Saturday, May 4, 2013

Preparedness and Response in the Arctic: The Opportunities and Challenges of Increased Marine Activity”

Written testimony of U.S. Coast Guard 17th District Commander Rear Admiral Thomas Ostebo for a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard field hearing titled “Assessing U.S. Preparedness and Response in the Arctic: The Opportunities and Challenges of Increased Marine Activity”

Release Date: 
March 27, 2013
Anchorage, Alaska
Senator Begich and distinguished colleagues, thank you for the opportunity to join you today. I am pleased to discuss Coast Guard Arctic responsibilities and operations. This past summer we prepared for Arctic activity driven by the oil industry’s planned drilling operations in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. Partnering closely with Federal, State, Local, and Tribal government partners, and working with industry as the regulated parties, the Coast Guard was ready for operations in the Arctic with Operation Arctic Shield. The lessons we learned this past year will inform our planning and strategy, to ensure we remain always ready to ensure the safety, security and stewardship of the emerging maritime frontier of the Arctic.

Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU) Kulluk Grounding-On-Going Investigation

The Coast Guard shares your concerns regarding the grounding of the MODU KULLUK on December 31, 2012, which highlights the rigors of operating in Alaskan waters. The Coast Guard last inspected the KULLUK on December 20, 2012. The Coast Guard inspected and certificated the newly constructed Offshore Supply Vessel AIVIQ on April 20, 2012.
In January, I directed a marine casualty safety investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding the grounding of the KULLUK. Members of the Coast Guard’s Investigation National Center of Expertise are leading the investigation, coordinating with local Coast Guard commands, and utilizing the technical expertise of the National Transportation Safety Board and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to examine all aspects of this vessel casualty. Furthermore, in order to provide timely feedback to the American public and the marine industry, the investigators have been authorized to make interim safety recommendations prior to the final release of the report.
As my investigating officer is still actively engaged in the investigation, it would not be appropriate to provide additional information at this time. As soon as the investigation is complete, and the final report is issued, I will ensure a copy is provided to you and your staff.
Additionally, in January I also referred the casualty investigation of the Drill Ship NOBLE DISCOVERER, also operating in Alaskan waters, to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for their review and potential follow-on action. Since the Coast Guard is actively assisting DOJ with the case, it would not be appropriate for me to provide information regarding this on-going investigation and I would refer any questions to DOJ.

The Coast Guard in Alaska and the Arctic Region

The Coast Guard has been operating in the Arctic Ocean since 1867, when Alaska was just a territory. Then, as now, our mission is to assist scientific exploration, chart the waters, provide humanitarian assistance to native tribes, conduct search and rescue, and enforce U.S. laws and regulations.
In Alaska, Coast Guard aircraft and vessels monitor more than 950,000 square miles off the Alaskan coast to enforce U.S. laws. We patrol an even larger area of the North Pacific Ocean to stop large-scale high seas drift netting and other illegal fishing practices, including foreign incursions into the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. We also conduct marine safety and environmental protection missions in the region.
To protect the Arctic environment, we are engaging industry and the private sector to address their significant responsibilities for pollution prevention, preparedness, and response. Recognizing that pollution response is significantly more difficult in cold, ice, and darkness, enhancing preventative measures is critical. Those engaging in offshore commercial activity in the Arctic must also plan and prepare for emergency response in the face of a harsh environment, long transit distances for air and surface assets, and limited response resources. We continue to work to improve awareness, contingency planning, and communications.
We are also actively participating in the Department of Interior-led interagency working group on Coordination of Domestic Energy Development and Permitting in Alaska (established by Executive Order 13580) to synchronize the efforts of Federal agencies responsible for overseeing the safe and responsible development of Alaska’s onshore and offshore energy.
While prevention is critical, the Coast Guard must be able to manage the response to pollution incidents where responsible parties are not known or fail to adequately respond. In 2010, we deployed an emergency vessel towing system north of the Arctic Circle. We have also exercised the Vessel of Opportunity Skimming System (VOSS) and the Spilled Oil Recovery System (SORS) in Alaskan waters, but we had yet to conduct exercises north of the Arctic Circle until this summer. Both of these systems enable vessels to collect oil in the event of a discharge, however, these systems have limited capacity and are only effective in ice-free conditions. As part of Arctic Shield 2012, we conducted the furthest northern deployment and testing of the SORS in the vicinity of Barrow.
Fisheries are also a concern in the region. The National Marine Fisheries Service, based upon a recommendation from the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, has imposed a moratorium on fishing within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone north of the Bering Strait until an assessment of the practicality of sustained commercial fishing is completed. The Coast Guard will continue to carry out its mission to enforce and protect living marine resources in the high latitudes.
We are employing our Waterways Analysis and Management System to assess vessel traffic density and determine the need for improved aids to navigation and other safety requirements. We are also moving forward with a Bering Strait Port Access Route Study, in coordination with our international partners, which is a preliminary analysis to evaluate vessel traffic management and appropriate ship routing measures.
The Coast Guard continues to support international and multilateral organizations, studies, projects and initiatives. We are actively working with the Arctic Council, International Maritime Organization and their respective working groups. We are leading the U.S. delegation to the Arctic Council Oil Spill Task Force that is developing an International Instrument on Arctic Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response. We are also conducting joint contingency response exercises with Canada and we maintain communications and working relationships with Canadian and Russian agencies responsible for regional operations including Search and Rescue, law enforcement and oil spill response. We maintain bilateral response relationships with Canada and Russia, and last month we hosted representatives from the Russian State Marine Pollution Control Salvage and Rescue Administration to sign an expanded Memorandum of Understanding and Joint Contingency Plan to foster closer cooperation in oil spill response. We will continue to engage Arctic nations, international organizations, industry, academia and Alaskan state, local and tribal governments to strengthen our partnerships and inter-operability.
Our engagement with Alaska Native Tribes continues to be highly beneficial. Our continued partnership has made our operations safer and more successful. We are working hard to ensure tribal equities are recognized, and that indigenous peoples and their way of life are protected. We look forward to continuing to strengthen our partnerships with our Alaskan Native partners.
The Coast Guard continues to push forward and assess our capabilities to conduct operations in the Arctic. Since 2008, we set up small, temporary Forward Operating Locations on the North Slope in Prudhoe Bay, Nome, Barrow and Kotzebue to test our capabilities with boats, helicopters, and Maritime Safety and Security Teams. We also deployed our light-ice capable 225-foot ocean-going buoy tenders to test our equipment, train our crews and increase our awareness of activity. Additionally, each year from April to November we have flown two sorties a month to evaluate activities in the region.
Looking ahead over the next 10-15 years, the Coast Guard’s regional mission profile will continue to evolve. Increasing human activity will increase the significance and volume of maritime issues, such as freedom of navigation, offshore resource exploration, and environmental preservation. While summer sea ice is forecast to diminish further in the coming decades, the region will still be largely ice covered in the winter. Thus, ice will continue to present hazards even in the summer time.

The Coast Guard in Context of National Arctic Policy

U.S. Arctic policy is set forth in the 2009 National Security Presidential Directive 66/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 25. For the past four years, as we are today with Arctic Shield 2012, we have been conducting limited Arctic operations during open water periods. However, we face many challenges looking into the future. Some Arctic operations demand specialized capabilities and personnel trained and equipped to operate in extreme climates. Our assessments of the Nation’s requirements for operating in ice-laden waters will consider infrastructure requirements to support operations, and requirements for personnel and equipment to operate in extreme cold and ice.
Given the scope of these challenges, we have been conducting oil-in-ice research since 2010 to evaluate, develop, and test equipment and techniques that can be used to successfully track and recover oil in any ice filled waters, and have explored promising technologies, such as heated skimmers. The Coast Guard’s strategic approach is to ensure we pursue the capabilities in the future to perform our statutory missions so we can ensure the Arctic is safe, secure, and environmentally sustainable. This strategy is consistent with our Service’s approach to performing its Maritime Safety, Security, and Stewardship functions.


Arctic Shield 2012 was an appropriate plan to meet projected mission requirements this past year. Moving forward, we will continue building our strategy using a whole-of-government approach that will inform national dialogue and policy development for this critical region.
While there are many challenges, the increasingly open Arctic Ocean also presents unique opportunities. We look forward to working with the Congress on how our Coast Guard can continue to support our national Arctic objectives, protect its fragile environment and remain Semper Paratus – Always Ready in this new ocean.
Review Date: 
March 25, 2013

Mushroom cloud over Damascus  
 Part of channel(s): Syria (current event)
5.5.2013 Damascus, Syria

From Russia Today after the Syrian Military made statements about the attacks;
"Strong blasts have hit the Syrian capital, according to media and eye witness reports. According to state TV a military research center was targeted. It also says that the explosions have been caused by an Israeli rocket attack.The blasts reportedly occurred in the area around Mount Qasioun in Damascus in the early hours of Sunday.

The area hosts a military research center in Jamraya, which came under Israeli attack earlier in January.

The Israeli Air Force conducted an airstrike on Syrian territory on Friday reportedly targeting a shipment of advanced missiles.


