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Sat, 31 May 2008 10:38:51 -0700

THE FORGOTTEN THAI JIHAD

In a story Wednesday on a jihadist attack on a wedding party and other jihad activity in Thailand, Agence France Presse added a concluding paragraph that was typical of mainstream media coverage of the Thai jihad and of jihad activity in general. For while AP, Reuters, AFP and the rest never saw a piece of Palestinian propaganda they didn't like, they also never saw a jihad they couldn't whitewash.

AFP's concluding paragraph blandly placed all the blame for the conflict on the non-Muslim Thai government:

More than 3,000 people have been killed since separatist unrest broke out in January 2004 in the south, which was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until mainly Buddhist Thailand annexed it in 1902, provoking decades of tension.

All was well, you see, until the Buddhists of Thailand, motivated apparently only by rapacious imperialism, annexed the poor autonomous Malay Muslim Sultanate. AFP does not mention, of course, that the Malay Sultanate at that time was making war against the Siamese during the war between Siam and Burma, and Thailand conquered it in that context -- making it Thai by a right of conquest that has been universally recognized throughout human history (except, of course, when it comes to Israel and to any Muslim land that is conquered by non-Muslims).

Along with this come the media's allergy to the word "jihad," and its frequent recourse to the passive voice when discussing what the jihadists did. Sometimes inanimate objects act, apparently of their own accord. For example, in a March story on bombings in southern Thailand, Reuters' lead paragraph stated: "Bombs killed three men and wounded 21 people in three separate attacks in Thailand's troubled Muslim far south, police said on Sunday." Reuters gives no hint as to who is doing the bombing and who are the victims - which in itself is a clear indication that the bombers are not the government or pro-government vigilantes, but jihadists.

The story continues in this vein. Its second paragraph tells us that a bomb was hidden in the car, but with no hint as to by whom. In paragraph 5 we learn that in the three southern provinces, "2,500 people have been killed in gun and bomb attacks since a separatist insurgency erupted in January 2004." The separatist insurgency just erupted, you see, like a volcano. It was an act of God, a force of nature. Here again Reuters gives the reader no hint as to who the separatist insurgents are, or who killed the overwhelming majority of those 2,500 people. In paragraph 6, we learn how the "suspected militants" set off another bomb, but once again are given no hint as to who these militants are.

Same thing in paragraph 7: unidentified "insurgents" ambush the security forces. In paragraph 8, it's simply a "bomb," a random, accidental object, that unaccountably wounded four people. But also in that paragraph we learn that this is all taking place in "the three far south provinces which formed an independent sultanate until annexed by Thailand a century ago." Reuters and AFP are in step on this: the only background they give suggests that Thailand is entirely responsible for provoking the conflict, and should simply have left the Malay Muslims alone.

Only in paragraph 10 of the Reuters story are we finally told that "Buddhist monks" are among the chief targets of the still-unidentified "militants" -- which should lead the informed reader to identify them as Islamic jihadists and Sharia supremacists. But they come to that identification with no help from Reuters.

In reality, the Thai jihadists are uniquely brutal even by the standards of their jihadist brethren, and are fighting to correct the outrage, as they see it, of non-Muslim rule over a Muslim population in southern Thailand. But the AFP and Reuters stories exemplify the kind of coverage that jihad activity receives from the mainstream media as a matter of course. The perpetrators of jihad violence are not identified, their ideology is never

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Thu, 29 May 2008 14:30:14 -0700

Save Setting
The Hate Sheikh's Tour
By Patrick Poole
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, May 29, 2008

In the early 1980s, the Ohio Division of Travel and Tourism announced a new state tourism slogan: "Ohio, the Heart of It All". This slogan takes on several new layers of meaning now that international hate sheikh Khalid Yasin has decided to continue his "Islamic Hatred in the Heartland" tour by spending this week delivering his message of hatred, bigotry and violence in mosques all around Central Ohio.

