Friday, November 13, 2009

May fortune bless the efforts of Zuhdi Jasser

by Smitty (h/t Grandpa John)

Zuhdi Jasser is worth your time. He sounds like the sort of voice that we need to hear more of. To paraphrase, he suggests that that around 1 in 20 Muslims are violent Islamists, whereas around 1 in 3 are interested in passively rejecting Western civilization in favor of a new caliphate.

He's so thoughtful, he even draws a competent interview out of Chris Matthews, something I was unsure was possible:

Improving the situation has to start somewhere, and one hopes that this gentleman can provide that leadership.

8 comments:

  1. Zuhdi Jasser is very good. I will disagree with him on the extent of the problem. I do not thing violent jihadis are 3 to 5 % of Muslims (world wide). If they were, things would be much worse. And the % of Muslims here supporting such acts are much much lower than that. We need to work to make those numbers lower everywhere.

    As for the third who dream of a idealic return to Islamic fundamentalism, this phenomenon has been noted in the Middle East for decades (well since the Iranian Revolution). After expermienting with socialism, communism, dictatorships and failed klepto-democracies, many Islamic people in those failed states started to turn to Islam for answers. It is not suprising the Muslim Brotherhood rose out of Egypt (if you want to see the end results of Obama's statist policies, spend some time in Egypt). But it is not just failed economies. Saudi Arabia, with all its oil wealth, has a society that fosters this sort of dangerous nonsense and has the money to spread it around the world.

    But I do not think Muslims here support that in those numbers. Those numbers are more reflective of what people think over there. Again, the roots of all of this are frustration.

    We need to support efforts like Jasser's.

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  2. Y'now, I thought I could stand to watch that clip, just because you recommended it. But as soon as I heard Matthew's voice, my STFU reflex kicked in so hard that I nearly threw my laptop across the room...

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  3. Evidence of good news here you ask?

    "In a recent article at the Big Government blog Frank Gaffney continued his examination of CAIR, demonstrating that the organization’s support base has shrunken drastically over the last few years, both financially and in terms of membership."

    Of course that quote is from Gates of Vienna and is in Charles Johnson's mind proof of facist motivation.

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  4. CAIR (unindicted co-conspirator)- who touts itself as representing moslem Americans, has almost zero membership. Yet our government continues to include the organization in all sorts of pow-wows.

    I have never seen Chris Matthews keep his mouth shut for so long. As for the percentages, I think that the guest probably has it right. Have you been in Philly lately?? TONS of radical moslems - everywhere. In America, school textbooks - prison imams - are all influenced by Saudi Arabia's 'Wahhabi Lobby'. Many large cities in the US can say the same. It's a bad problem and as Dr. Jasser says, we are still asleep.

    I wish Matthews could have continued to keep his mouth shut, but true to form he was unable to maintain listening for very long.

    He made a good point in that we can't be hauling Americans in by the thought police. However - especially applied to Hasan - the military should have a tighter standard for clearances, promotion etc... I would have liked to hear what Dr. Jasser had to say about that, but Matthews wouldn't allow it.

    Many have been screaming that reform must come from within islam - and Dr. Jasser made that point, and has also put his money where his mouth is. He is in as much danger as the rest of us, as islamists everywhere would feel justified in murdering him for his supposed apostasy.

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  5. As long as we continue to use silly terms like 'Islamist' and 'Islamo-facism' we will never understand or put a stop to attacks like Ft. Hood.

    The problem is Islam itself. It isn't a 'religion of peace.' It is a religion/political ideology that clearly endorses the slaughter of infidels, etc.

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  6. As for KSM getting a civilian trial in NYC...

    I want to go back to the good old days.

    Originalism and all of that.

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  7. Anonymous said...
    As long as we continue to use silly terms like 'Islamist' and 'Islamo-facism' we will never understand or put a stop to attacks like Ft. Hood.

    The problem is Islam itself. It isn't a 'religion of peace.' It is a religion/political ideology that clearly endorses the slaughter of infidels, etc.


    Islam is not that much different than some Old Testament stuff about treating ones enemies, but the fact is the world has a sizable number of Muslims and the vast majority are peaceful and not slaughtering infidels. Most of the radical Muslims seem more into slaughtering other Muslims they disagree with than infidels.

    I have spent a lot of time in Islamic countries and while I never considered joining that particular faith, for the most part never had a problem. To borrow from geekish popular culture, Islam is not the Borg, Islam is more like the Klingons (but not as cool looking).

    You can go from the first Star Trek to Star Trek the Next Generation, it is easy if you try.

    Al Qaeda on the other hand...see my post above.

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  8. @Joe - I'm not sure what the Old Testament equivalent of Jihad or dar al-Islam would be. Neither are fringe concepts or part of some distant past of Islam. They are mainstream and a part of Islam today.

    When I see the results of a poll that the majority of British Muslims would like to live under sharia law or the reaction to the Danish cartoons I think, yeah, they are all so moderate. And, of course, they are assimilating so well in Europe.

    Here is a good FrontPageMag.com article on the search for moderate Islam.

    http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=9781

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