Obama's Foreign Policy directly aids Islamic Expansionism

This analysis by Daniel Greenfield helps explains much about the Obama Administration's Middle East foreign policy. This is intimately related to the Benghazi Cover-Up. It also explains why the Obama Administration ignores and even facilitates the genocide and religious cleansing of Christians from the Middle East and North Africa, and throughout the Islamic world.

Obama’s Big Brotherhood Bet

by Daniel Greenfield

In the spring of 2009, Obama went down to Cairo. He skipped the gaming tables at the Omar Khayyam Casino at the Cairo Marriott and instead went over to the Islamist baccarat tables at Cairo University and bet big on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Obama had insisted on Muslim Brotherhood attendance at a speech that was part apology and part abandonment. The apology was for American power and the abandonment was of American allies.

The text of the speech was largely inconsequential in the same way that most of the words that scroll across the teleprompters of politicians are. In politics, the speech is often the medium while the timing, the audience and the location are the message. And the message was that the Brotherhood’s hour had come.

Obama was following through on an idea that had long been an article of faith on the left. The idea was that the United States had invested in a defunct status quo and that our biggest problems were our allies. The only way out was to toss them all overboard.

Generations of diplomats had griped from their walled compounds in Riyadh, Kuwait City or Doha that many of our problems in the region would go away if Israel somehow went away. But this was bigger. It involved dumping every single allied government in the region to start fresh with new governments elected through popular democracy and enjoying popular support. It would be a new beginning. And a new beginning was also the title of the Cairo speech.

The idea wasn’t new, but it was right up there with proposals to unilaterally abandon our nuclear arsenal or dedicate ten percent of the budget to foreign aid; ideas that a lot of diplomats liked, but that they knew no one would ever be crazy enough to pull the trigger on.

And then Obama tried to pull the trigger on two out of three. What he wanted was for the Brotherhood to win so that it could make the War on Terror irrelevant.

As much as the advocates of smart and soft power insisted that Islamic terrorism had nothing to do with Islam, they knew better. They knew that Al Qaeda wanted to create Islamic states that would form into a Caliphate. Central to its thinking was that it would have to fight to create these states. But what if the Caliphate could be created without a war?

To make it happen, all America had to do was surrender the Middle East.

The attacks of September 11 had created a serious crisis for liberal policymakers. Unlike the bombing of the World Trade Center on Clinton’s watch, these attacks could not be ignored or swept under the rug. But neither could liberals accept a clash of civilizations that would destroy their multicultural society or an extended series of international police actions that would militarize the country.

The logic that led from September 11 to the Cairo speech to Benghazi was impeccable. It combined the clean sweep theory with grand scale appeasement.

“Islamic terrorists are carrying out attacks because they want their countries to be ruled by Islam. Why not help them to do it?”

The United States withdrew support from its allies. It apologized, surrendered and waited for the takeovers to begin. When the dictators wouldn’t step aside voluntarily, the bombers were sent in.

The grand bargain with the Muslim Brotherhood was supposed to end the War on Terror by trading the Muslim Brotherhood’s brand of political Islamism for Al Qaeda’s campaign of terror. It was as if FDR had struck a deal with the Bolsheviks to get rid of the Trotskyites (and indeed such a bargain did operate briefly during WW2).

Obama’s grand bargain came to a squalid end on September 11. In Benghazi, the Muslim Brotherhood militia that was supposed to protect the mission instead sold it out and abandoned it.

The Brotherhood would accept American support, but it wouldn’t stop terrorist attacks against America. Its front groups in America would not cooperate with the FBI, its governments and militias in the Middle East would not protect American diplomatic facilities.

On September 11, the American embassy in Cairo was besieged by protesters with the support of the Muslim Brotherhood. In Tunis, the new Islamist government turned its back on the embassy, forcing Hillary Clinton to plead with President Marzouki to send out his own presidential guard to defend it.

In Benghazi and Cairo, Al Qaeda attacked while the Brotherhood played dumb. In Syria, Brotherhood and Al Qaeda militias worked together, while Brotherhood spokesmen insisted that they were the only secular alternative. In the United States, Al Qaeda terrorists carried out their “lone wolf” attacks while the Brotherhood front groups which ran most of the Islamic organizations in America claimed not to know what was going on.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s victories did not make Al Qaeda go away. Instead the two found common ground while playing a game of Good Terrorist and Bad Terrorist. Or as the mainstream media calls it, Moderates and Extremists.

Obama had stacked all of our allies in the Middle East that didn’t have enough oil to matter and bet them at the Brotherhood’s casino on a single spin of the wheel. And the Brotherhood took it all.

But Obama is still at the casino stacking up more chips. The next round of the game moves to Syria. Instead of the Brotherhood using its new power to protect the United States, the United States is expected to get involved in another Iraq in order to help the Brotherhood take over Syria to complete the Islamist triumphs of the Arab Spring.

The United States has become a tool of Muslim Brotherhood expansionism. Obama helped the Brotherhood overthrow governments by political means, but now the Brotherhood is demanding military intervention to help a Brotherhood/Al Qaeda coalition take over Syria. And if Obama goes along with it, he will have turned the United States military into the mercenaries of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The root cause of terrorism is not American foreign policy, but Muslim foreign policy. Appeasement turns American foreign policy into an arm of Islamic expansionism.

