Islamic Charities Support Terrorism

This is all too common as many sects in "islam" consider the support of military and armed jihad a work of charity, as commanded by Mohammed. This is specially true of the Whahib movement as supported by the Saudi govenment.

Extremists rip off tsunami charity cash

IAN JOHNSTON

CHARITABLE donations to help people affected by the Asian tsunami disaster are falling into the hands of radical Islamic groups linked to terrorists in Indonesia, a leading expert on the global al-Qaeda network warned yesterday.

Relief money had become the "primary source" of income for two militant groups, including one founded by a Muslim cleric serving a prison sentence in connection with the Bali bombing in 2002 in which more than 200 people were killed.

Dr Rohan Gunaratna, head of the international centre for political violence and terrorism research at Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, told the Asia-Pacific Financial Crime Conference that the Boxing Day disaster had given "unprecedented opportunities for these groups to expand their areas of influence".

The UK Department For International Development (Dfid) said it was "concerned" about his comments and urged him to provide more information so it could take action if necessary. However, the Red Cross, Oxfam and Cafod aid agencies insisted that strict accounting procedures saw to it that no money given to them had fallen into the wrong hands.

Dr Gunaratna, author of the book Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, said the radical Islamic groups Mujahideen Kompak and Majelis Mujahideen Indonesia, or MMI, were moving into the Aceh region, where 130,000 people were killed and entire villages demolished by the devastating tsunami.

He told the conference, organised by banks in Singapore, that steps had to be taken to ensure that charitable donations did not go astray.

"Charities are a primary source of income for these groups," he said. "That's why there has to be more accountability in where donations go."

MMI, which has been called the Indonesian equivalent of Sinn Fein, was founded by militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who is serving a 30-month jail sentence for conspiracy in the Bali bombings. Its name means the Council of Mujahideen For Islamic Law Enforcement.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group has said Mujahideen Kompak plans to wage holy war in Indonesia.

And, according to the US-based analysts Global Security, Mujahideen Kompak has been responsible for attacks on Christians, including the nail-bombing of a church in North Jakarta during evening prayers in November 2001. Its leaders are also sometimes drawn from the infamous Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah.

Indonesian authorities have arrested scores of al-Qaeda-linked militants suspected of being involved in the Bali bombings, last year's attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, or in the 2003 attack on the city's Marriott Hotel. But some critics still accuse the government of being soft on terrorists for fear of escalating conflicts in a land which is home to more Muslims than any other.

Dr Gunaratna said: "Indonesia must suffer more from terrorism for the people and their leaders to realise that terror is serious business and you can't flirt with terrorists."

Terrorism expert Professor David Capitanchik, formerly of Robert Gordon University, told The Scotsman that terrorist groups were known to have set up charities to act as money-laundering operations.

"Around mosques, there are lots of people standing outside with boxes asking people to give to charity," he said. "It is rare that people who donate money know exactly where it is going. Organisations banned in this country - like Hamas - raise funds like that here."

Patrick Nicholson, of Catholic aid agency Cafod, who was in Aceh in early this year and again in June, said that while radical Islamic groups had first tried to exploit the situation to whip up anti-Western feeling, they appeared to have given up.

"I would challenge him [Dr Gunaratna]. There aren't the same sort of groups [in Aceh] as you see in other parts of Indonesia," he said. "They [Islamic extremists] turned up after the tsunami and tried to get Western aid agencies kicked out.

"But they got no support from local people, and they all left."

When he returned in June, there was no sign of Islamic radicals. He added that Cafod's accounting allowed a £10 donation in Britain to be traced to the building of a house or buying of a boat.

A spokesman for the International Committee for the Red Cross said simply: "If the question is, 'Is Red Cross funding falling into the hands of terrorists?', in our view, it isn't."

However, the UK government appeared to be taking the claim seriously. A Dfid spokesman said: "We are concerned to hear these allegations. We encourage Dr Gunaratna to approach Dfid with more information."

