Month: September 2008

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.

Further thoughts on the Saudi strategy(!) I wrote about this morning

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 25th:  See Judy’s excellent post today on more of the Saudi strategy at work in the US here.

 

Go back to this post, if you didn’t read it this morning.  I’m kind of slow sometimes and it just dawned on me hours after writing that post, with my first cup of coffee, what that Saudi author was saying.  I wondered why she so readily chastised the Somalis.  How could I be so obtuse. 

I just wrote a post a couple of days ago about how the Somalis of Greeley, CO and Grand Island, NE had overplayed their hand.   The quiet Jihad is just that, it’s supposed to be quiet and with the beligerant and angry (ham-handed!) way the Somalis made their religious demands and ticked off every other group (Hispanics, American Blacks, Vietnamese and even Sudanese) among the workers they undercut the Saudi- funded plan to quietly bring Sharia to America.

This woman was distancing herself and Saudi Arabia from those strident, out of control, Somalis:

But some Muslims take their beliefs to the extreme.

By making them look like whackos, the Saudis (and other Arab intelligentsia), by contrast, are reasonable and moderate.   Now, don’t get me wrong, I think the Somalis had handlers and that their demands were part of the plan, but the plan went awry and now this Saudi author is making lemonade from the Somali lemons.

On a tiny scale, what the Somalis have done in Grand Island and Greeley is wake up a segment of America, one that Saudi Arabia preferred to see snoozing.    It’s kind of like 9/11, you can bet those Saudi-funded-sharia-promoting infiltrators into American society went ballistic when Osama bin Laden overplayed his hand killing thousands of Americans.

African American Publication says Blacks joined protest against Muslims in Grand Island

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

There is just a brief mention in a publication called AFRO (thanks to Blulitespecial for sending it along) that says Black Americans joined Hispanic, White and Vietnamese workers at the Swift meatpacking plant to protest special treatment demanded by Somali Muslims in Grand Island, NE over the last week.  Check out the story here.

We have told you before that American Blacks have been having problems with Somalis in various cities in the US.

And for about the millionth time, I want to emphasize that these conflicts are cultural and have nothing to do with the color of anyone’s skin!  The Somalis expect and demand special treatment and that just won’t fly in America—or at least in the part of America where people are still brave enough to fight back.