Americans have died because of Obama’s dirty deal with the Muslim Brotherhood. The question now is whether Obama will send American soldiers and pilots to die for the Brotherhood.

Source: FrontPageMag

About Daniel Greenfield

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

The Benghazi Lie

I hope to soon post my own article from an Orthodox perspective on the Benghazi Attack Cover-Up, but for now, Mark Steyn's commentary in the National Review Online is a worthy read (the cartoon and images I've inserted help punch it up a bit too):

The Benghazi Lie

A failure of character of this magnitude corrodes the integrity of the state.

By Mark Steyn

Shortly before last November’s election I took part in a Fox News documentary on Benghazi, whose other participants included the former governor of New Hampshire John Sununu. Making chit-chat while the camera crew were setting up, Governor Sununu said to me that in his view Benghazi mattered because it was “a question of character.” That’s correct. On a question of foreign policy or counterterrorism strategy, men of good faith can make the wrong decisions. But a failure of character corrodes the integrity of the state.

That’s why career diplomat Gregory Hicks’s testimony was so damning — not so much for the new facts as for what those facts revealed about the leaders of this republic. In this space in January, I noted that Hillary Clinton had denied ever seeing Ambassador Stevens’s warnings about deteriorating security in Libya on the grounds that “1.43 million cables come to my office” — and she can’t be expected to see all of them, or any. Once Ambassador Stevens was in his flag-draped coffin listening to her eulogy for him at Andrews Air Force Base, he was her bestest friend in the world — it was all “Chris this” and “Chris that,” as if they’d known each other since third grade. But up till that point he was just one of 1.43 million close personal friends of Hillary trying in vain to get her ear.

Now we know that at 8 p.m. Eastern time on the last night of Stevens’s life, his deputy in Libya spoke to Secretary Clinton and informed her of the attack in Benghazi and the fact that the ambassador was now missing. An hour later, Gregory Hicks received a call from the then–Libyan prime minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, informing him that Stevens was dead. Hicks immediately called Washington. It was 9 p.m. Eastern time, or 3 a.m. in Libya. Remember the Clinton presidential team’s most famous campaign ad? About how Hillary would be ready to take that 3 a.m. call? Four years later, the phone rings, and Secretary Clinton’s not there. She doesn’t call Hicks back that evening. Or the following day.

Are murdered ambassadors like those 1.43 million cables she doesn’t read? Just too many of them to keep track of? No. Only six had been killed in the history of the republic — seven, if you include Arnold Raphel, who perished in General Zia’s somewhat mysterious plane crash in Pakistan in 1988. Before that you have to go back to Adolph Dubs, who died during a kidnapping attempt in Kabul in 1979. So we have here a once-in-a-third-of-a-century event. And at 3 a.m. Libyan time on September 12 it’s still unfolding, with its outcome unclear. Hicks is now America’s head man in the country, and the cabinet secretary to whom he reports says, “Leave a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you before the end of the week.” Just to underline the difference here: Libya’s head of government calls Hicks, but nobody who matters in his own government can be bothered to.

What was Secretary Clinton doing that was more important? What was the president doing? Aside, that is, from resting up for his big Vegas campaign event. A real government would be scrambling furiously to see what it could do to rescue its people. It’s easy, afterwards, to say that nothing would have made any difference. But, at the time Deputy Chief Hicks was calling 9-1-1 and getting executive-branch voicemail, nobody in Washington knew how long it would last. A terrorist attack isn’t like a soccer game, over in 90 minutes. If it is a sport, it’s more like a tennis match: Whether it’s all over in three sets or goes to five depends on how hard the other guy pushes back. The government of the United States took the extremely strange decision to lose in straight sets. Not only did they not deploy out-of-area assets, they ordered even those in Libya to stand down. Lieutenant Colonel Gibson had a small team in Tripoli that twice readied to go to Benghazi to assist and twice was denied authority to do so, the latter when they were already at the airport. There weren’t many of them, not compared to the estimated 150 men assailing the compound. But they were special forces, not bozo jihadists. Back in Benghazi, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty held off numerically superior forces for hours before dying on a rooftop waiting for back-up from a government that had switched the answering machine on and gone to Vegas.

Honorable?

Throughout the all-night firefight in Benghazi, Washington’s priority seems to have been to do everything possible to deny that what was actually happening was happening at all. To send “soldiers” on a “mission” to “fight” the “enemy” was at odds with the entire Obama narrative of the Arab Spring and the broader post-Bush Muslim world. And so the entire U.S. military was stood down in support of the commander-in-chief’s fiction.

As Mr. Hicks testified, his superiors in Washington knew early that night that a well-executed terrorist attack with the possible participation of al-Qaeda elements was under way. Instead of responding, the most powerful figures in the government decided that an unseen YouTube video better served their political needs. And, in the most revealing glimpse of the administration’s depravity, the president and secretary of state peddled the lie even in their mawkish eulogies to their buddy “Chris” and three other dead Americans. They lied to the victims’ coffins and then strolled over to lie to the bereaved, Hillary telling the Woods family that “we’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.” And she did. The government dispatched more firepower to arrest Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in Los Angeles than it did to protect its mission in Benghazi. It was such a great act of misdirection Hillary should have worn spangled tights and sawn Stevens’s casket in half.

