RUTHFULLY YOURS

They call themselves the Islamic State. They claim to be the restorers of the caliphate, the ones who have finally fulfilled the most cherished aspiration of jihadists and Islamic supremacists the world over. They declare their intention to govern their domains solely and wholly by Islamic law, acting swiftly and ruthlessly to end any practice that does not conform to that law. They repeatedly proclaim their piety, ascribing all their victories to Allah and submitting themselves in all things to his will.

Yet despite all this, Western leaders, the mainstream media, and much of the public are certain of one thing: the Islamic State has nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with Islam. So many people tell us so:
5. Shirley Sotloff

Shirley Sotloff [1] is the mother of Steven J. Sotloff, an American who is being held hostage by the Islamic State. On Wednesday, she released a video appeal to the Islamic State’s “caliph Ibrahim,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Her message to him was extremely respectful. Sotloff began: “I am sending this message to you, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Quraishi al-Hussaini, the caliph of the Islamic State. I am Shirley Sotloff. My son Steven is in your hands.”

Sotloff went on to tell the caliph that Steven had “no control over the actions of the U.S. government. He is an innocent journalist.” In fact, she said he had gone to the Middle East to chronicle the sufferings of Muslims. This was tantamount to signaling to him that Steven Sotloff could be more useful to him alive than dead. She assumes throughout that the U.S. has indeed done wrong to the Islamic State, but argues that her son should not be punished for it.

“Since Steven’s capture,” she added, “I have learned a lot about Islam. I’ve learned that Islam teaches that no individual should be held responsible for the sins of others. As a mother, I ask your justice to be merciful and not punish my son for matters he has no control over.”

It’s odd that Shirley Sotloff, after addressing the caliph so respectfully, would presume to lecture him about Islam, and it’s frankly embarrassing that she does so based on her whitewashed Karen Armstrong/John Esposito understanding of the religion. Only from such peddlers of the Islam-is-a-Religion-of-Peace myth could she have gotten the idea that the caliph’s heart would be melted by an appeal to Islam from a Western non-Muslim woman with head uncovered.

“When women go wrong men go right after them.”
– Mae West

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Winston Churchill wrote this over a century ago.

During my junior year in high school, the nuns asked about our plans for after we graduated. When I said I was going to attend State University, I noticed their disappointment. I asked my favorite nun, “Why?” She answered, “That means you’ll leave four years later a communist and an atheist!”

What a giggle we girls had over that. “How ridiculously unsophisticated these nuns are,” we thought. Then I went to the university and four years later walked out a communist and an atheist, just as my sister Katie had six years before me.

Sometime later, I was a young divorcee with a small child. At the urging of my sister, I relocated to NYC after spending years married to an American executive stationed in Southeast Asia. The marriage over, I was making a new life for my daughter and me. Katie said, “Come to New York. We’re making revolution! Some of us are starting the National Organization of Women and you can be part of it.”

I hadn’t seen her for years. Although she had tormented me when we were youngsters, those memories were faint after my Asian traumas and the break-up of my marriage. I foolishly mistook her for sanctuary in a storm. With so much time and distance between us, I had forgotten her emotional instability.

And so began my period as an unwitting witness to history. I stayed with Kate and her lovable Japanese husband, Fumio, in a dilapidated loft on The Bowery as she finished her first book, a PhD thesis for Columbia University, “Sexual Politics.”

It was 1969. Kate invited me to join her for a gathering at the home of her friend, Lila Karp. They called the assemblage a “consciousness-raising-group,” a typical communist exercise, something practiced in Maoist China. We gathered at a large table as the chairperson opened the meeting with a back-and-forth recitation, like a Litany, a type of prayer done in Catholic Church. But now it was Marxism, the Church of the Left, mimicking religious practice:

So-called “Islamophobes” such as Bat Ye’or and others have been warning for years against the possible rise of a new Islamic Caliphate. They have been largely ignored and partly ridiculed for doing so.

In the summer of 2014, a new Caliphate was actually declared in the Middle East. A militant organization that had gained control over sections of Iraq and Syria declared itself the Islamic State (IS). It is headed by the ruthless Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who on June 29 2014 declared himself Caliph. ISIS or IS was originally an offshoot of al-Qaida, but broke ties with the mother organization in early 2014.