The Vitrue Of War---A Book Review

Webster, Alexander Ph.D. & Cole, Darett Ph.D.
The Virtue Of War: Reclaiming The Classic Christian Traditions East And West
Regina Orthodox Press; 2004
ISBN 1-928653-17-0

At last! A book which provides a contemporary, rational, historicaly correct, professional and theologically& philosophically sound examination of "just war" from Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant points-of-view. The objections of strict pacifists are fairly noted and fairly rebutted.

Any person who wishes to be informed about this subject and, most specially, teachers, appointed and elected civil officials, all military officers of the rank of Lt. Col. (Navy Commander) and above, "talking heads" and ministers-of-religion must read this work.

This book has been favorably reviewed by eminent Christians from many traditions. It is NOT an easy book and is, for someone like myself who is not trained in theology or philosophy, somewhat strained by those disiplines.

In short, the basic premise of this well worth-the-while book appears to be that the use of force, to combat evil, is requied of humans by God.

Jihadist-Terrorists On Themselves

This defines jihad and islamic terrorism in terms of the Koran and in muslims' own thinking. Read and think!!!


FROM: The American Thinker of 8 July 2005

Jihad terrorism in London
July 8th, 2005

Within hours of the four reported explosions in London yesterday—three in the subway, and one on a crowded double-decker bus—the so-called “Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe” claimed responsibility for the attacks. This same group previously took credit for another major act of jihad terrorism in Europe: the series of Madrid, Spain commuter train bombings in March 2004, which killed 191 people.

A video was found in a trash can outside a Madrid mosque, two days after that attack, with a statement purported to be from the group’s spokesman, nicknamed “Abu Dujan al Afghani.” In the July 7, 2005 statement, the group proclaimed, “…the heroic mujahedeen carried out a blessed attack in London, and now Britain is burning with fear and terror, from north to south, east to west.”

As the toll of deaths and injuries mounts from these horrific blasts—aptly termed by London emergency management officials as, “A callous attack on innocent members of the public”—the intent of the self-proclaimed “mujahadeen” perpetrators merits examination within the overall strategy of Islamic jihad. Indeed to sow terror, and thus promote the Islamization of infidel territories, is consistent with jihad tactics that date back well over a millennium.

Ibn Hudayl, a 14th century Granadan author of an important treatise on jihad, explained the original methods which facilitated the violent, chaotic jihad conquest of the Iberian peninsula, and other parts of Europe, during the prior six centuries:

It is permissible to set fire to the lands of the enemy, his stores of grain, his beasts of burden – if it is not possible for the Muslims to take possession of them – as well as to cut down his trees, to raze his cities, in a word, to do everything that might ruin and discourage him, provided that the imam (i.e. the religious “guide” of the community of believers) deems these measures appropriate, suited to hastening the Islamization of that enemy or to weakening him. Indeed, all this contributes to a military triumph over him or to forcing him to capitulate. [1]

And the 20th century historian Charles Emmanuel Dufourcq characterized the impact of these repeated attacks, indistinguishable in motivation from modern acts of jihad terrorism, such as the Madrid bombings on (3/11/04), or yesterday’s London bombings (7/7/05):

It is not difficult to understand that such expeditions sowed terror. The historian al-Maqqari, who wrote in seventeenth-century Tlemcen in Algeria, explains that the panic created by the Arab horsemen and sailors, at the time of the Muslim expansion in the zones that saw those raids and landings, facilitated the later conquest, if that was decided on: ‘Allah,’ he says, ‘thus instilled such fear among the infidels that they did not dare to go and fight the conquerors; they only approached them as suppliants, to beg for peace.’ [2]

Writing in 1978, Dufourcq (d. 1982), one of the preeminent scholars of European Islam, worried (even then) that historical and cultural revisionism of this established legacy of jihad might precipitate a recurrence of,

…the upheaval carried out on our continent (i.e., Europe) by Islamic penetration more than a thousand years ago [3]

Less than a decade after Dufourcq’s death in 1982, the historian Bat Ye’or (from a 1991 French interview, published in English translation in 1994) echoed his intuitive concerns about Europe’s re-Islamization, and warned more broadly,

I do not see serious signs of a Europeanization of Islam anywhere, a move that would be expressed in a relativization of religion, a self-critical view of the history of Islamic imperialism...we are light years away from such a development...On the contrary, I think that we are participating in the Islamization of Europe, reflected both in daily occurrences and in our way of thinking...All the racist fanaticism that permeates the Arab countries and Iran has been manifested in Europe in recent years...

