Author Brad Thor is not one to mince words when it comes to defending free speech and challenging jihadists.
So it should come as no surprise that during an in-depth interview in connection with his forthcoming “Code of Conduct,” when the topic of Islamic supremacism versus the West came up — and in particular the Garland, TX shooting — sparks were going to fly.
The First Amendment exists to protect speech you don’t agree with. It actually is there — if all that was worthy of protection was speech everybody agreed with, we wouldn’t need the First Amendment. OK.
So you don’t have to agree with what Pamela Geller is doing, but my G-d, Pamela Geller is doing more to help reform Islam than any pansy on the left or right who is criticizing her.
And I don’t care who criticized her. I don’t care who it is: You are weak, and you’re a pansy for not standing behind her.
It makes no sense to me that you would not support someone who is trying to bring about reform in one of the most dangerous ideologies since Nazism. And it actually predates Nazism, so I can’t say it’s since Nazism.
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This idea that Pamela Geller somehow deserved what they got — and she’s making it worse for people. You know I heard people say “Well why provoke all Muslims?” She’s not trying to provoke all Muslims. She’s trying to provoke a discussion.
And moderate Muslims should not be offended by the depiction of their Prophet Muhammad. They can say it’s in their book … Islam is the only major world religion that has not had a reformation. Judaism has. Christianity has. Islam has not.
And … I would encourage you to please link to probably one of the best articles ever written about the West and how we are pandering to fundamentalist Islam. It was actually — I don’t know that you do a lot of links to the Huffington Post — but it was on the Huffington Post and it was written by Sam Harris, who is on Bill Maher a lot. And Sam’s an agnostic.
And Sam wrote a great article called “Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks.” And he talks about the fact that we have allowed a protected space to be carved out in the public square where every other group is expected to debate rationally on the playing field of ideas, except for Islam.
We can go ahead and talk about Catholicism, Mormonism, Buddhism, Hinduism, but we can’t critique and discuss the tenets of Islam. And that’s because we are hamstringing ourselves.
And Islam needs more attention, more criticism, not less. If we don’t criticize Islam and put pressure on Islam, how do you expect reformers and again moderates to have the wind at their backs, the wind in their sails to have them do the work that needs to be done? Because we as non-Muslims can’t affect any change.
All we do, like I said, we get our civil liberties eroded.
It’s longer lines at TSA for those of us who can’t reform Islam.
We need to do everything we can to help reform it. And reforming Islam means we have to draw attention to all its failings.
It’s only when people are shown “Hey, the house is full of termites,” that maybe they’re gonna stop spending money on cable and tons of beer, and start applying the money to fixing their own house.
Full Interview
Sneak Peek at “Code of Conduct”
Taking it to Islamic Supremacists
XXX? in 2016?
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In “Are Boston terrorism cases a trend?” two Globe authors reach out to several “antiterrorism specialists” and ask why it is that Boston appears to be so “vulnerable to violent extremism.”
Some submit that Boston’s “emergence as an international hub may leave it exposed to strains of radicalized behavior.”
Others find the existence of Boston-based jihadists curious given these jihadists “cannot be traced to one network, and individuals and groups do not appear to be connected.”
One such expert who has written on the Islamic State, J.M. Berger, acknowledges that “There is some degree of social network here that seems to be involved in radical thought.”
Halfway through the Globe article, the reader is left utterly unaware of any link between Boston jihadists and…jihadism. In fact, readers will not find the word “jihadist” in the column.
What readers do see is the lexicon of our see-no-Islam national security establishment, including euphemisms such as “violent extremism,” “homegrown terrorist,” and “radical presence.”
Somewhat closer to the mark are comments of James Forest, director of security studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center for Terrorism and Security Studies, who says: “The ideology that motivates these kind of attacks, there are no geographical boundaries.”
What this “ideology” is, the reader is left to guess.
Usamma Rahim was wielding a knife when he was shot by Boston police. Rahim had planned to attack “boys in blue” according to his intercepted communications. (Source: WCVB-TV)
Next quoted in the piece is Farah Pandith, the first special representative to Muslim communities in then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
Pandith asserts that Muslim millennials are “asking questions that parents aren’t answering. The loudest voices seducing these kids are extremists.”
Pandith notes that “extremism” is not so much a matter of geography as “what’s happening in virtual space around the world.”
As for the “seductive” “extremist” voices and the impact of social networks, of course the young and impressionable can be brainwashed, but what are they being brainwashed in, and who is doing the brainwashing? Should not these millennials and their parents be both rejecting as well as rooting out this ideology from their communities altogether?
Some experts seem to recognize an ideological component to what we have seen in Boston – an Islamic supremacist ideology that can proliferate wherever computers or cell phones are found, that thrives especially in tight-knit Muslim communities in free Western countries — yet they cannot bring themselves to define this ideology.
Credit: Steven Coughlin
Juliette Kayyem, another Obama administration official who served as Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs in the Department of Homeland Security, is next given the floor.
Kayyem believes that Boston — which the columnists describe as a “global city that is diverse, tolerant, and welcomes immigrants and students” – is “a breeding ground for the disaffected to either radicalize or hide.”
Kayyem asserts that “We are going to see this kind of radicalization in any urban area globally.”
