FBI official: ISIS is recruiting U.S. teens

By Pamela Brown and Wesley Bruer

Updated 7:40 PM ET, Tue February 3, 2015

Washington (CNN)For the head of the FBI’s counterterrorist division, Michael Steinbach, the unknown worries him the most.

Steinbach is leading the daunting effort to stay on top of the evolving threat landscape, which includes targeting and recruiting teenage Americans. In an exclusive interview with CNN inside the agency’s Strategic Information and Operations Center, he acknowledged it’s extremely difficult to track every American who might travel abroad to join terrorist groups like the Islamic State.

“I’m worried about individuals that we don’t know about that have training,” Steinbach said. “We know what we know. But there is a number that’s greater than that that we don’t know.”

Steinbach says U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies don’t track individuals leaving the United States to vacation in Europe.

“Once you get to Europe, you can easily get down to Turkey and into Syria” Steinbach says.

There’s growing concern about homegrown violent extremism in the aftermath of last month’s terror attacks in Paris. Those strikes underscored the threat posed to the West by small groups of terrorists with western passports who are influenced by the rhetoric espoused by ISIS. Steinbach is concerned that type of attack could happen on U.S. soil.

ISIS images appear to show Jordanian pilot burned alive

When asked if there are ISIS cells in the U.S., Steinbach said “there are individuals that have been in communication with groups like ISIL who have a desire to conduct an attack” and those people are living in the U.S. right now, but he says the term “sleeper cells” is too simplistic, because the threat is much more complicated and diffuse.

In the U.S., the FBI has seen children as young as 15 recruited by ISIS and Steinbach said he “can’t speak with 100% certainty that individuals of that age group have not gotten over there successfully.”

In some cases, Steinbach said parents even encourage their children to be involved with terror groups.

“There are individuals out there who are inspired by the message of terrorist groups and they encourage family members, including their children, to follow that path,” he said, adding in those cases, the FBI holds the parents responsible.

Steinbach said the FBI is working around the clock to combat the recruitment of Americans but U.S. law enforcement can’t do the job alone. It’s up to families to speak up as well, he said.

“In the majority of cases, we know that someone recognizes that change in behavior, that radicalization,” he said. “That family member or friend chooses not to intervene. And by not getting involved, the story ends in a very familiar fashion, and that’s death.”

He also said ISIS is aggressively pursuing women on social media.

“The recruitment of women by ISIS is much more than we’ve ever seen by a terrorist organization,” he said. “We have seen everything from a female fighter — dedicated groups of women fighters — and those who have come over to support foreign fighters by marrying them.”

Colorado teen gets 4 years for wanting to join ISIS

He emphasizes ISIS is pushing out a false narrative of what it’s like in Syria in order to lure them.

Monitoring social media poses its own challenges, he said. The sheer volume of posts calls for strong analytical skills to weed through the data, which he said is a “full time job and a challenge.”

“We’ve seen lots of places, online media, forums, social media, where there have been calls to conducting lone wolf attacks in your home country through a variety of means, not necessarily a sophisticated technique, but use what you have, use the tools you have and conduct an attack,” Steinbach said. “They are using it successfully, I might add, to spot, assess, identify, target folks outside of war zones,” he elaborated.

And, of course, the FBI must also strike a delicate balance of respecting privacy concerns of Americans while trying to protect them.

“We don’t have a desire or a right to step on somebody’s freedom of expression. They have a right to express their opinion,” Steinbach says. “But when that opinion turns into violent rhetoric and then into action, that’s something different.”

Obama: ISIS only ‘interested in death and destruction’

Still, the recent arrest of an Ohio man, Christopher Lee Cornell, has drawn criticism that the government is making terrorists out of people. He raised red flags by posting messages supportive of violent jihad on social media and was eventually arrested for plotting to attack the U.S. Capitol. But there were doubts about how seriously Cornell sought to act on his threats.

To his critics, Steinbach says, “I need folks to understand that whether you’re talking about a foreign terrorist organization directing individuals or just inspiring individuals…we identify individuals with the intent. We don’t manufacture that intent. We don’t put that intent into their mind.”

But do they have the capability and manpower to combat so many individuals with the intent of attacking Americans?

“I don’t know if enough manpower is the right word,” he said. “Look, there are lots of threats out there, criminal threats, counter-intelligence-based threats, cyber threats and terrorism threats. And we have to identify those highest priority threats and focus the resources. There is a finite number of resources and we have to focus those resources on those threats.”

Posted on 3 Feb 15 by CNN

Image of the Beast Islamic Connection

[Editor’s Note: This does not necessarily entail the beliefs, thoughts, or theories of the local Act chapters or the National Act office…they are my beliefs, thoughts and/or theories. I wanted to post this so folks will see what is a huge possibility for the anti-Christ’s image…contrary to what is being taught by most churches as far as the anti-Christ being the Pope or someone from Europe…this is not correct, the anti-Christ will be Islamic, and the anti-Christ’s false prophet will be (per prophecy) the current Pope. Pope Francis is currently trying to merge Islam with Catholicism…here is a quick video on a very high probability of the AC’s image…after all, during the Islamic pilgrimage, they march past it and kiss it, touch it, look at it depending on how close they are to it…

And yes, FYI, Islam will take over the majority of the world will succumb to Islam, it will be the anti-Christ’s global religion]

Who Are the Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Leaders Obama Met?

US President Barack Obama, privately met with 14 Muslim leaders, including several leaders of Muslim Brotherhood front groups with ties to Hamas.

By Elliot Friedland | Sun, February 8, 2015

Imam Mohamed Magid, President of the Islamic Society of North America and the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center.

The White House has released the names of senior American Muslim leaders that President Obama met with personally last week. The list of names was included on the transcript of the White House daily press briefing on Thursday, despite journalists having requested the information much sooner. Prior to that, the White House had refused to name the leaders.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with the President meeting with representatives from any faith community and with the Muslim community in particular. Yet some of the individuals who met with the President have alarming links to the Muslim Brotherhood and organizations that have funded terrorism.

Azhar Azeez represented the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in the talks with Obama. Declassified FBI documents show that ISNA was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front group as early as 1987 and its past leaders include Abdurrahman Alamoudi, who was convicted on terrorism related charges in 2004.

In 2007, ISNA was designated as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity shut down by the U.S. government for financing Hamas. The U.S. Department of Justice listed ISNA as one of the “individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.”

Mr. Azeez is also the senior National Director of Islamic Relief USA, the American branch of Islamic Relief worldwide. The United Arab Emirates lists Islamic Relief Worldwide as a terrorist organization. Israel also banned Islamic Relief from operating in the disputed territories it administers, accusing it of funding Hamas.

According to the Israeli Ministry for Foreign Affairs “The IRW provides support and assistance to Hamas’s infrastructure. The IRW’s activities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip are carried out by social welfare organizations controlled and staffed by Hamas operatives. The intensive activities of these associations are designed to further Hamas’s ideology among the Palestinian population.”

Five senior members of Islamic Relief USA were named in a list of 30 Muslim Brotherhood operatives in America by the leading Egyptian newspaper El-Watan.

Azeez’s bio also says he is a founder and past president of the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator. CAIR is also listed as a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates.

Imam Mohamed Magid is the President of the Islamic Society of North America and head of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society ( ADAMS) Center, in which capacity he met with the President. The ADAMS Center was investigated by the FBI for connections to terrorism funding and was raided in 2004 by federal agents.

Mohamed Magid signed a letter in September 2014 alongside other Islamist leaders which condemned the Islamic State while asserting the need for an Islamic Caliphate and supporting the hudud punishments of sharia law, which include amputation, flogging and the execution of apostates. The letter said that a person could only be regarded as an apostate if the person “openly declares disbelief.”

Azhar Azeez also signed the aforementioned letter. Among the other signatories to that letter was terrorist supporting Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah, who in the past endorsed a fatwa that authorized the killing of US soldiers. He also said that giving donations to jihadists who fight Israel count as zakat and said as recently as 2013 that Muslim leaders should give Hamas financial and military assistance to fight Israel. Bin Bayyah was cited by Obama in an address to the UN in September 2014 as a Muslim leader who supports peace.

Hoda Hawa is National Policy Advisor of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). MPAC was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of which, Mather Hathout, served jail time in Egypt for his membership in the group.

In 2001 the then President of MPAC said that Israel should be included on the suspect list of those who might have perpetrated 9/11. MPAC cooperated with other Muslim-Brotherhood aligned groups to oppose the appointment of Muslim anti-Islamist activist Dr. Zudhi Jasser to the  U.S. Commission on International Freedom.

MPAC co-founder Mather Hathout has also made statements in the past in support of Lebanese Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah.