It is too early to tell whether this self-professed Caliphate or Islamic State will survive. It has many enemies, and has already caused former enemies to unite to combat it. However, it is clearly not a joke. By August 2014, it was in effective control over a substantial territory and ruled over millions of people. It has gained control over several oil fields and refineries and thereby a steady stream of money through the sale of oil on the black market. It has also managed to get hold of relatively sophisticated weaponry. Western analysts warn that ISIS represents a credible fighting force, perhaps capable of striking targets in the West. They already control more money and weapons than al-Qaida ever did through its bases in Afghanistan prior to 2001.

The Islamic State has gained notoriety for its brutal methods, including mass executions and beheadings. This caused several Muslim and non-Muslim commentators to declare that the Islamic state is in fact un-Islamic. But is this true? Do mass executions or beheadings of non-Muslims make them un-Islamic?

According to Islamic historical sources, Muhammed and his companions mass-executed by beheading all adult males of the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza from Medina in the year 627 AD. Their women and children were taken as slaves. This forms a part of the Sunna, the personal example of Muhammed and his companions, which is the most important source of Islamic religious law next to the Koran. It is very difficult to argue that mass executions and beheadings of non-Muslims are “un-Islamic” when they were supported by Islam’s founder and alleged prophet Muhammed.

Is Jihad un-Islamic?

I have been searching for moderate Islam since September 11 and just like a lost sock in the dryer, it was in the last place I expected it to be.

There is no moderate Islam in the mosques or in Mecca. You won’t find it in the Koran or the Hadiths. If you want to find moderate Islam, browse the newspaper editorials after a terrorist attack or take a course on Islamic religion taught by a Unitarian Sociologist wearing fake native jewelry.

You can’t find a moderate Islam in Saudi Arabia or Iran, but you can find it in countless network news specials, articles and books about the two homelands of their respective brands of Islam.

You won’t find the fabled land of moderate Muslims in the east. You won’t even find it in the west. Like all myths it exists in the imagination of those who tell the stories. You won’t find a moderate Islam in the Koran, but you will find it in countless Western books about Islam.

Moderate Islam isn’t what most Muslims believe. It’s what most liberals believe that Muslims believe.

The new multicultural theology of the West is moderate Islam. Moderate Islam is the perfect religion for a secular age since it isn’t a religion at all.

Take Islam, turn it inside out and you have moderate Islam. Take a Muslim who hasn’t been inside a mosque in a year, who can name the entire starting lineup of the San Diego Chargers, but can’t name Mohammed’s companions and you have a moderate Muslim. Or more accurately, a secular Muslim.

An early generation of Western leaders sought the affirmation of their national destinies in the divine. This generation of Western leaders seeks the affirmation of their secular liberalism in a moderate Islam.

Even if they have to make it up.

The Washington Free Beacon revealed Friday that “the FBI’s most recent national threat assessment for domestic terrorism makes no reference to Islamist terror threats, despite last year’s Boston Marathon bombing and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting—both carried out by radical Muslim Americans.” Instead, the threat assessment focused on eight types of groups: “anti-government militia groups and white supremacy extremists, along with ‘sovereign citizen’ nationalists, and anarchists,” along with “violent animal rights and environmentalist extremists, black separatists, anti- and pro-abortion activists, and Puerto Rican nationalists.”

The FBI focus on “anti-government militia groups and white supremacy extremists, along with ‘sovereign citizen’ nationalists, and anarchists” is ominous, for while there are indeed such people, the Obama Administration has already shown a disturbing tendency to lump all of its opponents into such categories, with scant concern for accuracy, and to be willing to use the IRS and the courts effectively to criminalize opposition to its agenda. Some such groups may indeed be violent and dangerous, but they’re nothing compared to the global character of jihad terrorism – and yet jihad terrorism didn’t even make the FBI list.

Meanwhile, it is comforting to know that the FBI is on watch against Puerto Rican nationalists: tonight at the Blair House, President Truman can rest easy. But meanwhile, this latest national threat assessment shows that the Obama Administration’s fog of denial and willful ignorance about the jihad threat is thicker than ever. To be warning about Puerto Rican nationalists while Islamic jihadists are increasingly aggressive, assertive and violent around the world is tantamount to warning about slow waiters on the Titanic.

The war with Hamas is not over. What we are experiencing today is a temporary cease-fire.

The most basic reason the war is not over is because Hamas has no existence outside its war against the Jewish state. Hamas exists to obliterate Israel. The goal of each round of fighting is to soften Israel up for the next round.