The dying Los Angeles Times reported this story on its homepage (as a sidebar to “Thirteen Great Tacos in Southern California”) under the following headline: “Partisan Politics Dominates House Benghazi Hearing.” In fact, everyone in this story is a Democrat or a career civil servant. Chris Stevens was the poster boy for Obama’s view of the Arab Spring; he agreed with the president on everything that mattered. The only difference is that he wasn’t in Vegas but out there on the front line, where Obama’s delusions meet reality. Stevens believed in those illusions enough to die for them. One cannot say the same about the hollow men and women in Washington who sent him out there unprotected, declined to lift a finger when he came under attack, and in the final indignity subordinated his sacrifice to their political needs by lying over his corpse. Where’s the “partisan politics”? Obama, Clinton, Panetta, Clapper, Rice, and the rest did this to one of their own. And fawning court eunuchs, like the ranking Democrat at the hearings, Elijah Cummings, must surely know that, if they needed, they’d do it to them, too. If you believe in politics über alles, it’s impressive, in the same way that Hillary’s cocksure dismissal — “What difference, at this point, does it make?” — is impressive.

But the embassy security chief, Eric Nordstrom, had the best answer to that: It matters because “the truth matters” — not least to the Libyan president, who ever since has held the U.S. government in utter contempt. Truth matters, and character matters. For the American people to accept the Obama-Clinton lie is to be complicit in it.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is the author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. © 2013 Mark Steyn

Source: National Review Online...

The Politics of Human Rights: Orthodox Christianity Gets the Short End, by Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou

This withering critique of U.S. indifference, hypocrisy and short-sighted political calculation in the Middle East, by a leading Orthodox scholar, documents how the Obama Administration's foreign policy in fact despises and tramples upon human rights, especially the rights of the most weak and vulnerable. This is a must read, and certainly an article to share with friends and family, and your congressmen and senators.

The Politics of Human Rights: Orthodox Christianity Gets the Short End 

by Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou

OCP Media Network

Today is Easter for the world’s 350 million Orthodox Christians, who just completed their Holy Week of prayer and fasting  which culminated in today’s message of transcendent hope.  But all last week and today, Orthodox Christians the world over have been reminded that politics trumps human rights.  There’s a cruel irony in the fact that Orthodox Christians—whose belief that all persons are created equally and distinctly in the image and likeness of God is a perfect expression of the contemporary view that human rights are universal—have been reminded, yet again, that the United States is unwilling to prioritize international law and justice over the worst kind of political cowardice and geopolitical calculations.

Map of Persecution of Christians (Open Doors USA)

Two examples illustrate the repugnant fact that the US is willing to write off Orthodox Christians when it comes to making ethical choices to uphold human rights principles, instead opting to overlook gross human rights violations in the interests of realpolitik.

The first case concerns the abduction of the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo, Yohanna Ibrahim, and the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo, Boulos Yazigi, on April 23 by armed assailants believed to be part of the opposition fighting against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.  Well over a week after their kidnapping, the fate of the two religious leaders remains unknown; while no particular organization has claimed responsibility, all evidence points to the work of foreign fighters centrally embedded in the radical opposition, led by the al Nusra Front (officially designated a terrorist organization by the US State Department) calling for the implementation of a Sharia state in Syria.

Despite appeals from religious and political leaders around the world—including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ condemnation of the kidnappings; the call by the Office of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy for the immediate release of the detained Archbishops and their safe return to their communities; a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry from the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America;  Pope Francis’ call to peace in Syria and an entreaty for the release of the two Orthodox Archbishops; and calls from Imams across Damascus in Friday prayers on April 26 for the release of the Orthodox hierarchs and condemnation of their abduction as a violation of “the sanctity of Christian and Islamic clergymen”—the US has remained shockingly silent on the matter.

There’s a compelling argument that Washington’s moral authority (the “soft power” objectives of demonstrating that America’s domestic commitment to religious liberty for all citizens is the best way to ensure that the Syrian opposition groups will endorse a post-Assad social and political compact that treats Sunnis, Alewites, Christians, Jews, and others as equal before the law) and strategic objectives (“hard power” considerations of preventing the consolidation of a Wahhabi-style, Salafist regime in Damascus and the establishment of an al Qaeda beachhead in Syria, both of which will cripple any possibilities for building a rule-of-law democracy in Syria and will contribute to a dramatic deterioration in the security environment of key US allies such as Israel and Jordan) would be best served by coming to terms with the harsh reality conveyed in the snatching of the two Orthodox prelates outside Aleppo: namely, the self-styled leaders of the Syrian version of the Arab Spring, especially the radical Islamists who have captured the opposition forces, have no interest in universal human rights, much less in the  principles of tolerance which are foundational to any healthy democratic polity.

Unfortunately, the demonstrated indifference of the Obama administration, which has spent the last week fixated on whether or not the red line tripwire of chemical weapons-use by the Assad regime had been triggered, to the plight of the kidnapped Orthodox prelates sends a message that the US is less than interested in a human-rights plank in its foreign policy.  Apparently, the foreign policy of red lines, which amounts to the Obama administration deciding whether to risk recreating in Syria the colossal error of the Bush administration in Iraq, has meant that Washington was also too preoccupied to develop a UN Security Council statement condemning the abduction of Ibrahim and Yazigi—it was Russia, which condemned the kidnapping in a recent session of the UN Security Council.