Two weeks ago I reported here at FrontPage that Yasin would be appearing at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, "Islamic Hatred in the Heartland", sponsored by a local mosque, Masjid at-Taqwa. Pendra Lee Snyder has followed-up on that story by providing a first-hand account of Yasin's appearance in Dayton, and how Masjid at-Taqwa prevented her from recording his hate-filled comments. Our reporting here at FrontPage even prompted Dayton NBC affiliate WDTN to cover and question Yasin's visit. And last week John Perazzo exposed how Yasin was the featured speaker at events in April sponsored by the Muslim Student Association at several college campuses.

So it was quite a surprise Saturday morning when the Islamic community in Columbus was informed that Yasin would be touring our city for the next week, paying visits to at least four different mosques affiliated with the Islamic Society of Great Columbus (the local chapter of the Islamic Society of North America) and putting in an appearance on Thursday at The Ohio State University.

Event organizers had presumably delayed announcing Khalid Yasin's visit until the day of his first appearance to prevent the negative media attention he received in Dayton as a result of the coverage here at FrontPage and JihadWatch.

There is good cause why Yasin's local supporters don't want to raise the attention of the Central Ohio community, for fear of them learning about Yasin's extensive extremist statements reported by the international media.

For example:

* Yasin says that the US government was behind the 9/11 attacks. ("Khalid Yasin: The New Voice of Islam?" Sunday [Australia], October 9, 2005)
* Yasin claims that AIDS was invented at a US government lab and spread by Western governments through UN agencies and Christian missionaries. ("Khalid Yasin: The New Voice of Islam?" Sunday, October 9, 2005)
* Yasin advocates for the death penalty for homosexuality. ("Home Grown", Sixty Minutes, Channel Nine [Australia], July 24, 2005)
* Yasin justified the terrorist bombings in Bali because of years of alleged Western oppression. ("Khalid Yasin: The New Voice of Islam?" Sunday, October 9, 2005)
* Yasin says that the Quran permits wife-beating and that equal rights for women is a "delusion" and "foolishness". (cited in "Undercover Mosque", Dispatches, Channel 4 [UK], January 15, 2007)
* Yasin openly derides the beliefs of Christians and Jews as "filth". (cited in "Undercover Mosque", Dispatches, Channel 4 [UK], January 15, 2007)
* Yasin says that Muslims cannot have non-Muslim friends. ("Home Grown", Sixty Minutes, Channel 9 [Australia], July 24, 2005)
* Yasin rejects any separation between Islam and the state and openly advocates for the reestablishment of the caliphate. (Sunday Nights with John Cleary, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, September 7, 2003; "Khalid Yasin in conversation", The Religion Report, Australian Broadcasting Corporation National Radio, September 10, 2003)
* Yasin visited Jemaah Islamiah terrorist leader Abu Bakar Bashir in prison, who ordered the Bali bombings. ("Koranic TV next step for radial sheikh", Sydney Morning Herald, August 20, 2005)
* Yasin has lectured with Hizb-ut-Tahrir hatemonger Omar Bakri Mohammed, who was banned from the UK in 2006.
* Yasin was in Saudi Arabia on 9/11 soliciting support from the Al-Qaeda front Al-Haramain Foundation, which was designated a terrorist organization in 2004 by the US government, to help finance his Islamic Broadcasting Company.

It's not as if Central Ohio is facing some shortage of catalysts for Islamic radicalization.

In fact, one of the mosques Yasin will be visiting three times this week, Masjid Omar Ibn El Khattab, just north of the Ohio State campus, is derisively known in the area as "Masjid Al-Qaeda", as it was the home of the largest known Al-Qaeda cell in the United States since 9/11. Two members of the cell, Iyman Faris and Nuraddin Abdi, have already been convicted of support for terrorism (Faris, in fact, was in direct communication with Al-Qaeda operations chief Khalid Sheikh Mohammad), and a third, Christopher Paul, who was the mosque's martial arts instructor, has been charged and will be coming to trial on terrorism support charges soon. Other cell members have fled the country and/or been deported, and as many as 10 individuals were known to be involved in the Columbus Al-Qaeda cell.

