Wednesday Hero

This Weeks Post Was Suggested By Kathi

Kevin Baker


Kevin George Baker, a disabled Navy veteran, had been riding his hand-propelled bicycle from his hometown through Washington, D.C. and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to Marseilles, Illinois to support a new flag designed to honor fallen members of the military. His trip began at his home on Saturday, March 7 and sadly ended on March 13 when he passed away in his sleep. Baker, who is unable to use his legs due to a neurological impairment, was flying the Honor and Remember Flag from his bike and encouraged people along the way to sign a petition urging Congress to adopt the flag as a new national symbol by passing HR Bill 1034.

You can read the rest of Baker's story here

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

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We Can't Go to War With All 1.3 Billion

A new message was received from Citizen Warrior Friday. Unfortunately, I am not in complete agreement with the opinions he expressed. Since his article is long and detailed, I will insert subscripts, linking them to my comments which appear in a list below the horizontal line at the end of Citizen Warrior's message.

new from CitizenWarrior.com...

"We Can't Go to War With 1.3 Billion Muslims!"

Posted: 13 Mar 2009 11:30 AM PDT

HERE IS another addition to our series, Answers to Objections. This objection is not usually spoken out loud, but it's a central fear lurking behind much of the resistance you get when you talk about Islam.

When you're talking to people, you want them to accept the simple fact that Islamic teachings are very straightforward, and they call for intolerance and violence toward non-Muslims and an unrelenting effort to make us all submit to Shari'a law.

They will put up every objection they can think of because they don't want to accept this premise.

If they articulated their fear, it would sound something like this: "For God's sake, that CAN'T be true, because it would mean we would have to go to war with 1.3 billion Muslims, and we can't do that!" Some people actually say it out loud.

Like many of the objections, this one is a great opportunity to insert a little more information into a brain that is likely almost entirely empty of any facts about Islam. Here are some possible responses you can give:

1. Luckily, we don't have to go to war with all of them. Most of the people who are now Muslims never chose to be so. Their ancestors were almost all forced to be Muslims. The whole country was conquered and Shari'a law was imposed. Shari'a puts pressure on everyone to be Muslim, and not just in name only. It is against the law to skip the five prayers a day or skip fasting during Ramadan or skip paying zakat (alms to the mosque). In other words, the practice of Islam is enforced by law, so after a few generations, it would be hard to think outside of being a Muslim, especially when the penalty for leaving the faith is death.

But what this means is that many of them would choose to live their lives without the constant domination of Islam if they had the option. So even if it came to war, we wouldn't have to go to war with 1.3 billion. ¹

2. What would you go to war to do? I mean, why would you think a war would be necessary?

3. We don't need to go to war, we only need to change some of our own laws and some of our own foreign policies. And sometimes we wouldn't even have to change them, we would only need to start enforcing them. For example, it is against the law to try to overthrow the government or to even plot to do so. It is sedition. It's already against the law. And yet in three-fourths of the mosques in the U.S., jihad is being preached.

Jihad means "the struggle to make everyone on earth submit to Shari'a law." It is an essential element of Islam. It is a core tenet. This isn't some fringe teaching that nobody cares about. This is a central purpose of Islam. If we want the Muslims in our country to stop working to undermine and overthrow the government, we will have to make a distinction between the political aspects of Islam and the religious aspects of Islam, and we'll have to stop people from committing sedition. We do not need to go to war. We only need to educate enough non-Muslims so that no more politicians ignorant of Islam are voted into office. The one thing that needs to happen is education.²

4. The problem is not with Muslims, so we don't have to go to war with them. The problem is not even with Islamic doctrine. Our problem is the abject ignorance of the majority of non-Muslims. Because of this ignorance, the West is conceding its freedoms. Let me give you an illustration to clarify what I mean:³

On the comments on an article about sociopaths, most of the commenters are victims of sociopaths, and they tell their stories about what happened to them — they were conned out of their life savings or they were married to someone who abused their children or one of their parents deliberately drives them crazy, etc. But two of the people who comment are themselves sociopaths, and their comments illuminate an important principle.

The point of view of most of the victims is that they don't understand how sociopaths can be so mean or cruel or heartless. The point of view of the sociopaths is that they don't understand how normal people can be so naive as to trust everyone, so foolish as to never protect themselves from someone who has already proven to be dangerous, or so stupid as to sign over the deed to their house!