They also have a very limited following.  A 2011 Gallup poll found that only 6% of Muslim-American males and 1% of females chose MPAC as the organization that most represents their interests, even though MPAC has large resources and has been around since 1988.

Also present was Rahat Hussain, president of the Universal Muslim Association of America (UMAA) . The UMAA received thousands of dollars from the Alavi Foundation, an Iranian propaganda front group, from 2005 onwards. Clarion Project discovered that they received at least $138,000 from the Alavi Foundation between 2005 and 2012. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office investigations chief, Adam Kaufmann, said  “We found evidence that the government of Iran really controlled everything about the foundation.”

The British Government is set this week to launch a major clampdown on Muslim Brotherhood front groups and the funding of terrorism after lengthy investigations found multiple Muslim Brotherhood entities operating within the country.

Yet in America the State Department received a delegation from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The meetings were described as  “fruitful” by one of the delegates. The State Department, after facing criticism for the meeting, then doubled down on their decision to do so in a later press briefing.

This is while Brotherhood representatives in Turkey are calling for violence on the streets in Egypt, saying “we are now in the retaliation phase.” At the same time, a Brotherhood TV station based in Turkey broadcast a threat to all foreigners in Egypt that they must flee the country or face being targeted by terrorist attacks, while another Muslim Brotherhood figure said “It is time to begin armed insurrection.”

Given that these American Muslim leaders have highly problematic connections to Muslim Brotherhood front groups, why are they being given access to meet the President personally, especially when one takes into account the presence of genuine anti-Islamist Muslim leaders like Dr. Zudhi Jasser who are denied such opportunities?

Posted on 8 Feb 15 by Clarion Project

The Real History of the Crusades

Posted by sharia unveiled on February 8, 2015

by, Thomas F. Madden | Shoebat Foundation & Shoebat.com | h/t Bill Muehlenberg

As a Crusade historian, I found the tranquil solitude of the ivory tower shattered by journalists, editors, and talk-show hosts on tight deadlines eager to get the real scoop. What were the Crusades?, they asked. The Islamic world has a just grievance against the West. Doesn’t the present violence, they persisted, have its roots in the Crusades’ brutal and unprovoked attacks against a sophisticated and tolerant Muslim world? In other words, aren’t the Crusades really to blame?

Osama bin Laden certainly thought so. In his various video performances, he never fails to describe the American war against terrorism as a new Crusade against Islam. Ex-president Bill Clinton has also fingered the Crusades as the root cause of the present conflict. In a speech at Georgetown University, he recounted (and embellished) a massacre of Jews after the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and informed his audience that the episode was still bitterly remembered in the Middle East. (Why Islamist terrorists should be upset about the killing of Jews was not explained.) Clinton took a beating on the nation’s editorial pages for wanting so much to blame the United States that he was willing to reach back to the Middle Ages. Yet no one disputed the ex-president’s fundamental premise.

Well, almost no one. Many historians had been trying to set the record straight on the Crusades long before Clinton discovered them. They are not revisionists, like the American historians who manufactured the Enola Gay exhibit, but mainstream scholars offering the fruit of several decades of very careful, very serious scholarship. For them, this is a “teaching moment,” an opportunity to explain the Crusades while people are actually listening. It won’t last long, so here goes.

The threat of Islam
Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for example, Steven Runciman’s famous three-volume epic, History of the Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity—and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion—has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.

With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed’s death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt—once the most heavily Christian areas in the world—quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

Understand the crusaders
That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.

Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to push back the conquests of Islam at the Council of Clermont in 1095. The response was tremendous. Many thousands of warriors took the vow of the cross and prepared for war. Why did they do it? The answer to that question has been badly misunderstood. In the wake of the Enlightenment, it was usually asserted that Crusaders were merely lacklands and ne’er-do-wells who took advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in a faraway land. The Crusaders’ expressed sentiments of piety, self-sacrifice, and love for God were obviously not to be taken seriously. They were only a front for darker designs.

During the past two decades, computer-assisted charter studies have demolished that contrivance. Scholars have discovered that crusading knights were generally wealthy men with plenty of their own land in Europe. Nevertheless, they willingly gave up everything to undertake the holy mission. Crusading was not cheap. Even wealthy lords could easily impoverish themselves and their families by joining a Crusade. They did so not because they expected material wealth (which many of them had already) but because they hoped to store up treasure where rust and moth could not corrupt. They were keenly aware of their sinfulness and eager to undertake the hardships of the Crusade as a penitential act of charity and love. Europe is littered with thousands of medieval charters attesting to these sentiments, charters in which these men still speak to us today if we will listen. Of course, they were not opposed to capturing booty if it could be had. But the truth is that the Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got rich, but the vast majority returned with nothing.

What really happened?
Urban II gave the Crusaders two goals, both of which would remain central to the eastern Crusades for centuries. The first was to rescue the Christians of the East. As his successor, Pope Innocent III, later wrote:

How does a man love according to divine precept his neighbor as himself when, knowing that his Christian brothers in faith and in name are held by the perfidious Muslims in strict confinement and weighed down by the yoke of heaviest servitude, he does not devote himself to the task of freeing them? … Is it by chance that you do not know that many thousands of Christians are bound in slavery and imprisoned by the Muslims, tortured with innumerable torments?
“Crusading,” Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith has rightly argued, was understood as an “an act of love”—in this case, the love of one’s neighbor. The Crusade was seen as an errand of mercy to right a terrible wrong. As Pope Innocent III wrote to the Knights Templar, “You carry out in deeds the words of the Gospel, ‘Greater love than this hath no man, that he lay down his life for his friends.’”

The second goal was the liberation of Jerusalem and the other places made holy by the life of Christ. The word crusade is modern. Medieval Crusaders saw themselves as pilgrims, performing acts of righteousness on their way to the Holy Sepulcher. The Crusade indulgence they received was canonically related to the pilgrimage indulgence. This goal was frequently described in feudal terms. When calling the Fifth Crusade in 1215, Innocent III wrote:

Consider most dear sons, consider carefully that if any temporal king was thrown out of his domain and perhaps captured, would he not, when he was restored to his pristine liberty and the time had come for dispensing justice look on his vassals as unfaithful and traitors … unless they had committed not only their property but also their persons to the task of freeing him? … And similarly will not Jesus Christ, the king of kings and lord of lords, whose servant you cannot deny being, who joined your soul to your body, who redeemed you with the Precious Blood … condemn you for the vice of ingratitude and the crime of infidelity if you neglect to help Him?
The re-conquest of Jerusalem, therefore, was not colonialism but an act of restoration and an open declaration of one’s love of God. Medieval men knew, of course, that God had the power to restore Jerusalem Himself—indeed, he had the power to restore the whole world to his rule. Yet as St. Bernard of Clairvaux preached, His refusal to do so was a blessing to His people:

Again I say, consider the Almighty’s goodness and pay heed to His plans of mercy. He puts Himself under obligation to you, or rather feigns to do so, that He can help you to satisfy your obligations toward Himself. … I call blessed the generation that can seize an opportunity of such rich indulgence as this.
It is often assumed that the central goal of the Crusades was forced conversion of the Muslim world. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the perspective of medieval Christians, Muslims were the enemies of Christ and his Church. It was the Crusaders’ task to defeat and defend against them. That was all. Muslims who lived in Crusader-won territories were generally allowed to retain their property and livelihood, and always their religion. Indeed, throughout the history of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, Muslim inhabitants far outnumbered the Catholics. It was not until the 13th century that the Franciscans began conversion efforts among Muslims. But these were mostly unsuccessful and finally abandoned. In any case, such efforts were by peaceful persuasion, not the threat of violence.

All apologies
The Crusades were wars, so it would be a mistake to characterize them as nothing but piety and good intentions. Like all warfare, the violence was brutal (although not as brutal as modern wars). There were mishaps, blunders, and crimes. These are usually well-remembered today. During the early days of the First Crusade in 1095, a ragtag band of Crusaders led by Count Emicho of Leiningen made its way down the Rhine, robbing and murdering all the Jews they could find. Without success, the local bishops attempted to stop the carnage. In the eyes of these warriors, the Jews, like the Muslims, were the enemies of Christ. Plundering and killing them, then, was no vice. Indeed, they believed it was a righteous deed, since the Jews’ money could be used to fund the Crusade to Jerusalem. But they were wrong, and the Church strongly condemned the anti-Jewish attacks.