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Please, if you have any video of mushroom clouds like this coming from conventional bombs please share. I count 11/12 secondary explosions.

Is Barack Obama the Muslim nation’s new caliph? Try to impeach Obama and you will see “jihad” on a scale never imagined before!

Obama is galvanizing (uniting) the Muslim nation.
The Muslim Brotherhood is Sunni, one of the two major sects of Islam and which the majority of Muslims are, including all in Indonesia where Obama was in his most formative years raised by his Muslim stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, and where his name was Barry Soetoro, not Barack Obama. And now Obama is aiding the Muslim Brotherhood with American tax-dollars to overthrow the Shia sect in Syria. The Shia Muslims in Syria were until recently aided by Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both dominantly Shia. But don’t misunderstand, the often violent sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims (as seen today in Iraq)  has always been temporary, i.e., until a new caliph is chosen.
Abdulaziz and Ahmadinijad
For the cameras, Sunni (Abdullah of Saudi Arabia) and Shia (Ahmadinejad of Iran) are in fact united against the United States, Israel and Western civilization. See the Sunni Muslim glaring at Ahmadinejad: It will take time for them to get used to unity.
So now We the People of the United States of America have a Sunni Muslim in our White House aiding, comforting and uniting Islamic powers into a caliphate while most American Citizens are truly struggling financially. Many of us don’t even have a bank account any longer and are now dependent on food stamps.
If you do not know that Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. is a Muslim, then you do not know what Islam is, (i.e., you do not know what the Quran instructs), and have not acknowledged the facts.
Obama wrote in his book, “The person who made me proudest of all though was Roy, he converted to Islam.” A Christian would NEVER say that! Roy is Barack Obama’s brother and after “he converted to Islam” he changed his name to Abongo“. What we must acknowledge here is that Obama’s mother married a second Muslim, Lolo Soetoro, who adopted her son in Indonesia and his name was Barry Soetoro. “Barry” is not a Muslim name and after leaving Indonesia he changed his name to “Barack,” an Arabic Muslim name. Also, Barack wrote in his book, “Lolo followed a brand of Islam. I looked to Lolo for guidance.” What we must also acknowledge is that Barry’s stepfather and mother enrolled him in two separate Indonesian schools as a Muslim. They could have circled Catholic, Christian, Buddhism, Hindu, but they circled Islam. And in a third quote from Obama’s book he says, “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” Instead of saying he is on the side of America, or of Western civilization, or on the side of the Jews and the Christians who are the victims of Islamic terrorism instructed by the Quran and hadith, he is going to stand with the Muslims. And we see him doing this: He has been aiding and comforting the Muslims on every issue and at every step of the way.
And that’s just up to 2010 — and he has changed course since then. And while he did approve of the killings of bin Laden and al-Awlaki (although Islam permits the killing of fellow Muslims as sacrifices, i.e., if the killing serves to ultimately spread Islam as the dominating global power) he has never done anything or said anything negative about the non-violent advance of Sharia in the Islamic world or in the West, including the United States.
NOTE: In 2008 a poll found that 1 out of 10 Americans believed Obama to be a Muslim. On May 10, 2012, four years later another poll found that 1 out of 6 Americans believed Obama to be a Muslim, and these figures are rising even though Obama says he is a “Christian”. That is because Americans are beginning to acknowledge that the Quran instructs Muslims to lie to unbelievers.
Obama showed absolutely no interest in helping the Syrian people who were protesting against the Syrian regime, i.e., he showed no interest in democracy or human rights. It was not until the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt, a government that has already thoroughly proven itself to be another repressive regime, that he got involved. Even King Abdullah of Jordan has very seriously warned Obama that the Muslim Brotherhood has become involved only to install another dictatorship in Syria. Despite King Abdullah’s serious warning, Obama is now aiding the Brotherhood financially and with weapons. Then suddenly the Brotherhood’s President Morsi rolled out the red carpet in a welcome to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, the first trip of an Iranian leader to Egypt since 1979. “We can provide a big credit line to the Egyptian brothers,” Ahmadinejad said.
“We can provide a big credit line to the Egyptian brothers.” Ahmadinejad
NOTE: At first it appeared that Iran’s visit was to compete with U.S.A., but now it is clear Iran sees Obama’s conspiratorial moves (giving aid and comfort) and is acknowledging the LARGER mutual goal, i.e., a caliphate. Notice Ahmadinejad’s words, “Egyptian brothers”)—betraying Iran’s Syrian “ally,” President Assad.
Muslim Brotherhood’s President Morsi has been recently quoted as saying:
“Dear brothers, we must not forget to nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews, and all those who support them. They must be nursed on hatred. The hatred must continue.”
Morsi has referred to our Israeli allies as “blood-suckers … warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs … We must all realize that resistance (read as “terrorism) is the only way to liberate the land of Palestine.Also, last October, Morsi was shown on Egyptian television fervent in prayer in a mosque as the cleric of the mosque chanted, “Oh Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, disperse them, rend them asunder. Oh Allah, demonstrate your might and greatness upon them. Show us your omnipotence, oh Lord.”
This sign is not in reference to the young Egyptians who are protesting against the Muslim Brotherhood, but to the children of the Muslim Brotherhood.
NOTE: Obama wants American parents to teach their children to be exactly like the youth of the Muslim Brotherhood: Not raise them as American Patriots with allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, but to accept Islam as the dominant force. The Muslim Brotherhood is the largest Muslim organization in the world and it is a documented fact that the Musliim Brotherhood is attacking the United States with what they, themselves, say is a “Grand Jihad until the final hour comes.” And what is “the final hour”? It is the hour of the final terroristic assault, the violent Jihad where all Muslims rise up wherever they are, to conquer the world.
It is no secret that many Muslims want Barack Obama to be their new caliph. It has in fact already been said, “As Caliph he would solve all our problems.”  This has already been publically stated in Pakistan, which is also of the Sunni sect. Obama was in Pakistan for three weeks in 1981 after he visited his mother and stepfather in Indonesia, a round the world trip that he has not mentioned in his books and at a time that he was struggling to find money for his college tuition. It must be mentioned here that Barack Obama has now given Pakistan billions of dollars in aid. “This law is the tangible manifestation of the broad support for Pakistan in the U.S.,”  the White House said in a statement. The videos below reveal how that “broad support for Pakistan in the U.S.” has come about.
Below is the paragraph shown in the video above, dated May 22, 1991, seized years ago when the FBI arrested a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who was photographing the cables of a large bridge. Translated into English, it reads:
Understanding The role of the Muslim Brother in North America:
The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of Grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and by the hands of the believers so its is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding we are not up to the challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he lives and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from this destiny except for those who chose to slack. But would the slackers and the Mujahideen be equal.”
The entire Muslim Brotherhood document is at:
Obama has in fact hijacked the United States government and if Congress even attempts to impeach him we will see “Jihad” as never imagined — that is because Muslims leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood see Obama as the Muslim nation’s new caliph. The random terrorist attacks, even the 9/11 attacks, were only by loose cannons, i.e, by an impatient few wanting to lead the “Jihad” and unwilling to wait on the lengthy strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Obama had a photographer ready to take this picture only to show other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood how he is insulting and controlling the American People.
Barack Obama has been positioning himself (massaging other Muslim leaders) to be made the new caliph of a caliphate to rule the world, and he prefers to do so from Washington. If you think I’m theorizing (without facts), you need to look closer at Islam and what Obama and other Muslims are doing. Also, go ahead and try to impeach him — there are many reasons why Congress should have already impeached him, including being ineligible to assume the office of President and committing treason! Try now to impeach him and see what happens.
It has become evident that Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. has all the traits of a ruthless dictator, i.e., a narcissist, a liar, manipulative, a nasty temper, and very willing to violate and alienate human rights. I believe, to be the new caliph, is Obama’s highest ambition and why he is rapidly galvanizing “the Muslim nation,” a supranational fascist totalitarianism having the Quran as its constitution, even now reaching out to Iran with a passive Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel. This is also why Obama is attempting to stop Israel from striking Iran.
Obama and Netanjahu
Prime Minister Netanyahu would be wise not to trust Obama, not in the least.
When it comes to the “final hour” Obama will need/require Islamic unity and also Iran’s nuclear weapons: He must stay on good terms with Iran’s supreme mullah. I write “mullah” because Iran’s “supreme leader” is not an ayatollah, but was only at the last moment given that title so he could be the “supreme leader.” In the same manner the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian “religious leaders” will unite and appoint Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. as caliph. He will suddenly be the most revered “religious leader” in Islam—taking Mohammad’s place.
The following video very clearly reveals that the Muslim Brotherhood (a known terrorist organization) is working in the Department of Homeland Security and that Obama’s administration is now attempting to conceal this.
The following video clearly reveals that the Department of Homeland Security is not trying to protect American Citizens as claimed, ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!
Take note of the word “If” in Albert J. Beveridge’s statement above. The word “If” is asking you a question. Do you want liberty, or not? Our founding fathers established a nation based on Judeo-Christian principles, and thousands upon thousands of true American Patriots died fighting for these principles. But the dead are no longer able to defend our Republic, the responsibility to preserve and defend the U.S. Constitution (if you want liberty) is now yours.
And Albert Beveridge is correct: It is not possible to preserve and protect liberty if we do not stand for “all American fundamentals—not some, but all.” All of our fundamental liberties are in fact our foremost security measures and if even one of them is compromised we have a major breach in our security. No doubt this is why We the People now find ourselves faced not only with enemies from abroad, but within. In fact, treason is now allowed to flourish in the United States.
NOTE: Truth must be 100% truth, otherwise it is a pattern of deceipt. Someone can tell you 99 truths and then 1 lie — and all kills you. In fact the 99 truths and the 1 lie are all a pattern of deceit, not the fundamental truths woven into the great fabric of our national well-being. If we want liberty we cannot accept lies from our representative government, because once our rerpresentatives lie to us, or are willing to accept lies and go on as though nothing happened, they then in fact no longer represent us, but choose to conspire against us.
This post is in progress. Please check back for additional content.


