Redstate

Posted at 11:13am on Jun. 14, 2008 Betraying Free Speech.

By Paul J Cella

Canada persecutes Mark Steyn for writing that Islam is a threat to the West. The New York Times, having ignored that drama for months, takes the opportunity to dilate tendentiously on the uniqueness of American tolerance for Free Speech, implicitly comparing Steyn to Nazis, and naturally burying his response in the last two paragraphs of a long article. The few European politicians and thinkers with the guts to stand up to creeping Islamization, find themselves betrayed and denounced in America, and likewise compared to Nazis and fascists, by prominent bloggers. Readers will recall the pitifully tepid response from the West to the beleaguered Danes during the Cartoon Jihad.

And now we have this, as reported by Josh Trevino: In Kuala Lumpar, at the Third International Conference on the Muslim World, three prominent Muslim leaders called on the West to renounce Free Speech in order to accommodate Islamic sensibilities; and the three Westerns who spoke uttered not a word of protest.

Read on.

Posted in Anti-Free Speech Liberals | Archived | free speech | Islam | Liberals | Mark Steyn | the Jihad — Comments (12)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:52am on May 21, 2008 The drama continues.

By Paul J Cella

Under pressure from the fanaticism and treachery of the Jihad, which is abetted by the peculiar manias of Liberalism, Free Speech is perishing. In Canada a sordid drama continues, with Mark Steyn actually managing to maneuver his accusers into a public confrontation — which naturally did not turn out well for these individuals [the confrontation begins about two-thirds of the way into the video].

But it probably doesn’t matter: On June 2, Mr. Steyn and the magazine that published him are compelled to answer to the charge of “flagrant Islamophobia” before another Human Rights Commission, this time in British Columbia. More trials may follow, including a federal tribunal which is said to boast a 100% conviction rate on hate speech cases.

The thing is, under the tyranny of these human rights tribunals, there really can be no defense. Steyn quotes a Canadian Justice Department summary of the situation: “The defences of truth and fair comment remain available to torts such as defamation and seditious libel, regardless of the medium in which they occur. However, … defences that may be available in tort actions are not available in cases of hate propaganda because the prohibition is concerned with adverse effects, not with intent.” Steyn comments:

The government rarely expresses it that brazenly. Especially the justice minister of a supposedly Conservative government. By the way, by “adverse effects,” they mean not anything that’s actually happened but something that might potentially theoretically hypothetically happen maybe a decade or four down the road. If you create a justice regime predicated as a point of principle on disdain for objective reality, it’s no big surprise to find perpetually aggrieved Muslim lobby groups eager to avail themselves of it — big time.

Now my view of Free Speech, admittedly, is somewhat ambivalent. As a general proposition concerning political speech, I endorse it; as an absolute proposition, with compass over anything remotely associated with human expression, I decline to endorse it, and indeed stand ready to oppose it where absolutism threatens to conjure anarchy.

The particular insanity of our day is that Liberals who tend toward the absolutist position are, it seems, sufficiently blind to the obliteration of Free Speech augured by human rights tribunals that they cannot see the flat contradiction that stares them in the face. Islam and grievance-mongering will destroy one of their most cherished principles, and our dear dear Liberals may not even notice.

Posted in free speech | Islam | the Jihad | War — Comments (11)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:32am on May 20, 2008 Hard truths in the NY Daily News.

By Paul J Cella

Now this is impressive. Writing in the New York Daily News, a former Jihadist by the name of Tawfik Hamid proclaims some hard truths:

The real way to strengthen moderate Muslims in their fight against the radicals is to spotlight radical teachings and flush out those who believe in them. [. . .]

This is especially true in war: define your enemy correctly, and you will rally legitimate allies to your side. Blur what a battle is about and, stuck in the muddle, you are bound to lose.

Yes, the word "jihad" has several, including some peaceful, meanings — but that doesn't change the fact that most authoritative Islamic texts and systems of jurisprudence maintain that its primary meaning is "warfare to subjugate the world to Islam." Closely allied with this predominant concept of jihad is the threefold choice given to infidels: conversion, submission and tribute or death. And it is simply a fact that jihad, as taught by Sunni Islam's four schools of jurisprudence, is either a war to defend Muslims or to impose Islam on non-Muslims.

It may be uncomfortable to admit these facts — and doing so may run certain risks. But it is true, and the costs of ignoring reality are far higher than the benefits of glossing over it.

Amen to all that, and read on.

Posted in free speech | the Jihad | War — Comments (7)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:06am on May 15, 2008 Islam and Free Speech: Canadian version.

By Paul J Cella

The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists. It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air.
— G. K. Chesterton.