Fifty years later, when the Second Crusade was gearing up, St. Bernard frequently preached that the Jews were not to be persecuted:

Ask anyone who knows the Sacred Scriptures what he finds foretold of the Jews in the Psalm. “Not for their destruction do I pray,” it says. The Jews are for us the living words of Scripture, for they remind us always of what our Lord suffered … Under Christian princes they endure a hard captivity, but “they only wait for the time of their deliverance.”
Nevertheless, a fellow Cistercian monk named Radulf stirred up people against the Rhineland Jews, despite numerous letters from Bernard demanding that he stop. At last Bernard was forced to travel to Germany himself, where he caught up with Radulf, sent him back to his convent, and ended the massacres.

It is often said that the roots of the Holocaust can be seen in these medieval pogroms. That may be. But if so, those roots are far deeper and more widespread than the Crusades. Jews perished during the Crusades, but the purpose of the Crusades was not to kill Jews. Quite the contrary: Popes, bishops, and preachers made it clear that the Jews of Europe were to be left unmolested. In a modern war, we call tragic deaths like these “collateral damage.” Even with smart technologies, the United States has killed far more innocents in our wars than the Crusaders ever could. But no one would seriously argue that the purpose of American wars is to kill women and children.

The failure of the Crusades
By any reckoning, the First Crusade was a long shot. There was no leader, no chain of command, no supply lines, no detailed strategy. It was simply thousands of warriors marching deep into enemy territory, committed to a common cause. Many of them died, either in battle or through disease or starvation. It was a rough campaign, one that seemed always on the brink of disaster. Yet it was miraculously successful. By 1098, the Crusaders had restored Nicaea and Antioch to Christian rule. In July 1099, they conquered Jerusalem and began to build a Christian state in Palestine. The joy in Europe was unbridled. It seemed that the tide of history, which had lifted the Muslims to such heights, was now turning.

But it was not. When we think about the Middle Ages, it is easy to view Europe in light of what it became rather than what it was. The colossus of the medieval world was Islam, not Christendom. The Crusades are interesting largely because they were an attempt to counter that trend. But in five centuries of crusading, it was only the First Crusade that significantly rolled back the military progress of Islam. It was downhill from there.

When the Crusader County of Edessa fell to the Turks and Kurds in 1144, there was an enormous groundswell of support for a new Crusade in Europe. It was led by two kings, Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, and preached by St. Bernard himself. It failed miserably. Most of the Crusaders were killed along the way. Those who made it to Jerusalem only made things worse by attacking Muslim Damascus, which formerly had been a strong ally of the Christians. In the wake of such a disaster, Christians across Europe were forced to accept not only the continued growth of Muslim power but the certainty that God was punishing the West for its sins. Lay piety movements sprouted up throughout Europe, all rooted in the desire to purify Christian society so that it might be worthy of victory in the East.

Crusading in the late twelfth century, therefore, became a total war effort. Every person, no matter how weak or poor, was called to help. Warriors were asked to sacrifice their wealth and, if need be, their lives for the defense of the Christian East. On the home front, all Christians were called to support the Crusades through prayer, fasting, and alms. Yet still the Muslims grew in strength. Saladin, the great unifier, had forged the Muslim Near East into a single entity, all the while preaching jihad against the Christians. In 1187 at the Battle of Hattin, his forces wiped out the combined armies of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem and captured the precious relic of the True Cross. Defenseless, the Christian cities began surrendering one by one, culminating in the surrender of Jerusalem on October 2. Only a tiny handful of ports held out.

The response was the Third Crusade. It was led by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa of the German Empire, King Philip II Augustus of France, and King Richard I Lionheart of England. By any measure it was a grand affair, although not quite as grand as the Christians had hoped. The aged Frederick drowned while crossing a river on horseback, so his army returned home before reaching the Holy Land. Philip and Richard came by boat, but their incessant bickering only added to an already divisive situation on the ground in Palestine. After recapturing Acre, the king of France went home, where he busied himself carving up Richard’s French holdings. The Crusade, therefore, fell into Richard’s lap. A skilled warrior, gifted leader, and superb tactician, Richard led the Christian forces to victory after victory, eventually reconquering the entire coast. But Jerusalem was not on the coast, and after two abortive attempts to secure supply lines to the Holy City, Richard at last gave up. Promising to return one day, he struck a truce with Saladin that ensured peace in the region and free access to Jerusalem for unarmed pilgrims. But it was a bitter pill to swallow. The desire to restore Jerusalem to Christian rule and regain the True Cross remained intense throughout Europe.

The Crusades of the 13th century were larger, better funded, and better organized. But they too failed. The Fourth Crusade (1201-1204) ran aground when it was seduced into a web of Byzantine politics, which the Westerners never fully understood. They had made a detour to Constantinople to support an imperial claimant who promised great rewards and support for the Holy Land. Yet once he was on the throne of the Caesars, their benefactor found that he could not pay what he had promised. Thus betrayed by their Greek friends, in 1204 the Crusaders attacked, captured, and brutally sacked Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world. Pope Innocent III, who had previously excommunicated the entire Crusade, strongly denounced the Crusaders. But there was little else he could do. The tragic events of 1204 closed an iron door between Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox, a door that even today Pope John Paul II has been unable to reopen. It is a terrible irony that the Crusades, which were a direct result of the Catholic desire to rescue the Orthodox people, drove the two further—and perhaps irrevocably—apart.

The remainder of the 13th century’s Crusades did little better. The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221) managed briefly to capture Damietta in Egypt, but the Muslims eventually defeated the army and reoccupied the city. St. Louis IX of France led two Crusades in his life. The first also captured Damietta, but Louis was quickly outwitted by the Egyptians and forced to abandon the city. Although Louis was in the Holy Land for several years, spending freely on defensive works, he never achieved his fondest wish: to free Jerusalem. He was a much older man in 1270 when he led another Crusade to Tunis, where he died of a disease that ravaged the camp. After St. Louis’s death, the ruthless Muslim leaders, Baybars and Kalavun, waged a brutal jihad against the Christians in Palestine. By 1291, the Muslim forces had succeeded in killing or ejecting the last of the Crusaders, thus erasing the Crusader kingdom from the map. Despite numerous attempts and many more plans, Christian forces were never again able to gain a foothold in the region until the 19th century.

Europe’s fight for its life
One might think that three centuries of Christian defeats would have soured Europeans on the idea of Crusade. Not at all. In one sense, they had little alternative. Muslim kingdoms were becoming more, not less, powerful in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The Ottoman Turks conquered not only their fellow Muslims, thus further unifying Islam, but also continued to press westward, capturing Constantinople and plunging deep into Europe itself. By the 15th century, the Crusades were no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but desperate attempts of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive. Europeans began to ponder the real possibility that Islam would finally achieve its aim of conquering the entire Christian world. One of the great best-sellers of the time, Sebastian Brant’s The Ship of Fools, gave voice to this sentiment in a chapter titled “Of the Decline of the Faith”:

Our faith was strong in th’ Orient, It ruled in all of Asia, In Moorish lands and Africa. But now for us these lands are gone ‘Twould even grieve the hardest stone … Four sisters of our Church you find, They’re of the patriarchic kind: Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antiochia. But they’ve been forfeited and sacked And soon the head will be attacked. Of course, that is not what happened. But it very nearly did. In 1480, Sultan Mehmed II captured Otranto as a beachhead for his invasion of Italy. Rome was evacuated. Yet the sultan died shortly thereafter, and his plan died with him. In 1529, Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to Vienna. If not for a run of freak rainstorms that delayed his progress and forced him to leave behind much of his artillery, it is virtually certain that the Turks would have taken the city. Germany, then, would have been at their mercy.

Yet, even while these close shaves were taking place, something else was brewing in Europe—something unprecedented in human history. The Renaissance, born from a strange mixture of Roman values, medieval piety, and a unique respect for commerce and entrepreneurialism, had led to other movements like humanism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Age of Exploration. Even while fighting for its life, Europe was preparing to expand on a global scale. The Protestant Reformation, which rejected the papacy and the doctrine of indulgence, made Crusades unthinkable for many Europeans, thus leaving the fighting to the Catholics. In 1571, a Holy League, which was itself a Crusade, defeated the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto. Yet military victories like that remained rare. The Muslim threat was neutralized economically. As Europe grew in wealth and power, the once awesome and sophisticated Turks began to seem backward and pathetic—no longer worth a Crusade. The “Sick Man of Europe” limped along until the 20th century, when he finally expired, leaving behind the present mess of the modern Middle East.

From the safe distance of many centuries, it is easy enough to scowl in disgust at the Crusades. Religion, after all, is nothing to fight wars over. But we should be mindful that our medieval ancestors would have been equally disgusted by our infinitely more destructive wars fought in the name of political ideologies. And yet, both the medieval and the modern soldier fight ultimately for their own world and all that makes it up. Both are willing to suffer enormous sacrifice, provided that it is in the service of something they hold dear, something greater than themselves. Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we know today would not exist without their efforts. The ancient faith of Christianity, with its respect for women and antipathy toward slavery, not only survived but flourished. Without the Crusades, it might well have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam’s rivals, into extinction.

