July 30, 2012

Elites refuse to hear truth about Islamists

By NEWT GINGRICH, POLITICO

    The underlying driving force behind this desperate desire to stop unpleasant questions is the elite’s fear that an honest discussion of radical Islamism will spin out of control. They fear if Americans fully understood how serious radical Islamists are, they would demand a more confrontational strategy.

The recent assault on the National Security Five is only the most recent example of the fear our elites have about discussing and understanding radical Islamists.

When an orchestrated assault is launched on the right to ask questions in an effort to stop members of Congress from even inquiring about a topic — you know the fix is in.

The intensity of the attack on Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) as well as Republican Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Tom Rooney of Florida and Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia is a reminder of how desperate our elites are to avoid this discussion. Yet consider this rush to silence questions in light of our history of unpleasant surprises during the Cold War.

Given all the painful things we learn about people every day and the surprises that shock even the experts (the head of the FBI anti-spy effort was a Russian spy, for example), you have to wonder why people would aggressively assert we shouldn’t ask about national security concerns.

Remember the shock in 2001 when we learned that FBI agent Robert Hanssen had been spying for 22 years — first for the Soviet Union and then the Russian Federation. This disaster came just seven years after the 1994 arrest of Aldrich Ames, a CIA counterintelligence officer who was a Soviet spy for eight years.

Why should we assume we’re in better shape today, when political correctness is passionately opposed to tough counterintelligence screening? It’s as though our leaders have forgotten every lesson of the 1930s about fascism, Nazism and communism and every lesson from 1945 to 1991 about communism.

We have replaced tough mindedness about national security with a refusal to think seriously and substituted political correctness and a “solid” assurance that people must be OK because they are “nice” and “hard working” for the systematic, intense investigations of the past.

I’m not suggesting that our primary threat is espionage. Our greatest problem is getting the wrong analysis, advice and policy proposals. It is the bias of the advisers and the disastrous policies they propose that are our gravest danger at this stage of the long struggle with radical Islamists.

Our elites refuse to even consider that the advice they are getting is biased, tainted, distorted — or just plain wrong.

The underlying driving force behind this desperate desire to stop unpleasant questions is the elite’s fear that an honest discussion of radical Islamism will spin out of control. They fear if Americans fully understood how serious radical Islamists are, they would demand a more confrontational strategy.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned last week, “The West is asleep on this issue.” Islamist extremists, Blair asserted in an interview with The Telegraph, seek “supremacy, not coexistence.”
A young John F. Kennedy wrote “Why England Slept” to try to understand how the leadership of a nation could ignore, repress and reject warnings about Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.

A future JFK may write “Why Washington Slept” to explain our current period. The case of the National Security Five would be a good chapter on the desperation of the elites to avoid reality and their determination to smother any wake-up call, which might make them come to grips with Blair’s warning.

This desperate avoidance of reality is not new. After Maj. Nidal Hasan shouted, “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”) in Fort Hood, Texas, and killed 12 soldiers and one Army civilian while wounding 29 others, there was pressure to avoid confronting his acts as inspired by his support for radical Islamism.

An American of Palestinian descent, Hasan had been in touch with a radical American cleric in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki. He declared Hasan a hero. Al-Awlaki was himself declared a “specially designated global terrorist” and, with presidential approval, was killed by a predator missile.

Yet, despite the evidence, Wikipedia reports, “One year after the Fort Hood shooting, the motivations of the perpetrator were not yet established.”

It did offer suggestions about motivation, however. For example, “A review of Hasan’s computer and his multiple email accounts has revealed visits to websites espousing radical Islamist ideas.” Talking about Islam, he said, “Nonbelievers would be sent to Hell, decapitated, set on fire and have burning oil poured down their throats.”

A rational person would have some hints about what motivated a terrorist killing spree.

If even Wikipedia could reach some conclusion about motivation, you would think the national security system could do the same. Not so.
The Defense Department official report instead focused on Hasan’s actions as though they were “workplace violence” rather than terrorism. President Barack Obama, in his speech at Fort Hood, described the attack as “incomprehensible.”

Despite every effort by our enemies to communicate why they hate us and why they want to replace our world with theirs, our leaders find their motives “incomprehensible.” Clearly, Obama hasn’t understood Blair’s warning.

An even more bizarre example of ignoring reality was New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s initial response to news that a car bomb had been found in Times Square. Bloomberg is mayor of the city attacked on Sept. 11 — so did he shrewdly identify the probable perpetrator? Of course not.