  1. Then we fight back, I’m an American. And a Texan no one is taking my God given rights from me.
    Given Mohammedanism’s violent history and the unfavorable contrast of its oppressive practices against 21st century values, Mohammedans are hard-pressed to repackage their faith in the modern age. Some of its leading apologists have come to rely on tricks involving semantics and half-truths that are, in turn, repeated by novices and even those outside the faith.
    “If Mohammedanism were a violent religion, then all Mohammedans would be violent.”
    “Other religions kill, too.”
    Mohammad preached ‘no compulsion in religion’ (Qur’an: 2:256)
    “Mohammad never killed anyone.”
    The Qur’an Teaches that all Life is Sacred (Qur’an 5:32)
    “Mohammedans only kill in self-defense.”
    The million dollar wager that “Holy War” isn’t in the Qur’an.
    “Verses of violence are taken out of context.”
    “Islam must be true, because it is the world’s fastest growing religion.”
    “The Qur’an can only be understood in Arabic.”
    “If Islam were a violent religion, then all Mohammedans would be violent.”
    The Mohammedan Game:
    Most Mohammedans live peacefully, without harming others, so how can Mohammedanism be a violent religion? If Mohammedanism were the religion of terrorists, then why aren’t most Mohammedans terrorists?
    The Truth:
    The same question can easily be turned around. If Islam is a religion of peace, then why is it the only one that consistently produces religiously-motivated terrorist attacks each and every day of the year? Why are thousands of people willing and able to cut off an innocent person’s head or fly a plane full of passengers into an office building while screaming praises to Allah? Where’s the outrage among other Mohammadans when this happens… and why do they get more worked up over cartoons and hijabs?
    Rather than trying to answer a question with a question, however, let’s just say that the reason why most Mohammedans don’t kill is that regardless of what Islam may or may not teach it’s wrong to kill over religious beliefs.
    Consider that many Mohammedans would not even think of amputating a thief’s hand. Does this mean that it is against Islam to do so? Of course not! In fact, it is clearly mandated in both the Qur’an (5:38) and the example set by Muhammad according to the Hadith (Bukhari 81:792). As individuals, Mohammedans make their own choices about which parts of their religion they practice.
    However, even though believers may think whatever they want about what Islam says or doesn’t say, it doesn’t change what Mohammedanism says about itself. As a documented ideology, Islam exists independently of anyone’s opinion. As such, it may be studied objectively and apart from how anyone else practices or chooses to interpret it.
    The Qur’an plainly teaches that it is not only proper to kill in the name of Allah in certain circumstances, but that it is actually a requirement. Mohammedans who don’t believe in killing over religion may be that way out of ignorance or because they are more loyal to the moral law written in their hearts than they are to the details of Mohammad’s religion. Those who put Islam first or know Islam best know otherwise.
    In fact, few Mohammedans have ever read the Qur’an to any extent, much less pursued an honest investigation of the actual words and deeds of Mohammad, which were more in line with hedonism, deception, power and violence than with moral restraint. The harsh rules that Mohammedan countries impose on free speech to protect Islam from critique also prevent it from being fully understood. In the West, many Mohammedans, devout or otherwise, simply prefer to believe that Mohammedanism is aligned with the Judeo-Christian principles of peace and tolerance, even if it means filtering evidence to the contrary.
    It is no coincidence, however, that the purists who take Islam to heart are far more likely to become terrorists than humanitarians. Those most prone to abandoning themselves to Mohammad’s message without moral preconception are always the more dangerous and supremacist-minded. They may be called ‘extremists’ or ‘fundamentalists,’ but, at the end of the day, they are also dedicated to the Qur’an and following the path of Jihad as mandated by Mohammad.
    “Other religions kill, too.”
    The Mohammedan Game:
    Bringing other religions down to the level of Islam is one of the most popular strategies of Muslim apologists when confronted with the spectacle of Islamic violence. Remember Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber? How about Anders Breivik, the Norwegian killer? Why pick on Islam if other religions have the same problems?
    The Truth:
    Because they don’t.
    Regardless of what his birth certificate may or may not have said, Timothy McVeigh was not a religious man (in fact, he stated explicitly that he was agnostic and that “science” was his religion). At no time did he credit his deeds to religion, quote Bible verses, or claim that he killed for Jesus. His motives are very well documented through interviews and research. God is never mentioned.
    The so-called “members of other faiths” alluded to by Mohammedans are nearly always just nominal members who have no active involvement. They are neither inspired by, nor do they credit religion as Mohammedan terrorists do – and this is what makes it a very different matter.
    Mohammedanism is associated with Islamic terrorism because that is the association that the terrorists themselves choose to make.
    Mohammedans who compare crime committed by people who happen to be nominal members of other religions to religious terror committed explicitly in the name of Islam are comparing apples to oranges.
    Yes, some of the abortion clinic bombers were religious (as Mohammedans enjoy pointing out), but consider the scope of the problem. There have been six deadly attacks over a 36 year period in the U.S. Eight people died. This is an average of one death every 4.5 years.
    By contrast, Islamic terrorists staged nearly 10,000 deadly attacks in just the six years following September 11th, 2001. If one goes back to 1971, when Mohammedan armies in Bangladesh began the mass slaughter of Hindus, through the years of Jihad in the Sudan, Kashmir and Algeria, and the present-day Sunni-Shia violence in Iraq, the number of innocents killed in the name of Islam probably exceeds five million over this same period.
    Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 innocents in a lone rampage on July 22nd, 2011, was originally misidentified as a “Christian fundamentalist” by the police. In fact, the killings were later determined to be politically motivated. He also left behind a detailed 1500 page manifesto in which he stated that he is not religious, does not know if God exists, and prefers a secular state to a theocracy. Needless to say, he does not quote any Bible verses in support of his killing spree, nor did he shout “praise the Lord” as he picked people off.
    In the last ten years, there have been perhaps a dozen or so religiously-inspired killings by people of all other faiths combined. No other religion produces the killing sprees that Islam does nearly every day of the year. Neither do they have verses in their holy texts that arguably support it. Nor do they have large groups across the globe dedicated to the mass murder of people who worship a different god, as the broader community of believers struggles with ambivalence and tolerance for a radical clergy that supports the terror.
    Mohammedans may like to pretend that other religions are just as subject to “misinterpretation” as is their “perfect” one, but the reality speaks of something far worse.
    Muhammad preached “No compulsion in religion.”
    (Qur’an, Verse 2:256)
    The Mohammedan Game:
    Mohammedans quote verse 2:256 from the Qur’an to prove what a tolerant religion Islam is. The verse reads in part,
    “Let there be no compulsion in religion; truth stands out clearly from error…”
    The Truth:
    The Mohammedan who offers this verse may or may not understand that it is from one of the earliest Suras (or chapters) from the Medinan period. It was “revealed” at a time when the Mohammedans had just arrived in Medina after being chased out of Mecca. They needed to stay in the good graces of the stronger tribes around them, many of which were Jewish. It was around this time, for example, that Mohammad decided to have his followers change the direction of their prayer from Mecca to Jerusalem.
    But Mohammedans today pray toward Mecca. The reason for this is that Mohammad issued a later command that abrogated (or nullified) the first. In fact, abrogation is a very important principle to keep in mind when interpreting the Qur’an – and verse 2:256 in particular – because later verses (in chronological terms) are said to abrogate any earlier ones that may be in contradiction (Qur’an 2:106, 16:101).
    Mohammad’s message was far closer to peace and tolerance during his early years at Mecca, when he didn’t have an army and was trying to pattern his new religion after Christianity. This changed dramatically after he attained the power to conquer, which he eventually used with impunity to bring other tribes into the Mohammedan fold. Contrast verse 2:256 with Suras 9 and 5, which were the last “revealed,” and it is easy to see why Islam has been anything but a religion of peace from the time of Mohammad to the present day.
    There is some evidence that verse 2:256 may not have been intended for Mohammedans at all, but is instead meant to be a warning to other religions concerning their treatment of Mohammedans. Verse 193 of the same Sura instructs Mohammedans to “fight with them (non-Muslims) until there is no more persecution and religion is only for Allah.” This reinforces the narcissistic nature of Islam, which places Mohammedans above non-Mohammedans, and applies a very different value and standard of treatment to both groups.
    Though most Mohammedans today reject the practice of outright forcing others into changing their religion, forced conversion has been a part of Islamic history since Mohammad first picked up a sword. As he is recorded in many places as saying,
    “I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah…” (See Bukhari 2:24)