Hamas will only stop fighting when it is defeated. And Israel did not defeat Hamas.

Not only did Israel not defeat Hamas, according to Haaretz, senior IDF commanders are now lobbying the government to enable Hamas to credibly claim victory.

According to Amos Harel, senior IDF commanders want Israel to bow to Hamas’s demands for open borders with Israel and for the steady transfer of funds to Hamas’s treasury.

Harel quoted a senior IDF source who said that if Israel doesn’t give in to Hamas’s demands for open borders, Hamas will renew its attacks at the end of September.

In the senior commander’s words, “If we can assist [Hamas] by expanding fishing grounds and easing restrictions on border crossings of people and goods into and from Israel, this will help maintain the quiet.”

So to delay the next Hamas onslaught against us, the IDF is lobbying the government to surrender to Hamas.

This behavior demonstrates two basic truths about Hamas’s war against Israel.

Barack Obama “has become ‘enraged’ at the Israeli government, both for its actions and for its treatment of his chief diplomat, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. ” So reports the Jerusalem Post, based on the testimony of Martin Indyk, until recently a special Middle East envoy for the president. The war in Gaza, Mr. Indyk adds, has had “a very negative impact” on Jerusalem’s relations with Washington.

Think about this. Enraged. Not “alarmed” or “concerned” or “irritated” or even “angered.” Anger is a feeling. Rage is a frenzy. Anger passes. Rage feeds on itself. Anger is specific. Rage is obsessional, neurotic.

And Mr. Obama—No Drama Obama, the president who prides himself on his cool, a man whose emotional detachment is said to explain his intellectual strength—is enraged. With Israel. Which has just been hit by several thousand unguided rockets and 30-odd terror tunnels, a 50-day war, the forced closure of its one major airport, accusations of “genocide” by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, anti-Semitic protests throughout Europe, general condemnation across the world. This is the country that is the object of the president’s rage.

Think about this some more. In the summer in which Mr. Obama became “enraged” with Israel, Islamic State terrorists seized Mosul and massacred Shiite soldiers in open pits, Russian separatists shot down a civilian jetliner, Hamas executed 18 “collaborators” in broad daylight, Bashar Assad’s forces in Syria came close to encircling Aleppo with the aim of starving the city into submission, a brave American journalist had his throat slit on YouTube by a British jihadist, Russian troops openly invaded Ukraine, and Chinese jets harassed U.S. surveillance planes over international waters.

This is the legacy of the Kissinger/Nixon Shanghai Communiqué (1972), issued by the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China on February 28, 1972. It culminated when the U.S. broke relations with Taiwan in 1979 and established full relations with the tyrants of the People’s (Communist) Republic of China- …..rsk

The people of Hong Kong can plead or protest for democracy all they want, but they can only hold a sham election for Chief Executive in 2017. That was the ruling of China’s rubber-stamp National People’s Congress on Sunday.

Moderates on both sides of the political spectrum in Hong Kong had urged compromise. They proposed nomination procedures that would satisfy Beijing’s concerns while still allowing the free election that China promised in 1997 when it made the city a self-governing special administrative region for 50 years. Beijing not only rejected these ideas, it seems they were never seriously considered. The Communist Party insists on absolute veto power over the choice of candidates.

The result will be more frustration in Hong Kong. Since the handover from British rule, the city has suffered under mediocre leaders weakened by their lack of a popular mandate. This has angered parts of the population, particularly the young, and some are promising acts of civil disobedience.

The anger is likely to grow. The pro-democracy camp has enough votes in the local Legislative Council to reject Beijing’s sham democracy plan, and a poll by Chinese University in Hong Kong found that 60% of the city’s people want the legislature to vote it down. If Beijing’s plan is voted down, the next Chief Executive will be selected using the current nondemocratic system, in which a 1,200-member committee made up largely of China’s businessmen friends picks the leader. Their choice will face increased resistance from all but the most loyal pro-Beijing partisans.

Beijing is already giving a taste of how it intends to handle any dissent. In the People’s Daily and other state media Saturday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman accused some in the city of “colluding” with external forces. These foreign governments seek “not only to undermine the stability and development of Hong Kong but also to attempt to use Hong Kong as a bridgehead to subvert and infiltrate the mainland.” This is the familiar dishonest ploy to brand democrats unpatriotic and a threat to national security.