But do global cities become “breeding grounds[s] for the disaffected to either radicalize or hide” in a vacuum?
Throughout world history, international locales have been free of the scourge of “violent extremism,” a politically correct term used to avoid offending Muslims while simultaneously drawing moral equivalence with and thereby smearing “right-wing” Americans.
One would think that modern, cosmopolitan, liberal urban areas by their very nature would consist of modern, cosmopolitan, liberal people.
Only to the degree to which these global cities invite in people with retrograde views antithetical to these ideals does their diversity and tolerance make them “breeding grounds” for jihadism.
It is hard to fault the piece’s authors for quoting “mainstream” “antiterror experts.” Yet these “experts” all seem to subscribe to the very see-no-Islam philosophy that paralyzes our national security establishment more broadly, rendering us unable to defeat our enemy.
Parenthetically, the idea of an “antiterror” expert should itself draw our ire, given that terror is a tactic, not the name of an ideologically-driven enemy. After all, during the Second World War we didn’t call upon anti-Blitzkrieg experts to define our enemies. We understood and were able to articulate that we were at war with a foe, not a fighting method.
Meanwhile, today there is nary a mention of Islamic religious tenets like jihad, abrogation and taqqiya, nor a discussion of Islam’s ultimate goal to create a global Ummah under which all submit to Shariah law.
This is not an issue of semantics. If we fail to be precise in how we describe our enemy and its ideology, it will defeat us.
How did we get to a point over a decade after Sept. 11, 2001 when columnists writing about Boston jihadists dance on egg shells around the Islamic supremacist ideology that by the jihadists’ own admission animates them?
While Nazism and Communism were political ideologies, jihadists subscribe to a theo-political ideology based in Islam’s core texts and modeled on the behaviors of Muhammad.
This offends the sensibilities of Americans either ignorant of Islam or uncomfortable with the idea that religion could be used to justify the slow motion worldwide slaughter of Jews, Christians, Hindus, infidel Muslims, gays, women, apostates, cartoonists and others.
In the case of the recently killed would-be jihadist Usamma Rahim, a simple set of Google searches regarding Rahim and the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) might have provided the Globe columnists and the antiterror experts they quote an illuminating fact pattern worth investigating in response to their question, “Is Boston more vulnerable to violent extremism than other parts of the country?”
Below are some of those relevant data points:
Usamma Rahim had been a security guard at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC) in Roxbury, Massachusetts, an affiliate of the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB)
Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev prayed at the ISB’s Cambridge, Massachusetts mosque
Notwithstanding ISB denials, Tsarnaev had been the latest in a long line of jihadists linked to the organization:
The ISB was founded by Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah currently serving a 23 year prison sentence on terrorism charges
ISB’s Cambridge mosque is operated by the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Muslim American Society
According to Discover the Networks, among other revelations:
“FBI surveillance documents show that two days before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Suhaib Webb, Imam of ISB’s Boston mosque, joined al-Qaeda operative Anwar Awlaki in headlining a fundraiser on behalf of the Atlanta-based Muslim extremist Jamil al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown), who had recently murdered two police officers in Georgia.”
“Aafia Siddiqui, who occasionally prayed at ISB’s Cambridge mosque, was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 while in possession of cyanide canisters and plans to carry out a chemical attack in New York City. Siddiqui subsequently tried to gun down some U.S. military officers and FBI agents, and is now serving an 86-year prison sentence for that offense.”
“Tarek Mehanna, who worshipped at ISB’s Cambridge mosque, received terrorist training in Yemen and plotted to use automatic weapons to inflict mass casualties in a suburban shopping mall just outside of Boston. In 2012 he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for conspiring to aid Al Qaeda.”
“Yasir Qadhi, who lectured at ISB’s Boston mosque in 2009 and again in 2012, advocates replacing American democracy with Sharia Law; characterizes Christians as “filthy” polytheists whose “life and prosperity … holds no value in the state of Jihad”; and accuses Jews of plotting to destroy Muslim peoples and societies. Further, Qadhi is an acolyte of Ali al-Timimi, a Virginia-based Imam who is currently serving life in prison for inciting jihad against U.S. troops in Afghanistan.”
The Boston Globe article is instructive because it represents the very line of thinking and questioning that is mandated in the halls of America’s national security institutions.
It is also instructive — in light of the facts about the ISB — that a see-no-Islam national security stance leads us to ignore the threats hiding in plain sight, to America’s great detriment.
Those who ignore the nature of the Islamic supremacist threat we face are doomed to submit to it.
Wow, we are seriously screwed up as a nation. How quickly everyone has forgotten the massive terrorist attack on 9/11 that took almost 3,000 lives. It touched all of us. And the guys behind it were evil Islamists, plain and simple. The primary motive behind the protest by the people in Phoenix yesterday was to show that free speech still matters in this country and we won’t be cowed or stripped of our rights by thugs, who wear religion as a cloak of justification. However, you wouldn’t know that by watching the media. Even Fox News called it an anti-Muslim protest and took pains to make the Americans who held it look more like terrorists than those who are spawning and teaching those who are attacking and murdering us. In a wholesale inversion of truth, everything is being turned upside down and inside out.