And as FrontPage reader

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Tue, 27 May 2008 20:38:39 -0700

A fascinating scene played out in Basra, Iraq, last week. Troops from the Iraqi Army stood sentinel over the once restive city as followers of rogue cleric Muqtada al-Sadr muttered dispiritedly that they had been driven from power. In this Sadrist fiefdom, the erstwhile epicenter of a Shiite insurgency that many doubted could be contained, the Iraqi army was now law.

Credit this remarkable transformation to Operation Sawlat al-Fursan, also known as operation Charge of the Knights, which began with little fanfare and much skepticism in late March. A make-or-break test for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi armed forces, the operation was largely led by the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Security Forces. Their success in routing militia elements in cities like Basra would reveal much about what could realistically be expected from Iraq.

Democrats were anything but optimistic. Presumptive nominee Barack Obama allowed that the operation had "resulted in some reduction in violence" but insisted, counterintuitively, that this only strengthened the case for rushed troop withdrawals. Hillary Clinton, never one to be pinned down on policy substance when grandstanding is an option, offered her standard refrain that the "surge has failed to accomplish its goals." More candid was Joe Biden, who back in April was prepared to call a victory ... for Sadr. Of Basra, he pronounced, it "looks to me like, at least on the surface, Sadr may have come out a winner here." In the Democrats' dismal exegesis, the surge had failed, Iraq was doomed, and withdrawal was the only viable option.

But despair, like hope, is not a policy. Two months on, the Democrats' fatalism on Iraq looks woefully off base. By all significant indicators, Iraqi security forces have turned the tide against Shiite insurgents. Their improbable control of Basra is only the latest sign of the shifting balance of power. On the strength of the success in Basra, the military reports that violence in Iraq has plunged to its lowest level in over four years. Even the New York Times - no instinctive friend to the Bush administration - reports of Basra that with "Islamist militias evicted from their strongholds by the Iraqi Army, few doubt that this once-lawless port is in better shape than it was just two months ago." Basra has indeed produced a winner. But contra Joe Biden, it's not Muqtada al-Sadr.

Just as Shiite die-hards have suffered a devastating reversal, their Sunni counterparts in al-Qaeda are also in retreat. Witness the results in Mosul. Considered by the U.S. and Iraqi forces to be the terrorists' last urban stronghold in Iraq, Mosul less than a month ago was a soulless Shari'a state. In keeping with Islamist mores, public expressions of joy were forbidden and local cultural traditions ruthlessly suppressed. Locals couldn't even sell tomatoes and cucumbers side by side at the market, as the juxtaposition was deemed intolerably provocative by prudish jihadists. Since the beginning of a joint U.S. Iraqi operation earlier this month, however, attacks are down by 85 percent, at least 200 al-Qaeda terrorists have been netted in sweeps, and normalcy has been reestablished. Tomatoes and cucumbers, no longer sins against Islam, are just vegetables again.

It speaks to the misdirection of the party that what is good for Iraq and coalition forces is bad for Democrats. Thus, Democrats cannot applaud the recent rollback of al-Qaeda, since doing so would discredit their assurance that Iraq is wholly disconnected from the fight against bin Laden's network. Neither can they celebrate the Iraqi forces' success in Basra. That would contradict the narrative that Iraq is a lost cause best surrendered to its internal chaos. To acknowledge gains in security, meanwhile, would be to concede that the American troop presence - that is, the surge that Senator Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi were confidently declaring a "failure" last fall - is helping to pacify the country. Acknowledging that would, of course, nullify the logic of precipitous withdrawal. The only remaining option is to mouth the mantra that Iraq is a failure and hope that reality dovetails with defeatism.

Wiser and more principled is the position of John McCain. As an early proponent of the troop surge, McCain can lay claim to a prescience that not only eluded many of in his party but that continues to evade his expected Democratic opponent. Last week, for instance, Barack Obama cast a vote against the $165 billion funding bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That didn't derail the funding bill, which passed the Senate anyway, but it did place Obama squarely on the side that has given up on the surge and, by extension, on the Iraq war. Buoyed by some polls, Obama is clearly betting that military defeat in Iraq will translate into political victory at home.

McCain may yet have the better of that argument. Against the increasingly tone-deaf attacks from Democrats, he c