    Mohammad put his words into practice. When he marched into Mecca with an army, one of his very first tasks was to destroy idols at the Kaaba, which had been devoutly worshipped by himself, his father, grandfather and the Arabs for centuries. By eliminating these objects of worship, he destroyed the religion of the people and supplanted it with his own. Later, he ordered that Jews and Christians who would not convert to Islam be expelled from Arabia. Does forcing others to choose between their homes or their faith sound like “no compulsion in religion?”
    According to Mohammedan historians, Mohammad eventually ordered people to attend prayers at the mosque to the point of burning alive those who didn’t comply. He also ordered that children who reached a certain age be beaten if they refused to pray.
    Interestingly, even the same contemporary Mohammedans who quote 2:256 usually believe in Islamic teachings that sound very much like religious compulsion. These would be the laws punishing apostasy by death (or imprisonment, for females), and the institutionalized discrimination against religious minorities under Islamic rule that is sometimes referred to as “dhimmiitude.”
    Islamic law explicitly prohibits non-Mohammedans from sharing their faith and even includes the extortion of money from them in the form of a tax called the jizya. Those who refuse to pay this arbitrary amount are put to death. If this isn’t compulsion, then what is?
    The Crusades
    The Mohammedan Game:
    Mohammedans love talking about the Crusades… and Christians love apologizing for them. To hear both parties tell the story, one would believe that Mohammedans were just peacefully minding their own business in lands that were legitimately Mohammedan, when Christian armies decided to wage holy war and “kill millions.”
    The Truth:
    Every part of this myth is a lie. By the rules that Mohammedans claim for themselves, the Crusades were perfectly justified, and the excesses (though beneath Christian standards) pale in comparison with the historical treatment of conquered populations at the hands of Mohammedans.
    Here are some quick facts…
    The first Crusade began in 1095… 460 years after the first Christian city was overrun by Mohammedan armies, 457 years after Jerusalem was conquered by Mohammedan armies, 453 years after Egypt was taken by Mohammedan armies, 443 after Mohammedans first plundered Italy, 427 years after Mohammedan armies first laid siege to the Christian capital of Constantinople, 380 years after Spain was conquered by Mohammedan armies, 363 years after France was first attacked by Mohammedan armies, 249 years after the capital of the Christian world, Rome itself, was sacked by a Mohammedan army, and only after centuries of church burnings, killings, enslavement and forced conversions of Christians.
    By the time the Crusades finally began, Mohammedan armies had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world.
    Europe had been harassed by Mohammedans since the first few years following Mohammad’s death. As early as 652, Mohammad’s followers launched raids on the island of Sicily, waging a full-scale occupation 200 years later that lasted almost a century and was punctuated by massacres, such as that at the town of Castrogiovanni, in which 8,000 Christians were put to death. In 1084, ten years before the first crusade, Mohammedans staged another devastating Sicilian raid, burning churches in Reggio, enslaving monks and raping an abbey of nuns before carrying them into captivity.
    In 1095, Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I Comneus began begging the pope in Rome for help in turning back the Mohammedan armies which were overrunning what is now Turkey, grabbing property as they went and turning churches into mosques. Several hundred thousand Christians had been killed in Anatolia alone in the decades following 1050 by Seljuk invaders interested in ‘converting’ the survivors to Islam.
    Not only were Christians losing their lives in their own lands to the Mohammedan advance but pilgrims to the Holy Land from other parts of Europe were being harassed, kidnapped, molested, forcibly converted to Mohammedanism and occasionally murdered. (Compare this to Islam’s justification for slaughter on the basis of Mohammedans being denied access to the Meccan pilgrimage in Muhammad’s time).
    Renowned scholar Bernard Lewis points out that the Crusades, though “often compared with the Muslim jihad, was a delayed and limited response to the jihad and in part also an imitation…. Forgiveness for sins to those who fought in defense of the holy Church of God and the Christian religion and polity, and eternal life for those fighting the infidel: these ideas… clearly reflect the Mohammedan notion of jihad.”
    Lewis goes on to state that, “unlike the jihad, it [the Crusade] was concerned primarily with the defense or reconquest of threatened or lost Christian territory… The Mohammedan jihad, in contrast, was perceived as unlimited, as a religious obligation that would continue until all the world had either adopted the Mohammedan faith or submitted to Mohammedan rule… The object of jihad is to bring the whole world under Islamic law.”
    The Crusaders only invaded lands that were Christian.
    They did not attack Saudi Arabia (other than a half-hearted expedition by a minor figure) or sack Mecca, as the Mohammedans had done (and continued doing) to Italy and Constantinople. Their primary goal was the recapture of Jerusalem and the security of safe passage for pilgrims. The toppling of the Mohammedan empire was not on the agenda.
    The period of Crusader “occupation” (of its own former land) was stretched tenuously over about 170 years, which is less than the Mohammedan occupation of Sicily and southern Italy alone – to say nothing of Spain and other lands that had never been Islamic before falling victim to Jihad. In fact, the Arab occupation of North Africa and Middle Eastern lands outside of Arabia is almost 1400 years old.
    Despite popular depiction, the Crusades were not a titanic battle between Christianity and Mohammedanism. Although originally dispatched by papal decree, the “occupiers” quickly became part of the political and economic fabric of the Middle East without much regard for religious differences. Their arrival was largely accepted by the local population as simply another change in authority. Mohammedan radicals even lamented the fact that many of their co-religionists preferred to live under Frankish (Christian) rule than migrate to Mohammedan lands.
    The Islamic world was split into warring factions, many of which allied themselves with the Frankish princes against each other at one time or another. This even included Saladin, the Kurdish warrior who is credited with eventually ousting the “Crusaders.” Contrary to recent propaganda, however, Saladin had little interest in holy war until a rogue Frankish prince began disrupting his trade routes. Both before and after the taking of Jerusalem, his armies spent far more time and resources battling fellow Mohammedans.
    For its part, the Byzantine (Eastern Christian) Empire preferred to have little to do with the Crusader kingdoms and went so far as to sign treaties with their Mohammedan rivals on occasion.
    Another misconception is that the Crusader era was a time of constant war. In fact, very little of this overall period included significant hostilities. In response to Mohammedan expansion or aggression, there were only about 20 years of actual military campaigning, much of which was spent on organization and travel. (They were from 1098-1099, 1146-1148, 1188-1192, 1201-1204, 1218-1221, 1228-1229, and 1248-1250). By comparison, the Mohammedan Jihad against the island of Sicily alone lasted 75 grinding years.
    Ironically, the Crusades are justified by the Quran itself, which encourages Holy War in order to “drive them out of the places from whence they drove you out” (Sura 2:191), even though the aim wasn’t to expel Mohammedans from the Middle East, but more to bring an end to the molestation of pilgrims. Holy war is not justified by New Testament teachings, which is why the Crusades are an anomaly, the brief interruption of centuries of relentless Jihad against Christianity that began long before and continued well after.
    The greatest crime of the Crusaders was the sacking of Jerusalem, in which at least 3,000 people were said to have been massacred. This number is dwarfed by the number of Jihad victims, from India to Constantinople, Africa and Narbonne, but Mohammedans have never apologized for their crimes and never will.
    What is called ‘sin and excess’ by other religions, is what Islam refers to as duty willed by Allah.
    “Mohammad never killed anyone.”
    The Mohammedan Game:
    In order to give others the impression that Mohammad was a man of peace, Mohammedans sometimes claim that he never killed anyone. By this, they mean that he never slew anyone with his own hand (except in battle… which they may or may not remember to mention).
    The Truth:
    By this logic, Hitler never killed anyone either.
    Obviously, if you order the execution of prisoners or the murder of critics by those who are under your command, then you are at least as guilty as those who carry out your orders. In Mohammad’s case, the number of people that he had murdered were literally too many for historians to fully know.
    There were the men taken prisoner at Badr (including one who cried out for his children at the point of execution), a mother of five (stabbed to death for questioning Mohammad’s claim to be a prophet), dozens of Jewish citizens, including poets and merchants who were accused of mocking Mohammedanism, numerous adulterers, at least one slave girl, 800 Qurayza men and boys taken captive and beheaded on Mohammad’s order, a Qurayza woman made delirious by the execution of her family, and an unfortunate individual who was tortured to death so that the prophet of Islam could discover his hidden treasure and then “marry” his freshly-widowed wife.
    Indirectly, Mohammad is also responsible for the millions upon millions of people who have been slaughtered down through the centuries by those carrying on his legacy of Jihad. Not only did he kill, he is truly one of the bloodiest figures in history.
    “The Qur’an Teaches that all Life is Sacred”
    (Qur’an, Verse 5:32)
    The Mohammedan Game:
    In an effort to portray their religion as non-violent, Mohammedan apologists vigorously employ verse 5:32, which would appear to promote a universal principal that all life is sacred to Allah – especially the way it is typically quoted by apologists:
    “…if any one slew a person… it would be as if he slew a whole people; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of a whole people…”