Julien Benda in his classic 1928 La Trahison de Clercs (The Treason of the Intellectuals) decried with prophetic accuracy how the abandonment of objective truth promoted the rise of totalitarian ideologies. Ignoring, dismissing, or worse, continuing to vilify thoughtful and intrepid scholars such as Dufourcq and Bat Ye’or reflects the broader La Trahison de Clercs of our time: the complete failure of Western intellectuals to study, understand, and acknowledge the heinous consequences of the living Islamic institution of jihad war.

Those myriad intellectuals in denial might now, at last, wish to study with care the continuing legacy of jihad war, and pay serious attention to its modern Muslim proponents—including the renowned jihadist cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi recently lionized—with tragic irony—by London’s own current mayor as a “progressive.” Here are some of Qaradawi’s views on jihad and jihad terrorism:

It has been determined by Islamic law that the blood and property of people of Dar Al-Harb [the Domain of Disbelief where the war for the domination of Islam should be waged, i.e. including within Western Europe and America] is not protected. Because they fight against and are hostile towards the Muslims, they annulled the protection of his blood and his property… in modern war, all of society, with all its classes and ethnic groups, is mobilized to participate in the war, to aid its continuation, and to provide it with the material and human fuel required for it to assure the victory of the state fighting its enemies. Every citizen in society must take upon himself a role in the effort to provide for the battle. The entire domestic front, including professionals, laborers, and industrialists, stands behind the fighting army, even if it does not bear arms. [4]

Allah has also made the prophet Muhammad into an epitome for religious warriors [Mujahideen] since he ordered Muhammed to fight for religion… the first assignment is to prepare the hero who is willing to put his life in his own hands for Allah's sake, and he who does not care whether he encounters death or death encounters him…He [i.e., a self-immolating bomber] kills the enemy while taking self-risk, similarly to what Muslims did in the past… He wants to scare his enemies, and the religious authorities have permitted this. They said that if he causes the enemy both sorrow and fear of Muslims… he is permitted to risk himself and even get killed. [5]

And Qaradawi stated his ultimate goals explicitly—consistent with orthodox jihad ideology—at a Muslim youth convention in 1995 in Toledo, Ohio: “We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America!”. In light of the London bombings, will the West’s intellectuals finally awaken to this threat—the jihad? Will they study with seriousness and urgency the theological-juridical underpinnings of the Islamic jihad, and its 14 centuries of brutal, imperialistic conquests, continuing through the present? Hope springs eternal.

Dr. Bostom is an Associate Professor of Medicine, and the author of the forthcoming The Legacy of Jihad, on Prometheus Books (2005).

Notes
[1] Ibn Hudayl (French translation by Louis Mercier), L’Ornement des Ames, Paris, 1939, p. 195. English translation by Michael J. Miller
[2] Charles Emmanuel Dufourcq, La Vie Quotidienne dans l’Europe Medievale sous Domination Arabe, Paris, 1978, p. 20.
[3] Dufourcq, La Vie Quotidienne dans l’Europe Medievale sous Domination Arabe, pp. 9-10.
[4] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), July 19, 2003. “Those Who Oppose Martyrdom Operations and Claim that they are Suicide are Making a Great Mistake”
From the July 2003, European Council for Fatwa and Research, headed by Sheikh Al-Qaradawi, which convened in Stockholm. Middle East Media Research Institute. July 24, 2003 No.542 http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP54203
[5] Al-Jazeera Television [Qatar], June 19, 2001. “The Prophet Muhammad as a Jihad Model” Middle East Media Research Institute, July 24, 2001 No.246. http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP24601

The Islamic Terrorists' Best Allies

Who are the best allies of Islamic terrorists? We have met that enemy and it is us---Or at least those in the West who: Encourage sexual license---Even with and for young children; Support the destruction of personal and collective discipline under “color of law”; Attack the institutions which was the strength of this land [eg Traditional marriage and families; Traditional Christian Churches' traditional teachings; The severe punishment of crimes---Especially against children and the aged; Constancy in our laws and courts---Where judges should only interpret and execute the laws and do not make them]; Maintain that there is no firm standard of right VS. wrong and that every person is his/her own judge of such---If they even admit that such a concept exists; And, wish the entire concept and practice of religion to be totally removed from the public places, view and hearing as something which is an insult to the “modern humanist human”.

