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Thread: Shariah is coming! Shariah is coming!

  1. #41
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    Default Political Whackiness

    I sometimes worry that we have reached the point where a politician who came out and said the biggest threat to U.S. National Security is posed by "Mexican Muslims who want to use anchor babies to impose Sharia law" could gain significant support, at least in a Republican primary, or in an election here in Arizona.

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    Council Member 120mm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cliff View Post
    This will help our stratcomms for sure.

    The Texas Board of Education has passed a resolution to limit references to Islam in textbooks.

    V/R,

    Cliff
    Well THIS is a valid response to a genuine concern. A normally Muslim-friendly (non-religious) friend of mine is doing a research project and has privately shared findings with me that pretty much show that textbook companies are trending toward PROMOTING Islam.

    At issue is that any factual representation of Islam as a religion is subject to unending lawsuit peril from Radical Muslims living in the US, so the textbook manufacturers have defaulted to basically including a highly complimentary "See how Islam is superior to all the other world religions" theme.

    The problem as I see it, is that Americans come in two flavors, vis-a-vis Islam. They are either xenophobic 'Murrican anti-Arab/furriner/Muslim, or they are spineless, brainless, gobs-o-goo "Religion of Peace" apologists. There is very little actual middle ground or understanding of how Islam works or what it stands for, at least among mainstream Muslims.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 10-10-2010 at 11:28 AM.

  3. #43
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default Oklahoma Will be OK

    And here I was worried the family farm might be at risk...

    Group Launches Media Blitz in Oklahoma for Anti-Shariah Ballot Initiative
    A group vowing to fight "Islamofascism" has launched a media blitz in Oklahoma supporting a state constitutional amendment that would prohibit the courts from considering Islamic or other international law when ruling on cases in Sooner State courtrooms....

    ...The group says the constitutional amendment will prevent the takeover of Oklahoma by Islamic extremists who want to undo America from the inside out.

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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    If that passes it will be proof positive that Oklahoma is not yet ready for democracy. And those buffoons probably don't know that the U.S. Constitution makes international law part of U.S. law. I assume they simply aren't sharp enough to understand the distinction between international law and foreign law. Nor are they bright enough to understand that in Western countries where sharia courts exist, like the UK, they are informal bodies which do not supersede British law.

    It is pretty sad, though, that Woolsey has sailed boldly off the edge of reality.
    Last edited by SteveMetz; 10-20-2010 at 07:22 PM.

  5. #45
    Council Member 82redleg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    If that passes it will be proof positive that Oklahoma is not yet ready for democracy. And those buffoons probably don't know that the U.S. Constitution makes international law part of U.S. law. I assume they simply aren't sharp enough to understand the distinction between international law and foreign law. Nor are they bright enough to understand that in Western countries where sharia courts exist, like the UK, they are informal bodies which do not supersede British law.

    It is pretty sad, though, that Woolsey has sailed boldly off the edge of reality.
    The Constitution does? Please reference.

    I'm sure some progressive judicial ruling does, but that doesn't keep it being as wrong as I don't know what.

    And the sharia courts (as they exist in the UK and other places) are just a step. If you don't fear a religion that doesn't accept the separation of church and state, and demands that its followers use force to convert or make subservient non-believers, you are blind to the realities of Islam.

  6. #46
    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 82redleg View Post
    The Constitution does? Please reference.

    I'm sure some progressive judicial ruling does, but that doesn't keep it being as wrong as I don't know what.

    And the sharia courts (as they exist in the UK and other places) are just a step. If you don't fear a religion that doesn't accept the separation of church and state, and demands that its followers use force to convert or make subservient non-believers, you are blind to the realities of Islam.
    This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

    Treaties are the primary source of international law. The other important source is custom, but most of customary law that matters has been ingrained in treaties.

    I don't know a nice way to put this, but the notion of a sharia threat is absolute nonsense.

    It's like this. The word "law" has multiple meanings. It's used to refer to guidelines which members of some organization agree to be bound by. There is a Boy Scout Law and the Mormon Church has a Law of Chastity. Adherence is voluntary by members of those organizations. It is NOT law in the sense of mandatory law passed by a legislature. It does NOT supersede local, state or Federal law.

    That is what some Muslim communities in Western nations have elected to do. Sharia rulings do not replace or supersede British law or American law any more than the Boy Scout Law or the Mormon Law of Chastity do.

    Things like this Oklahoma movement make Americans look like fools who don't understand the concept of law.