Any reader involved in our long-running debate (recapitulated just last week) on Islam and Free Speech, should sit down a read this remarkable statement carefully. It concerns a complaint brought before the Ontario Human Rights Commission against Mcleans magazine, which reprinted a portion of Mark Steyn’s book America Alone. The complaint alleged that Mcleans and Steyn violated the Ontario Human Rights Code by unfairly “targeting Muslims.”

Read the statement, and then read on.

Posted in Canada | free speech | Mark Steyn | sedition | the Jihad | War — Comments (11)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:00am on May 8, 2008 Free Speech and Islam.

By Paul J Cella

We must allow for the possibility that Islam as such is a threat to this country. Even more bluntly: The question of the character of Islamic doctrine — whether it can be tolerated without fatal exposure to its war-making titles — must remain an open question if we are to remain a free people.

Here is the enigma with this whole business. Most Americans, Right and Left, will profess belief in a very robust principle of Free Speech. Thus the idea of curbing discussion on an important topic will arouse their repugnance. I have argued in the past for legislation embracing certain aspects of Islamic doctrine — the dogmas, specifically, of Holy War (jihad), Holy Subjugation (dhimma) and perhaps Sharia law itself — into our current sedition law: in other words, outlawing the promulgation of these dogmas. Even among people favorably deposed toward an aggressive posture vis-à-vis Islam, this is met with suspicion and hostility.

Fair enough — but why abandon this Free Speech principle when it comes to the character of the Islamic religion? There is the perplexity and the frustration. People jealous to preserve a “marketplace of ideas,” where true ideas will “out-compete” false ones in the end, while understandably hostile toward my proposal to proscribe certain forms of Islamic speech, yet exhibit an apparent insouciance about proposals (less overt than mine, to be sure) to proscribe certain forms of speech about Islam.

Read on.

Posted in free speech | sedition | the Jihad | War — Comments (214)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:20am on May 6, 2008 Too large to see.

By Paul J Cella

There is a famous crack by Chesterton to the effect that it is possible for things to be too large to see. The huge and obvious becomes invisible under certain pressures. Take, for instance, this very useful, if dispiriting catalog of capitulation, presented ably by Mr. Bruce Bawer in City Journal. His thesis is simple enough: “Motivated variously, and doubtless sometimes simultaneously, by fear, misguided sympathy, and multicultural ideology,” he writes, “people at every level of Western society, but especially elites, have allowed concerns about what fundamentalist Muslims will feel, think, or do to influence their actions and expressions.” Dhimmitude. “Westerners have begun, in other words, to internalize the strictures of sharia, and thus implicitly to accept the deferential status of dhimmis — infidels living in Muslim societies.” Bawer goes on to detail at length the many ways in which Liberalism is capitulating to an armed doctrine that, in most of its specifics, is implacably hostile to Liberalism.

Well and good. Mr. Bawer has proven himself in many respects a careful and daring observer. He is several steps ahead of most people in his appraisal of the problem. Yet the curiosity, the frustration, is how blind he is to some elementary observations. In this he is hardly alone. There is in fact a whole cottage industry of writing like this, where the huge and obvious has become invisible.

In the course of a 4000-word essay, Mr. Bawer makes use of variations on the word “immigration” exactly twice, by my count; and both times it is used descriptively, rather than analytically. It seems that this whole surrender of the West to the rigid code of sharia, this forfeiture of our freedom to an alien tyranny, is going on, right under our noses, in perfect innocence of Western immigration policy. Islam is a kind of force of nature, against which Liberalism, lacking certain qualities of heroism, is impotent. Jihad is not so much an armed doctrine, held or freely adopted by living men, as a contagion.

What is huge and obvious is that our immigration policy exposes us to the Jihad. What is huge and obvious is that continuing to increase the number of Muslims entering our country, and other Western nations, will increase our exposure to this armed doctrine; will increase the strength of those whose position is already strong enough to impose upon our Leftists and Liberals the surrender that Bawer describes so vividly.

Posted in dhimmitude | Immigration | the Jihad | War — Comments (11)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:15am on Apr. 21, 2008 To alleviate a dilemma.

By Paul J Cella

An article in the Washington Post details the difficulties faced by prosecutors in achieving guilty verdicts in federal terrorism cases. The dilemma, from the prosecutor’s perspective, is simple enough: You have a cell of conspirators plotting murder and mayhem; should you intervene early, with arrests and formal charges before the plot matures, or wait until its maturity virtually insures guilty verdicts? If you choose the former, you indemnify against the possibility that the plot will be carried out under your very nose, that, in fine, the intervention will come to late; but in so doing you may find yourself with a weaker case. If you choose the latter, interdicting the plot in its later stages, your prosecution will be far easier, but you magnify that risk that it will succeed despite your best efforts. Patience may issue in disaster; swift intervention in a failed prosecution.

