RUTHFULLY YOURS

Last week, in response to the Paris massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, Carol M. Swain, an openly conservative professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, wrote an op-ed for The Tennessean titled, “Charlie Hebdo attacks prove critics were right about Islam.” Naturally, any critique of Islam from our leftist-dominated campuses is going to be met with frothing outrage, and Professor Swain’s article was no exception.

“What would it take to make us admit we were wrong about Islam?” the professor began. “What horrendous attack would finally convince us that Islam is not like other religions in the United States, that it poses an absolute danger to us and our children unless it is monitored better than it has been under the Obama administration?” Good questions, and ones that those of us whose eyes have long been opened to the threat of Islamic fundamentalism have been asking ever since September 11, 2001, if not before.

France’s unity rally, held on January 11, 2015, following the massacre at Hebdo magazine headquarters, was based on the premise of support for freedom of speech. In reality, the whole thing was nothing but a farce.

Charlie Hebdo was a French satirical magazine, known for mocking religious figures of all stripes. However, some Muslims are hypersensitive to humor about their Prophet Mohammad, and over the years, the magazine was plagued with death threats. In fact, in 2011, some Muslims firebombed and destroyed Hebdo’s old offices, after it announced that it would name Mohammad as its Editor-in-Chief.

Now, on January 7, 2015, two brothers gunned down twelve people in and around the magazine’s headquarters, screaming “Allahu Akbar!” (Allah is greater!) in defense of their beloved religion. Recently, Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula claimed credit for the attack, pronouncing that it had planned and financed the murders.

But western media as well as leaders of the here-to-fore Free World refuse to acknowledge that any version of Islam is responsible for the attack. Much of the media originally failed to report the connection (though it was hardly a secret,) and politicians, like President Obama, continue to deny it. Islam is a religion of peace, his administration tells us. What we witnessed is “violent extremism”, similar, I suppose, to that of mere thugs down the block.

In the wake of the terror attacks in Paris, France terror raids were carried out in Belgium and Greece to identify, locate and hunt down so-called “sleepers cells.” Journalists and politicians have finally raised the issue of the threats potentially posed by sleeper agents in the United States, going back to the future — the same concerns about sleeper cells in the United States were voiced in the wake of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 including by the then-director of the FBI, Robert Mueller.

Of course any discussion about sleeper agents gaining entry into the United States would logically call into question the multiple and massive failures of the immigration system. Today politicians from both sides of the political aisle are hell-bent on making certain that the flood of foreign workers, foreign tourists and foreign students continue without impediment. Consequently admitting that immigration is a vital component of national security and must be treated as such would run contrary to the goals of advocates for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

Within the DNA of Islam is a self-destructive element: a prophecy by Mohammed in which he said that Islam will eventually be rejected by the world and would return back to where it came from. Ask your local imam, and he’ll tell you: Mohammed doesn’t lie.

Incredibly, Mohammed himself was not optimistic about his own message and the future of Islam and Muslims:

[T]he Messenger of Allah (Mohammed) observed: Verily Islam started as something strange and it would again revert (to its old position) of being strange just as it started, and it would recede between the two mosques just as the serpent crawls back into its hole.” [Sahih Muslim, Book 001, Number 0270.]

In this hadith, Mohammed foretold that the end of Islam would be strange just like its beginning and that it would shrink back to the limited area where it came from – – between the two mosques of Mecca and Medina.

Could that prediction by Mohammed himself be a signal of the inevitable demise of Islam?

There are two models for fighting terrorism. We can see the terrorists as an external invading force that has to be destroyed or as an internal element in our society to be managed.

In the War on Terror, Bush saw terrorists as an external force that had to be fought while Obama sees them as an internal element to be managed. And while both men signed off on some of the same tactics, their view of the conflict at the big picture level was fundamentally different.

The differences express themselves in such things as detaining terrorists at Guantanamo Bay or backing Islamist democracy. If Muslim terrorists are an alien force, then detaining them without trial is no more of a problem than detaining Nazi saboteurs was during WW2. And if Islamic terrorism is driven by alien impulses, then it has nothing in common with us and attempting to accommodate it cannot succeed.

POTUS fiddles while ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula gain strength.

“This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”

— President Obama announcing his ISIS strategy, September 10, 2014When President Obama uttered those words, Yemen was on the cusp of becoming a failed state. The president, however, evidently regarded it as a textbook example of foreign-policy success.

Twelve days later, Iranian-backed Shia Houthi rebels took control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. By seizing President Mansour Hadi’s residence and extorting major concessions from him, and then effectively forcing his resignation, the Houthis turned Yemen into the failed state that Obama (somehow) didn’t see coming.

While the Houthis are publicly stating that they want a de facto coalition government, they’re highly unlikely to relinquish their military control on the levers of power. After all, that power offers the resources and influence they need.

Six years later, Obama’s still reading from the same tired script.

It’s hard to believe that was only President Obama’s sixth State of the Union address. It feels like he’s given so many more. Maybe that’s because the man seems to be constantly talking. And talking. The talking is the background noise of much of the last decade, auditory wallpaper that seems to line the corridors of everyday life.

And when he talks, he’s often talking about himself — particularly about things he’s said on other occasions when he was talking. Like many liberals today, Obama has a particular weakness for the logical fallacy known as the argument from authority, and you know he is about to invoke his favorite authority when he begins a sentence, “As I said before.” As if there are large swaths of people who say, “Oh, he said it before, so it must be true.”

President Obama hailed late Saudi King Abdullah, who died at age 90 after a battle with pneumonia, as leading the kingdom “through its emergence as a critical force within the global economy and a leader among Arab and Islamic nations.”

“He took bold steps in advancing the Arab Peace Initiative, an endeavor that will outlive him as an enduring contribution to the search for peace in the region,” Obama said of the Saudi plan that would recognize Israel in exchange for concessions including pulling back to pre-1967 borders. “At home, King Abdullah’s vision was dedicated to the education of his people and to greater engagement with the world.”

Barack Obama devoted two short paragraphs in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday to the crisis in Ukraine. “We’re upholding the principle that bigger nations can’t bully the small,” the President said, “by opposing Russian aggression, and supporting Ukraine’s democracy, and reassuring our NATO allies.” Thanks to American and European sanctions, he added, “Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters.”

Vladimir Putin begs to differ. Russian forces on the same day opened fire on Ukrainian positions in the rebel-controlled Luhansk region, not far from the Russian border, according to a Ukrainian military spokesman. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko cut short his trip to Davos to deal with the “worsening situation” on the home front.

Move to ‘Avoid Appearance’ of Influencing Israeli Election, White House Says

WASHINGTON—Citing the need to remain neutral in the upcoming Israeli elections, the White House said President Barack Obama won’t meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits in March.

“As a matter of long-standing practice and principle, we do not see heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections, so as to avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country,” said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.