CONTINUE TO PAGE 3

Posted by Ted Belman @ 1:35 pm | 35 Comments »

35 Responses to Elites refuse to hear truth about Islamists

  1. Michael Devolin says:

    “Islamism” is not tangential from Islam proper. “Islamism” is pure Islam. Wafa Sultan, whom I met in Texas, wrote, “Islam created the terrorist and not the other way around, as some fools believe.” The term “Islamism” was invented by Western journalists to exculpate Islam from the crimes of its terrorists and to obfscate the uncomfortable questions about Islam Newt is referring to in the article above. The issue here is not about Islamists, it is about Islam proper. So long as the West is sheltering “moderate Muslims” from the really uncomfortable questions and truthful observations about Islam, Muslim anti-semitism and anti-Zionism will continue to flourish unabated, not only in the Western world, but even more so in the Middle East where it began.

    “It is within the context of multiculturalism that one must place the cultural jihad with its Judeophobic, anti-American and anti-Western thought, aimed at imposing on it Islamic historical and theological thinking such as, for example, the negation of the historical jihad–interpreted as a defensive rather than aggressive war–the denial of dhimmitude; or the justification of Islamic terrorism–based on victimological perception of Muslims, the eternal victims of the Christian West and, today of Israel, both bonded together in an essentialist vision of evil.” -Bat Ye’or

  2. Michael Ejercito says:

    Michael Devolin Said:

    Islam created the terrorist and not the other way around

    And Catholicism created the child molester instead of the other way around, right?

  3. Bert says:

    This extensive article is a timely warning and an urgent wake up call.
    It is another reminder of what we lost when Mitt Romney savaged Newt in the primaries using the most reprehensible tactics.
    This article originated on the left-leaning Politico site rather than a mainline conservative site. Could that be because the GOP old guard is trying to shut down Newt and his message as they also trashed Michele Bachmann and her group?
    The Politico readers attacked Newt’s article with sneers and vulgarity but never with any coherent reasoning, unlike those who were in support.

  4. Michael Devolin says:

    Catholicism did create Martin Luther and Augustine (to name only two), who were nothing to write home about, in my opinion.

  5. Michael Devolin says:

    “And Catholicism created the child molester instead of the other way around, right?”

    Are you suggesting I’m a Catholic, or are you suggesting that “Catholicism” is salubrious? Not to sound contentious, but I don’t perceive what is the gist of your comment.

  6. Michael Devolin says:

    “And Catholicism created the child molester instead of the other way around, right?”

    Are you suggesting that Islam didn’t create the terrorist?

  7. Michael Devolin says:

    “I read the Qur’an [Koran] every day. Partly to understand some of the things happening in the world, but mainly just because it is immensely instructive.” –Tony Blair

    “Mr Blair has previously praised the Muslim faith as ‘beautiful’ and said the Prophet Mohammed had been ‘an enormously civilizing force’.” –DailyMail UK

    “It [the Koran] is practical and way ahead of its time in attitudes to marriage, women and governance.” –Tony Blair

    Mr. Blair is himself deceived and is therefore unqualified to instruct others about the dangers of “Islamism”. I think Newt Gingrich using Tony Blair’s statement as a reproof of Western governments is totally inefficacious as a means of turning the situation to the better. His own sister-in-law converted to Islam. This is the same guy who “aims to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” What a joke.

  8. keelie says:

    @ Michael Ejercito:
    So where exactly in the Old and New Testaments does it say that child molestation should be used to subjugate the “infidel”?

    The Catholic Church has done some incredibly bizarre things during its approximately 2000 years of existence, but none of these bizarre things are designated in the Christian scriptures as being a pathway to heaven, no matter what the instigators of such things (such as the Inquisition) believe.

  9. Mae Eye says:

    Do some research on Martin Luther and Augustine,not to be unkind, but you might learn something.

  10. Thanks to Mr. Gingrich for sounding the alarm with such reason and clarity. As Mr. Gingrich points out,there is nothing “incomprehensible” about the Fort Hood murders. Given the mindset of the National Security Five’s simple request for information, I am reminded of Thomas Paine when he said, “To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”

  11. Michael Devolin says:

    I’ve read 7 volumes (Black Friars Edition) of Augustine. And I’ve read numerous screeds written by Martin Luther as well. Both are anti-Jewish. In spite of the mountain of bullshit (read: Christian theology) both produced, neither were intellectually intrepid enough to perceive the simplistic beauty of the G-D of the Jewish people and instead, ruled by the infatuating fear that perpetuates both Christianity and Islam, wasted their lives hating Jews and writing apologia trying to explain the unexplainable theological imbroglio that remains the essence of Christianty to this very day.