Thomas F. Madden, is one of the top historians on medieval history and also on the Spanish Inquisition. He is an associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University. He is the author of numerous works, including The New Concise History of the Crusades, and co-author, with Donald Queller, of The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople.

Dr. Bill Warner, PhD: Jihad vs. The Crusades (Excellent Video)

Video courtesy of: Bill Warner (Thank you Bill)

Posted on 8 Feb 15 by Sharia Unveiled

[Editor’s Note: This does not necessarily entail the beliefs, thoughts, or theories of the local Act chapters or the National Act office…they are my beliefs, thoughts and/or theories. What Barack Hussein Islama is trying to do again, to make Islam look ok and Christianity to look bad. The Crusades were actually the Roman Catholic Church (the ones that created Islam initially, until it got out of hand, just like the Muslim Brotherhood created ISIS until it got out of hand) going against the Muslims that were hellbent on killing everyone that did not believe the same way they did…so to defend themselves, the crusaders decided to kill EVERYONE that was not a Catholic…which included Jews and true Christians that did not believe what the Catholic Church conned off as being from Jesus.]

The Man Who Murdered Chris Kyle, The American Sniper, Should Be Profiled As A Suspected Muslim Jihadist (AMERICANS NEED TO START LEARNING HOW TO PROFILE MUSLIMS)

By Walid Shoebat (Shoebat Exclusive)

When we evaluate cases for potential Muslim terrorists, we always look for physical signs like a trimmed mustache and a beard that is lesser trimmed. And when it comes to a crime that was committed, we look at who the victims are. In  the story on Eddie Routh who murdered Chris Kyle, there are signs of concern, especially the facial hair, it does match the profile of a convert.

Mugshot of Eddie Routh

Eddie Routh. Notice the trimmed mustache.

Also, Routh was a prison guard over Muslim terrorists at Bilad Airbase in Baghdad in 2007. He never served in battle, but spent most of his time looking and talking to Muslims in jail. He could have likely interacted with the inmates and got converted; prison has a higher conversion rate than any mosque. Also,  why would he kill a Navy seal who was known to have killed so many terrorists?

Although there needs to be more investigations to prove that Routh converted to Islam, the possibilities are there. After all, there could be a motive to kill Kyle who became a wanted man for the Sunni insurgents he was targeting, had a price put on his head and was dubbed the Shaitan – devil – of Ramadi. That plus Kyle was an ‘Islamophobe’ who was open about his rightful hatred for Islam and the Quran. This makes him wanted.

Examining his killer gives also clues.  “During a phone call with his father, Routh expressed sympathy for the detainees and discontent over how the US was conducting the war as well as his reluctance to engage in combat” and “While working as a guard at Balad Air Base, Routh laments his [Muslim] prisoners’ poor living conditions”.

What the media says that Routh had Post Traumatic Disorder is simply untrue. According to The Warfighter Foundation:

“Eddie Routh served one tour in Iraq in 2007, at Balad Air Base (the 2nd largest U.S. installation in Iraq), with no significant events. No combat experience. Let me say that again, he NEVER SAW COMBAT or any aspect of traumatic events associated with a combat deployment (i.e. incoming mortar or rocket fire). He never left the base, EVER.”

The Warfighter Foundation, a nonprofit veterans group, filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain information about Routh’s service record. It was through the information they received that the group discovered Routh had not experienced any type of combat.

“[Routh] held a non-combat arms occupation of 2111 (Small Arms Repairer/ Technician or more commonly referred to as an Armorer),” the group reported. “Balad Air Base had a Pizza Hut, 24 hour Burger King, Subway, Popeye’s, Baskin Robbins, movie theater, and even a miniature golf course. It even had a strictly enforced 10 mile per hour speed limit!”

So what is all this hoopla about him having PTSD?

It is known fact that Routh’s family contacted Kyle about their son’s diminishing mental health. Routh was admitted to inpatient psychiatric treatment prior to the events at Rough Creek Ranch, according to a report from the Daily Mail. But at times even all this is meaningless. My father was diagnosed as bipolar and I warned the rest home who thought I was mad to say he was a dangerous Muslim fundamentalist until they one day had to call the police after he held patients as hostages because a black nurse refused to convert to Islam after his persistent attempts.

Fundamentalist get an excuse bill. My father obtained his papers of all sorts of mental disorders in order to get a retirement and to evade police. “Routh had been taken to a mental hospital twice in the past five months and told authorities that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, police records show,” the report says. One Pakistani terrorist in California used the same excuses after shooting Jews and they usually get away with it.

Further bolstering the rationale for expanded mental health screening and treatment is the case of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Prior to his enlistment in the Army, Bergdahl had been administratively separated from the Coast Guard for mental health reasons. Bergdahl disappeared from his command post in Afghanistan in 2008 and spent 5 years as a supposed Taliban prisoner of war. Yet we have proven beyond a shadow of doubt Bergdahl was a convert to Islam. He is no mental illness case.

ITS TIME WE PROFILE

In America, we profile folks mostly within a psychological framework and at times we miss crucial signs, that being infected with fundamental Islam is not some psychological illness, but that fundamental Islam can kill. Eddie Ray Routh murdered Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield in cold blood and now with the new information revealed that, while the gunman is said to have had serious mental health problems, so they say, PTSD was not among them, especially since he never served a day in combat.

However, major media outlets continue to beat the PTSD drum, adding to the stigma associated with PTSD and mental illness, to the detriment of America’s veterans and mental health care at large. The last thing on the radar of media is that Routh could have been a convert to Islam.

There are usually signs. We have maintained that Americans still need a lesson or two when it comes to the politically incorrect guide in profiling Muslims who could potentially be dangerous, especially now that more than a decade after 9/11 and with the latest terror attacks, Americans who come across anyone who has a turban, most, it was found out, mistake that person of being Muslim. So we decided to shed some light, yes, and we will write it in blunt fashion with no pun intended, on the politically incorrect guide to profiling Muslims. Americans by large are as naive as a kindergartner on his first day in school, who confuses Sikhs from India, who dress up in colorful huge turbans confusing them as Muslim fundamentalists. This is according to a study released this Monday.

Just as we profiled Routh, the simplest method we maintain in profiling a Muslim when it comes to headgear, is that a reversal of your projected image about Muslim headgear makes a better chance for a positive identification of your subject: the bigger the turban, the lesser chance that this man is a Muslim fundamentalist.

Fact is that Muslims dressing up in turbans is rare. It is usually an Imam of a mosque who usually wears a small skimpy turban.

This is NOT a Muslim

This is a Muslim Imam

Americans are lousy profilers since the study shows that a whopping 60% of Americans who participated in the study by the non-profit National Sikh Campaign admitted to knowing nothing about the Sikhs who live, study and work in their midst. The National Sikh Campaign commissioned its study, based on interviews with more than 1,100 Americans, as a starting point to raise public awareness of the Sikh community at the national and local levels.

When shown a photo of a smiling older Sikh male in a red turban, 28% of respondents thought he was Middle Eastern and 20% believed he was Muslim while 35% thought he might be from India, or of Indian descent, yet Only 11% correctly identified him as Sikh.

This is terrible. Americans are trained not to look at race or religion to the point that they become dumb to danger. Sikhs have been very much part of the American fabric and frankly speaking they are just tired of being the target of being mis-profiled and most probably would beg that Americans to get a dose on correct profiling Muslims. In the wake of the 911, Sikhs have found themselves targeted — with sometimes bloody results — by Americans who presume anyone in a turban must be a Muslim.

It is always important to look at certain signs in every crime to analyze if it was Islamic terrorism that is involved. First of all, a Muslim hardly dresses like an Indian Sikh. In fact, a Muslim religious dress code is closer to the dress of Jews rather than Sikhs. While religious Jews at times wear a little skull-cap, a religious Muslim also wears a skull-cap, but it is usually a little larger.

At times its confusing and unless you are a pro and an expert profiler, you could easily get confused. Profiling Muslims is as one profiles spiders and scorpions and the descriptions have to be given bluntly. With scorpions, like the turban size, the larger the claws, the lesser the venom. I once positively identified a Muslim threat from a listing of 300 or so names without even seeing them and the guy was caught and identified by the victim. Looks can be deceptive. Yemenis for example whether Muslim or Jew usually look alike except that the Jew has a custom in certain circles to allow the hair over the ears to grow, and hang down in curls or ringlets.

A Yemeni Muslim. This one is extremely toxic. One sting of this one can kill, it is estimated over one thousand women and children.