I would really like to know how people can ask how drawing cartoons crosses the line on free speech. There is no line on free speech and to ask this question shows no knowledge of the Constitution or a belief in our freedoms. Perhaps on the day that those on the Left and (redundantly) in the Media can restrain themselves from pathologically lying about their own motives, their own actions and about their observations of real events, perhaps on that day we can talk about “lines” in free speech. No investigation has been conducted concerning the two Jihadists that went to this mosque and then attacked Pamela Geller and others in Garland, Texas. Yet those who protest these monsters and stand up for our rights are massively dissed by a megalomaniacal media and puerile political pundits at every turn. Pamela Geller is absolutely right on this once again. It seems today that it is shrugged at when terrorists kill people on American soil — but speak out against Islam and you are pilloried and defamed. This is Shariah Law in play.
Protesters and counter-protesters rally outside the Islamic Community Center
Friday in Phoenix. – Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Protesters argue outside the Islamic Community Center at a “freedom of speech”
rally Friday in Phoenix. – Christian Petersen/Getty Images
I share the frustration of these people holding the protest in Phoenix and I am joined by millions of others. The mosque in Phoenix produces terrorists as pointed out earlier. Here are some facts from Pamela Geller:
Simpon’s friend Courtney Lonergan remembers Elton Simpson would never waver from the teachings he picked up in the mosque and elsewhere. “He was one of those guys who would sleep at the mosque,” Lonergan said. “The fact that he felt personally insulted by somebody drawing a picture had to come from the ideological rhetoric coming out of the mosque.”
When he sought a Muslim wife, Simpson turned to the men in the mosque to find a suitable woman, and his way of earning their respect was to show his devotion to Islam by quoting teachings verbatim…
Mosque president, Usama Shami, tried to downplay the ties of the two Garland would-be mass-murderers. This included Shami’s claim to the press that neither was a regular member. In fact, Elton “Ibrahim” Simpson had been featured in a mosque fundraising video posted on ICCP’s YouTube channel in 2012 identifying him as a member.
Mosque president Usama Shami claimed the mosque did not raise money for Elton’s Simpson’s legal defense. But point in fact the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix posted $100,000 cash bond to release him from custody, Sitton said.
So, excuse me if I wonder aloud about what goes on in that mosque and the fact that it seems lying to the public by their representatives is par for the course. Typical taqiyya. I have grown sick to death of our so-called leaders protecting the enemies within this country… giving Islamists and communists full freedom to destroy us from within and without, while trying to strip the majority of Americans of their Constitutional rights. Americans are actually beginning to stand up and say that this is enough of this crap and who do our media and leaders come down on? Why Christians and patriots of course… not the breeding grounds and purveyors of murder.
Protester “Brother Dean” holds a torn copy of the Quran as he rallies outside the
Islamic Community Center Friday in Phoenix. – Christian Petersen/Getty Images
A retired U.S. Marine protests outside the Islamic Community Center Friday in Phoenix.
– Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Notice in the photos above that the police have positioned themselves between the two groups of protesters. No full-cover body armor, no riot gear, no phalanx formation, just a loose, relaxed cordon of officers placed where they could keep the cadre of squishmongers from doing anything stupid against free speech advocates well prepared to defend themselves. Why do those officers feel safe? Because they know that, in the event of violence, the armed protesters would protect them. This isn’t Baltimore, after all.
Jon Ritzheimer, a Marine for 10 years, organized the event. Now, after what he hoped would be a ‘peaceful protest‘ to make his point on free speech, he has had to take his family out of state and put them into hiding because of ISIS threats against them. Ritzheimer’s home address had been published and his wife and children threatened. But the media is still blaming this man for exercising his Constitutional rights and giving a pass to the Islamic State. Tell me that isn’t messed up. Fox News and the rest of the media is supporting the bullies out there — your basic “give the bully what he wants and you won’t get hurt” (standard pre-2001 thinking regarding hijackers) — I guess they are ‘pro-bully’ now. There’s a term that more closely describes what they are – treasonous cowards.
“I’m having to sell my house. My family is going into hiding,” an armed Ritzheimer, flanked by burly men wearing “F— Islam!” T-shirts, told reporters at the rally. “They’re calling for lone wolves to behead me. That’s terrorism right here in America.”
Tyranny is alive and well in the US now on many, many fronts. 500 protesters showed up in Phoenix… 250 on each side. But the side that is being overwhelmingly castigated are the patriots protesting in defense of free speech. And the fact that many are ex-military and armed simply incensed the Left.
Jon Ritzheimer planned Friday’s anti-Muslim protest in front of a Phoenix mosque.
So, where were the protests screaming “Love not hate!” and “Stop the hate!” when a figure of Jesus was immersed in urine? Where was the outcry in the streets and press when the Virgin Mary was encrusted in elephant dung? But protest in front of a mosque and draw Mohammad cartoons and they are all over you, screaming that you are a bigot and to shut up and know your place. I’m sick of it. We are supposed to love our enemies, but I don’t think that extends to them beheading, crucifying, raping and murdering us. Sorry – pastors and imams can hug all they want… I keep seeing that little boy at the Boston Marathon blown to bits. I can’t get out of my mind the officers and firefighters who died on 9/11 or the people who went down in a plane in a field in Pennsylvania. But the Left would rather bow and lick the boots of our enemies.