    One night (when I used to drink) I threw the 7 volumes of Augustine from my 21st floor balcony (I lived in Toronto at the time) into the swimming pool below. That’s about the time when I decided that I could not, in good conscience, even if it meant spending an eternity in hell (or so I believed at that time), adhere to a religion that precipitated the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish people. Seeing those 7 volumes of Augustine (Black Friar Edition) floating in the pool below was a very cathartic experience, to say the least. Much laughter following, while I drank the remainder of my whiskey. “G-D works in mysterious ways.” LOL

  12. James B - Canada says:

    Tacit Jew/Christian hate in the Democrat party

    Jim Webb from Virginia quashed a bill to protect minority rights, including Christians in the Middle East and South Central Asia -areas known to be inhabited by muslims, Jews and Christians.

    Jim Webb (D) and Jim Moran (D); D is for democrat and devil.

    http://www.persecution.org/2012/07/18/sen-jim-webb-to-single-handedly-kill-legislation-protecting-christians-in-the-middle-east/

    Article discussing his tacit anti semetism

    http://www.american.com/archive/2006/november/the-class-struggle-of-jim-webb

  13. Bernard Ross says:

    Although Churchill was a collaborator in swindling the Jews out of Israel he did make the following pertinent observation:
    A quote from an 1899 book by Winston Churchill, “The River War”, in which he describes Muslims he apparently observed during Kitchener’s campaign in the Sudan
    ——————————————————————————–

    How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

    Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science – the science against which it had vainly struggled – the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

  14. Bernard Ross says:

    Followed by (need we say more?)

    quote from Ayatollah Khomeini from 1942:

    “Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled and incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world…. Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender to the enemy? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Koranic] verses and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.” – Ayatollah Khomeini

  15. Michael Devolin says:

    I apologize for my row with you, James B. We are on the same side and I’m sorry we got off to a bad start. I hope you accept my apology. It’s my Irish-Canadian temper.

  16. Jacob Farkas says:

    @ Michael Ejercito:
    Michael Devolin,
    You may think you’re cute, but you are definitely stupid.
    You are a bumper sticker.

  17. Michael Devolin says:

    I am “definitely stupid” and a “bumper sticker”. Interesting. Can you give me some examples? I would like to hear why you have condemned me as being “definitely stupid” and a “bumper sticker”. Very unkind, especially when written in a public forum.

  18. John Fransman says:

    @ Michael Devolin:
    I think you have to consider when Tony Blair made these comments. The original quotes were some time ago when he had high hopes of helping a peace process to move forward. His latest comment is more realistic as a consequence of his experiences and disillusion of the possibility of making peace with an Islamic regime. He himself has converted from Church of England to Catholicism maybe because his wife is Catholic, whereas his sister in law has become a Muslim. He is not responsible for the latter’s action and it has no relevance to the discussion

  19. Wallace Brand says:

    Newt was right when he said the “Palestinian Arab People” were invented. Although he said “who”, he didn’t say “what”, “when”, “where”, “why” and “how”. All of those are interesting questions but “why” is the most interesting. Elementary, dear Watson. If the Arabs living in Palestine couldn’t make a claim that they were a separate and distinct people, Arabs could no longer claim the West Bank. Jordan was willing to give up its claim so that the “Palestinian Arab People” could take up the cause. But it was the Soviet dezinformatsia that was clever enough to think of this and they had to persuade the Arabs to adopt the claim. By turning religious jihad into secular nationalism they also could appeal to world sympathy for the outnumbered “Palestinians” although the Arab people are a great multiple of the number of Jews. “When” is of course, 19 64, where in Moscow, where the preamble of the PLO Charter was drafted, and “how” by inserting it into the preamble three times, to meet the Humpty Dump[ty standard, “What I tell you three times is true” and the KGB’s creating a new Palestinian National Council to affirm the allegations in the preamble. Among the allegations was a passion for self government that had previously not been demonstrated as during WWI, the Arabs in Palestine, despite the Hussayn-McMahon correspondence, unlike Hussein chose to fight on the side of Turkey rather than on the side of the British for promises of self government. In 1948 Count Folke Bernadotte had written in his diary that the Arabs in Palestine did not want self government and never had.
    I understand some on the right are now suggesting the world is not round, nor flat — it is triangular. Now we have the free world, the left, and Islam jockeying for position and the left find it desirable just now to side with Islam. All this invention was explained by Zahir Muhsein, a member of the Executive Board of the PLO in an interview he gave to the Dutch Newspaper Trouw in 1973.
    “Between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese there are no differences. We are all part of ONE people, the Arab nation. Look, I have family members with Palestinian, Lebanese, Jordanian and Syrian citizenship. We are ONE people. Just for political reasons we carefully underwrite our Palestinian identity. Because it is of national interest for the Arabs to advocate the existence of Palestinians to balance Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons. The establishment of a Palestinian state is a new tool to continue the fight against Israel and for Arab unity.
    A separate Palestinian entity needs to fight for the national interest in the then remaining occupied territories. The Jordanian government cannot speak for Palestinians in Israel, Lebanon or Syria. Jordan is a state with specific borders. It cannot lay claim on – for instance – Haifa or Jaffa, while I AM entitled to Haifa, Jaffa, Jerusalem en Beersheba. Jordan can only speak for Jordanians and the Palestinians in Jordan. The Palestinian state would be entitled to represent all Palestinians in the Arab world en elsewhere. Once we have accomplished all of our rights in all of Palestine, we shouldn’t postpone the unification of Jordan and Palestine for one second.”