    (As quoted by the Fiqh Council of North America in their ultimately meaningless “Fatwa against Terrorism”)
    The Truth:
    This fragment of verse 5:32 is what the apologists want non-Mohammedans to believe is in the Qur’an, as opposed to the dozens of other open-ended passages that command warfare, beheadings and torture. But even what they usually quote from 5:32 isn’t quite how it appears. Remember all those ellipses? There’s something being left out.
    Here’s the full text of the verse:
    First, notice the gaping loophole. Killing is allowed in cases of murder or “for spreading mischief in the land.” Murder is pretty straightforward, but “spreading mischief?” If anything begged for a careful and precise explanation, this phrase certainly would. But generations of Mohammedans are left to apply their own interpretation of what “mischief” means – with varying standards. Violating Sharia law or sharing a different religious faith appears to qualify. Verse 7:103 of the Quran even indicates that merely rejecting Mohammad and the Quran counts as “mischief”.
    Secondly, note the broader context of this verse. It turns out that this isn’t a divine command to Mohammedans after all. It’s a recounting of a rule that was given to the Jews. It isn’t an admonition against killing. It’s an indictment against the Jews for violating the law given to them. “Any one” doesn’t mean “anyone,” but rather “any one” of the Jews.
    Any application to Mohammedans would have to apply only to Mohammedans – as in Mohammedan on Mohammedan murder within the brotherhood of believers. In fact, the context of the verse is the murder of Abel by Cain. Historically, this verse has never been interpreted by Islamic scholars to mean that Allah places equal value on the lives of non-Mohammedans. The Quran says that restitution for murder is bound by the law of equalitySura 2:178) and that non-believers are not equal to Mohammedans (Sura 39:09). Muhammad affirmed that while a Muslim may be punished with death for killing a fellow Muslim, they shouldnever be slain for killing a non-believer.
    Rather than encouraging tolerance, Sura 5 as a whole is actually an incitement of hatred with a hint of violence. Jews and Christians are explicitly cursed as ‘wicked’ people with ‘diseased hearts’ and as hateful ‘blasphemers’ respectively. Muhammad goes on to coyly remind his people that Allah loves those who “fight” in his service – and it’s fairly obvious who the enemy is.
    Mohammedan apologists conveniently leave out the fact that the gruesome verse which follows Sura 5:32 actually mandates killing in the case of the aforementioned “mischief”. It even suggests crucifixion and “the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides.”
    Although verse 5:32 recounts the law given to Jews, the verse that follows is clearly intended for Mohammedans. Verse 5:33 provides the basis for blasphemy laws, in which people are executed for insulting or questioning Mohammedanism. Ironically then, the very part of the Quran that apologists use to portray Islam as a non-violent religion has long been used as justification for making verbal offense into a capital crime.
    So, the Quran’s best example of moral instruction is a passage which actually mandates the torture and execution of those deemed a threat to Islamic hegemony…
    With this being the best that Mohammedanism has to offer, it’s not hard to guess why the religion contributes over a thousand deadly terrorist attacks to the world each and every year.
    “Muslims only kill in self-defense.”
    The Mohammedan Game:
    Mohammedans often claim that their religion only orders them to kill in self-defense (i.e. when their own lives are in danger).
    The Truth:
    In fact, self-defense is just one of several conditions under which Mohammedans are permitted to take the lives of others. The myth of killing only in self-defense is easily disproved from the accounts of Mohammad’s own life as recorded in Islam’s sacred texts (with which Muslim terrorists are only too familiar).
    Mohammad’s career of killing began with raids on merchant caravans traveling between Syria and Mecca. His men would usually sneak up on unsuspecting drivers and kill those who defended their goods. There was no self-defense involved here at all (on the part of the Mohammedans, at least). This was old-fashioned armed robbery and murder – sanctioned by Allah (according to Mohammad, who also demanded a fifth of the loot for himself).
    The very first battle that Mohammad fought was at Badr, when a Meccan army of 300 was sent out to protect the caravans from Mohammedan raids. The Meccans did not threaten Mohammad, and (turning this Mohammedan myth on its ear) only fought in self-defense after they were attacked by the Mohammedans. Following the battle, Mohammad established the practice of executing surrendered captives – something that would be repeated on many other occasions.
    The significance of this episode can hardly be overstated, because it lies at the very beginning of the long chain of Mohammedan violence that eventually passed right throughout the world. The early Mohammedans were not being threatened by those whom they attacked, and certainly not by those whom they had captured. They staged aggressive raids to eventually provoke war, just as al-Qaeda attempts to do in our time.
    Mohammedans try to justify Mohammad’s violence by claiming that he and his followers “suffered persecution” at the hands of the Meccans in an earlier episode, in which Mohammad was evicted from the city of Mecca and had to seek refuge at Medina. But even the worst of this persecution did not rise to the level of killing. Nor were Mohammad and his followers in any danger at all in their new home of Medina. They were free to get on with their lives.
    Even Mohammad’s own men evidently questioned whether they should be pursuing and killing people who did not pose a threat to them, since it seemed to contradict earlier, more passive teachings. To convince them, Mohammad passed along a timely revelation from Allah stating that “the persecution of Mohammedans is worse than slaughter [of non-Mohammedans]” (Sura 2:191). This verse established the tacit principle that the authority of Mohammedans is of higher value even than the very lives of others. There is no larger context of morality against which acts are judged. All that matters is how an event impacts or benefits Mohammedans.
    Under Mohammad, slaves and poets were executed, captives were beheaded, and adulterers were put into the ground and stoned. None of these were done during the heat of battle or necessitated by self-defense. To this day, Islamic law mandates death for certain crimes such as blasphemy and apostasy.
    Following his death, Mohammad’s companions stormed the Christian world – taking the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Europe. They attacked and conquered to the East as well, including Persia, Central Asia, and well into the Indian sub-continent. Few, if any, of these campaigns involved the pretense of self-defense. They were about Jihad.
    “The words, ‘Holy War’, aren’t in the Qur’an.”
    The Mohammedan Game:
    In early 2005, a well-known Mohammedan apologist named, Jamal Badawi, offered $1 million to anyone who could prove that the Qur’an contained the words, “Holy War.” Whether he actually had the money to put up is somewhat in question, but his intention was to make people believe that Jihad is not advocated in the Qur’an and that the terrorists are somehow tragically mistaken when they wage their campaigns of holy war in the cause of Islam.
    So successful is this myth, that it has been repeated on popular television shows, such as “Criminal Minds.” Many now believe that not only is holy warfare not advocated by the Qur’an, but that the word, “Jihad” must not appear in it either, since Jihad has come to mean “Holy War” (most especially by those who kill in the name of Allah).
    The Truth:
    In fact, not only is the word “Jihad” mentioned in several places within the Qur’an, such as the infamous Sura 9 (which includes the “Verse of the Sword”), there are over 150 calls to holy war scattered throughout the entire text.
    So what’s the catch?
    Well, when knowledgeable infidels such as Robert Spencer immediately responded to the challenge and went to collect their prize, Mr. Badawi was forced to reveal the fine print on his offer. You see, he wasn’t talking about the concept of holy war. He only meant the exact Arabic phrase, “Holy War.”
    And what about “Jihad?” Well, this doesn’t count, according to Mr. Badawi, because technically it can be used in a context that doesn’t mean ‘holy war’ (even if that is not how it was interpreted in Muhammad’s time, nor in ours). “Jihad” is like the word “fight,” which can be used in a benign sense (as in, “I am fighting a craving to call Mr. Badawi a disingenuous hack”).
    If “Jihad” is holy without war, then “Qital” must be war without the holy. It is an Arabic term that literally means to wage military combat. But, like Jihad, it is most certainly used within the context of holy war, such as in Sura 2:
    “Fight against them until idolatry is no more and religion is only for Allah.”
    Mr. Badawi is even on record as admitting that Qital can be a form of Jihad… but even this doesn’t qualify according to the niceties of his offer.
    So, although the Qur’an tells believers to “slay the infidels wherever ye find them,” and “smite their necks and fingertips,” showing “ruthlessness to unbelievers,” and 150 other violent admonitions to fight explicitly in the cause of Allah… the Arabic words “holy” and “war” don’t literally appear side-by-side. (Neither do the German words, “concentration” and “camp,” appear consecutively in Nazi documents, by the way).
    My, what a hollow victory this is! One has to wonder whether Mr. Badawi sincerely believes that he has a point or if he recognizes this for the shameful word game that it is.
    At the very least, people should know that “Jihad” is used within the context of religious warfare time and time again throughout the Qur’an and Hadith, and that, regardless of the exact terminology, Islam’s most sacred texts clearly advocate the sort of holy war that propels modern-day terrorism.
    “Verses of violence are taken out of context.”
    The Mohammedan Game:
    All verses of violence were issued during times of war, according to the apologists. They accuse critics who use Qur’anic verses to discredit Islam of engaging in “cherry-picking” (pulling verses out of context to support a position, and ignoring others that may mitigate it).