It seems to me that a possible alleviation of this dilemma lies in new legislation: Let us make the plot itself a more serious offense, one that is easier to prosecute and carries a more onerous penalty. That is to say, let us proscribe the mere preaching or advocacy of jihad against America.

Read on.

Posted in American political tradition | sedition | the Jihad | War — Comments (12)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:24pm on Feb. 18, 2008 Some good news

By Paul J Cella

Two pieces of good news:

(1) Phoenix, Arizona, has repudiated its “sanctuary city” policy and is now authorizing the police to inquire into the immigration status on anyone arrested. Moreover, “Police Chief Jack F. Harris, who has been outspoken in warning of the dangers of major police involvement in immigration enforcement, said he endorsed the policy, would write regulations for it and put it into place within three months.” This latter fact is important because occasionally we hear arguments from immigration enthusiasts to the effect that the local police oppose measures to involve them in immigration enforcement.

(2) At least someone in Europe has got some guts. And yes, yes: I know there have been long and tedious arraignments, generally cobbled together with the ever-expedient adhesive of guilt-by-association, laid out against European politicians who oppose the Islamization of Europe. If only the same industry were evident in the press for investigating the history of prominent Islamic spokesman.

In my judgment the history of the Jihad offers a certain banality in its malignity on this point. So wicked an institution and doctrine as this, is bound to corrupt even those who oppose it. Putting down the revolts of the Moriscos in early modern Spain was a crucial component to the expansion of the Inquisition as an agency of the Spainish monarchy. The intrigues of the Byzantines were made more brutal and treacherous by the participation of the Turks. Even in our country, the mere beginnings of our struggle with the Jihad have augmented the security apparatus of the state, usually in sensible ways, but also in perverse ways. Once the Jihad has a foothold in your country, you will not escape its depredations without dirtying your hands.

Which is why, of course, our policy should be strictly tailored toward minimizing our exposure to its depredations. Jihad, Sharia and Dhimmia — all three doctrines should be summarily proscribed from promulgation; to promote any should be made legally tantamount to sedition. Immigration from Muslim nations should end, virtually without exception. In sum, we the people of the United States should make plain our republican judgment that until Islamdom ceases churning out terrorists, subversives and brigands, we will (so far as possible) cease interaction with it.

The alternative is the continued expansion of the Security State, the diminution of privacy and personal liberty, and the corruption of our security agencies under constant strain; not to mention gradual increase in Jihadist aggression and agitation.

Posted in Immigration | the Jihad | War — Comments (22)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:50am on Jan. 24, 2008 Jihad in Atlanta.

By Paul J Cella

I commend to your attention a Jan. 20th story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution headlined, “Muslim cop played key role in terror probe.” The tale told is fairly simple: a DeKalb County detective of Islamic faith and heritage, Mr. Khaled Sediqi, along with his partner, investigated and ultimately apprehended an agent of the Jihad. DeKalb splits the city of Atlanta with the more well-known Fulton County; both the detective and the Jihadist attended the same mosque in Midtown Atlanta near Georgia Tech. Syed Haris Ahmed, a former student there, is to stand trial for material support of a terrorist organization. He and an accomplice were arrested in 2006 and, later in that year, formally linked to a much larger Jihadist cell out of Toronto.

There is drama in abundance here. The detectives nearly succeeded, it appears, in turning Ahmed into an intelligence asset; he later changed his mind, having fortified himself “through prayer,” according to the article, and warned his accomplice. The interrogation technique of Mr. Sediqi, who we are told played the consummate “good cop” to his partner’s more aggressive and demonstrative method, seems to have relied at least partly on direct theological confrontation: “When you say you’re a good Muslim … I believe you, man” but “you’re easily swayed,” by men “with some really evil ways and evil ideas.” “If you’re trying to hurt innocent civilians and unarmed people, then you’re no longer a Muslim.”

Let us hope that the detective has, on Islamic grounds, the better argument here. We know that, on grounds of truth, he has the better argument. The principles and traditions of the Jihad are “evil ways and evil ideas.” If a man is truly “no longer a Muslim” when he embraces them, well and good. If he is rather a true Muslim . . . well, so be it.

But that conundrum we still have the luxury of leaving aside. We the people of the Republic are not now obligated, in my judgment, to deliver our republican judgment on the character of the Islamic religion. Many of us knew little about Islam before a certain autumn raid. And it would be a terrible thing for a republic to be forced to give a yea or nay vote on a whole religion and civilization. History is littered with the husks of great kingdoms and peoples, first savaged by the Jihad, then corrupted and enervated by the demands of a defense against it. The Empires of Byzantium and Spain, each in their characteristic way, teach this bitter lesson.