Literally vociferously hating Christians and Christianity, aggressively inciting violence against them and against western culture … that’s “protected speech.” Objecting to the overtly political jihad factory facilitating murder and working violently to abridge the freedom to voice that objection … well, telling murderers to stop murdering is “hate speech” don’tcha know. That guy with the “Love Not Hate” sign below? He wasn’t standing outside the mosque on the day after Garland. Why do you imagine that might be? Is it possible his message might have been “misconstrued” by the peace-loving Muslims therein?
Two demonstrators stand in front of the Islamic Community Center to oppose the
“Freedom of Speech Rally Round II” across the street Friday in Phoenix. – NANCY WIECHEC/REUTERS
A demonstrator holds a sign at a “Freedom of Speech Rally Round II” across the
street from the Islamic Community Center in Phoenix on Friday. – NANCY WIECHEC/REUTERS
The Islamic Community Center of Phoenix saw protesters gather Friday. – Ross D. Franklin/AP
The Islamic Community Center of Phoenix, where the event will take place, is where the two dead gunmen who attacked the Garland event previously worshiped.
Jackass move? Maybe. But this is what freedom of speech means. This is absolutely protected, and it is undeniably courageous to stand up against the tyranny of violent threats and actions and say “this will not stand.” Tomorrow, we will see what happens when the event takes place. We pray for safety. But we demand success. It is our right as Americans.
I will personally host any of these bikers on my program, if they change their name to “Sons of Muhammad” or “Allah’s Angels.”
That’s not a joke.
The Daily Mail wouldn’t even show pictures of drawings of Mohammad. They called the Leftists and Muslims protesting against the others a ‘Love Rally.’ I think I may barf over that one. It was a peaceful protest, but the Daily Mail called it an ugly conflict. You know what’s ugly? Thousands dying in the Twin Towers, children blown up at a marathon and Jihadists trying to kill those attending a Draw Mohammad contest in Texas. That’s ugly, you asshats. Even uglier are the abattoirs of the Middle East, literally running with the blood of the innocent and the civilized, butchered by Muslim savages. You know, PEACEFUL jihad.
Here’s one telling Tweet for ya:
ISIS member, Abu Hussain Al Brittani also mocked and threatened Ritzheimer in one tweet after the man urged attendees to bring their guns to the event, saying; ‘Whats your little handguns going to do against an IED that sprays 3000+ ball bearings faster than the speed of sound? #Phoenix #AZ’
More from Ritzheimer:
Ritzheimer then said the event would stay peaceful as long as none of those worshiping tried to incite violence.
No one from the mosque was seen at the protest.
‘Come here, come to your house of worship and worship peacefully,’ Ritzheimer said when asked about their right to freedom of religion.
‘The second it rolls over into the streets and you start trying to oppress American citizens that’s when patriots like myself take a stand and say “Nuh-uh.”
‘Enough is enough. I have two beautiful daughters and I’m not gonna let them be raised in a society like that.’
He continued by saying; ‘We have to draw the line. If we don’t, what’s next? What, are they gonna start telling us what not to do next?
Are they gonna start attacking the women for showing their hair? Showing their ankles? Or their other ridiculous stuff?’
Americans have had enough of being afraid… of being pushed around by a political ideology that is anti-Christian, anti-freedom, anti-peace, anti-Constitution and anti-American. So, the Daily Mail and the rest of the sycophant, groveling media can just stuff it.
The standoff was tense, no doubt about it, with cops dividing the two sides as much as they could. In the name of tolerance, we are being smothered in tyranny. There are crackpots on both sides, but that does not diminish the fact that we are being told we are bigots for standing up to what amounts to eradication of our rights here in America and the acceptance of terrorism on American soil. The media goes out of their way to make those on the right look like blithering, drooling idiots and those on the Left as peace-loving, inclusive saints. It’s enough to drive you bonkers.
Let’s have a look at who was on the opposing side. An issue that is getting almost no press.
The Campaign to Take On Hate, which works to challenge misconceptions of Muslims and Arab Americans, organized a Twitter campaign as well. The Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, an organization that builds bridges between Muslim and Jewish women, supported the Twitter campaign. CAIR was also there en force.
ACCESS (the largest Arab American human services nonprofit in the United States)
Arab American Institute
American Center for Outreach
ACLU
AMAC
ADC
Arab Muslim American Federation
Auburn
CNC (Chicago community organizers)
emergeUSA
Jews Against Islamophobia Coalition
Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ)
MPAC
NAAP
OneAmerica
Rights Working Group
SAALT
The Michigan Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW)
The City of Detroit
In the midst of all the media hoopla, right on cue, the message is being obfuscated. This is about free speech and the Constitution. Muslims have a right to practice their religion freely, but they don’t have a right to suppress our Constitutional rights. Mosques here in America are producing terrorists – people who murder in the name of Allah. They can scream about Christians all they want, but the fact of the matter is that Christians are not blowing up children and trying to kill other Americans. They aren’t furthering Shariah Law and the Caliphate either. Either we stand for Constitutional freedoms in this country, whether we like those that are freely expressing themselves or not, or we are for tyranny. You can’t have it both ways. But no form of freedom excuses murder and terrorism – unless of course you subject yourself to Islamic doctrine.