Same with non-Muslims dealing with Islam. Okay, so it is a Muslim's duty to strive for the political goal of establishing Shari'a law throughout the world by any means necessary. That's what they do. But we don't have to allow it! They are only making progress toward their goal because we let them. We trust them. We make treaties with them. We allow them to immigrate. We make assumptions about them (like they must be just like us, their religion must be similar to other religions we know of, etc.). We are conceding our freedoms. We are forgoing our own self-preservation. We are voluntarily giving away our ability to defend ourselves.⁴

The problem is not with them, it's with us. We don't need to go to war. We need to stop being stupid, and that can't happen until more people know about Islam.⁵

Most of the people commenting on that sociopath site said they were surprised to find out there was even such a thing as a sociopath. The phenomenon of "everyday sociopaths" is not very well known. People know about psychopathic serial killers, but most people don't know there is such a thing as people walking around in ordinary lives who have no empathy for others and cannot develop it, people whose only goal in life is to win and dominate, people who feel no pity or remorse and who have no emotional conflict when they are cruel.

Some people who tell their sad tales were married to a sociopath for years without ever realizing such a person could exist, so they were totally frustrated, anguished, and confused by their spouse's behavior, and of course, in their ignorance they made one stupid, self-defeating mistake after another.

The free world is doing the same thing with Islam's relentless, self-serving aggression — making one stupid, self-defeating mistake after another (read more about that here). The stupidity must stop. The only thing missing is enough people who have at least a passing familiarity with basic Islamic teachings.

Okay, that's four possible answers to the objection, "But we can't go to war with a billion Muslims!"

I would appreciate it (and so would future readers) if you could come up with an even better answer than these, and post it in the comments to this article. We can pool our resources, pool our intelligence, and help each other do the one thing that must be done: Educate our fellow non-Muslims.⁶

---

1. Islam is at war against us. Either we defend ourselves or we will be conquered; enslaved or killed. It is true that Muslims are the first victims of Islam. It is true that many of them would prefer some other choice. But, when we retaliate against Islamic attack, they are all involved, they unite in spite of national, tribal and sectarian differences and they fight. The old saying: "Me against my brother, my brother and I against our cousin, us against a stranger..." is still valid. We need to induce mass apostasy and send the recalcitrant remnant to collect their Houris.
2. Did changing domestic legislation win World Wars 1 & 2? Could we have won them without sending millions of men and dollars? Yeah, right. Little will be accomplished without educating our fellow citizens and applying great pressure to the politicians, but the war will not be won that way. Yes, we need to amend the Constitution, close the Mosques & Madrassas and send the Muslims home, but those measures alone won't win the war, they are only the home front battle.
3. The problem is human avarice & pride. Moe invented Islam as a source of wealth, income and fresh sex slaves. Warfare is central to Islam because Moe lived off the booty. He told his companions that their eternal destiny depended on going to war with him. Fight and collect spoils if you win or go to Paradise if you get killed; go to Hell if you don't go to war. If you believe, you join the Jihad.
4. This paragraph is true. Western Civilization is making those suicidal errors, but correcting those errors, while necessary, is not sufficient to win the war.
5. Would the Assyrians, Armenians or Hindus have been saved by knowledge? Neither will we. Widespread understanding of Islam is a necessity, but not a panacea. There is a physical war on, and blood is being shed. Bombs, bullets and knives kill; computer keyboards do not.
6. This conflict has several components.

• military
• ideological
• theological
• legal
• demographic
• economic
• psychological

Most people will not absorb, comprehend & believe the truth about Islam just because we tell them. They will not stand still to listen nor will they sit still to read. The facts do not comport with their prejudices & expectations. They will seek loopholes and exceptions. They have been instructed by authority figures whom they trust. They have been told, and they believe, that Islam is a great religion of peace. When we submit evidence that Islam is a war cult, they will not accept it because it does not fit the template of their prejudice.

Islamic scripture, tradition, jurisprudence & history form a congruent pattern which should be sufficient to convince any intelligent and open minded person.
The most egregious ayat, ahadith & fiqh have been compiled into an ebook, which takes up nearly 7MB on my hard disk. I use it nearly every day in researching blog posts. It is EgregiousAyat.chm. Are you willing to invest the time required to download and read it; to begin using quotes from it in your blog posts, emails and letters?

Most of the visits to my blog posts are brief: 0 seconds. It is not easy to captivate the reader's attention and interest them in the gritty details. Slap them in the face with final conclusions and they wipe the facts away with a laugh. Bury them in detail and they are bored to tears. Read this blog post for one example: Fat Jack's Erratic Rants: SOMEONE LISTENS TO RUSH LIMBAUGH TOO MUCH, and follow through to the original article and the reader's comments.