  20. Michael Devolin says:

    Blair may not be responsible for “the later’s action” but such a connection certainly does have relevance to the discussion. Anyone who has family will attest to the fact that the affinity of “family” effects great influence, whether political or religious. And when the politician in question becomes responsible for choosing between one religious side or “the other,” between one nation and the other, the stakes become very high indeed. As for the time context, regardless when these statements were made, you must consider Blair’s sophistic attemps at being a “peacemaker”: he is even less disposed to being judicious now than when he made the above statements, in my opinion.

  21. yamit82 says:

    @ Michael Devolin:

    I would have sold them, and with the money had a good meal in a good restaurant, then gotten drunk as hell. I don’t drink on an empty stomach.

  22. yamit82 says:

    @ Michael Devolin:

    From Leon Uris “The Haj”

    “Every last Arab is a total prisoner of his society. The Jews will eventually have to face up to what you are dealing with here. The Arabs will never love you for what good youv’e brought them. They don’t know how to really love. But hate! Oh G-d, can they hate! And they have a deep, deep, deep resentment because you have jolted them from their delusions of grandeur and shown them for what they are a decadent, savage people controlled by a religion that has stripped them as one commands a mob of sheep. You are dealing with a mad society and youd better learn how to control it.

    At the end of the novel, Uris has an exceptional Arab, an archeologist, admit: Hate is our overpowering legacy and we have regenerated ourselves by hatred from generation to generation, century to century. The return of the Jews unleashed that hatred, exploding it wildly, aimlessly, into a massive force of self-destruction. In ten, twenty, thirty years the world of Islam will begin to consume itself in madness.

    We cannot live with ourselves; we never have. We cannot live with or accommodate the outside world; we never have. We are incapable of change.”

  23. Michael Devolin says:

    Good point, Yamit. I should have sold them, but at the time, throwing them into the pool from the 21st floor seemed like a hell of a great idea.

    Will copy your post of Leon Uris. Excellent. Awesome. It will fit right in with the article I’m working on right now. Thankyou.

  24. C.R. says:

    Those in the Marxist media and political Marxists–who are hiding the truth about Islam and Muslims–are not “elites”–they are ordinary common variety criminals, who have some power to promote their anti American agenda; they do not care about what is good and true–its all about promoting their evil Marxist agenda!

  25. keelie says:

    @ Michael Devolin:
    Not sure if Mr. Farkas has learned enough English to realize that metaphors ought to have some apparent meaning. In this case, “bumper stickers” does not, which makes me question the measuring stick he uses to call you “definitely stupid”…

    Irish-Canadian temper, eh? We could use more of that in big, bland, Toronto.

  26. Michael Devolin says:

    Thankyou, keelie. Used to live in Toronto. Boxed at Sullys (middleweight) for three years when he was at Queen and Ossington.

  27. Michael Devolin says:

    Thankyou, Yamit. Awesome!! I will be buying this documentary next time I go to the city.

  28. yamit82 says:

    @ yamit82:

    Stupid Jews don’t know their history .

    Jewish gangsters

    Historian Robert Rockaway writing in the journal of the American Jewish Historical Society, notes that German-American Bund rallies in the New York City area posed a dilemma for mainstream Jewish leaders. They wanted the rallies stopped, but had no legal grounds on which to do so. New York State Judge Nathan Perlman personally contacted Meyer
    Lansky to ask him to disrupt the Bund rallies, with the proviso that Lansky’s henchmen stop short of killing any Bundists. Lansky accepted all of Perlman’s terms except one: he would take no money for the work. Lansky later observed, “I was a Jew and felt for those Jews in Europe who were suffering. They were my brothers.”

