Day: September 25, 2008

Iraqi Red Crescent is in trouble

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Red Crescent is the Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross. I posted in May, here, about Said I. Hakki, its president. I liked him because when an interviewer asked him if the United States owes it to Iraq to take in refugees, he replied: “If we allow Iraqis to go somewhere else, then who is going to build Iraq?” He said the Red Crescent should be taking care of Iraq’s internal refugees, and was doing that as far as it could.

Today comes a report in the Washington Post titled Iraqi Red Crescent Paralyzed by Allegations. It begins: 

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi Red Crescent, the country’s leading humanitarian organization, has been crippled by allegations of embezzlement and mismanagement, including what Iraqi officials call the inappropriate expenditure of more than $1 million on Washington lobbying firms in an unsuccessful effort to win U.S. funding.

The group’s former president, Said I. Hakki, an Iraqi American urologist recruited by Bush administration officials to resuscitate Iraq’s health-care system, left the country this summer after the issuance of arrest warrants for him and his deputies. He and his aides deny the allegations and call them politically motivated.

Then follows the usual complicated tale of corruption, with denials and counter-accusations. It’s impossible to know the truth, except that money has disappeared and the organization has ceased nearly all its humanitarian work.  Hakki has been controversial for several years; in 2005 there was an arrest warrant against him for corruption charges, though it was later rescinded. The Red Crescent grew rapidly under his leadership, but other humanitarian organizations claimed there was a lack of transparency with funds.

How sad. Iraq badly needs more humanitarian help for its internally displaced people.

It’s not race, it’s culture that matters

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A reader called Bob sent a comment about immigration and race to one of our posts. I’m not going to post his comment where he sent it, but I want to respond to what he says, so I’m putting it right here:

“Send ALL immigrants back where they came from NOW. Not tomorrow NOW! I do not want any more NON-WHITE people in my country! I am ready and willing for a civil war or a revolution, if that is what it takes! If my government will not protect me, my race and my culture, then I don’t have a use for that government, and I WILL NOT pay taxes to that government.”

We’ve been getting a lot of readers from a white-supremacist website on which someone linked to one of our posts. That’s probably where Bob found RRW. So in case anyone thinks that our views on refugees reflect any racial animosity on our part, let me set the record straight.

We have posted a great deal on Somali refugees. The reason is that wherever Somalis go trouble seems to follow. This is not because they have black skin. It is because of two other characteristics of theirs: One, they come from a primitive culture that has difficulty fitting into our society, made worse because one of their cultural characteristics seems to be arrogance.  And two, they are Muslims, and many of them have been radicalized either in their country of origin or during their sojourns in other countries.

As Ann has pointed out time and again, Sudanese blacks and American blacks come into frequent conflict with Somalis. Somalis don’t seem to get along with anyone. Yet they are one of the largest recent refugee groups in the United States. We object to the way refugee agencies and the U.S. government bring people here without any thought to the effect they will have on the communities in which they settle — that was the original reason for our setting up this blog. The Somalis are the poster children for this problem, but other refugees, black, brown and white, cause problems too when they are not properly settled, which very few refugees are today.

Bob seems to confuse immigration and race when he calls for sending all immigrants back now.  Does he think all immigrants are non-white, or does he just consider everyone besides Americans to be non-white? And his call for civil war or revolution reveals either his personal inner turmoil or his complete lack of historical knowledge. Neither one ever leads to the result its initiators wish for, but they do lead to a lot of destruction and misery.

Ann and I have slightly different opinions on immigration. She is more restrictionist than I am. But we agree that we prefer people who fit into our society, who are eager to assimilate, and who contribute something to America.  Neither one of us has any animus against immigrants or anyone else based on skin color. After all, which immigrants have contributed more to this country, the Indian parents of Bobby Jindal, the brilliant governor of Louisiana, or the white Bosnian gang members in Fort Wayne, Indiana? And who is better helping to preserve our culture, the white homosexual activist and Episcopalian bishop Vicky Gene Robinson or the black African Anglican bishops who are providing a way for Episcopal parishes and dioceses around the United States to find a more traditional home.

Addendum: See our Diversity page for more on this subject.

Georgetown University pushes Sharia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Saudi money at American universities is part of the silent jihad.  The Saudis have funded Middle Eastern and Muslim-oriented centers on campuses all over the country. One influential center is at Georgetown University, where it is doing its part to introduce Sharia law into the United States. Cinnamon Stillwell reports at FrontPage:

Georgetown University’s Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMSU) will be hosting a conference on October 23 that asks the loaded question: “Is There a Role for Shari’ah in Modern States?”