Paradoxically, Syria’s Christians have been regularly chastised in US media circles for their expressed lack of enthusiasm for the opposition to the Assad government, and the consistent warnings of Ibrahim and Yazigi, that the tyranny of an al Qaeda-Sharia state in Syria would fragment the country and dwarf the oppression of the Assad dictatorship, was dismissed in Washington policy circles as the whining of Christian toadies of the dictatorship of the Alewite minority in Syria.

Hindsight may now be twenty-twenty, but Washington has only belatedly begun to realize the stupidity of a Syria policy built on the adage of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”   In the meantime, Syria has begun to hemorrhage Christians, echoing the trendlines from Iraq.  Orthodox Christians are disproportionately prominent victims of the overall cleansing of Christianity that has been a hallmark of the Arab Spring events, which has its analog in the annihilation of Christians in Turkey over that country’s history.

Although certainly a violation of the universal human right of religious freedom, the abduction of the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop and the Greek Orthodox Archbishop has been a non-event for the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).  The USCIRF is the key US government agency tasked with monitoring international religious freedom in countries around the world, with designating countries that are egregious violators of religious freedom, and with making foreign policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress for remedies to religious freedom violations. The USCIRF has issued not a single word of concern, criticism, or condemnation of the snatching of Syria’s Orthodox prelates.

But that’s not the only disheartening news for Orthodox Christians during Holy Week.  Equally outrageous was the release on April 30 of the 2013 Annual Report by the USCIRF, in which Turkey was given a free pass by the Commission and, by extension, the Obama administration and the Kerry State Department, for its ongoing, deliberate policies designed to eradicate Christians and their presence from Turkey.

The 2012 USCIRF Annual Report had identified “the Turkish government‘s systematic and egregious limitations on the freedom of religion or belief that affect all religious communities in Turkey, and particularly threaten the country‘s non-Muslim religious minorities,” as the basis for designating Turkey a Country of Particular Concern (CPC).  In an unprecedented volte face in USCIRF’s designation of countries according to a three-tier system—CPCs (the world’s worst religious-freedom violators), Watch List Countries (serious violators that require careful monitoring but which haven’t reached the CPC threshold), and Other Countries and Regions Monitored (cases where there are some actions and policies detrimental to overall religious freedom conditions)—the 2013 USCIRF report leap-frogged Turkey from its position on the CPC list to a new spot on the list of Other Countries and Regions Monitored, based on the patently false claim that “Turkey is moving in a positive direction with regard to religious freedom.”

Once again, Orthodox Christians (Greek, Armenian, and Syriac) are the main casualties of Washington’s willingness to sacrifice universal human rights on the altar of a vulgar geostrategic calculus that positions Turkey as a supposed model for democracy, tolerance, and pluralism in Muslim-majority, Arab Spring countries.  The USCIRF upgrade of Turkey is a case of outright appeasement vis-à-vis the government of Prime Minister Erdogan, which has spent the last decade spinning a narrative of openness to Turkey’s Christian (and other) religious minorities, most of whom have been largely decimated by decades of “secular, democratic” policies implemented by the Kemalist Deep State—read, the contemporary inheritors of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, whose paradigmatic act as founder of the Turkish Republic was the genocide of 2.5 million Armenian, Greek, and Syriac Orthodox Christians.

The Erdogan government’s expert use of public relations flourishes (for example, widely publicized worship services at the Greek Orthodox Sumela Monastery in Trabzon and the Armenian Orthodox Aktamar Church were one-off events totally controlled by the Turkish government) and interminable promises (only a few weeks ago, when Secretary of State Kerry visited Istanbul on Syria-related business, Turkish officials reiterated their tired trope of reassurance that impediments to the re-opening of the Greek Orthodox Theological School of Halki are being addressed) have produced no changes in the constitutional, judicial, and security architectures that led the USCIRF to designate Turkey a CPC in 2012.

By the USCIRF’s own report in 2013, Halki remains shuttered 42 years after its closing and 10-plus years into the Erdogan era; there has been no overhaul of the property rights regime used to economically disenfranchise the country’s Orthodox Christian citizens and strip Orthodox foundations of their lands, so that the USCIRF charactereized random returns of property, as in the case of forest lands around Halki returned to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as “commendable” but “not codified by law.”  The 2013 USCIRF report also cited rising fear amongst Armenian Orthodox citizens of Turkey, because of hate crimes committed against members of their community, the most grotesquely emblematic case being that of an 84-year-old Armenian woman who was murdered in her Istanbul home with a cross carved into her chest.  The Commission obliquely commented that the “Turkish local police promptly launched investigations into three cases, but it is not known if any arrests have been made connected to any of these incidents.”

As for Turkish-occupied Cyprus, the USCIRF acknowledges that there has been no progress on rehabilitation of the more than 500 churches, monasteries, and religious sites desecrated in the northern part of the island controlled by the Turkish occupation forces and the local Turkish-Cypriot administration.  Likewise, the Commission reports that there continues to be no freedom of worship for Orthodox Christians (as well as for Maronite and Roman Catholic Christians) who wish to practice their faith in the Turkish-occupied area, given that access to religious sites for worship remains contingent upon permission from the Turkish-Cypriot authorities.