    For months, Lansky’s workmen effectively broke up one Nazi rally after another. As Rockaway notes, “Nazi arms, legs and ribs were broken and skulls were cracked, but no one died.”

    Lansky recalled breaking up a Brown Shirt rally in the Yorkville section of Manhattan: “The speakers started ranting. There were only fifteen of us, but we went into action. Most of the Nazis panicked and ran out. We chased them and beat them up… We wanted to show them that Jews would not always sit back and accept insults.”

    In Minneapolis, William Dudley Pelley organized a Silver Shirt Legion to “rescue” America from an imaginary Jewish-Communist conspiracy. In Pelley’s own words, just as “Mussolini and his Black Shirts saved Italy and as Hitler and his Brown Shirts saved Germany,” he would save America from Jewish communists. Minneapolis gambling czar David Berman confronted Pelley’s Silver Shirts on behalf of the Minneapolis Jewish community.

    Berman learned that Silver Shirts were mounting a rally at Lodge. When the Nazi leader called for all the Jews in the city to be expelled, or worse, Berman and his associates burst in to the room and started cracking heads. After ten minutes, they had emptied the hall. Berman took the microphone and announced, “This is a warning. Anybody who says
    anything against Jews gets the same treatment. Only next time it will be worse.” After Berman broke up two more rallies, there were no more public Silver Shirt meetings in Minneapolis.

    Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean

    The Influence of Sephardic Jews and Moors on Southeastern Indian Cultures
    By
    Donald Panther-Yates

  29. Nina says:

    @ keelie:
    Agreed. Catholicism is man made religion who had it’s zealots thru the years and superstitions still. Many make mistakes as we are only man…yet we are not out to murder innocents in the name of Christ as muslums who do it in the name of allah….we are no longer in the 5th century, “most” of the relgions of the world have evolved into today…whereas Islam is still a few centuries behind and wish to remain there. It is a “religion” of men, by men, for men who have distorted the truth to their liking…

  30. Nina says:

    I think a lot more people need to hear about Gert Wilders from the Netherlands, in fact it should be required reading for any politician in the USA or any country that is being overtaken by the Islamic culture….we have idiots like Bloomburg who want to be diverse and tolerant to the extent of turning his cheek so to speak as long as we don’t rile the muslums…let them have their mosque on Ground Zero even tho most of the country is against it…that’s being tolerant…it’s a teaching center folks….it’s going to teach us to become them…that’s all it’s for…it’s not teaching anything but hate. Does anyone really think a jew would be allowed to enter that door? They may be tolerant in the beginning but it’s just a step in the direction they want to take this country….if they want Sharia, why leave their homelands? Why are the so called “moderates” not spoken out against the “radicals”? Are there really moderate muslums out there? Because it’s the plan to push more muslums/Islam down other’s throats in the name of tolerance/diversity/racism (which we all know people are terrified of being called a racists, God Forbid!)…when will people learn to listen to others who have lived thru hatred and intolerance from other countries, who have escaped? When will we ever learn from mistakes and history? Apparently, I guess I’m a racist/homophobe/islmaphobe…and any other phobe you can add in there….

  31. Andrew says:

    The original terrorist created Islam, which in turn creates more terrorists. Elementary my dear Watson.

  32. Michael Devolin says:

    “The original terrorist created Islam, which in turn creates more terrorists. Elementary my dear Watson.”

    I agree wholeheardtedly, Andrew.

  33. Wallace Brand says:

    The attack on Michelle Bachmann and her colleagues is part of this willful blindness.

  34. Wallace Brand says:

    @ Nina: You ask: “They may be tolerant in the beginning but it’s just a step in the direction they want to take this country….if they want Sharia, why leave their homelands?” Bernard Lewis has the answer in his 2007 Irving Kristol Lecture at the American Enterprise Institute. He refers to it as “jihad by migration”. So now we have four kinds of jihad. We have the jihad that is an inner striving for good under the Sufi definition that is raised by the extremist Muslims when anyone speaks of jihad. We have the extortionate jihad by threats of violence and actual violence that is the most common, some 20,000 deadly incidents since 9/11 listed on the site of The Religion of Peace. We have Bernard Lewis’s “jihad by migration”. And lastly, we have jihad by stealth, the civilization settlement jihad, a “grand jihad” eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within,[23] and “sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.

    Of course all of these are directed at world domination under Shariah — not necessarily at conversion as the Islamists are just as satisfied in receiving the Jizya tax from those who choose not to convert.