Islam — the culture of conquest and subjugation — wants to burn western civilization to the ground and dance in the ashes. They are systematically setting little fires, putting the torch to civility under the pretext that all things civilized cause them great and egregious offense, looking for the day when they can shift from the flames of metaphor to the actual incineration of our culture and all that it stands for. As shocking as it will be to their sympathizers, they’re not posturing when they threaten bombings and burnings. Our duty as a free people is to see those real fires never get lit.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has suggested that a key litmus test in evaluating prospective Supreme Court appointees would be their willingness to challenge “the right of billionaires to buy elections.”
Presumably, a suitable judge would indicate a desire to overturn the Citizens United decision that struck down a ban on political expenditures by corporations and unions ruled to violate the First Amendment protection of free speech – a case coincidentally centered on Citizen United’s attempt to advertise for and air a film critical of none other than Clinton.
Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to the reporters at United Nations headquarters,
Tuesday, March 10, 2015. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
In light of recent allegations swirling around the presidential favorite, Clinton’s support of such a position is highly ironic.
Would Clinton seek a Supreme Court justice who would protect the rights of the likes of Carlos Slim and James Murdoch to contribute to the favored cause of a politician and shower the politician’s spouse with millions for speaking engagements?
If so, this apparent hypocrisy can be read in one of two ways:
Clinton believes that money does not have a corrupting influence so long as it is funneled through “indirect” channels
Clinton believes that the wealthy and powerful ought to bypass funding elections and simply pay politicians outright.
Appearances of impropriety aside, there are a few substantive questions around political speech that Clinton should be required to address.
Why does Clinton believe that the government has a compelling interest in stifling the political speech of any American, rich or poor?
How does Clinton square her supposed advocacy of human rights with her belief in inhibiting the right to free speech — which facilitates the robust and vigorous debate essential to a liberal society?
More generally, given a system in which millions of dollars are spent on losing causes each election cycle on both the left and right, what have Americans to fear about spending so long as laws are enforced equally and impartially regarding “pay-to-play” schemes and other politically corrupt activity?
Spending is a symptom of our system, and an all-intrusive government its proximate cause.
She is aware that people spend money on politics because there is the perception that there is something to be bought.
This perception becomes a reality when government creeps into every aspect of our lives, creating an unfortunate two-way street: Individuals and businesses spend money in order to maintain competitive advantages. Politicians in effect extort individuals and businesses by threatening to take away said competitive advantages, or threatening to mitigate them.
If we want money out of politics, the answer is not to stifle speech, but to shrink government.
***
While Hillary Clinton’s aversion to political speech is well-documented, less scrutinized is her support of limitations on speech of an entirely different kind: Religious speech.
During her time as secretary of State, Clinton championed the Organization of Islamic Conference-backed United Nations Human Rights Commission Resolution 16/18, which calls for “combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against persons based on religion or belief.”
Retired Maj. Stephen Coughlin, the Pentagon’s leading adviser on Islamic law as it relates to national security, makes a compelling case in his book “Catastrophic Failure” that the resolution is actually a Shariah-based Trojan Horse meant to stifle all criticism of Islam.
Coughlin writes that the Islamic Conference, through the resolution, seeks to criminalize incitement to violence by imposing a “legal standard designed to facilitate the “shut up before I hit you again” standard associated with the battered wife syndrome.”
He convincingly argues that the Islamic Conference desires that…
the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and all other non-Muslim countries pass laws criminalizing Islamophobia. This is a direct extraterritorial demand that non-Muslim jurisdictions submit to Islamic law and implement shariah-based punishment over time. In other words, the OIC is set on making it an enforceable crime for non-Muslim people anywhere in the world—including the United States—to say anything about Islam that Islam does not permit.
For believers in the sanctity of the First Amendment, Clinton’s support of this policy as secretary of State should be disqualifying.
This is made crystal clear when we consider that Clinton has shown her support for the resolution in practice.
In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, then-Secretary of State Clinton and President Barack Obama felt compelled to film an address for the Muslim world. In the video, Clinton and Obama disavowed any link between the U.S. government and the “Innocence of Muslims” movie that critically depicted Muhammad, which the Obama administration infamously argued prompted the jihadist attack.
Hillary Clinton delivers a message to the Arab world disavowing any ties between the U.S. government
and the “Innocence of Muslims” video following the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack.
(Image Source: YouTube screengrab)
That address we may chalk up to political correctness.
But a related fact we cannot.
In spite of Judicial Watch’s bombshell report indicating that the Obama administration knew about the Benghazi attack 10 days in advance – and knew that it had nothing to do with “Innocence of Muslims” — as revealed in an October 2012 interview with Glenn Beck, Charles Woods, father of slain Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, told Beck that Clinton had personally vowed to “make sure that the person who made that film [“Innocence of Muslims”] is arrested and prosecuted.”
The “Innocence of Muslims” filmmaker and former bank fraudster Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was later arrested and charged with violating the terms of his probation, spending one year in prison.
Consequently, the U.S. government — as promised by Clinton — in effect enforced Shariah compliance concerning blasphemy consistent with the Islamic Conference-backed resolution, and did so knowing that the film had nothing to do with the Benghazi attack.
Of course, even if a jihadist declared explicitly that he killed Americans because of a film, or a Muhammad cartoon or a burned Koran, it is the jihadist and the jihadist alone responsible for such actions. This point is apparently lost on the U.N.’s policy advocates, who in their victomology fail to realize that they are exhibiting the soft bigotry of low expectations when it comes to Muslims.