The facts on the ground (ironically, reported by the USCIRF) underscore that the Commission’s 2013 upgrade of Turkey represents the unadulterated triumph of politics over human rights in US foreign policy.  Commendably, four Commissioners dissented from giving Turkey a blank check to violate the religious freedom rights of its own citizens as well as those citizens of the Republic of Cyprus living under Ankara’s four-decades-long brutal occupation in northern Cyprus.  As the dissenting Commissioners succinctly state, “Since the 2013 report itself does not reveal significant improvements in the conditions that led to placing Turkey on the watch list (sic) in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and listing it as a CPC in 2012, we are at a loss to understand how Turkey can be described as ‘moving in a positive direction.’”

It’s worth mentioning that this latest episode in the politics of Washington’s approach to criticism of Turkey for its religious freedom violations is actually the sequel to political pressures brought to bear when the USCIRF designated Turkey a CPC in 2012.  As was widely reported in the US print media last year, a political appointee in the State Department reached out to suggest that the Commission “rethink” its CPC designation before the release of the 2012 Annual Report, and failing that, encouraged a member of the UCIRF to change his vote on listing Turkey among the world’s worst violators of international religious freedom.  Instructively, the three Commissioners appointed by President Obama dissented from the 2012 CPC designation of Turkey.

Tragically, the 2013 USCIRF report sends an undeniable message to Orthodox Christians fearing for their survival in their ancestral homelands in Turkey and Turkish-occupied Cyprus, just as Washington’s resounding silence in the face of the kidnapping of the Syriac and Greek Orthodox Archbishops of Aleppo by Syrian opposition militants reinforces the message that the United States views Orthodox Christians in Syria as expendable.  As these Orthodox Christians try to focus on the message of hope symbolized in the Easter Resurrection, they will face the supreme challenge of their own faith—to turn the other cheek to those who bring them harm.  In this case, suffering Orthodox Christians in the Eastern Mediterranean will be turning their cheek, from the deliberate persecution and harm of oppressors in the region, to the injustice and harm caused by the indifference and triangulation of the government of the United States of America.

Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou is the Director of International Affairs for the Hellenic American Leadership Council and Affiliate Scholar at Harvard University’s Center for European Studies.

Source:

Islam in SciFi 3: World War Z

After discussing the Borg of the Star Trek universe in Part 1, and the shuffling zombies of The Walking Dead in Part 2, I wish to apply the SciFi angle to Islam in a slightly different way by considering the symbolism behind the new Brad Pitt blockbuster, World War Z, scheduled for release on June 21, 2013.

In my Walking Dead article, I surveyed the zombie apocalypse genre pretty thoroughly, so I won't discuss that again here. I did mention the jacked-up zombies of 28 Days Later, which are not the typical slow-moving undead, but are instead infected by what is called the "Rage Virus," which accelerates their mobility, and their killing capabilities.

It seems something similar to the rage virus is what is infecting Brad Pitt's adversaries in World War Z, only in WWZ the outbreak is not limited to an island, but rapidly spreads around the globe through its highly infectious nature, and the 8 second transition period from bite to biter.

The trailers are filled with harrowing scenes, with rapid, rabid mobs overrunning cities, defenses, buildings, helicopters, climbing up over one another to scale fortified walls. (There is even a deeply disturbing scene on a jetliner which jolts to mind memories of the 9/11 jihad hijackings.) It is truly shocking imagery, yet in a strange sense, it seems we have seen something like this before...

Why yes, we have... in the massive Arab Spring riots in Cairo's Tahrir Square, Tunisia and Libya, and in the riots in Fall 2012 over a YouTube video said to insult Muhammad and Islam, and of course the infamous riots which raged throughout the Muslim world in 2006 following publication of cartoons of Muhammad by a Danish newspaper, and so on.

Taking the Arab Spring as one example, the shocking inhumanity of that supposed "freedom and democracy" movement, which has ended up sweeping hard-core Islamists into power, was exposed for all the world to see. Murder, rape, molotov cocktails, madness, screaming, mayhem; the only obvious difference seems to be that zombies don't wave flags or Qur'ans, or promise "freedom and democracy," or claim to follow a prophet of peace and tolerance.

You've seen the WWZ trailer above. Here is very nearly a mirror image from RussiaToday news, reporting on the YouTube riots. With a little editing, it could pass for another WWZ movie trailer, even including a spinning globe graphic showing the spread of the Muslim Rage Virus:

One thing is similar between the slow, shuffling zombies and the jacked up Z-zombies: neither type has a human conscience. Regarding the Human Conscience, I said this in my post on the Walking Dead:

The point in considering all this is to draw the comparison with the Islamic worldview, the worldview of Jihad, where Muhammad is the al insan al kamil, the perfect man and most beautiful pattern of conduct. From this primary principle are traced all the horrendous excesses of the shari'ah, which derive straight from the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Muhammad: Infidels (kuffir) are the most vile of created beings, Jews are equated with pigs and monkeys, non-Muslims must convert to Islam, submit to Islam's authority, or be killed, amputations for thieves, stoning for adulterers, and more and more blood and carnage. 