    And the notion that Islam "demands that its followers use force to convert" is simply--and I'm looking for the nicest word I can find--wrong. But that is irrelevant to the topic under discussion.
    Last edited by SteveMetz; 10-20-2010 at 10:57 PM.

  7. #47
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    Default This argument ....

    from Steve Metz
    Treaties are the primary source of international law. The other important source is custom, but most of customary law that matters has been ingrained in treaties.
    is definitely not accepted:

    (1) internationally by such as the ICRC (e.g., its massive publications on Treaties and customary international humanitarian law and Customary international humanitarian law). The ICRC considers the rules in the 1977 Additional Protocols I and II (not ratified or acceded by the US; but accepted by many allies) to be customary IHL. That is just one example where "most of customary law that matters" has NOT been "ingrained" via treaties ratified or acceded by the US.

    (2) domestically by such as the Lexington Principles Project at Washington and Lee University, which (pdf) sets out 45 principles of customary international human rights law that it seeks to incorporate into US law via judicial decision (p.23 pdf):

    2. Introducing the Transnational Incorporation Doctrine

    The Transnational Incorporation Doctrine, first developed for the Lexington Principles, asserts that there are some rights under international human rights law that are so fundamental that they should be included in our understanding of the right to due process of law under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Because international human rights are universal, this new interpretation would result in universal application of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause with respect to incorporated rights. Nationality and territoriality would play no role in determining their applicability. Rights incorporated through this mechanism would be universally applied to all human beings, and these protections would have a domestic legal status equivalent to all other due process rights. The Ninth Amendment seems to indicate that the Framers of the Constitution intended to allow for this possibility.
    The effect of adopting the 45 Lexington Principles via the 5th Amendment Due Process Clause would be to write those principles into the Bill of Rights, totally bypassing the constitutional amendment process. It would indeed give new meaning to the overused term "judicial legislation".

    That project is not some fringe nutcase group, but includes in members and on its advisory group (pp. 6-7; all three below are well-known in the LOAC field):

    Geoffrey S. Corn
    Associate Professor of Law
    South Texas College of Law

    Jack Goldsmith
    Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Law
    Harvard Law School

    Lt. Col. Gary D. Solis, USMC (Ret.)
    Adjunct Professor of Law
    Georgetown University Law Center
    Professor of Law (Ret.), U.S. Military Academy
    Now, I don't favor this backdoor method of amending the Constitution; but one cannot question that these Transnationalists have told us exactly what they want to do. And that is to incorporate a great deal of "customary" I Law by a process outside the treaty process.

    As to Oklahoma or any other state limiting its state judges' choice of law in state cases, it has a perfectly good constitutional right to do that, so long as it violates neither the Supremacy Clause nor the Full Faith and Credit Clause. Neither of those provisions requires application of Shariah (as a true legal sysytem - which it is; comparing it to "Boy Scout Law" is frankly insulting to centuries of very explicit Islamic jurisprudence).

    To the extent that Muslims elect to use shariah rules as their own internal "canon law" within their mosques, that is another issue - a freedom of religion issue.

    Personally, I think the whole "Shariah Thing" (yeh, Spencer and Geller et al; and their just as rabid opponents) is overblown. Where my line is crossed is where any religion's canon law is adopted either via legislation or judicial decision as a special rule of decision. That would violate the Establishment of Religion Clause.

    The entire "discussion" re: Islam and Shariah brings out the worst of our present Era of Absolutism.

    Regards

    Mike
    Last edited by jmm99; 10-21-2010 at 02:29 AM.

  8. #48
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    OK, fine. My point was that either the sponsors of the action in Oklahoma or the author of the Fox story don't understand the difference between international law and foreign law.

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    Council Member J Wolfsberger's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    And the notion that Islam "demands that its followers use force to convert" is simply--and I'm looking for the nicest word I can find--wrong. But that is irrelevant to the topic under discussion.
    Steve, if you mean many Moslems do not believe that, I'll agree. However, there are still a large number of Moslems, to include all radical Moslems, who believe precisely that, based on a strict reading/interpretation of the Koran and Hadith.
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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Of course. The vast, vast majority of Muslims and Islamic clerics dispute that the religion implores all Muslims to covert by force. Yet American Islamophobes, most with a knowledge of Islam a few verses picked up on the Internet deep, claim that they know better.

    As I've said often, I believe that delusion and hysteria about Islam hinders our ability to come up with an effective assessment of it.