Hillary Clinton has shown herself to be an ardent opponent of free speech, notably with respect to politics and religion.
Her positions are anathema to an America founded on the basis of protecting political and religious dissent, which requires free expression.
Absent such protections, an America under Clinton will look increasingly like the totalitarian Islamic world that she seeks to protect, rather than the Liberal Judeo-Christian America with which we have been so blessed.
Presumed Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush was recently asked about the “Draw Muhammad” contest in Garland, TX that was attacked by two jihadists, and what Mr. Bush thought of event organizer and ardent counterjihadist Pamela Geller.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was not, but a new book gives insight into how she might think about the issue given her support as Secretary of State of a policy put forth by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at the UN that comes into direct conflict with the First Amendment.
NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 26: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (C), talks with Laurent Fabius (R), Minister for Foreign Affairs of France, before a United Nations Security Council meeting on peace and security in Middle East on September 26, 2012 in New York City. (Credit: Getty Images)
In this area, the goal of the OIC — which some argue serves as something of a caliphate representing 56 Islamic states and the Palestinian Authority — specifically was to:
Emphasize the responsibility of the international community, including all governments, to ensure respect for all religions and combat their defamation.
Endeavor to have the United Nations adopt an international resolution to counter Islamophobia and to call upon all states to enact laws to counter it, including deterrent punishment. [Emphasis Coughlin’s]
Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against persons based on religion or belief…
According to Coughlin — who in addition to being a leading advisor to the Pentagon on Islamic law is a practicing lawyer specializing in international jurisprudence — key to HRC Resolution 16/18 in the eyes of the OIC is the notion of criminalizing “incitement to violence,” as a means of “deterrent punishment.” The OIC desires that:
the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and all other non-Muslim countries pass laws criminalizing Islamophobia. This is a direct extraterritorial demand that non-Muslim jurisdictions submit to Islamic law and implement shariah-based punishment over time. In other words, the OIC is set on making it an enforceable crime for non-Muslim people anywhere in the world—including the United States—to say anything about Islam that Islam does not permit.
Featured Book Title: Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad Author: Stephen Coughlin Purchase this book
Three particular portions of the ICCPR are critical:
Article 18: (1) Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching. (2) No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice. (3) Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. (4) The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.
Article 19(2/3): (2) Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice. (3) The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary: (a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; (b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.
Article 20(2): Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.
In other words, the UN Human Rights Council defines incitement according to ICCPR standards.
The action plan further states that HRC Resolution 16/18 “requires implementation and constant follow-up by States at the national level, including through the “Rabat Plan of Action” which contributes to its fulfilment [sic].”
The plan therefore would appear to serve the ends sought by the OIC in its “Ten-Year Programme of Action.”
Perhaps not surprisingly then, Coughlin reveals that during a 2012 interview, OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu argued that the strictures of the ICCPR could be applied via HRC Resolution 16/18:
At this moment we have the Resolution 16/18 which was issued last year at the UN which forms a legal groundwork for criminalizing such actions that could lead to violence … there is in the International Agreement for Civil and Political Rights (Year 1966 Paragraph 18), a provision that would allow us to put limits on the misuse of the freedom of speech including misuse of freedom of press, freedom of thought, the misuse of these freedoms towards others, in a sense that it would encourage to violence and to hatred based on religious belief. [Bold emphasis Coughlin’s, italics ours]
But while the UN in general and OIC in particular make clear their intent to apply the ICCPR as a means of criminalizing acts of “incitement” in context of Islamophobia, the parallelism of ICCPR Articles 19 and 20 to the OIC’s Cairo Declaration is perhaps most telling.
Article 22 of the Cairo Declaration — which defines human rights according to Shariah law — reads:
(a) Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah. (1) Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Shari’ah. … (c) Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical Values or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith. (d) It is not permitted to excite nationalistic or doctrinal hatred or to do anything that may be an incitement to any form or racial discrimination.
Coughlin argues that this language is fully consistent with the ICCPR, again leading to the repurposing of the word “incitement” as a means to enforce Shariah compliance. He states:
It is in this context that the OIC’s “test of consequences” narrative is used to turn the meaning of incitement in Article 20 Section 2 [of the ICCPR] on its head by converting it to a legal standard designed to facilitate the “shut up before I hit you again” standard associated with the battered wife syndrome. The OIC’s Fourth Observatory Report on Islamophobia[link ours], released in June 2011, calls for:
d. Ensuring swift and effective implementation of the new approach signified by the consensual adoption of HRC Resolution 16/18, entitled “combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against persons based on religion or belief,” by, inter alia, removing the gaps in implementation and interpretation of international legal instruments and criminalizing acts of incitement to hatred and violence on religious grounds with a view to curbing the double standards and racial profiling that continue to feed religious strife detrimental to peace, security and stability.
e. Constructively engaging to bridge divergent views on the limits to the right to freedom of opinion and expression, in a structured multilateral framework, and in the light of events like the burning of Quran geared towards filling the ‘interpretation void’ with regard to the interface between articles 19 (3) and 20 of the ICCPR based on emerging approaches like applying the ‘test of consequences.’ [Emphasis Coughlin’s]
Under the OIC’s redefinition of incitement, the “test of consequences” allows a third party to use an utterance as a provocation to violence, which then becomes sanctioned precisely because the third party acted out violently. Moreover, what criminalizes the utterance is the third party’s decision to respond violently. The “test of consequences” institutionalizes the calculated suppression of protected speech by naked use of force. This is institutionalized terrorism comfortably nested in facially neutral language.