A Yemeni Jew. Harmless.

One main key in profiling a Muslim fundamentalist is that they usually trim the mustache and a Sikh is proud to just let it go as you see here:

No need to profile

I know that the next photo I used as a joke, nevertheless, the look is not far off, although the turban is rarely seen in reality.

Profile. Notice the trimmed mustache and the flat circular fashion turban.

A white large looking skullcap like this one is usually worn by Muslims, but with the trimmed mustache to go with it is a dead giveaway.

Always remember, a Muslim fundamentalist is mandated by Islam to trim the mustache. Also, do not get confused because someone looks European, millions of Muslims have a European look, but the rules are the same, so don’t let some baby face fool you; either a shaved or a trimmed mustache with an untrimmed beard and a certain attire or headpiece is a dead giveaway to highly be a Muslim fundamentalist.

Jihadist European Muslim with shaved mustache is a deadly yellow scorpion with a very toxic venom.

And although Routh doesn’t have everything to positively profile him 100%, another dead giveaway is to look at the forehead, if you notice a dark mark on the forehead which is caused by continual prostration on a prayer mat or a prayer rug, this is a clear sign. So a combination of a mark on the forehead, trimmed mustache and untrimmed beard is highly likely this person is a Muslim fundamentalist.

Extremely poisonous. Approach with great caution.

Yet even such signs do not mean its always a poisonous black widow, there is a chance that having such signs could mean that these species with these looks can sting and at times only when provoked. If you still want to find out, all one has to do is to show them a Charlie Hebdo cartoon or offer them to wear a crucifix and see how they react, its sort of like sprinkling holy water to a demon possessed individual, they react violently, but make sure you do it from a distance or while you have plenty of security around, especially at an airport.

But the rule of having a trimmed mustache and elongated beard at times could still be deceiving since this practice is not followed by all Muslim males who are slacking off, but still, this by no means this Muslim is peace-loving and even the mark on the forehead does not necessarily have a usual pattern and at times one could have several spots, sort of like a Mitsubishi logo, as you see this one Jew hater here, who does not even have a long beard but has the mark of an Antichrist Christian Jew hating demon:

A poison spewing Muslim fundamentalist. He is still lethal since he can either bight or spread his poison through the atmosphere and even in the airwaves.

But even if one has all three signs, a forehead mark, a trimmed mustache and an untrimmed beard, this by no mean he is the most dangerous. A Muslim with the forehead mark and with no beard or trimmed mustache is a dead giveaway that this is a stealth Jihadist who got rid of the two markers as to blend in the crowd.

Had Americans followed this simple technique alone, 911 would have been prevented. In the following photo of the 911 mastermind Muhammad Atta, notice his forehead somewhat has a darker pigment than the rest of his skin.

The most lethal. One bight out of this Muslim can kill over 3000 men women and children.

He shaved it all off before the mission. Also, don’t let that smile fool you, in preparation for an attack, they do everything to blend in. You just focus on the forehead. A shaven beard with the mark is code red, get the heck out of that plane and tell security that you have a strange feeling about that passenger’s demeanor. Its either you get accused of the politically incorrect profiling or 3000 more dead Americans are on the way, choose what you do and choose it wisely and stop profiling Sikhs. Here is one terrible story:

Slain soon after 9/11

One of the brothers, Arizona gas station owner Balbir Singh Sodhi, was slain four days after 9/11 by a white American who reportedly bragged that he wanted to go out and “shoot some towelheads” to avenge the attacks.

The gunman, Frank Silva Roque, got a death sentence for his actions that was later reduced to life imprisonment.

A second brother, Sukhpal Sodhi, died in 2012 after he was hit, apparently by a stray bullet from a gang fight, in his San Francisco taxi cab.

This is terrible, be it that these were innocent and even a Muslim who are positively profiled, they do not deserve such fate. When you profile and the signs are there, always call the authorities and never deal with the situation yourself unless it is an obvious emergency.

The bottom line is that Sikhs wear their turbans in a peaked style while Muslim clergy wrap theirs in a flat, circular fashion, but many Americans failed to notice a difference.

American patriotic Sikhs, notice the turbans are different from Muslims in a peaked style.

Jaswant Singh Sachdev, a prominent member of the Sikh community in Arizona, said he remembered a time when Sikhs were viewed as “nobility” in American society.

The mood changed, he said, during the 1979-81 Iranian hostage crisis when supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was cast as a villain in US media.

“When they see it, even the children, it is always the turban that causes suspicion and fear in those who see it for the first time,” he said.

But at times, there is no way one can profile a Muslim and is why some object on Muslim profiling. Muslims can shave their beards and even avoid having a mark on their forehead, yet they can still be identified as a stealth Muslim, but this needs further scrutiny.

Such scrutiny demands you ask the right questions and listen to what they say. Ask the Muslim, what do you suppose we do with Shariah laws that calls for killing converts or amputating a hand? If he is unwilling to denounce these Sharia rulings then this is a dead giveaway, especially if he insists that Islam means peace. These days, you should usually reverse what is logical and be like the defensive paranoid driver in order to survive the streets. But even that is not conclusive since a sleeper Muslim, probably the most dangerous type, is the one who can dress himself to look like almost any religion.

Now that you have completed your lesson, here is your first quiz. Try to profile the following individual:

When it comes to Americans, they have long ways to go and most of the time, when everyone shouts at you for pointing out your concern, is when you most likely have hit the nail on the head. I can say that Obama could be a Shinto, a Buddhist, a New Ager and no one would say a thing. But accuse him of adhering to the religion of peace, and you have a bunch of American plump farm caged chickens start pecking at your head. As for me, I don’t care, I am a free range rooster and the chickens want nothing to do with me. I simply have to look out for the fox whom I have profiled already.

Posted on 29 Jan 15 by Shoebat Foundation

[Editor’s Note: This does not necessarily entail the beliefs, thoughts, or theories of the local Act chapters or the National Act office…they are my beliefs, thoughts and/or theories. Funny how, whenever any Muslim commits “shaheed” (the obligated act of martyrdom from the Qur’an) against Westerners, the Obama administration makes sure it is deemed/labeled/diagnosed as PTSD/work stress…while making sure the reports do not mention Muslim, jihadist, or Islam…when reality lets people that know about Islam and the Trojan horse president, it is really a farce, it is a jihadist, shaheed action, to further “dispose” of the “great satan” inhabitants…the profiling isn’t for vigilante justice, it is basically so you can tell (not 100% but at least 90% certain) that a Muslim could be planing something…it’s just a way to see if something might happen and do what you can to stay clear of a Muslim fitting the profile…]

What turned Erdogan against the West?

Supporters hold up a portrait of Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan while waving Turkish and Justice and Development Party (AKP) flags during an election rally in Istanbul, March 23, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Murad Sezer)

As any Turkey watcher would easily confirm, hostility to the West has increasingly marked the rhetoric of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his ruling Justice and Development (AKP) and pro-government media in the past two years. Especially since the Gezi Park protests in June 2013, the narrative of Erdogan and his entourage has revolved around Western “conspiracies” and a “national will” that is bravely fighting them

Yet for those familiar with the AKP’s 14-year history, this may have come as a surprising turn. When the AKP was created in 2001, hostility to the West was not something with which it identified itself. On the contrary, party founders claimed to have disowned the Islamist, anti-Western “National View” tradition from which they came. Likewise, in the first years after the AKP came to power in 2002, Westernization (i.e., integration with the European Union) was the party’s prime objective. Back then, Europe was the source not of treacherous conspiracies that had to be thwarted, but of democratic criteria that had to be embraced.

Not surprisingly, the fiercest opposition to the AKP during that period from 2002 to 2010 was mounted by the anti-Western breed of Turkish secularists, known as neonationalists. This quarter — whose slogan is “Neither the US nor the EU, but a fully independent Turkey” — accused Erdogan’s government of “selling Turkey out to imperialism.” In 2007, one of Turkey’s best-selling books was nonsense titled “Moses’ Children,” which declared Erdogan to be a “crypto-Jew” colluding with the Elders of Zion. In the same era, the argument that Turkey should move closer to Russia instead of the EU was promoted by neonationalist generals, who would be implicated in the alleged Ergenekon coup plot to overthrow the AKP.

So, what happened that things turned upside down in the past two years? Why is the cry for a “fully independent Turkey” coming from AKP quarters now? Why is a paranoia of “Jewish agents” seeking to undermine Turkey being fueled by the pro-government press and social media?

Government quarters will likely answer these questions along those lines: “The West is aggressive against Muslims. Palestine is bleeding. Muslim blood is flowing in Syria. Egypt’s legitimate Islamist government was overthrown in a bloody coup. The West is responsible for all these and standing up against Western imperialism is our justified reaction.”