    The Mohammedans who rely on this argument often leave the impression that the Qur’an is full of verses of peace, tolerance and universal brotherhood, with only a small handful that say otherwise. Their gullible audience may also assume that the context of each violent verse is surrounded by obvious constraints in the surrounding text which bind it to a particular place and time (as is the case with violent Old Testament passages).
    The Truth:
    Unfortunately, the truth is just the opposite. This is why new Mohammedans and non-Mohammedans alike, who begin studying the Qur’an and Hadith, are often confronted with an array of disclaimers and warnings by well-meaning Mohammedans who caution that it takes “years of study” to fully understand the meaning of certain passages. Neophytes are encouraged to seek the “counseling” of a Muslim scholar or cleric to “help them” interpret what they read.
    It isn’t the verses of violence that are rare; it is the ones of peace and tolerance (which were narrated earlier in Mohammad’s life and superseded by later ones). Neither is the “historical context” of these verses of violence all that obvious from the surrounding text in most cases. There is nothing overall that limits the targeting of unbelievers to a specific place and time.
    One would think that a perfect book from a perfect god would be easy to understand, but in the Qur’an, constructs and topics often come from out of nowhere and merge randomly in a jumbled mess that bears no consistent or coherent stream of thought. Few Quran’s are printed without extensive commentary which often exceeds the size of the original “revelation.”
    This is a problem when it comes to many of the verse that dictate violence. Although they can often be mitigated with non-intuitive references to entirely separate passages, not all believers are as determined to force the word of Allah into a separate moral framework. It is unclear why a perfect book from a perfect god would so often leave the brutally sensitive topic of killing open to human interpretation.
    With external references to the Hadith and early biographies of Mohammad’s life, it is usually possible to determine when a Qur’anic verse was narrated and what it may have meant to the Mohammedans at the time. This is what apologists opportunistically refer to as “historical context.” They contend that such verses are merely a part of history and not intended as present-day orders.
    But “historical context” cuts both ways. If any verse is a product of history, then they all are. Indeed, there is not a verse in the Qur’an that was not given at a particular time to address a particular situation in Mohammad’s life, whether he wanted to conquer the tribe next door and needed a “revelation” from Allah spurring his people to war, or if he needed the same type of “revelation” to satisfy a lust for more women (free of complaint from his other wives).
    Here is the irony of the “cherry-picking” argument: Those who use “historical context” against their detractors nearly always engage in cherry-picking of their own by choosing which verses they apply “historical context” to and which they prefer to hold above such tactics of mitigation.
    This game of context is, in fact, one of the most popular and disingenuous in which Mohammedans are likely to engage. Simply put, the apologists appeal to context only when they want it to be there – such as in the case of the bellicose 9th Sura of the Qur’an, which calls for the subjugation and death of unbelievers. They ignore context when it proves inconvenient. An example of the latter would be the many times in which verse 2:256 is isolated and offered up as proof of religious tolerance (in contradiction to Mohammad’s later imposition of the jizya and the sword).
    Islamic purists do not engage in such games. Not only do they know that the verses of Jihad are more numerous and authoritative (abrogating the earlier ones), they also hold the entire Qur’an to be the eternal and literal word of Allah… and this is what often makes them so dangerous.
    “Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion”
    The Mohammedan Game:
    How can Islam be a bad religion if it is growing so fast? Doesn’t this mean that it is actually a truthful religion, since so many are accepting it?
    The Truth:
    In the first place, the truth of an idea or doctrine is never established by mere belief. Up until the last hundred years or so, the vast majority of people on our planet did not even believe that they were on a planet. Nor did they believe that the earth was spinning at a thousand miles an hour or hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour. Does this mean that the earth wasn’t doing these things up until people believed that it was?
    Secondly, Islam is not “growing faster” than other religions because “people are accepting it,” but rather because the birthrate among Muslims is significantly higher than it is among Christians and others, particularly in the West. Kids can be raised to believe in just about anything, so this hardly constitutes any sort of genuine accomplishment. There are also a few women who “marry into Islam” each year, but this is usually just a nominal change in official designation.
    Of the so-called “converts” from other religions, only a miniscule number were active believers. Nearly all are really just people who had no faith to convert from – regardless of their nominal designation. In the West and other parts of the non-Mohammedan world in which all religions are allowed to compete equally such people experiencing a spiritual awakening are far more likely to turn to Christianity than Islam.
    This leads to our most important point, which is that decent Mohammedans should feel a sense of embarrassment rather than pride over the rules that they have to enforce in order to maintain Islam’s status as the “fastest growing religion.” In truth, it speaks more to the insecurity that Mohammedans have in their own religion – and the banal immaturity of Islam compared with other faiths.
    Let’s say that you are playing chess with a 6-year-old boy. Instead of following the same set of rules, however, the child is allowed to make up rules that are preferential to him. One of the rules he decides on is that you aren’t allowed to make any moves on his half of the board, but he is allowed to make moves on yours. Another might be that it is impossible for any of his pieces to be taken.
    Now, if the child is winning the game – which is assured by the conditions that he has imposed – is it really something in which he can truly take pride?
    The rules that Mohammedans impose on the “conversion game” are almost exactly like this chess analogy. Other religions are not allowed to operate in Islam’s own territory (i.e. preaching their faith and evangelizing) as Mohammedans are in others. Neither is conversion away from Islam allowed – on penalty of death.
    In the Mohammedan world, Christians who evangelize are imprisoned, assaulted, beaten, set on fire, shot, bludgeoned, and tortured by Islamists. Missionaries are raped and killed. Former Mohammedans who embrace Christianity as their religion of choice are thrown in jail along with their children, sexually assaulted, crippled, hanged, stoned, stabbed, dismembered, carved up, scalded, beheaded, brutalized, doused with acid, burned alive and publicly executed…
    …and Mohammedans brag that their religion is growing faster!
    Mohammedans who gloat over their “fast growing” religion are no different than the child from our example who deludes himself into thinking that he is smarter and better for “beating” a much wiser adult in a game played under manufactured conditions that render the artificial “victory” entirely meaningless.
    So the more pertinent question isn’t which religion is growing faster, but which is growing faster where people are free to choose. In this environment, Christianity wins easily. Converts are even won in Mohammedan countries under draconian conditions that Mohammedan evangelists never have to face anywhere on the planet. When was the last time a person was killed or tortured merely for embracing Islam?
    Mohammedanism has been playing by its own rules since its inception. It is unlikely that Mohammedans will soon develop enough maturity or confidence in their own religion to lift the shameful restrictions to which it owes its success, and risk competition with other faiths on a level playing field.
    As was first mentioned, the truth of a belief or creed is never established by how many followers it has (by that standard, Christianity would be true). But when a religion has to be supported by double standards, death threats and violence there is all the more reason to doubt its veracity.
    “The Qur’an Can Only be Understood in Arabic”
    The Mohammedan Game:
    The Qur’an can only be fully understood in Arabic. One cannot criticize Islam without knowing Arabic.
    The Truth:
    Although Mohammedans often tell critics of Islam to “read the Qur’an,” they are usually unprepared for what happens when their advice is heeded. An honest translation of Islam’s holiest book generally reinforces negative opinion. The fallback is to then claim that the Qur’an can only be understood in Arabic.
    Of all the efforts to artificially insulate Islam from intellectual critique, this is probably the most transparent. Unfortunately, for those Mohammedanss craving reassurance from the more embarrassing passages of the Qur’an and Sunnah, this cheap tactic of arbitrarily dismissing anything they disagree with still comes at a heavy price, since Islam cannot be protected in this way without sacrificing its claim to being a universal religion.
    In the first place, it is fundamentally impossible for anyone to learn a language that cannot be translated into the only one they do know, which means the apologists who insist that one “must learn Arabic” in order to understand the Qur’an are committing a logical fallacy. Either the Arabic of the Qur’an is translatable (in which case there is no need to learn Arabic) or it is not (in which case it can never be learned by the non-native speaker).
    Enter the skeptic. While every language has its nuances, how is that Arabic is the only one with words and phrases that are literally untranslatable? More importantly, why in the world would Allah choose to communicate his one true religion for all people in the only language that cannot be understood by all people? Even the vast majority of Mohammedans and their imams do not speak Arabic.