I call it a blessing that it is still within out power, as I perceive, to check the enemy and baffle his plans, here on our shores; to reduce our intercourse and limit our exposure to his madness; to crush his doctrine, his method, his conspiracies; to extirpate from our land the tendrils of the Jihad, and do so without war and repression — this is not yet beyond our power.

So we may still stay our judgment of Islam. But by God it is long past time that we delivered a resounding negative on the doctrine and institution of Jihad: wicked, treasonable, and menacing.

Detective Sediqi, I salute you — as an Atlantan, a Georgian and an American.

Posted in Atlanta | Islam | the Jihad | War — Comments (5)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:53pm on Jan. 15, 2008 The defiance we need

And the oppression we've got

By Paul J Cella

It is my firm view that the most vital problem of American national security, the question upon which hinges our fortune in the war that came to our shores on September 11, in short, nothing less than the most pressing issue before the Republic, is whether or not we will comprehend the ineradicably Islamic character of the enemy.

Are we or are we not a people capable of embracing hard truth about the war that is made against us — the hard truth that the enemy finds his motivation, his inspiration, his justification, his rhetoric, even his strategy and tactics, in the authentic and primitive traditions of the religion of Muhammad? Are we or are we not a people possessed of the fortitude equal to this challenge? As the cliché goes, can we handle the truth?

It is an open question, I’m afraid; and I am convinced that it is one whose answer will tell for or against this Republic for generations for come.

It is in this context that we ought to read with alarm and indignation of the dismissal of Major Stephen Coughlin from the Pentagon. Coughlin worked as a counterterrorism analyst, and took an unsparing view of the Jihad. The document he authored concludes that a “working threat model” of the enemy must begin with “an unconstrained, undelegated, systematic, factual analysis of the threat doctrine that the enemy self-identifies as being driven by Islamic law.” The pulverizing fact is that our current model begins with an unthinking rejection of such analysis: it begins with a deliberate closing of the mind, enforced by the standard methods of intimidation and vilification. Coughlin, for instance, has been publicly castigated as a “Christian zealot with a pen.”

Read on.

Posted in American tradition | Islam | Pentagon | Stephen Coughlin | the Jihad | War — Comments (42)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:00am on Nov. 7, 2007 Dumbing down torture.

By Paul J Cella

I am at a loss to see how the dumbing down of the word "torture" is such a deprivation that we can hardly even talk about the subject intelligently anymore.

Someone at The Belmont Club says that this dumbing down has rendered us "utterly impotent to describe the [bottomless depravity and cruelty] of al Qaeda." Utterly impotent? Talk about a pessimist!

In fact, much finer, nobler, sharper, better words than "torture" have been dumbed down. But fortunately we are blessed with an extremely rich language, and other words may be substituted. I recommend reading Andy Bostom's The Legacy of Jihad. There, in the masses of newly translated material in the back, you will find abundant examples of the slaughter, the mercilessness, the infamy, the rapine and enslavement, the horror and corruption and violation, visited upon those who fell under the wrath of the Jihad.

No one will, upon reading this legacy of torture by the Jihad, somehow manage to confuse it with waterboarding; though they may still say that waterboarding is wrong.

Posted at 1:35pm on Nov. 6, 2007 Pakistan and our democracy problem.

By Paul J Cella

Well this Pakistan situation has put our Democracy Project under some embarrassing pressure, hasn’t it?

Consider the question: should it even be our long-term policy to open a place like Pakistan to the wild winds of popular opinion, in other words, to push it toward democracy? The country is not, in fact, teeming with responsible liberals and democrats. There are some of these brave and heroic souls, yes; but what Pakistan really teems with is various lunatic factions of the Jihad. Factions that are a heartbeat or two away from a nuclear arsenal.

Read on.

Posted in democracy | Foreign Affairs | Islam | Pakistan | the Jihad — Comments (15)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:30pm on Nov. 5, 2007 Hawkish on sedition.

By Paul J Cella

One of the more remarkable ironies of what is infelicitously called the War on Terror is the rigid mental partition we have set up between its foreign policy aspect and its domestic security aspect. The basic way this works is that the domestic aspect is ignored in its specifics, while the foreign policy aspect is exaggerated in generalities. A politician who talks tough on foreign policy, but almost exclusively in the comfortable language of political abstraction, is labeled a Hawk; while a politician (at this point only imaginary) who talks tough about the specific details of the domestic threat, will probably be labeled a bigot.

Now this is all very strange to me. Consider: The only reason the Jihad is a real threat to us is because its agents and propagandists are in our midst. In other words, the Jihad has not the wherewithal (yet) to deliver us blows from without. It must rely on infiltration into, or recruitment in America. That is a fact.

Read on.

Posted in fifth column | sedition | the Jihad | War — Comments (49)/ Email this page » / Read More »