  11. #51
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    Of course. The vast, vast majority of Muslims and Islamic clerics dispute that the religion implores all Muslims to covert by force. Yet American Islamophobes, most with a knowledge of Islam a few verses picked up on the Internet deep, claim that they know better.

    As I've said often, I believe that delusion and hysteria about Islam hinders our ability to come up with an effective assessment of it.
    Agreed.

  12. #52
    Council Member J Wolfsberger's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    Of course. The vast, vast majority of Muslims and Islamic clerics dispute that the religion implores all Muslims to covert by force. Yet American Islamophobes, most with a knowledge of Islam a few verses picked up on the Internet deep, claim that they know better.

    As I've said often, I believe that delusion and hysteria about Islam hinders our ability to come up with an effective assessment of it.
    I generally agree, but not with the part about delusion and hysteria. I think the failure in effective assessment has three components:

    1. Hard radical Moslem behavior makes headlines - because if it bleeds it leads. Every time a nut case, who happens to be Moslem, attacks his daughters in the name of "honor," it will make national news. That leaves an impression that all have this attitude (which is, to the best of my knowledge, tribal custom having nothing to do with Islam).
    2. Soft radical Moslem spokesmen, usually self designated and further promoted by PC groups, who speak of Moslem grievances against Western Civilization. (At one point, they were explaining that Moslem's were still angered by the Crusades.) Most people hear these grievances/explanations and (correctly) conclude that if they really believe this, they aren't very rational.
    3. A PC crowd pushing special accommodation, status, protection, etc. for Moslem's and Islam. (For reasons I will not go into on this board.) It hasn't gone as far in the U.S. as it has in Canada or Europe, but it is still there. That will inevitably alienate people who will ask why Christian prayer in school violates the legal principle of Separation of Church and State, but building a Moslem prayer room in the schools doesn't.


    I think that for most people, not just in the U.S. but also, increasingly, in Europe, Canada, Australia, etc., these add up to concerns that are both rational and mistaken, but not delusional or hysterical. Obtaining a more accurate evaluation will require recognizing that the concerns are legitimately held, then working to demonstrate that they aren't correct. Which is why I would like to see the responsible Imams and other spokespeople given more prominence in the national discussion on the issue.
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    Council Member tequila's Avatar
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    Which is why I would like to see the responsible Imams and other spokespeople given more prominence in the national discussion on the issue.
    Impossible to do when professional Islamophobes, who are given a megaphone by a partisan media, feel no shame in slandering any Muslim leader or spokesperson as a terrorist sympathizer. Seriously, if Feisal Abdul Rauf can be portrayed as a radical, any Muslim can be.

  14. #54
    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by J Wolfsberger View Post
    A PC crowd pushing special accommodation, status, protection, etc. for Moslem's and Islam. (For reasons I will not go into on this board.) It hasn't gone as far in the U.S. as it has in Canada or Europe, but it is still there. That will inevitably alienate people who will ask why Christian prayer in school violates the legal principle of Separation of Church and State, but building a Moslem prayer room in the schools doesn't.[/LIST]

    I think that for most people, not just in the U.S. but also, increasingly, in Europe, Canada, Australia, etc., these add up to concerns that are both rational and mistaken, but not delusional or hysterical. Obtaining a more accurate evaluation will require recognizing that the concerns are legitimately held, then working to demonstrate that they aren't correct. Which is why I would like to see the responsible Imams and other spokespeople given more prominence in the national discussion on the issue.
    We'll agree to disagree. When an organization screaming about the Islamic take over of Oklahoma is endorsed by a former CIA director, we're well beyond "rational and mistaken." We are, in my opinion, at the point of delusion and hysteria. (Unless there is an AQ document I've missed where OBL listed his priorities as liberating Mecca, then Jerusalem, then Tulsa.)

    And your statement about "why Christian prayer in school violates the legal principle of Separation of Church and State, but building a Moslem prayer room in the schools doesn't" is, at best, a red herring. No one prohibits Christian students from praying; law prohibits school officials from sanctioning prayer or making in mandatory. If schools were forcing non-Muslim students to use the prayer room, then the comparison would be valid. As it is, public schools can and do provide a space for Christian prayer groups to meet outside of class time.