What happens when a Muslim buys into the Islamic worldview and accepts Muhammad as his example, submitting himself to the shari'ah, is that the Muslim submits his (or her) conscience to the uber-conscience of the Ummah. Such a Muslim ultimately commits moral suicide, deadening his conscience to the point that murder is justifiable; condemning non-Muslims, deceiving them, and if possible waging war against them is not only permissible but obligatory. Because Muslims who have submitted to the Jihadi worldview believe that Allah has ordained everything and Islam is superior, they have lost virtually every last trace of a normal human conscience. They are instead propelled by dark red impulses at the base of the brain. The Jihadi is like a slightly more intelligent, more functional zombie. 

We might dare to specify it a bit more clearly: the Jihadi is a moral zombie.

The Global Jihad Pandemic is not the first outbreak of evil which springs into being when men and women kill their God-given conscience. We've seen similar plagues before: the French Revolution, the Armenian Genocide (which really spanned from 1894 to 1923 and beyond, see here and here), the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent seven decade reign of militant atheist terror in Russia, Nazism and the Holocaust, the killing fields in Cambodia, and so on. However, the Global Jihad is unique in that it is inspired by religion, not fleeting political movements, and in that it draws from a pool of adherents numbering around 1.5 billion. World War Z indeed.

Amazing how the terrifying images out of the Islamic world mirror these nightmarish zombie fictions. And we really should not be too surprised at the similarity, as the Qur’an commands this: 

I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes. (Sura 8:12) 

Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the enemies of Allah and your enemies. (Sura 8:60)

Am I implying that all Muslims are jihadist terrorist zombies? Of course not. But most terrorists and all jihadists are Muslims, and according to one reputable statistic, there have been almost 21,000 deadly jihad terror attacks since 9/11/01. The recent Boston Marathon bombings have like never before raised the issue of how Muslims become “radicalized” — or as some prefer to call it, “self” radicalized — as if the Muslim turn to violent jihad could occur in isolation from any influences. Indeed, as we have been learning, the Tsurnaev brothers were associated with a radical mosque in Boston, and four separate studies over the last decade have shown that upwards of 80% of mosques in the U.S. promote jihad, violence, Islamic supremacism and sedition (see here, here, here and here).

The Islamic Jihad plague is not a random phenomenon which is impossible to understand. Rather it is a religious commandment and worldwide movement, one which indicates a spiritual death and turn — analogous to how a zombie turns — a deadening of the conscience, enabling the replacing of it with dark and blood-red motivations.

Brad Pitt may not realize it, but his epic zombie apocalypse film, World War Z, provides us with the most vivid metaphor yet of the real world war we are already facing.

Brad Pitt's character in the film is a UN investigator desperately searching for clues to creating a cure to the zombie plague. In confronting the real-world Islamic Jihad Zombie Plague, the only possible cure is Christ. Don't laugh, jihadis can be converted! We have such an example in the fearless martyr Fr Daniel Sysoev of Moscow, who spoke and wrote boldly against Islam, and before he was killed by a Muslim extremist had converted some eighty Muslims to Christ, including some hardcore Wahabbi extremists.

How could he do this? Only by the love of Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. The teaching of the beloved Russian Saint Seraphim of Sarov comes to mind: "Acquire the Spirit of Peace, and a thousand will be saved around you."

Regardless of how far gone a jihadi may seem, he or she is still a human person created in the image of God. Unlike a zombie, a Muslim can repent, renounce his false religion and embrace Jesus Christ, and be raised to newness of life. This hope of the awakening and conversion of every soul is at the core of our faith. And as a line from the WWZ trailer says, "Each one we save is one less we have to fight."

I deliberately have included this Christian exhortation, both to encourage the Christians who may be reading this, but also to encourage all of us, whatever creed, whether believers or atheists, to not allow our own innate human conscience to die or burn out during our struggle against the “jihad zombies.” If we allow hate to rise like bile within our hearts, we ourselves are in danger of becoming less than human, and the zombies which plague us will have won a double victory. We must admit to having mortal enemies, but we do not have to admit their infection into our hearts. "Let us forgive all by the Resurrection."

In closing, just for emphasis, here are some more images to make the zombie-jihad connection. See if you can tell the difference:

Al Masih Qam! For our Orthodox Brethren in the Middle East

You may have seen this glorious video of a flash mob in a shopping mall in Beirut Lebanon in 2011, as it's been around for a couple of years now. It is a wonder and a gift.

CHRIST is RISEN!  TRULY HE is RISEN!

Christ's Victory is Our Victory

No matter how forcefully, brutally, or murderously Islam tries to deny the Son of God Jesus Christ and his voluntary and saving Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection from the dead *, Truth triumphs, Christ triumphs, the Church triumphs. This wonderful Paschal message from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill emphasizes that "God gives us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 1:57). This is a most encouraging word for us today, and especially for our suffering Christian brothers and sisters who are enduring horrible persecutions throughout all the Islamic world. Let us remember them as we greet one another freely with the great proclamation of victory over death, the world, the flesh and the devil:

Christ is Risen!

PASCHAL MESSAGE

by

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia

Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 1:57)

Beloved in the Lord Your Graces the archpastors, all-honourable presbyters and deacons,

God-loving monks and nuns, dear brothers and sisters!

On this great and radiant day I congratulate you from the depths of my heart on the Lord’s Passover and greet each of you with these ancient and holy words:

CHRIST IS RISEN!

It is in these words, with which people throughout the ages have greeted each other during the bright days of Pascha and by which they have testified to the world of the truth of an event occurring two thousand years ago, that there is to be found a great inner power. They contain the tidings of victory and a call to joy, the desire for peace, and the hope and comfort of every human person.