What does a UN HRC resolution and the OIC’s interpretation of said resolution have to do with Hillary Clinton?
On July 15, 2011, then-Secretary of State Clinton offered America’s backing to OIC Secretary General İhsanoğlu to garner support for the implementation and ratification of HRC Resolution 16/18. Secretary Clinton stated:
I want to applaud the Organization of Islamic Conference and the European Union for helping pass Resolution 16/18 at the Human Rights Council. I was complimenting the Secretary General on the OIC team in Geneva. I had a great team there as well. So many of you were part of that effort. And together we have begun to overcome the false divide that pits religious sensitivities against freedom of expression, and we are pursuing a new approach based on concrete steps to fight intolerance wherever it occurs. Under this resolution, the international community is taking a strong stand for freedom of expression and worship, and against discrimination and violence based upon religion or belief. [Emphasis Coughlin’s]
Clinton continued:
The resolution calls upon states to protect freedom of religion, to counter offensive expression through education, interfaith dialogue, and public debate, and to prohibit discrimination, profiling, and hate crimes, but not to criminalize speech unless there is an incitement to imminent violence. We will be looking to all countries to hold themselves accountable and to join us in reporting to the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights on their progress in taking these steps.
America apparently would be subject to this resolution, as Clinton noted that she had asked:
Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom, Suzan Johnson Cook, to spearhead our implementation efforts. And to build on the momentum from today’s meeting, later this year the United States intends to invite relevant experts from around the world to the first of what we hope will be a series of meetings to discuss best practices, exchange ideas, and keep us moving forward beyond the polarizing debates of the past; to build those muscles of respect and empathy and tolerance that the secretary general referenced. It is essential that we advance this new consensus and strengthen it, both at the United Nations and beyond, in order to avoid a return to the old patterns of division.
To be fair to Secretary of State Clinton, Coughlin asserts that “it is not clear that the Secretary knows OIC concepts of tolerance and human rights are based on shariah.”
But, Coughlin continues, “she nonetheless committed to the underlying logic of Resolution 16/18.”
Moreover, Coughlin believes that Clinton tacitly recognizes the conflict between the policy she supported at the UN and Constitutionally protected free speech, with Clinton continuing in her 2011 statement:
In the United States, I will admit, there are people who still feel vulnerable or marginalized as a result of their religious beliefs. And we have seen how the incendiary actions of just a very few people, a handful in a country of nearly 300 million, can create wide ripples of intolerance. We also understand that, for 235 years, freedom of expression has been a universal right at the core of our democracy. So we are focused on promoting interfaith education and collaboration, enforcing antidiscrimination laws, protecting the rights of all people to worship as they choose, and to use some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming, so that people don’t feel that they have the support to do what we abhor. [Emphasis Coughlin’s]
These sentiments might help to explain why Secretary of State Clinton along with President Obama felt compelled to send a message to the Muslim world in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks in Benghazi disavowing any link between the U.S. government and the infamous “Innocence of Muslims” YouTube video.
Given what we know, one wonders what Secretary of State Clinton might say about Pamela Geller’s “Draw Muhammad” event.
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Right and Left Question And Condemn Pamela Geller’s “Provocation Of Islam”
On The Right:
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly: “Insulting the entire Muslim world is stupid. It does not advance the cause of liberty or get us any closer to defeating the savage jihad. . . . The goal of every decent person in the world should be to defeat the Jihad and in order to do that you have to rally the world to the side of good, our side. Emotional displays like insulting the Prophet Mohammed make it more difficult to rally law abiding Muslims… In any war you have to win hearts and minds, and the situation in Garland, Texas goes against that.”
Fox News’ Laura Ingraham: “There are a lot of things that we can say, that we have a right to say, that we shouldn’t say. We shouldn’t unnecessarily insult people, personal attacks.”
Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren: “It’s one thing for someone to stand up for the First Amendment and put his own you-know-what on the line, but here, those insisting they were defending the First Amendment were knowingly putting officers’ lives on the line — the police.”
Donald Trump on “Fox & Friends”: “What is she doing drawing Mohammed?…What are they doing drawing Muhammad. Isn’t there something else they can draw?…I’m the one who believes in free speech probably more than she does, but what’s the purpose of this?”
On The Left:
New York Times: “There is no question that images ridiculing religion, however offensive they may be to believers, qualify as protected free speech in the United States and most Western democracies. There is also no question that however offensive the images, they do not justify murder, and that it is incumbent on leaders of all religious faiths to make this clear to their followers. But it is equally clear that the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest in Garland, Tex., was not really about free speech. It was an exercise in bigotry and hatred posing as a blow for freedom.”
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “This is problematic to me, because I wonder whether this group that held this event down there to basically disparage and make fun of the prophet Muhammad doesn’t in some way cause these events. Well, not the word ‘causing’ — how about provoking, how about taunting, how about daring?”