This answer, however, is unconvincing for a plenty of reasons. Here are some of them:

• If “Western imperialist aggression against the Muslim world” is the problem, then the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was its most tangible example during the AKP’s rule. The invasion, however, did not turn the AKP against the West. In fact, Erdogan, who was party leader but not yet prime minister at the time, was eager to join the United States in the war, but failed to persuade then-Prime Minister Abdullah Gul and his party’s parliamentary group.

• If the Syrian civil war is the key problem of the past several years, how it leads to blaming the West is equally hard to comprehend. For if the AKP is to be angry with someone because of its aversion to Bashar al-Assad’s regime, this should be Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Assad’s leading supporter. Yet, sympathy is the only sentiment for Putin that one comes across in pro-government media. Erdogan’s angry tirades against the international community never target Putin, either. (AKP quarters seem also untroubled by Putin’s annexation of Ukrainian territory, which has ruffled the Muslim Crimean Tatars).

• When it comes to the military coup in Egypt, which truly unsettled the AKP grassroots, it should have spawned reactions first and foremost against Saudi Arabia, the most straightforward, resolute and powerful supporter of coup leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Again, though, we have heard no tirades from Erdogan blasting the Saudi monarchy. On the contrary, last week we had a day of national mourning after King Abdullah’s death.

In short, the strong anti-Western sentiment in the AKP world is hard to explain with — or at least only with — the West’s “imperialist” foreign policy. What could be the actual reason, then?

In my view, it’s the West’s continuous meddling in “our domestic affairs.” In the past several years, not a month has passed without a Western think tank issuing a report criticizing the state of press freedom or judicial independence in Turkey. Western media are awash with commentaries of a Turkey “moving toward authoritarianism.” The EU’s progress reports warn of “regression” on democratic norms. Washington often voices “concern” over the state of freedoms in Turkey.

Russia, on the other hand, never meddles in “our domestic affairs.” Moreover, Putin — himself under Western fire over Russia’s grave record on freedoms — praises Erdogan as a “tough man.” Erdogan’s chief adviser, Yigit Bulut, in return, describes Putin and Erdogan as the world’s “two greatest leaders” today.

But then here is another question: The West was similarly meddling in “our domestic affairs” a decade ago as well. Why was Erdogan not angry at the West at the time?

The answer is not that hard to find. A decade ago, the real power in Turkey did not rest with Erdogan, but with the Kemalist establishment, represented by the military and the judiciary. Erdogan was in fact under the threat of their iron fist. Hence, the West’s meddling in “our domestic affairs” and its pressure on Turkey to abide by European norms was playing into Erdogan’s hands.

In 2008, for instance, the European Commission’s then-president Manuel Barroso visited Turkey after a court case was opened to outlaw the AKP. He urged the Turkish judiciary to respect the “Venice Criteria,” which would rule out party closures merely based on ideology. It was hard-core secularists keen to see the AKP banned who denounced this “imperialist” meddling, while AKP members seemed quite happy with it.

Starting from 2010, the AKP subdued the old Kemalist establishment and laid hands on “full power.” With its newly found self-confidence, the party went back to its own ideological agenda. Its intimidating response to reactions from Turkish society served only to intensify those reactions. Growing political tensions dragged the AKP into a sharp us-versus-them rhetoric, in which the West morphed into a diabolical force behind “the enemies within” — such as secularists, liberals and, especially, the Gulenists.

In sum, it’s not the West, but rather the AKP that has dramatically changed since 2002. (If any key change took place in the West, the United States has shifted in a positive sense, moving from Bush’s aggressiveness to Obama’s moderation). The fundamental change was Erdogan attaining “absolute power.” He refuses to tolerate any limits imposed on his power by the international community and the liberal values it promotes, hence he yearns for a “fully independent” Turkey. In response to criticisms over press freedoms, for example, Erdogan today tells the EU “to mind its own business.”

None of these mean that all Western criticism toward Erdogan and his government is justified. Some in the Western media have used a prejudiced tone against Ankara, driven by ideological bias against “Islamists,” or as a reaction to Erdogan’s conspiratorial narrative. There is also no doubt that the Western foreign policy has no shortage of hypocrisy. Washington’s unconditional defense of Israel or leniency for the coup in Egypt, for instance, deserve lots of criticism. Moreover, some Western fiats on Turkey could be really driven by mere interests, and resisting those fiats is certainly a rightful stance.

Yet still, none of these reasons fully explains, let alone justifies, the categorical anti-Western rhetoric we hear from Turkey’s ruling elite today. The real explanation, I think, is their rejection of Western-style liberal democracy in favor of a self-styled authoritarian democracy. It is no coincidence that Hungary’s anti-EU leader Victor Orban agrees, for now he applauds Turkey, along with Putin’s Russia, as a good model for “illiberal democracy.”

Posted by al-Monitor

Four Star Admiral: the Muslim Brotherhood Has Penetrated ALL of Our US National Security Agencies Under the Obama Administration [Video]

05 Feb, 2015 by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

I could not agree more. Every one of these Marxists should be removed from office, especially Barack Obama and Valerie Jarrett (who is not even in office, but is the consigliere to Obama and is from Iran). We have allowed the enemies from within to gain control of virtually every security and intelligence agency we have. We are lousy with Islamists within our walls, who are conducting a silent coup within our government. Our conquest by Islam is happening right before our very eyes. The Muslim Brotherhood has meetings with the Obama Administration all the time and then they call for a decade of Jihad and the death of Egypt’s al Sisi. All with the blessing of Barack Obama. Everything our president has done screams that he is aiding and abetting the enemy.

From TPNN:

Retired 4-Star U.S. Navy Admiral James A. “Ace” Lyons, speaking at the National Press Club in January, says that under Obama’s guidance, the Obama Regime has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood terrorism front group, saying that the radical anti-freedom organization has penetrated every U.S. security agency. Admiral Lyons said that “the transformation of America has been in full swing ever since 2008,” the year Obama was elected based upon his campaign promise to “fundamentally transform America.”

Speaking about Obama’s refusal to attend the recent march in France, reportedly attended by more than 50 world leaders to condemn Islamic terrorism following the gruesome murders of cartoonists who had the audacity to lampoon Islam, Admiral Lyons said that act was a “signal to Islamic Jihadis,” and is “one of many signals he sent over the years while in office.”

“There’s no question we got a hell of a job ahead of us,” Admiral Lyons said. “With the Muslim Brotherhood penetration in every one of our national security agencies, including all our intelligence agencies,” he proclaimed.

Admiral Lyons said that our “lead intelligence agency” is “headed by a Muslim convert,” a reference to Obama CIA head John Brennan.

The new GOP majority in both houses of Congress were elected to “stop the transformation of America, not to see how they could work with the president.”

Admiral Lyons asserted that there is no such thing as radical Islam, but that “Islam is Islam.”

“The threat is Islam. Let’s make no mistake about it. There’s no such thing as radical Islam,” Lyons asserted.

When four-star admirals come forward and tell you that Islamists are running the show in America, you had better listen. This is something that Trevor Loudon and I have been harping on for years. Barack Obama will not stop our enemies, because he is one of them. He has gutted our military and intelligence agencies. He has replaced our leaders with Islamists, communists and sycophants. The treasonous damage he has done will cripple or destroy us if we do not have the spine to face evil and cull the Islamists and their sympathizers from our midst in our halls of power, our military and our intelligence agencies. Islam does not need a Trojan horse…they have Obama.

Posted on 5 Feb 15 by Right Wing News

[Editor’s Note: This does not necessarily entail the beliefs, thoughts, or theories of the local Act chapters or the National Act office…they are my beliefs, thoughts and/or theories. Sorry to say this, but with a Word from the Lord that came down that tells us that if America does not come back to God, as a covenant country (only two countries exist that have a covenant with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…Israel and America) we have been given harbingers, and refused to come back to Him, we have been given signs and prophesies in the Old Testament through Israel’s history when they turned their backs on God…they always suffered an economic collapse, then a capture/destruction…America now, is far worse than any country in the past that has been judged by God…and America is not mentioned, through iconology or symbolism, in the end times of Revelation, the “Apocalyptic” book of the Bible. There is a Shemitah that will happen against the US in September, where the dollar…our entire economy…will die, the US dollar will be taken out of the World currency, then shortly afterwards, Barack Hussein Obama will enforce martial law on the US, and will rid the US of American law, and will shuffle in Shari’a (Islamic law)…and the Muslim Brotherhood will have conquered America, just as they have planned, with a Trojan horse as president.