The Islamic preachers are correct in assailing the West, or that part of it described above, as not moral and without the strength to resist men-of-faith, the men-of-Islam. They realize, as too many of us have forgotten, that belief in and worship of a real God, eternal and all-powerful, provides the necessary strength to any real civilization.

To the East of the Atlantic Ocean the “European Disease” of self-indulgent self-satisfaction has taken hold and destroys too much of the power of Western Civilization to resist its own destruction and, I suspect, the primitive-but-forceful power of Islam. Spain, which regained its land and culture from Islam by the use of discipline learned in the Church and battle field up to the year 1492, has thrown away much of its hard earned power, which was based on the internal discipline of traditional families, by recently approving homosexual “marriages” and like perversions into law. The Muslims are beginning their own “reconquest” of a morally degenerate Spain---This time by infiltration rather than military conquest.

In France and The Netherlands, the Muslim minorities have become a real threat to law-and-order even to the point of murdering individuals who disagree with their teachings or burning down a court house in which one of their own was, very properly, convicted of a sexual assault.. In the United Kingdom the leaders of the Islamic community declared that they are not bound by British Law, but only by their own Sharia.

The many thousands of words in the proposed “Constitution” for the European Union make no mention of Christianity as an historical force and strength there.

In the USA such organizations as the ACLU, the “Man-Boy Love Association”, “Move On-Org.” (ie Mr. Soros' slave organization), most of our university and other teachers, many-too-many of our Judges and, I am very sorry to write, too large a part of the Democrat Party all support those forces which are destructive of Western Civilization. It is even horrid to write, but too many of the once traditional churches are defending those anti-civilization positions

Fortunately, many of the American People have understood the degeneration of those once-traditional churches (eg Congregational, Episcopal) and have fled from them to those religious organizations which support nation and human saving teachings.

The Roman Catholic Church is at its lowest point of moral strength since before the Reformation. Its American Bishops stand on an eroding dung heap of “teaching authority” without making any real efforts at climbing the mountain of “teaching responsibility”. They claim the power to manage the affairs of that Church, but have clearly failed to safeguard the children and others so often abused by its priests and others (Especially those bishops) who had a special responsibility to do so. They have, in fact, treated the Church as an “old boys' club” run for the benefit of the bishops and their cronies.

The Orthodox Churches are alas, in spite of their excellent teachings, too few in numbers to have any real impact in the USA. We should attend more to their views of Islam as they have suffered more than the Western Churches from that evil force.

From my Catholic point-of-view, the American Lutherans appear to still be fighting a “holier than thou” war among themselves and do not publicly speak out about the dangers facing all of us from political-militant secular humanism and Islam. (In Northern Europe, the Lutheran and other non-Catholic Churches have lost any social meaning or force they once had.) The United Church of Christ is in disarray over its leadership's approval of gay “marriages”.The old main line churches are losing members to other churches or religious indifference in huge numbers. The Evangelicals seem to be, very properly, focusing on the basics of Christ's teachings; But, also are not addressing the need to defend civilization.

All of the leaders of America's Christian Churches are either ignorant of the dangers from Islam OR are afraid to speak/write on such. The same holds true, for too many of them, as to the “militant secular humanists” and their supporters in the Congress, the Courts and our Universities and other schools (Including some seminaries).

WHAT TO DO NOW? The above should be presented to (And, if necessary, rubbed in the faces of) our religious leaders, government officials (Especially those involved in running or funding public universities and other public schools), the “media” and anyone else having any impact on our nation's thought and laws.

(As always, I refer the reader to the May, 2005 archives and "The True Face Of Islam" which is
on file there.)