He who was born of the Most Pure Virgin Mary, he who suffered greatly and without blame, he who was crucified and died on a cross between two thieves, he was the first among people to rise from the dead. ‘He has been raised, as he said he would be’ (Mt 28:6). The tomb is empty. There remain in it only the swaddling clothes in which his body was wrapped. The myrrh-bearing women came to the place of the Lord’s burial ‘very early in the morning … at the rising of the sun’ (Mk 16:2) and did not find Jesus there, for neither the stone that blocked the entrance into the cave, nor the guard who kept watch by it, nor even death itself could withstand the great power of the Living God. ‘Hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure’ (Is 5:14), exultant Hades had been ready to engulf its most powerful enemy, yet instead froze in fear, for it had been illumined by the light of the Godhead. Christ has vanquished corruption and destroyed death.

Through the first man, who disobeyed the Maker and fell away from the Fount of eternal life, evil came into the world and sin reigned over people. Christ ‘the last Adam’ (1 Cor 15:45) has vanquished death of the spirit, death of the soul and death of the body. ‘For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,’ St. Paul tells us (1 Cor 15:22). All that we have lost in the first Adam we have acquired anew in Christ. The Lord’s Passover is truly the ‘great gift of the divine economy’ (St. Theodore the Studite).

Having overcome the human person’s alienation from his Maker, the Saviour has granted to us the possibility of being united with him. As St. John Damascene says, through the Cross of Christ we have been ‘granted resurrection … The gates of paradise have been opened to us, our nature now sits at the right hand of God and we have become the children of God and his heirs’ (An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 4). We are all called upon to be worthy of this gift.

The Son of God, in assuming our nature, has become like us in all things apart from sin. Through his earthly life and sufferings on the Cross he has shown us an example of the greatest humility and obedience to the heavenly Father, an example of struggle against temptations and allurements, and through his resurrection he has destroyed the fetters of sin and granted to us the power and means to vanquish evil. It is in this struggle that one grows spiritually and becomes a morally free person.

We live at a time when freedom is often taken to mean moral chaos. Many sincerely believe that only power and riches, health and physical strength, bring liberation and in competing in service to the idols of this world they often fail in that which is most important, in the attainment of the true goal of life. The Saviour, who has risen from the tomb and granted to us freedom, has revealed to us this goal of knowing the Truth (see: Jn 8:32) and of life with God.

In destroying bodily death, Christ has promised eternal life, but not as an infinite continuation of the earthly path but as the transformation of the all human nature when the body will acquire new properties. It is in the Lord’s resurrection that the foreshadowing of our future resurrection is mysteriously revealed. In the coming kingdom of heaven, where there will be neither death, nor illness, nor parting, and not even time, ‘God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes’ (Rev 21:4), and joy will be never-ending and love eternal. The Lord’s victory over death gives us steadfast hope that in following him at his second and glorious coming we will rise again to a new life – life in unceasing communion with God.

Let us then share the joy in our risen Saviour with all those who are in need of attention and care: with the sick, the elderly, those who suffer or who are despondent, those who languish in places of confinement, and those people who are without means or a roof over their heads. And, in becoming like the witnesses to the resurrection – the holy apostles – let us with faith and boldness proclaim to those near and far the good news that Christ has truly risen! Amen.

Moscow

Pascha 2013

Source: Pravmir.com

Notes:

* The Qur'an not only denies that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and denies the historicity of the crucifixion, but calls down curses on Christians as blasphemers and infidels, and commands Muslims to fight against them until they "pay the jizya and feel themselves subdued" (Q. 9:29). This is the theological impetus behind Muslim persecution of Christians all across the Islamic world:

In fact, they never killed him, they never crucified him — they were made to think that they did. All factions who are disputing in this matter are full of doubt concerning this issue. They possess no knowledge; they only conjecture. For certain, they never killed him. (Qur'an 4:157)

In blasphemy indeed are those that say that God is Christ the Son of Mary. (Qur'an 5:19)

They do blaspheme who say: “God is Christ the son of Mary . . .” They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One God. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them (Qur'an 5:75,78)

The Jews call 'Uzair a son of God, and the Christians call Christ the Son of God. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the Unbelievers of old used to say. God's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth! (Qur'an 9:30)

Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [i.e. Islam] among the people of the Book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (Qur'an 9:29)

Kill the mushrikun [unbelievers] wherever you find them, and cap- ture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. (Qur'an 9:5)

I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes. (Qur'an 8:12) 

 

Update on Abducted Syrian Orthodox Hierarchs

Recent developments include the following strong statements from Orthodox hierarchs at home and abroad:

1. A very strongly worded and brave Pastoral Letter from Patriarch John X of Antioch, in which he says:

We, however, refuse to accept what man is undergoing today. We are working in that our rejection of this situation reflects the tenets of our beliefs. We reject this situation and condemn it. 

Since we are children of the Resurrection, we are not afraid of whoever takes violence to achieve his purpose. To be killed, or kidnapped, or to have our institutions destroyed, will not change our resolve to uphold our civil life and our co-existence; to cling to our homeland and to seek the reign of justice and rights in our homelands. 