    Even more suspicious is that this amazing linguistic “discovery” was only recently made – and that it corresponds quite remarkably with the contemporary rejection of Islamic practices that were considered acceptable up until the religion’s recent collision with Western liberalism. In fact, the argument that hidden and alternate meanings exist to unflattering Qur’anic passages (justifying slavery, the inferior status of women, sexual gluttony, holy warfare, wife-beating, and religious discrimination) perfectly corresponds with the level of embarrassment that modern scholars have about the presence of such verses in the Qur’an!
    No other world religion claims that it can only be fully understood in one language. Neither is the same level of effort required to massage primary messages into palatability. While the Bible is distributed pretty much as is by various Christian groups, for example, it is rare to find a Qur’an that does not include voluminous and highly subjective footnoted commentary deemed necessary to explain away the straightforward interpretation of politically-incorrect passages.
    An additional problem for the apologists is that they want to have it both ways. On the one hand they declare that (for some strange reason) the “perfect book” can’t be translated and that Allah’s perfect religion thus cannot be understood by most of humanity without a battery of intercessors and interpreters. Then they turn around and blame the reality of Islamic terrorism on this same “necessary” chain of intermediaries by claiming that the Osama bin Ladens of the world have simply gotten bad clerical advice, causing them to “misunderstand” the true meaning of the Religion of Peace (in the most catastrophic and tragic way imaginable).
    Of course, another irony here is that, as a Saudi, the Qur’an-toting Osama bin Laden was a native Arabic speaker – as are most of the leaders and foot soldiers in his al-Qaeda brotherhood of devout Mohammedans. In fact, many critics of Islam are Arabic speakers as well – a fact that is often ignored by the apologists, who only find Arabic linguistic skills relevant when they are lacking (not that the same pundits have ever been known to care about whether a critic of the Bible speaks Hebrew or Greek).
    At this point there is only one avenue of escape for the beleaguered apologist – the weak claim that the Qur’an can only be understood in Classical Arabic, an obscure Quraish dialect which has not been commonly used in over a thousand years and is only known by a few hundred people alive today (generally Wahabbi scholars, who are – ironically enough – accused of taking the Qur’an ‘too literally’).
    It is hardly plausible that the differences between classical and modern Arabic are of such significance that peace and tolerance can be confused with terrorism, but even if this were true, it merely begs the question all the more. Why would such a “perfect book” be virtually impossible for the rest of us to learn – and susceptible to such horrible “misinterpretation” on an on-going basis?
    Really, it isn’t hard to see through this childish game, particularly since the rules are applied only to detractors and not to advocates. Apologists never claim that Arabic is a barrier to understanding Islam when it comes to lauding the religion, no matter how less knowledgeable those offering praise are than the critics. Neither do they qualify the claim that “Islam is the fastest growing religion” with the caveat that new converts (or the vast majority of existing Mohammedans) don’t understand Islam since they can’t read the Quran in Arabic.
    Obviously, the real reason for this illogical myth is that the information age is now making the full history and texts of the Islamic religion available to a broader audience, and the contents are highly embarrassing to both Mohammedan scholars and their faithful flock. Pretending that different meanings exist in Arabic is means of self-assurance and saving face with others.
    “The Qur’an escapes from the hearts of men faster than a runaway camel.”
    The present text of the Koran, which all Muslims accept as the only non-falsified holy book, was collected 15-20 years after the death of Muhammad in the time of the Caliph Uthman who ordered all previous collections to be burned.
    But you don’t have to dig very deep to find the truth. Even a cursory reading of the Qur’an is sufficient to prove that it is a fraud. There is no way the creator of the universe wrote a book devoid of context, without chronology or intelligent transitions. Such a creative spirit wouldn’t need to plagiarize. He would know history and science and thus wouldn’t have made such a fool of himself. The God who created man wouldn’t deceive him or lead him to hell as Allah does.
    Nor would he order men to terrorize, mutilate, rob, enslave, and slaughter the followers of other Scriptures he claims he revealed, wiping them out to the last. One doesn’t need a scholastic review of the Qur’anic text to disprove its veracity. It destroys itself quite nicely.
    Tradition tells us that Muhammad had not foreseen his death, and so he had made no preparations for gathering his revelations. He left it up to his followers to sift through the conflicting versions.
    There is not a SINGLE idea in the Quran that has not been plagiarized, pirated, plundered or perverted from the belief of others! The only new items in the Quran are the enormous amounts of hate, war, torture & Hellish verses that permeate through its pages.
    Mohammedanism is the Cult of Mohammed & both Quran & Hadithss instruct his followers to slavishly emulate his deeds, thoughts, manner & ideas. This is Cultism.
    Islam provides only one prime source of information on Muhammad and the formation of Islam written within two centuries of the time he lived and it was conceived. Ishaq’s Sira, or Biography, stands alone—a singular and tenuous thread connecting us to a very troubled man and time.
    Over the next two hundred years, other Hadith Collections were compiled by the likes of Tabari, Bukhari, and Muslim.
    Their assemblages of oral reports, or Traditions, were said to have been inspired by Allah. They purport to convey Muhammad’s words and example. They also explain the Qur’an—a book so deficient in context and chronology, it can only be understood when seen through the eyes of the Sunnah writers. Their message is all that Muslims have. Together, the Sunnah and Qur’an are Islam.
    Bragging one day, Muhammad called his surahs a miracle:
    Bukhari:V6B61N504 “Muhammad said, ‘Every Prophet was given miracles because of which people believed. But what I have been given is Divine Inspiration which Allah has revealed to me. So I hope that my followers will outnumber the followers of the other Prophets.’”
    If the Qur’an was his only “miracle,” why would he leave it in such horrid condition? I believe the answer is clear.
    Muhammad knew his recitals had been nothing more than a figment of his less-than-admirable imagination, situational scriptures designed to satiate his cravings. Preserving these recitals would only serve to incriminate him, as this Hadith suggests.
    Muslim: C24B20N4609 “The Messenger said: ‘Do not take the Qur’an on a journey with you, for I am afraid lest it would fall into the hands of the enemy.’ Ayyub, one of the narrators in the chain of transmitters, said: ‘The enemy may seize it and may quarrel with you over it.’”
    A number of Bukhari Hadith suggest that Muhammad’s companions tried to remember what they could of what he had said, but there was a problem. Like today, those who knew the Qur’an were militants. So Abu Bakr feared that large portions would be forgotten. The best Muslims were dying on the battlefield subduing fellow Arabs. In one battle alone, most of the Qur’an’s most knowledgeable reciters were lost, and many Qur’anic passages along with them.
    Bukhari:V6B60N201 “Zaid bin Thabit, the Ansari said, ‘Abu Bakr sent for me after the (heavy) casualties among the warriors (of the battle) of Yamama (where a great number of Muhammad’s Companions were killed). Umar was present with Bakr. “The people have suffered heavy casualties at Yamama, and I am afraid that there will be more casualties among those who can recite the Qur’an on other battlefields. A large part of the Qur’an may be lost unless you collect it.” I replied to Umar, “How can I do something which Allah’s Apostle has not done?” Umar kept on pressing, trying to persuade me to accept his proposal.’ Zaid bin Thabit added, ‘Umar was sitting with Abu Bakr and was speaking (to) me. “You are a wise young man and we do not suspect you of telling lies or of forgetfulness. You used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah’s Apostle. Therefore, look for the Qur’an and collect it (in one manuscript).” By Allah, if Abu Bakr had ordered me to shift one of the mountains (from its place) it would have been easier for me than the collection of the Qur’an. I said to both of them, “How dare you do a thing which the Prophet has not done?”
    Zaid declared that collecting the Qur’an’s surahs would be an impossible task. He said that it would be easier to move mountains than to turn Muhammad’s string of oral recitals into a book. The reason for this rather troubling statement is obvious: Zaid’s search for Qur’anic passages forced him to rely upon carvings on the leg or thigh bones of dead animals, as well as palm leaves, skins, mats, stones, and bark. But for the most part, he found nothing better than the fleeting memories of the prophet’s Companions, many of whom were dead or dying. In other words, the Qur’an, like the Hadith, is all hearsay.
    There were no Muslims who had memorized the entire Qur’an, otherwise the collection would have been a simple task. Had there been individuals who knew the Qur’an, Zaid would only have had to write down what they dictated. Instead, Zaid was overwhelmed by the assignment, and was forced to “search” for the passages from men who believed that they had memorized certain segments and then compare what he heard to the recollection of others. Therefore, even the official Islamic view of things, the one recorded in their scripture, is hardly reassuring.
    Worse still, the Muslim chosen for this impossible task was the one in the best position to plagiarize the Torah and Talmud. Moreover, it’s obvious he did. Remember:
    Tabari VII:167 “In this year, the Prophet commanded Zayd bin Thabit to study the Book of the Jews, saying, ‘I fear that they may change my Book.’”
    the worse it gets.
    Bukhari:V6B61N511 “Zaid bin Thabit said, ‘I started searching for the Qur’an till I found the last two Verses of Surat At-Tauba with Abi but I could not find them with anyone other than him. They were: ‘Verily there has come to you an Apostle from amongst yourselves.’” [9:128]
    This is incriminating. The 9th surah was the second to last revealed. If only one person could remember it, there is no chance those revealed twenty-five years earlier were retained. Furthermore, this Tradition contradicts the most highly touted Islamic mantra: Most Muslims contend Uthman, not Bakr, ordered the collection of the Qur’an a decade later. And who knows what version they finally committed to paper, if in fact they ever did?
    Bukhari:V6B61N513: “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Gabriel [whom Muhammad said had 600 wings] recited the Qur’an to me in one way. Then I requested him and continued asking him to recite it in other ways, and he recited it in several ways till he ultimately recited it in seven different ways.’”
    So there were at least seven Qur’ans.
    • In Bukhari’s Hadith we find a sea of disturbing and contradictory claims regarding the compilation of Allah’s book. There were differing versions, even in Muhammad’s day:
    Then Abdallah came to him, and he learned what was altered and abrogated.” This is reasonably clear. The Hadith says that portions of the Qur’an were conflicting, changed, and cancelled.
    • Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif—Many (of the passages) of the Qur’an that were sent down were known by those who died on the day of Yamama . . . but they were not known (by those who) survived them, nor were they written down, nor had Abu Bakr, Umar or Uthman (by that time) collected the Qur’an, nor were they found with even one (person) after them.
    Abu Bakr decided that it was time to gather what remained of the Qur’an in order to prevent more from being lost, and he appointed Zaid ibn Thabit to this task. After Zaid completed his codex around 634 AD, it remained in Abu Bakr’s possession until his death, when it was passed on to Caliph Umar. When Umar died, it was given to Hafsa, a widow of Muhammad. (For a fuller account see Sahih al-Bukhari 4986.)
    When Ibn Umar—son of the second Muslim caliph—heard people declaring that they knew the entire Qur’an, he said to them: “Let none of you say, ‘I have learned the whole of the Koran,’ for how does he know what the whole of it is, when much of it has disappeared? Let him rather say, ‘I have learned what is extant thereof’” (Abu Ubaid, Kitab Fada’il-al-Qur’an).
    During Caliph Uthman’s reign, approximately 19 years after the death of Muhammad, disputes arose concerning the correct recitation of the Qur’an. Uthman ordered that Hafsa’s copy of the Qur’an, along with all known textual materials, should be gathered together so that an official version might be compiled. Zaid ibn Thabit, Abdullah bin Az-Zubair, Sa’id bin Al-As, and Abdur-Rahman bin Harith worked diligently to construct a revised text of the Qur’an.
    Bukhari:V4B56N709 “Uthman called Zaid, Abdallah, Said, and Abd-Rahman. They wrote the manuscripts of the Qur’an in the form of a book in several copies. Uthman said to the three Quraishi persons, ‘If you differ with Zaid bin Thabit on any point of the Qur’an, then write it in the language of the Quraysh, as the Qur’an was revealed in their language.’ So they acted accordingly.”
    Because there was such confusion, Uthman ordered competing versions to be burned. But by destroying the evidence, he destroyed the Qur’an’s credibility. Now all Muslims have is wishful thinking.
    When it was finished, “Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt” (Sahih al-Bukhari 4987). The Qur’an we have today is descended from the Uthmanic codex.
    Muhammad once told his followers to “Learn the recitation of the Qur’an from four: from Abdullah bin Masud—he started with him—Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hudhaifa, Mu’adh bin Jabal and Ubai bin Ka’b” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3808). Interestingly, Ibn Masud (first on Muhammad’s list) held that the Qur’an should only have 111 chapters (today’s version has 114 chapters), and that chapters 1, 113, and 114 shouldn’t have been included in the Qur’an.
    Due to these disputes among Muhammad’s hand-picked reciters, Muslims are faced with a dilemma. If Muslims say that the Qur’an we have today has been perfectly preserved, they must say that Muhammad was horrible at choosing scholars, since he selected men who disagreed with today’s text. If, on the other hand, Muslims say that their prophet would know whom to pick regarding Islam’s holiest book, they must conclude that the Qur’an we have today is flawed!
    One of Muhammad’s companions, Abu Musa, supported this claim when he said that the early Muslims forgot two surahs (chapters) due to laziness:
    Sahih Muslim 2286
    Aisha also tells us that individual verses of the Qur’an disappeared, sometimes in very interesting ways:
    Sunan ibn Majah 1944—It was narrated that Aishah said: “The Verse of stoning and of breastfeeding an adult ten times was revealed, and the paper was with me under my pillow. When the Messenger of Allah died, we were preoccupied with his death, and a tame sheep/goat came in and ate it.”
    The verses on stoning and breastfeeding an adult not in the Qur’an today.
    We know further that large sections of certain chapters came up missing. For instance, Muhammad’s wife Aisha said that roughly two-thirds of Surah 33 was lost:
    Abu Ubaid, Kitab Fada’il-al-Qur’an—A’isha . . . said, “Surat al-Ahzab (xxxiii) used to be recited in the time of the Prophet with two hundred verses, but when Uthman wrote out the codices he was unable to procure more of it than there is in it today [i.e. 73 verses].”
    • Sahih al-Bukhari 5005—Umar said, “Ubayy was the best of us in the recitation (of the Qur’an), yet we leave some of what he recites.” Ubayy says, “I have taken it from the mouth of Allah’s Messenger and will not leave it for anything whatever.”
    • But Ibn Masud wasn’t the only one of Muhammad’s trusted teachers who disagreed with Zaid’s Qur’an. Ubayy ibn Ka’b was Muhammad’s best reciter and one of the only Muslims to collect the materials of the Qur’an during Muhammad’s lifetime. Yet Ibn Ka’b believed that Zaid’s Qur’an was missing two chapters! Later Muslims were therefore forced to reject some of Ibn Ka’b’s recitation:
    • Ibn Masud advised Muslims to reject Zaid’s Qur’an and to keep their own versions—even to hide them so that they wouldn’t be confiscated by the government! He said:
    Jami at-Tirmidhi 3104—“O you Muslim people! Avoid copying the Mushaf and recitation of this man. By Allah! When I accepted Islam he was but in the loins of a disbelieving man”—meaning Zaid bin Thabit—and it was regarding this that Abdullah bin Mas’ud said: “O people of Al-Iraq! Keep the Musahif that are with you, and conceal them.”
    • Because of this (along with hundreds of other textual differences), Ibn Masud went so far as to call the final edition of the Qur’an a deception! He said, “The people have been guilty of deceit in the reading of the Qur’an. I like it better to read according to the recitation of him [i.e. Muhammad] whom I love more than that of Zayd Ibn Thabit” (Ibn Sa’d, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir, Vol. 2, p. 444).
    And Allaah revealed other aayahs in a separate soorah, where He says:
    “Say (O Muhammad): “It has been revealed to me that a group (from three to ten in number) of jinn listened (to this Qur’aan). They said: ‘Verily, we have heard a wonderful Recitation (this Qur’aan)!” [al-Jinn 72:1]
    Even the Prophet had a shaytaan with him, his constant companion (qareen) from among the jinn, in the hadeeth which says that the Prophet said:
    “There is no one among you but he has with him a constant companion (qareen) from among the jinn and a constant companion from among the angels.” They said, “You too, O Messenger of Allaah?” He said, “Me too, but Allaah has helped me against him (the devil-companion) and he has become Muslim.”
    The Koran is a book of myths, fables and fairy tales.
    Do your research! The Qur’an is a revised counterfeit of 6th century polytheism, composed of previously existing pagan beliefs, practices and fairy tales.
    For example: The Koran says men were turned into apes because they broke the Sabbath. This was a popular legend in Muhammad’s day (Suras 2:65; 7:163-166).
    The Quran repeats fanciful Arabian fables as if they were true.
    “Arabic legends about the fabulous jinns fill its pages” (G.G. Pfander, Balance of Truth, pp. 283).
    “The story of the she-camel who leapt out of a rock and became a prophet was known long before Muhammad” (Suras 7:73-77,85; 91:14; 54:29).
    The story of an entire village of people who were turned into apes because they broke the sabbath by fishing was a popular legend in Muhammad’s day (Suras 2:65; 7:163-166).
    The gushing 12 springs story found in Sura 2:60 comes from pre-Islamic legends.
    In what is called the “Rip Van Winkle” story, seven men and their animals slept for 309 years in a cave and then woke up perfectly fine (Sura 18:9-26)! This legend is found in Greek and Christian fables as well as Arabian lore.
    The fable of the pieces of four dead, cut-up birds getting up and flying was well known in Muhammad’s time (Sura 2:260).
    It is also clear that Muhammad used such pre-Islamic literature as the Saba Moallaqat of Imra’ul Cays in his composition of Suras 21:96; 29:31,46; 37:59; 54:1, and 93:1.
    Many of the stories in the Quran come from the Jewish Talmud, the Midrash, and many apocryphal works.
    This was pointed out by Abraham Geiger in 1833, and further documented by another Jewish scholar, Dr. Abraham Katsh, of New York University, in 1954 (The Concise Dictionary of Islam, p. 229;
    Jomier, The Bible and the Quran — Henry Regency Co., Chicago, 1959, 59ff; Sell, Studies, pp. 163ff.; Guillaume, Islam, p. 13).
    The source of Sura 3:35-37 is the fanciful book called The Protevangelion’s James the Lesser.
    The source of Sura 87:19 is the Testament of Abraham.
    The source of Sura 27:17-44 is the Second Targum of Esther.
    The fantastic tale that God made a man “die for a hundred years” with no ill effects on his food, drink,