Evolution of the Obama Doctrine By Roger Kimball

The “Obama Doctrine”: what do you suppose that might be? The goal of fundamentally transforming the United States of America [1] stands in the background, you can be sure of that. But now, six years into the program, we can see an arc of development, an evolution (or devolution). There are many metrics that can be employed to describe what Obama has done to this country. One might focus on the economy, on employment, on race relations, on the fate of individual liberty, on more nebulous matters like national mood, international prestige, and that potent if difficult-to-measure armory described in the phrase “soft power.” “Are you better off now than you were four years ago? [2]” Ronald Reagan famously asked in 1980. Let’s generalize the question for the last six years: are we as a country better off than we were when Obama took office?

Let’s leave domestic matters — the controversies over Obamacare, the still-unfolding IRS scandals, illegal immigration, energy policy, and the like — to one side. Let’s focus instead on national security and the place of the United States on the world stage. How are we doing?

Over at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds reproduced a mournful litany [3] sent to him by a friend. Cast your mind back a single year, he suggested, all the way back to Labor Day weekend 2013. Then think about all that had not happened:

The Chinese ADIZ [that is, China’s unilateral extension of it defense perimeter in the South China Sea], the Russian annexation of Crimea, the rise of ISIS, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the fall of Mosul, the end of Hungarian liberal democracy, the Central American refugee crisis, the Egyptian-UAE attacks on Libya, the extermination of Iraqi Christians, the Yazidi genocide, the scramble to revise NATO’s eastern-frontier defenses, the Kristallnacht-style pogroms in European cities, the reemergence of mainstream anti-Semitism, the third (or fourth, perhaps) American war in Iraq, . . .

Et very much cetera. And all that, Reynolds’ anonymous correspondent observes, “was in the future just one year ago.”

“Nature,” Galileo observed four hundred years ago, “abhors a vacuum” That sucking sound you hear when reading the alarming list of what Secretary of State John Kerry might have dismissed as “19th-century [2]” behavior, unbecoming of a modern, blow-dried state, that rushing wind is the sound of a profound leadership deficit. It’s what happens when a great power abdicates, when it stops acting like an adult and gives free rein to its inner community organizer, its inner selfie. It’s Lord of the Flies writ large.

It was always obvious what Obama’s supporters wanted. They weren’t willing to settle for a Hillary, just another politician who would punch the clock, deliver tepid speeches and push their leftist agenda.

They wanted someone larger than life. A head made for Mount Rushmore and a body that would be cast in statues across the country. Speeches meant to be studied in classrooms for the next hundred years.

They compared him to JFK and Reagan. He was treated as the icon that his backers wanted him to be. His election was supposed to be a watershed moment in American history.

Instead it ends in miserable failure.

At home, Obama is caught in a desperate tug of war with Republicans. He won the budget battle by sending park rangers to shut down national monuments. His last ditch gamble for holding on to the Senate is using racial tensions in Ferguson to promote black voter turnout.

And if he wins, all he’ll have is what he has now.

This is how shoddy and tawdry the reality of Hope and Change has become. Trapped in a corner, Obama is dragging out the dirtiest Chicago politics. He’s trying to hold off the inevitable by using the same types of tactics that the crooked mayor of his hometown would.

There’s no inspiration here. No words that will resound across time. Just dirty rats on a sinking ship.

Blame Congress has become the new Blame Bush. ObamaCare is a slow motion disaster that requires constant course corrections to keep it from coming apart. It’s not the new Social Security or Medicare. It’s the new HMO; a clumsy construction that most Americans are unhappy with.

Obama’s only power comes from his abuse of his authority, but what one man does, another man can undo. Instead of creating a lasting legislative legacy, Obama’s executive orders and legislation by administration are a house of cards that his successor can topple with the same pen and phone.

They seem intimidating in the way that the actions of tyrants are, but tyranny can be undone with tyranny. What Obama failed to do was build a consensus. He didn’t change the course of American history. He didn’t win the hearts and minds of Americans. Now he’s reduced to vandalizing America.

Obama said that Putin’s actions in Ukraine weren’t a sign of strength, but a sign of weakness. There is some truth to that. Putin’s economic policies have failed and he was unpopular at home. But the Obama tyrannical reign of phone and pen also isn’t a sign of strength. It’s a sign of weakness.

Like Putin, Obama has run out of options.