When the Word comes that America needs to come back to Christ, it doesn’t mean just an “Ask the Lord for forgiveness and everything will be ok again”…it means we need to come back to Him…by turning away from our national signs…the sins of homosexuality/transgendering (Sodom and Gomorrah was punished for this and was destroyed), all crime, both violent and non-violent (the laws of God, and the laws of the US originally were basically, an eye for an eye…but we no longer do that, so criminals get away with murder so to speak), abortion (this falls under the worship of the idol/god molocke), following false gods (wanting more wealth, more material things, more clout…being obsessed with hobbies like material items {PC gaming, console gaming, texting, best house, anything that is being obsessed over} is actually following false gods because they have become the god in your life, they are what you want most of), pornography (this is a lust, fornication, adulterous problem…it causes some people to become obsessed over stalking people, raping people, having illicit sex with people they don’t know, having illicit sex without marriage, cheating on spouse if married), pharmacia (Greek word for pharmacy…but overall it entails ALL drugs, good and bad), not to mention uncourteousness, selfishness, laziness, unhelpfulness…the list goes on…America would have to repent, and turn away from all this…the proper medication usage is the only exception…but drug use, improper medicine use, abortion, homosexuality, pornography, following false gods, lack of manners…all must be changed…or America will be destroyed…destroyed as we know it…destroyed from what it is now…

ISIS Vows to Behead Obama Inside the White House (Video)

Posted by sharia unveiled on February 2, 2015

[Editor’s Note: This does not necessarily entail the beliefs, thoughts, or theories of the local Act chapters or the National Act office…they are my beliefs, thoughts and/or theories. There was a picture in the article from Sharia Unveiled, but with my posting my re-bloged articles in facebook, I fear that if I had the picture showing, they would pull the post…so I left the picture out…

Finally, a positive message from ISIS…

by, Lori Lowenthal Marcus | The Jewish Press

ISIS, humiliated by the Peshmerga, threatens to behead Obama, turn the U.S. into a Muslim province, and destroy France and Belgium.

The barbarians from ISIS recently released another bloody video. This one shows several of their members standing beside an executioner-style black hooded man towering over a straight-backed Kurdish captive.

The filming takes place in the middle of a street in Mosul, Iraq. We know the words spoken in the video, thanks to the translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute, MEMRI.org.

In this, as in all the ISIS videos, the terrorists boast about their bloodthirsty deeds committed in the name of Allah, and promise still more bloodshed.

In this video, see below, the executioner promises that ISIS will come to America and cut off President Obama’s head, right in the White House. He also promises that ISIS will turn the United States into a Muslim province.

Video courtesy of: MEMRI and Today’s World News Channel

Then the ISIS executioner threatens France and Belgium, warning them that ISIS will bring car bombs and explosives to their streets. He also threatens to cut off the heads of the French and the Belgians.

But his greatest ire is directed at Masoud Barazani, the president of the Kurds. His voice grows louder still, and he shouts out his threat to Barazani, whom he calls a dog, saying ISIS will behead him and throw him onto the trash bin of history.

It is no surprise that ISIS feels the greatest enmity for the Kurds. The Kurdish fighting force, the Peshmerga, have been fighting the ISIS forces with superhuman dedication and focus for months.

The Kurds finally regained control over Kobane, a previously Kurdish-ruled city, driving out the barbarians from all neighborhoods in the that city. The victory occurred on Monday, Jan. 27, the day after this video was made, but the tide had begun to turn earlier.

Once ISIS was routed from Kobane, Barazani said that it was “a great honor for the Kurdish people that they stood along 1,500 kilometers in the face of the most brutal terrorist organization and defeated it. This victory is the victory of humanity over the savagery of terrorists.”

And then, as if to prove Barazani’s point, the ISIS executioner says: “We will institute the laws of Allah, may he be exalted and praised.” He then turns his focus back to the Kurdish soldier at his feet, upon whose head the executioner kept his hand, throughout the speech.

“This is the fate of one of your soldiers, and every time you launch a missile, we will send you back the head of one of your soldiers.”

At the end of the original video  – this is excised from the version, below – the executioner beheads the Kurdish soldier at his feet.

The Peshmerga forces have already begun their assault on the ISIS stronghold in Mosul.

Posted on 2 Feb 15 by Sharia Unveiled

VIDEO: Check Out what HILARIOUS thing a Pig Farmer Did When His New Muslim Neighbors Asked HIM to Move

04 Feb, 2015 by Tiffiny Ruegner

OBNOXIOUS! You know the guy who buys a house right next to the airport and within a year he’s upset demanding the airport move because of the noise pollution that interrupts his sleep– any thinking person knows this guy is an idiot and has nothing to complain about. That’s about as dumb as a Muslim Association buying land next to a pig farmer and then demanding the pig farmer move. Wait… but there IS a Muslim neighbor doing just that. Mr. pig farmer’s response will have you rolling!!!

When a Texas pig farmer was approached and told that he should move so as to not offend the Muslim mosque the new neighbors were intending to build next to his property, the pig farmer did what any other politically incorrect person would do: He began holding pig races during their time of prayer.

In Islam, pigs are considered dirty and contact with such animals is against the Islamic faith. Kamel Fotouh purchased 11 acres next door to Craig Baker’s pig farm with the purpose of building a Mosque and Muslim community center. Baker claims that Fotouh, after purchasing the land, approached him and asked him to pack up and move.
Baker alleges that Fotouh called him a “liar” during a town meeting. Now, the pig farmer hosts pig races on Friday afternoons at the same time that Muslims next door are holding their afternoon prayer sessions. On the outside, it might look like childish feud; however, what this scenario represents is the clash of cultures and religions occurring in America and the kind of dangers that Europe is now encountering.

While many Muslims are peaceful, there remains a steadfastness in their faith that the rest of the world must adhere to their understandings of the world, their cultural norms and traditions. Though liberals might consider Baker’s actions “intolerant,” it is exactly the opposite; when the Muslim man moved next door, Baker was not the one to cross the fence and ask him to move because his lifestyle offended him.

My bet is the Muslim Association moved there specifically to create conflict and I’m guessing they will be taking this guy to court over and over until the pig farmer faces financial ruin from legal fees. This video below… says it all! Pig races anyone?

Posted on 4 Feb 15 by Right Wing News

Sixteen Reasons Why Islam Is Not the Religion of Peace

By James Arlandson

Islam is not the religion of peace.  The following sixteen reasons, all sourced from the original sacred documents (the Quran and Traditions), classical law, and history, tell us why.

Each item in the list has one or more back-up articles.  Readers should click on them to find out that the points come right out of original Islam and are not invented out of thin air.

Nearly all of the back-up articles also have a section on modern Islam, mentioning Muslims — too few — who advocate reform.

And if readers would like to see various translations of the Quran, they may go to the website quranbrowser.com and type in the references.  If readers are in doubt about the meaning of a verse, they may go to the tafsir (commentary) written by Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), one of the most authoritative and highly regarded classical commentators in the Sunni world, at qtafsir.com.  Or the readers may search through the modern commentary by Sunni Indo-Pakistani religious scholar and politician Sayyid Abul A’La Maududi (d. 1979) at englishtafsir.com.

The first reason is the foundation of all the others.

1. The mosque and state are not separate.

To this day, Islamic nations that are deeply rooted in sharia, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, do not adequately separate the two realms, giving a lot of power to courts and councils to ensure that legislation does not contradict the Quran (never mind whose interpretation).

Back-up: Mosque and State

2. Jihad may be waged against injustice or an unjust nation, as Islam defines the terms.

Classical texts say Islam is justice, and no Islam is injustice.  Therefore, a “just war” can be waged against a nation or people who does not submit to Islam.

Yet we are told in the 1990 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights, which is based on sharia, that humane rules must be followed (Article Three).  Does that article offer hope that modern Islam can move past old Islam?  Maybe.

However, the Quran, sacred traditions, classical law, and historical Islam contradict or balance out some elements in Article Three.  Would there be a conflict between the old Islam and modern Islam if war broke out?  Many Islamic clerics issue fatwas (religious rulings) to wage jihad.

Back-up: Jihad and Qital and The Early Muslim Community and the Sword

3. Jihad may be waged to spread Islam and force conversions — a holy war.

Waging jihad to spread Islam and force conversions is a perfect description of “holy war.”  See Quran 8:39, 9:5, 9:11-12, 9:14, and 9:29; and then see 9:33, 61:9, and 48:28.

Yet we have been told for many years now that holy wars and forced conversions were never done in Islam.  That’s a myth imagined by Westerners.

However, read those verses and click on the back-up articles.

Back-up: Jihad and Qital, The Mission of Muhammad and the Sword, and The Early Muslim Community and the Sword.