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Every Day Heroes

Army Spc. Magdi Ahmed, second from right, and Army Spc. Marlesh Mbory, far right, become naturalized U.S. citizens along with other members of the 25th Infantry Division’s 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team in a ceremony at Al Faw Palace in Baghdad, March 3, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Tim Meyer

Face of Defense: Sudanese Emigrants Become U.S. Citizens Together

By Army Staff Sgt. Tim Meyer
Special to American Forces Press Service

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, Iraq, March 13, 2009 – The two soldiers -- one a Christian from the south, the other a Muslim from the north -- have nothing against each other, despite the past which tore their homeland of Sudan apart in more than 20 years of civil war.

Today, they are deployed together in Iraq with the U.S. Army, where they work with the same unit as interpreters. Despite Sudan’s violent past, the two men share a bright future -- both became naturalized U.S. citizens in a March 3 ceremony at Al Faw Palace in Baghdad.


“I love my job, and I love my new country,” said Army Spc. Marlesh Mbory, with 25th Infantry Division’s Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team. “I’m grateful to be American.”


Now married with two children, Mbory moved to the United States in 2003 and settled in Lincoln, Nebraska, where thousands of former southern Sudanese citizens call home. However, his path there was far from easy.


At the age of 18, Mbory’s stepbrother and uncle were killed in the second Sudanese civil war. He fled from Sudan to the Congo where he lived for several months, and then to the Central African Republic for five years before immigrating to the United States.


Mbory learned the French, Swahili, Arabic, Nigala, Sango and Moro languages in Africa. Upon arrival in the United States, Mbory’s 8-year-old daughter, Lidia, helped him learn English in Nebraska. He hesitated joining the Army because he didn’t want to leave Grace, his then-pregnant wife, alone at home. She persuaded him to go, and Munyo, their son, was born while Mbory was in initial entry training.


“I want to see the world peaceful in the future -- that is my hope,” he said.


Mbory’s father, four brothers and two sisters are still in Sudan; he is thinking of returning to visit them one day. After this deployment, he plans to work as a recruiter in Lincoln, to tell other Sudanese there of the positive advantages of joining the Army.


Army Spc. Magdi Ahmed, assigned to the same unit, said he also has found a brighter future in the United States. “I moved to the U.S. for freedom, for better opportunities, for a better life,” he said. “Joining the Army gave me the opportunity to fix things that I saw with my eyes, but I couldn’t do anything about.”


Ahmed’s parents were from Sudan, but he was born in Saudi Arabia. After working at a railway station for nearly 20 years, Ahmed’s father was forcibly retired by the government and replaced by an employee who received less pay.


The family moved to Dongla, the capital of northern Sudan, where they lived for six years during the war. Although his parents were Sudanese, they were considered foreigners because they had lived in Saudi Arabia.


“I didn’t feel like an equal in Saudi Arabia or in Sudan,” Ahmed said. Even though he had Sudanese citizenship and was a resident there, he had to pay more for college, according to Ahmed, because he was born in Saudi Arabia, a rich country.


The college faculty intentionally gave him failing grades because he didn’t agree with the government, Ahmed said. In Sudan he suffered negative experiences -- unfairness, discrimination and corruption -- but views those experiences as positives now because they prepared him for moving to the United States.


“The U.S. was the only place you could go for justice. I couldn’t get justice from my own country. The struggle I felt in Saudi Arabia and in Sudan made me feel like the U.S. would be a better place to live,” Ahmed said.


Ahmed moved back to Saudi Arabia in 2005, and immigrated to the United States a year later. In Wisconsin, a friend of his uncle’s helped Ahmed start a new life. After a month, he had his own apartment and job.


Ahmed’s parents, five brothers and sister live in Saudi Arabia, and his other relatives still live in Sudan, where his uncle died during the war. Southern Sudan will have the chance to vote for full independence in 2011, and Mbory adds, “God is watching.”


(Army Staff Sgt. Tim Meyer serves with the 25th Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade ) [source]

In my books, whichever way you look at it, these two soldiers are heroes - every single day.

Thank you for your service.

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Islam = Jihad??

This post continues a critical examination of the assertions expressed in and implied by these statements from the current and proposed resolutions combating defamation of religions.

Also expresses deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations and emphasizes that equating any religion with terrorism should be rejected and combated by all at all levels;

Expresses deep concern in this respect that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism...