    And the comment "I would like to see the responsible Imams and other spokespeople given more prominence in the national discussion on the issue" overlooks the fact that it happens on a regular basis. Yet we see purportedly responsible media like the Washington Times printing op-eds by people like Ted Nugent which assert that no Muslim clerics condemn terrorism or extremism. That is a demonstrably false statement.

    What concerns me is that delusion, hysteria and falsehood about Islam has moved from the lunatic fringe like Pamela Gellar and Robert Spencer to the mainstream like the Washington Times and Fox News, stoked by people like Boykin, Woolsey and some other major political figures.

    My major concern, as expressed in my essay that I can't find a venue for, is that it is ridiculous to assume that this will have no effect on our strategy of building partnerships in the Islamic world. One of the most important points made in the 1980s by Jeanne Kirkpatrick and institutionalized in the Reagan strategy was that other nations couldn't spew virulently anti-American rhetoric and expect to be our partners and recipients of aid. That made perfect sense. But it cuts both ways. If Americans see Islam as a religion as a threat rather than simply Muslim extremists, then we cannot rationally expect to implement a strategy based on partnership with Islamic nations.
    Last edited by SteveMetz; 10-21-2010 at 07:50 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    If Americans see Islam as a religion as a threat rather than simply Muslim extremists, then we cannot rationally expect to implement a strategy based on partnership with Islamic nations.
    I dare you to find a better example of both logical inconsistency and irony.



    Instead of posting a fuller response to the comments above I hope to incorporate them, with the permission of the posters, into an article I have been in the process of writing for a long time now. I simply can't respond in the depth and detail I'd like to in this space/medium without my reply looking like an article (so why not write it as such anyway). However, I nwould like to know from Steve Metz what the specific delusions abour islam he is refering to....

    What concerns me is that delusion, hysteria and falsehood about Islam
    ...I might then be able to make some informed posts in response.
    Last edited by Tukhachevskii; 10-22-2010 at 09:02 AM.

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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tukhachevskii View Post
    I dare you to find a better example of both logical inconsistency and irony.



    Instead of posting a fuller response to the comments above I hope to incorporate them, with the permission of the posters, into an article I have been in the process of writing for a long time now. I simply can't respond in the depth and detail I'd like to in this space/medium without my reply looking like an article (so why not write it as such anyway). However, I nwould like to know from Steve Metz what the specific delusions abour islam he is refering to....



    ...I might then be able to make some informed posts in response.
    Things mentioned in this thread alone: that Islam demands that Muslims convert non-Muslims by force, that Muslims want to impose sharia on Oklahoma, that no Muslims or no Muslim clerics condemn terrorism or extremism.

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    Council Member tequila's Avatar
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    One of the most important points made in the 1980s by Jeanne Kirkpatrick and institutionalized in the Reagan strategy was that other nations couldn't spew virulently anti-American rhetoric and expect to be our partners and recipients of aid. That made perfect sense.
    Was this an actual Reagan Administration policy? What accounts for our long and fruitful partnership with the Saudis and the Pakistanis at that time, then? Or indeed with recipients of American largesse like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani?

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    I don't remember the Saudis and Pakistanis being virulently anti-American at the time. But, of course, exceptions are always made for "strategically significant" partners.

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    Council Member tequila's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    I don't remember the Saudis and Pakistanis being virulently anti-American at the time.
    Well, it's not like political Islamism in the 1990s came out of nowhere. The Saudis were exporting Wahhabism everywhere in the 1980s and Zia ul-Haq was forcing political Islamism of the Jamiat-e-Islami type on Pakistan while at the same time taking our money to kill Russians. And yes, both strains were very anti-American and anti-Western.

    But, of course, exceptions are always made for "strategically significant" partners.
    Isn't that kind of always the problem? It's not as if SA or Pakistan are less vital now - quite the opposite.

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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    I don't think that's really the same thing. But my point was that I think it's correct to use a nation's attitude toward us as one determinant of the type of relationship we have with it. I just don't think we can have it both ways--using a nation's attitude toward us as a determinant of the nature of our partnership, but thinking that the attitudes of the American public toward the potential partner do not matter.

    Do note that I have not taken a position on the inherent nature of Islam, or on the long-term compatability of Islamic culture and the West. I've only made two points: 1) if we don't ratchet down the domestic hostilty toward Islam, we're going to have to radically revamp our global strategy; and, 2) we should take a deep breath and work with a realistic perception of Islam, both globally and domestically, rather than an hysterical notion based on ignorance, and on assuming that the most hostile and violent members of that culture characterize the whole culture.

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