4. Muhammad nicknames his weapons.

Tabari (AD 839-923) is an early Muslim historian who is considered largely reliable by scholars today.  In fact, the State University of New York Press selected his history to be translated into 38 volumes.  (We use The Last Years of the Prophet, trans. Ismail K. Poonawala, vol. 9, 153-55.)

In the context of the list of Muhammad’s assets at the end of his life (horses, camels, milch sheep, and so on), Tabari records the nicknames of Muhammad’s weapons.

Muhammad nicknames three swords that he took from the Jewish tribe Qaynuqa after he banished them from Medina in April 624: “Pluck Out,” “Very Sharp,” and “Death.”  Two other swords from elsewhere are named: “Sharp” and “That is wont to sink” (presumably into human flesh).  Finally, there is “Having the vertebrae of the back.”  This last sword Muhammad collected as booty after his victory at the Battle of Badr in March 624.

Next, Muhammad took three bows from the Jewish Qaynuqa tribe and named them as follows: “Most conducive to ease, or wide,” “white,” and “of nab wood” (species of tree from which bows are made).

Muhammad’s name for a certain coat of mail implies “ampleness” or “redundant portions,” probably because Muhammad was portly (cf. Ibn Ishaq, Life of Muhammad, trans. Guillaume, p. 383).

Finally, even Muhammad himself has a nickname.  After Tabari lists the positive ones, he matter-of-factly provides one that is not so positive: “The obliterator.”

Back-up: The Mission of Muhammad and the Sword

5. A captive in jihad may be executed, enslaved, ransomed for money, exchanged for other prisoners, or released freely.

Quran 47:4, 33:25-27, and 4:24 say these things (and the last option — free release — is positive).  Yet we are told that in a jihad today, everything must be done humanely and justly.

However, as stated before, the back-up article, this fourth item, and the next four items in this list balance out that claim.  One must ask whether there be a conflict between old Islam and modern Islam in the event of a war.

Back-up: Jihad and Qital and Slavery

6. A woman captive of jihad may be forced to have to sex with her captors (now owners).

Quran 4:24 and especially the sacred traditions and classical law allow this.  The sacred traditions say that while out on military campaigns under Muhammad’s leadership, jihadists used to practice coitus interruptus with their female captives.

Female soldiers fighting terrorists today must be forewarned of the danger.

Back-up: Jihad and Qital and Slavery

7. Property can be destroyed or confiscated during jihad.

Quran 59:2 and 59:5 discuss those rules.  Sacred traditions and classical law expand on the Quranic verses.  Modern Islamic law officially improves on the Quran: see Article Three of the 1990 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights, which is nonetheless based on sharia but outlaws wanton destruction of property.  Once again, would there be any conflict between old Islam and modern Islam in a war today?

Back-up: Jihad and Qital and The Quran and the Sword

8. Jihad may be waged to collect spoils.

Quran 8:1, 8:7, 8:41, and 48:20 show this clearly.  Early Islam followed the old Arab custom of raiding caravans, but as its military grew, the raids were elevated to jihad.  The spoils of war were coveted.  Which Islam would prevail in a war today — the old one or the modern one?

Back-up: Jihad and Qital and The Quran and the Sword

9. The Quran promises gardens for martyrs dying in jihad.

Throughout the Quran, Muhammad promises the men in his fledgling Muslim community that if they die fighting for Allah and for him, Allah will reward them with a “virgin-rich” garden (Quran 44:51-56; 52:17-29; 55:46-78).

In Quran 4:74, 9:111, and 3:140-143, the Arabic word “jihad” (root is j-h-d) is the means or currency to trade in this life for the life to come in an economic bargain.

Back-up: Martyrdom and the Sword

10. A second-class submission tax, called the jizya, must be imposed on Jews and Christians (and other religious minorities) living in Islamic countries.

Quran 9:29 offers three options to Jews and Christians: (1) fight and die, (2) convert to Islam, or (3) keep their religion, but pay a tribute or submission tax, the jizya, while living under Islam.

In Islamic history, vanquished Jews and Christians became known as dhimmis.  This word appears in Quran 9:8 and 9:10, meaning a “treaty” or “oath,” but it can also mean those who are “condemned,” “reviled,” or “reproved” (Quran 17:18, 17:22, 68:49).  The word “submission” in Quran 9:29 can also be translated as “humiliation,” “utterly humbled,” “contemptible,” or “vile.”  It can mean “small” as opposed to “great.”

Islamic nations today still seek to impose this second-class religion tax.

Back-up: Jihad and Qital and The Quran and the Sword

11. Muhammad executes around 600 male Jews and enslaves the women and children.

Quran 33:25-27 justifies this atrocity.  After the Battle of the Trench in March 627 (named after a trench that the Muslims dug around parts of Medina) against a large coalition of Meccans and their allies, Muhammad imposed the ultimate penalty on the men in the Jewish clan called Qurayzah.

The sentence: death by decapitation for around 600 men (one Islamic source says 900) and enslavement for the women and children (he took a beautiful Jewess as his own prize).

Back-up: Jihad and Qital and The Sword and the Jews

12. Slavery is allowed.

It is true that freeing slaves was done in original Islam (Quran 5:89 and 24:33), and the Quran says to be kind to slaves (Quran 4:36), but that is not the entire story.

In addition to those verses, Quran 4:24, 23:1-7, and 33:52 allow the institution.  Muhammad owned slaves, even one who was black (so says a sacred tradition).  He was militarily and politically powerful during his later life in Medina, but he never abolished slavery as an institution.

Officially, Islamic nations have outlawed slavery (Article 11, which is still based on sharia).  That proves that Islam can reform on at least one matter.  Can it reform on the other sharia laws?  And we are told that “no other nation or religious group in the world treated slaves better than the Muslims did.”  The back-up article and next two items in this list contradict that claim.

The legacy of slavery still runs deep in Islamic countries even today.

Back-up: Slavery

13. A male owner may have sex with his slave-women, even prepubescent slave-girls.

See Quran 4:24 and 23:1-7 — but it is classical law that permits sex with prepubescent slave girls and describes them as such.  Some Muslim religious leaders and others still advocate this practice, taking the slaves as concubines (though sex with prepubescent slave-girls is another matter).

Back-up: Slavery

14. Slaves may be beaten.

That’s what sacred Traditions and classical laws say.  See “Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism, and Slavery.”

Back-up: Slavery

15. Apostasy laws, including imprisonment or execution, may be imposed on anyone who leaves Islam (an apostate). Normally this is a prescribed punishment, but it is also political, since it is about freedom of religion.  Surprisingly the Quran does not cover punishing apostates down here on earth, though in the afterlife they will be punished.  Does this mean modern Islam can reform old Islam?  Quran 4:88-89, 9:73-74, and 9:123, read in that sequence, might deal with earthly punishments.  Mainly, however, the sacred traditions and classical law permit harsh treatment for anyone who leaves Islam.

Islamic courts and laws still impose these punishments today, or religious scholars today argue for the law.

Back-up: Freedom of Religion

16. Blasphemy laws, including imprisonment or execution, may be imposed on critics of Islam or Muhammad.

These verses should be read in historical sequence, as follows, for they show that as Islam’s military power increased, the harsh treatment of mockers and critics also intensified: Quran 3:186, 33:57-61, 9:61-66, 9:73, and 9:123.  Sacred traditions, classical laws, and historical Islam are unambiguous about the punishments, recording the people, and often their names, who were assassinated for mocking Muhammad and the Quran.

Islamic nations and pockets of Islam in non-Muslim countries still impose these punishments today.

Back-up: Free Speech

For those sixteen reasons, Islam is not the religion of peace.

The thinking world was laughing at Islam behind its back.  Now we’re laughing at it to its face.

Islamic religious leaders must reform their religion.  Those sixteen points have expiration dates on them — from back in the seventh century.

Only after reform will we have even slight peace.

In the meantime, while we wait patiently for this Islamic Reformation and Modernization (if it happens), the Western elites may want to remember three universal rights that are self-evident, according to the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The hallmarks of those three rights are, among other things, freedom of conscience to follow a religion of one’s choice (or no religion at all) without being harassed.  Freedom of speech — even the kind that criticizes the Quran and Muhammad — is a sign that democracy and justice have taken root.  Equality before the law for both sexes also defines the three universal rights.

If we bend any part of those God-given rights, we will weaken our nation.

James M. Arlandson, Ph.D., has written a book: Women, Class, and Society in Early Christianity.  He has recently completed a series on “The Sword in Early Christianity and Islam.”  He has posted a series on sharia at jihadwatch.org, from which this article is inspired (also from Top Ten Reasons Islam Is Not the Religion of Peace [2005]).

Posted on 16 Sept 12 by American Thinker