Therefore, each and every one of us, whether in the Antiochian motherlands or abroad, is invited to express his concern and personal rejection of the recent course of events, aside from any political realignment. Humanity is the object of Christianity, for our Lord was incarnate for our salvation.

This shows a vibrant and resilient incarnational theology at work even and especially in the face of the barbaric Islamic forces arrayed against Christians throughout the Muslim world. Much more in the full letter from His Holiness here.

2. The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and South America have sent a strong letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, in which they address not only the murderous abduction of Bishops John and Paul, but boldly name the Islamic forces arrayed against Christians in Syria and the Middle East:

Religious minorities, including the Christian population, have been targeted for extinction in an attempt to create an Islamic State in Syria and to impose Sharia Law as the law of the land. To that end, Christian clerics have been kidnapped and murdered, even as they tried to bring aid and comfort to their people in this war torn country, while others are still missing, taken captive by rebel forces. (emphasis added)

This is a most significant statement. The Canonical Assembly specifically warns that:

• Christians are "targeted for extinction,"
• due to "an attempt to create an Islamic state in Syria,"
• which will "impose Sharia Law as the law of the land,"
• which has already resulted in the kidnapping and murder of Christian clerics.

I, for one, am extremely heartened and encouraged by this clearly-worded and truthful assessment from our bishops. There is no tip-toeing around for fear of offending Muslims or damaging Christian-Muslim relations. Rather, it is obvious now that Islamic fundamentalism is the scourge of all peoples in Syria, the Middle East, and all around the globe. AXIOS to our bishops!

Much more in the full letter here.

3. On Online Petition to the White House has been launched to urge the Obama Administration to intervene on behalf of the abducted bishops. 100,000 signatures required by May 23, and as of this writing, there are less than 4,000:

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:

Save Syrian Christians Bishops and Clergy men.

We the Syrian Christian expatriates in the USA, urge our government to interfere on behalf of all the innocent christian civilians, and clergy in Syria.

Two of our most beloved bishops (Yohanna Ibrahim and Paul Yazigi) were abducted recently near Aleppo while undertaking a humanitarian mission.

While the lives of many civilians (christians and non christians) are under constant threat and warrant equal concern; these two bishops were providing help and guidance to many.

We plead with you to exert pressure and influence to free them.

May God Bless you in your efforts.

Sign the Petition here!

Let us keep our beloved hierarchs John and Paul, and all Christians suffering under Islamic persecution, in our prayers!

Crucifixion in Islam: Christians Ascend Their Golgotha

Newly posted over at RaymondIbrahim.com is a reworked and expanded version of an article I posted here back on April 8.

Crucifixion in Islam: Christians Ascend Their Golgotha benefits from my recent studies of the Armenian Genocide (commemorated this week, see my earlier post), and a hard-hitting conclusion.

Understanding the Islamic Bombing of the Boston Marathon

David Wood of Acts 17 Apologetics and the Answering Muslims blog drills down into the Qur'an in this video. Axios.

Understanding the Islamic Bombing of the Boston Marathon

by David Wood

In response to the Islamic bombing of the Boston Marathon, the "Why Islam?" campaign sent out a Tweet on one of history's most deliberately misrepresented verses. 

Since the same verse has been ripped out of context by Fox News, CNN, the Washington Post, and President Obama, it's time for a careful analysis of the text. 

Source: answeringmuslims.com

'Ravished Armenia', a Film for Today

In solemn commemoration of the 98th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, which began April 24, 1915.

In researching the background and legitimacy of this powerful image of the crucifixion of several young Armenian women, I discovered it was not a news photo, nor a photo taken by any of the chroniclers of the Armenian Genocide (which can be found here), but rather a still from a film about that dark chapter of Islamic persecution of Christians.

That film, Ravished Armenia, was produced in 1918, and released in 1919, while the Armenian Genocide was still occurring. (It began with the 1894 massacres, and continued through the 1922 burning of Smyrna, and can be thought of more as an Orthodox Genocide, during which the Turkish Muslims murdered over 3.6 million Christians from Armenia, Thrace, Pontus, Greece, and elsewhere in the region.) The film was based on a memoir by young Aurora Mardiganian, herself a survivor and eyewitness of the atrocities depicted. She helped produce and starred in the film, which was thought lost for decades, until one surviving reel was discovered recently. Thank God this has been posted on YouTube, and I am embedding it here as a witness to Islamic religious cleansing, and as a harbinger of the renewed persecution of Christians in Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and all throughout the Islamic world today.

The movie has a brief history at the start for context. Subtitles help tell the story. The stills, including the crucifixion scenes, are shown at the conclusion.

Visit the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute for a full history of the film.

Perhaps the most important point to convey here is the heroic Christian faith of the Armenian Orthodox believers, as can be seen by Aurora Mardiganian's dedication page, shown below. This was a clear case of Muslims seeking to perform a complete religious cleansing of all Christians from Turkey. This is in accordance with Muhammad's example, as he vowed that,

"I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim." (Hadith from Sahih Muslim, 19.4366).

This is what is going on right now in Syria, Egypt, Iraq and other Islamic countries, as seen in my earlier post, Islamist Ultimatum to Syrian Christians: Convert, Leave, or Die.

The Islamic world smells blood. Again.

Only this time the Islamic genocide against Christians is being actively enabled and supported by what used to be the world's bastion of freedom, the United States of America, courtesy of the Obama Administration.