Is Islam wrongly associated with violence? A critical examination of Islam's canon of scripture, tradition & jurisprudence will provide the answer. The word associated with this question is Jihad. What is the meaning of Jihad and what is its importance? Turning to 2:216 , we find the definition.

216. Jihâd ^[1] (holy fighting in Allâh’s cause) is ordained for you (Muslims) though you dislike it, and it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you and that you like a thing which is bad for you. Allâh knows but you do not know.

^[1] (V.2:216) See the footnote of (V.2:190).

The parenthetical expression is editorial, not Allah's word. We need to discover what differentiates holy fighting from secular fighting and we need to define Allah's cause. Lets follow the footnote.

^[1] (V.2:190) Al-Jihâd (holy fighting) in Allâh’s Cause (with full force of numbers and weaponry) is given the utmost importance in Islâm and is one of its pillar (on which it stands). By Jihâd Islâm is established, Allâh’s Word is made superior, (His Word being Lâ ilaha illallâh which means none has the right to be worshipped but Allâh), and His Religion (Islâm) is propagated. By abandoning Jihâd (may Allâh protect us from that) Islâm is destroyed and the Muslims fall into an inferior position; their honour is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihâd is an obligatory duty in Islâm on every Muslim, and he who tries to escape from this duty, or does not in his innermost heart wish to fulfil this duty, dies with one of the qualities of a hypocrite.
Narrated ‘Abdullâh bin Mas‘ûd رضي الله عنه: I asked Allâh’s Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم "O Allâh’s Messenger! What is the best deed?" He replied, "To offer the Salât (prayers) at their early fixed stated times." I asked, "What is next in goodness?" He replied, "To be good and dutiful to your parents." I further asked, "What is next in goodness?" He replied, "To participate in Jihâd in Allâh’s Cause." I did not ask Allâh’s Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم anymore and if I had asked him more, he would have told me more. (Sahih Al-Bukhâri, Vol.4, Hadîth No.41).

Contrary to the footnote, Jihad is not generally recognized as one of the pillars or Islam. We learn that it is:

• physical fighting
• of utmost importance
• establishing Islam
• making Allah's word superior
• propagating Islam.

We also learn that abandoning Jihad has consequences:

• Islam is destroyed
• inferiority
• dishonor
• loss of
• land
• authority
• rule.

Lets look to Umdat as-Salik for confirmation.

O9.0: Jihad (O: Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada signifying warfare to establish the religion. And it is the lesser jihad. As for the greater jihad, it is spiritual warfare against the lower self (nafs), which is why the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said as he was returning from jihad.

Islamic law confirms the definition of Jihad as physical warfare to establish Islam. We still lack a firm fix on Allah's cause. Perhaps the hadith will provide an answer.

Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 65:

Narrated Abu Musa:

A man came to the Prophet and asked, "A man fights for war booty; another fights for fame and a third fights for showing off; which of them fights in Allah's Cause?" The Prophet said, "He who fights that Allah's Word (i.e. Islam) should be superior, fights in Allah's Cause."

Now we know that Allah's cause is making Islam superior.

The argument over lesser/greater Jihad is a distraction which should be eliminated. How great is the risk of being injured or killed in Jihad an-Nafs?

4:74. ...whoso fights in the Cause of Allâh, and is killed or gets victory, We shall bestow on him a great reward....

What differentiates holy from secular war? Sahih Muslim 19.4294 includes this clue.

...Make a holy war, do not embezzle the spoils; do not break your pledge; and do not mutilate (the dead) bodies; do not kill the children....

Moe took the top 20% of the spoils, which explains the first element in the list. The pledge of loyalty to Moe involved not fleeing from battle. Mutilating corpses was a social taboo in Arabia and killing children would amount to wasting the spoils because captured children were enslaved.
A search (http://www.quranbrowser.com) of the Hilali & Khan translation finds 369 instances of fight and 22 instances of Jihad. Noel Yatom published a list of 164 violent verses. The bottom line is this: Allah issued timeless and unlimited enjunctions to make war upon pagans and Jews & Christians. Moe is quoted confirming those imperatives in Sahih Bukhari 1.8.387. Riyad us-Salaheen Book 11, Chapter 234 contains many of the hadith which prove the status & significance of Jihad. Sahih Bukhari: Jihad, Khumus & Expedition reveal much of what Muhammad said and did concerning Jihad.