The Saudi-funded ACMSU and its founding director, John Esposito, one of the foremost apologists for radical Islam in the academic field of Middle East studies, have certainly been doing their bit to make the idea more palatable.

The Saudi prince for whom ACMSU was named has been pumping millions of dollars into Middle East studies at Georgetown, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and beyond, and as the case of Esposito demonstrates, it magnifies the voices of scholars with a decidedly uncritical bent. As a result, ACMSU analysis regarding Sharia (or Islamic) law tends to focus not on its injustices (amputation, stoning, hanging, honor killing, punishment for blasphemy, execution of apostates, persecution of non-Muslims, sanctioned wife-beating, female genital mutilation, and so on), but rather on repackaging it in ways that will appeal to Western sensibilities. The concept of a more “moderate” version of Sharia law that is compatible with democracy is at the forefront of this effort.

Apparently one way the Saudis advance the stealth jihad is to use non-Muslims as apologists for their goals. At least I assume Esposito isn’t Muslim. Stillwell provides a lot of information on Esposito, including this:

Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, a book co-authored by Esposito and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies Dalia Mogahed, has been widely criticized for its blatant inaccuracies and attempts to whitewash anti-Western and extremist sentiment in the Muslim world. Accordingly, Sharia law is framed in a non-threatening fashion.

The keynote speaker is a Harvard professor and apologist for Sharia, Noah Feldman. (Why are there so many Jews supporting radical Islam?)

In fact, for most of its history, Islamic law offered the most liberal and humane legal principles available anywhere in the world. Today, when we invoke the harsh punishments prescribed by Shariah for a handful of offenses, we rarely acknowledge the high standards of proof necessary for their implementation.

Stillwell quotes Melanie Phillips on how this same process is moving along in Britain (with far greater success):

Melanie Phillips, writing for National Review Online, notes the role of Saudi funding and Middle East studies in furthering this process:

Even thought itself is being Islamized, with academic objectivity in the teaching of Islam and Middle East studies set aside in favour of indoctrination and propaganda. An as-yet-unpublished report by Prof. Anthony Glees says that extremist ideas are being spread by Islamic study centers linked to British universities and backed by multi-million-pound donations from Saudi Arabia and Muslim organizations. Professor Glees says, ‘Britain’s universities will have to generate two national cultures: one non-Muslim and largely secular, the other Muslim. We will have two identities, two sets of allegiance and two legal and political systems.

These Middle East studies programs are highly influential because many of the Arabic translators who go to work in sensitive positions in the government have been trained at these centers.  Our best weapon against creeping Sharia is the good sense of the American people, and their propensity to fight back, as we’ve seen in Grand Island, Nebraska and other places. But we need more. We should not allow Saudi money to fund these centers. The government has to face up to the fact that Saudi Arabia may be a much-needed trading partner because of their oil, but they are our sworn enemy. We should treat them as such when it comes to letting them influence what goes on here. Would we have let Hitler fund National Socialism Studies centers?

IRC says Iraqi refugee goal for FY2009 is insufficient

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

(Sound of snoring)  For groups like the International Rescue Committee (IRC) any refugee goal from any country at any time is insufficient.   As the new fiscal year begins October 1, you will see and hear more from the volags (supposedly voluntary organizations), who are paid with your money to resettle refugees, issuing press releases like this one. 

The IRC is one of the top ten non-profit groups that receive huge State Department and Health and Human Services grants to resettle refugees.  They are paid by the head—no refugees=not enough money to keep their offices open and staffs busy.

Here is a post I wrote last fall in which I reported that in 2005, the IRC received $88 million from the taxpayers of the US—that was just for that year!  Its chief executive is paid a salary higher than the VP of the United States or Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.   

If these groups raised all their money privately, then they could advocate for more refugees all they wanted, but they don’t so it causes people to be suspicious when they are busy discouraging Iraqis from returning to Iraq where they are wanted to rebuild that country.

The IRC is alarmed [I bet they are] by exaggerated reports of improving stability in Iraqi communities, as well as statements and enticements that promote the premature return of displaced families.

Yeah, IRC, just bring the Iraqis here to clean motels and get angry.

We have written 233 posts on Iraqi refugees in our special category here.