:04 |
| #1 Sixth column? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-02-14 01:35 |