The following listed titles from Ibn Kathir's Tafsir display the ayat & ahadith which mandate conquest and promise victory. Each of them is linked to the corresponding page at http://www.tafsir.com. Those tafsir establish, beyond doubt, Islam's intrinsic violence & triumphalism.

• The Order to fight to eradicate Shirk and Kufr
• The Order to fight People of the Scriptures until They give the Jizyah
• The Order for Jihad against the Disbelievers, the Closest, then the Farthest Areas
• The Good News that Muslims will conquer the Known World, and ultimately the Entire World
• The Good News that Muslims will Dominate the People of the Book

Shari'ah, codified in Umdat as-Salik, clearly confirms the Jihad enjunctions and establishes the minimum requirement for their performance. To read the full context, click the link and enter the book letter, chapter & section numbers in the search engine in the frame surrounding the text image. [Emphasis added.]

O9.1: The Obligatory Character of Jihad
...If none of those concerned perform jihad, and it does not happen at all, then everyone who is aware that it is obligatory is guilty of sin, if there was a possibility of having performed it. In the time of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) jihad was a communal obligation after his emigration (hijra) to Medina. As for subsequent times, there are two possible states in respect to non-Muslims.

The first is when they are in their own countries, in which case jihad (def: o9.8) is a communal obligation, and this is what our author is speaking of when he says, "Jihad is a communal obligation," meaning upon the Muslims each year....

O9.8: The Objectives of Jihad

The caliph (o25) makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians (N: provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya, def: o11.4) -which is the significance of their paying it, not the money itself-while remaining in their ancestral religions) (O: and the war continues) until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax (O: in accordance with the word of Allah Most High,...

O9.9

The caliph fights all other peoples until they become Muslim...

O25.9 ...

-8- and if the area has a border adjacent to enemy lands, an eighth duty arises, namely to undertake jihad against enemies, dividing the spoils of battle among combatants, and setting aside fifth (def: o10.3) for deserving recipients.

Even this brief examination of Islam's canon of scripture, tradition & jurisprudence proves that the association of Islam & violence is well founded.

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How Censorship Could Become Binding

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [Dead links removed, emphasis added.]

Article 20

1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.
2. Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.

Article 51

1. Any State Party to the present Covenant may propose an amendment and file it with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The Secretary-General of the United Nations shall thereupon communicate any proposed amendments to the States Parties to the present Covenant with a request that they notify him whether they favour a conference of States Parties for the purpose of considering and voting upon the proposals. In the event that at least one third of the States Parties favours such a conference, the Secretary-General shall convene the conference under the auspices of the United Nations. Any amendment adopted by a majority of the States Parties present and voting at the conference shall be submitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations for approval.

2. Amendments shall come into force when they have been approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations and accepted by a two-thirds majority of the States Parties to the present Covenant in accordance with their respective constitutional processes. 3. When amendments come into force, they shall be binding on those States Parties which have accepted them, other States Parties still being bound by the provisions of the present Covenant and any earlier amendment which they have accepted.

Reservation:

(1) That Article 20 does not authorize or require legislation or other action by the United States that would restrict the right of free speech and association protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States.

Understanding:

(1) That the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee all persons equal protection of the law and provide extensive protections against discrimination. The United States understands distinctions based upon race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or any other status - as those terms are used in Article 2, paragraph 1 and Article 26 - to be permitted when such distinctions are, at minimum, rationally related to a legitimate governmental objective. The United States further understands the prohibition in paragraph 1 of Article 4 upon discrimination, in time of public emergency, based "solely" on the status of race, color, sex, language, religion or social origin not to bar distinctions that may have a disproportionate effect upon persons of a particular status.

Problematic definitions:

• advocacy of
• religious hatred
• constitutes incitement

In a previous post, I showed how Masooud Khan & Ban Ki-moon define those terms as exemplified by their condemnation of Fitna.
I have no doubt that anticipation of such egregious abuse of semantics was behind reservation number one cited above. Were it not for the election of an appeaser to the Presidency along with a like minded Senate majority, our liberty might be secure.

What will happen if Article 20 is amended to conform to the recent & pending resolutions combating defamation of religions & Durban II draft? I expect that President Obama will sign it, the Senate will ratify it, and the Supreme Court will lack the will & resolve necessary to rule it unconstitutional. It would then be possible to persecute American critics of Islam in foreign and international courts, contravening the first amendment.

Seekers of detailed legal analysis of the issue should refer to Why the U.S. Should Oppose "Defamation of Religions" Resolutions at the United Nations, a Heritage Foundation report and the bibliography in its footnotes.

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