CNN host Alisyn Camerota to Geller: “And nobody is saying that this warrants the violence that you saw. I mean I haven’t heard anyone in the media saying that it’s okay for gunmen to show up at an event like this. But what people are saying is that there’s always this fine line, you know, between freedom of speech and being intentionally incendiary and provocative.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper to Geller: “Nothing justifies the attack, the violent attack. There is no justification, but I do want to ask you about your reasons for holding the event, if you’ll permit me. Charlie Hebdo ran a magazine in the name of satire and criticism and the magazine continues to attack every religion, every political party, all sorts of leaders. What was the purpose of holding an event that specifically focused on the prophet Muhammad?”
The Essence Of Right And Left Criticisms
Both sides of the political aisle are in agreement in condemnation of Geller’s exercise of her 1st Amendment right, that is, subjecting the “religion of peace” to 21st century satire.
Their complaints include that :
1) it was an unnecessary, insulting provocation which dishonored the U.S.,
2) it was disrespectful to “moderate Muslims,” thus alienating them from assisting us in the conflict against jihadists,
3) it was taunting in nature, putting innocents in gratuitous danger, and
4) it was pointless in terms of a winning strategy.
Answering The Right And Left Criticisms
National Review’sRich Lowry: “Today, criticism of Islam is at the vanguard of the fight for free speech, since it is susceptible to attack and intimidation by jihadists and calls for self-censorship by the politically correct. . . . Yes, there is such a thing as self-restraint and consideration of the sensibilities of others, but it shouldn’t be the self-restraint of fear. Pamela Geller is a bomb-thrower, but only a metaphorical, not a literal, one. That’s the difference between her and her enemies — and between civilization and barbarism.”
Wall Street Journal’sBret Stephens: “The higher criticism of Ms. Geller is that, while her constitutional rights are not in question, her judgment and wisdom are. I happen to think that Ms. Geller’s [is a] substantive contribution to the great foreign-policy debates of our time . . . A society that rejects the notion of a heckler’s veto cannot accept the idea of a murderer’s veto simply because the murderer is prepared to go to greater extremes to silence his opponents. . . . We live in an era where people like the idea of rights, so long as there is no price to their practice. We want to speak truth to power—so long as “truth” is some shopworn cliché and “power” comes in the form of an institution that will never harm you. Perhaps it was always so. But from time to time we need people to remind us that free speech is not some shibboleth to be piously invoked, but a right that needs to be exercised if it is to survive as a right.”
The Essence Of The Answers Defending Free Speech
As far as being an “unnecessary, insulting provocation that dishonored the U.S.,” when free speech is threatened, it is absolutely necessary that it be robustly and vigorously defended. And ANY criticism of Islam, including refuting the “religion of peace” lie by quoting Islamic scripture, is considered by Muslims to be an insulting provocation. So, any intellectual position or declaration, which is short of completely agreeing with and submitting to Islam, will be condemned by Muslims as provoking them. Finally, regarding free speech exercise dishonoring the U.S., like it or not satire is inbred in the U.S. culture. The true dishonor rests with Islam for being a religion that must kill people that intellectually disagree with Islam’s supremacist tenant that a negative assessment of Islam is punishable by death.
When it comes to the exercise of free speech being “disrespectful to moderate Muslims, thus alienating them from assisting us,” this is just a silly argument. Leaders in nations like Egypt and Jordan, which are threatened by Islamic jihadists, know that fighting jihadists is not a matter of pride – it is an existential matter of survival. To be clear, Muslims mortally threatened by jihadists are not going to decline to fight by our side because of pridefulness. Furthermore, Muslims are well aware of the criticisms against Islam. To pretend that the criticisms don’t exist is childish.
The assertion that “it was taunting in nature, putting innocents in gratuitous danger” is best answered with the question: “Why are innocents put in gratuitous danger by the exercise of free speech?” This assertion is acknowledgement that those opposing free speech are barbarians. Again another question: “Is there are code of conduct that guarantees safety when dealing with barbarians?” From the ancient Romans to Neville Chamberlain, such a code of conduct has proven nonexistent. Barbarians will attack when they believe it is to their advantage. Muslim culture is founded on the proposition that “might makes right,” and what is “right” and “moral” is doing whatever furthers the interests of Islam, irrespective of the human damage.
Finally, regarding “it was pointless in terms of a winning strategy” – nothing could be further from the truth. Such is the sentiment of the appeaser, or of the “dhimmi” to use the term common in the Muslim world. The U.S. and Western Civilization are currently losing the intellectual and psychological wars with Islam because no clear position has been enunciated by the leaderships. Pamela Geller finally drew an unmistakable line in the sand.
Conclusion
The Islamic jihadists’ declaration of war was undeniably made known at the World Trade Center on 9/11. President George Bush replied by falsely declaring that Islam is “a religion of peace.” President Barack Obama has doubled down on Bush’s fallacious declaration. Pamela Geller’s “Draw the Prophet Mohammed” contest exposed that Islamic terrorist violence is targeted at U.S. constitutional rights and underlined that we are in an existential war for our constitutional freedoms. Now it is up to U.S. political leadership, media, and American people to come together and show the same intellectual and physical courage as Pamela Geller did in Garland.
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