JihadwatchWatch: Robert Spencer’s amorous flirt with European Fascism

The election is finally behind us. After initial sighs of relief and disappointment many are already beginning to re-examine the American electorate’s fault lines. What pundits call a “center-right” nation is actually a diverse culture characterized by respect for individualism, freedom, ingenuity, and by aspirations toward American exceptionalism. Articulating the tenets of this culture had been the driving force behind Ronald Reagan’s landslide electoral victories and this same ideological vigor is bubbling up again in certain parts of the Republican mosh pit.

Other elements within the American Right are insinuating corrosive tactics into the political discourse, and seek to counter Leftist-induced capitulationism with crypto-fascist madness. The ideological dilemma facing the Right is being played out in the political arena but also in the cultural microcosm of the blogosphere. The recent fallout between the libertarian Charles Johnson of LGF and the religious supremacist Robert Spencer of JihadWatch offers instructive perspective into the fractures of the Right.

For Johnson it wasn’t much of a blog-war rather a series of restrained guerrilla attacks on his open threads, where he announced the rift and reported on incoming hate mail from Spencer’s camp. However, Spencer himself along with the ever bellicose Pamela Geller did take the battlefield with public announcements or shall I say, denouncements, on their respective blogs.

Inquiring minds need to know how it got to this, so let’s trace back this affair’s developments chronologically, shall we?

September 8th, 2008: Charles Johnson posts an article denouncing the so-called Anti-Islamization Conference in Cologne, which was nothing but a congregation of European neo-fascists under the convenient shell of “opposition to Islamization.” Among the most prominent participants/organizers/speakers we can count Markus Beisicht of the Pro NRW (Pro North-Rhine Westphalia), blaster of “the-fags-running-down-his-fatherland” and fascist-slogan-waving Henry Nitzsche, white-Europe-choosing and hypothetically-black-man-mating-daughter-disapproving Filip DeWinter of Vlaams Belang, Moroccan-child-beating arsonist Mario (the “bourgeois”) Borgheze, Nazi-insignia-wearing and falafel-ophobic Heinz-Christian Strache of The Freedom Party, and the no-hyperlink-needing infamous Jean-Marie Le Pen.

In the comment section of this article, Charles posts a lone link to a JihadWatch post supportive of the conference, silently indicating that his eyebrows are raised at Robert Spencer.

September 12th, 2008: Robert Spencer pulls down the original article from his site, offering a detailed explanation of his reasonsan account conceding that the individuals and organizations involved in the Cologne Conference have pan-fascist agendas, which no respectable counter-jihadist ought to support. His explanation for why the post was ever published in the first place and had remained on his site for four days, essentially boiled down to its author Raymond Ibrahim having been unaware of “all the issues involved” while he Robert Spencer himself had been too distracted to notice the post. From Spencer’s clarification:

One of the advantages of having other people write for this site is that it allows me, every now and again, to do other things. But that also means that occasionally I miss things that are posted here. It was brought to my attention this morning that there was a favorable post here a few days ago about Iran protesting against an upcoming anti-jihad conference in Europe that features Jean-Marie LePen, the FPO of Austria, and other prominent European far-right politicians. I took it down just now, as we do not support European neo-fascism or race supremacism (and the person who posted it didn’t know all the issues involved), but I didn’t want simply to take the post down without explanation.

Charles Johnson seemingly bought it, but none of this squared off with me. It certainly didn’t help that from my initial cursory glance at the vanished article, the “Raymond” author signature had been blurred with “Robert” in my mind. Deciding that my memory was more trustworthy than anything coming out of Robert Spencer’s mouth, I accused him of being the original author of the article and of scapegoating Raymond for the debacle. Despite my good reasons for deeply distrusting Spencer, Google cache proved me wrong on this instance. My visual memory is by no means infallible and I retracted my accusation when presented with compelling evidence. Robert indeed screeched that this undoubtedly proved me a liar, while it merely proved me wrong: I knew at least Charles Johnson had read the article before it disappeared and that he would have noticed the author. I wouldn’t have charged Spencer of being the author unless I was convinced that others who had also read the article before it was pulled down would also vouch for what I thought I had seen.

Sometime Between September 12th and September 27th: Said article is stealthily reposted and live on JihadWatch the same article that Robert Spencer wrote a 922-word backpedaling “clarification” to announce the retraction of. I was right not to put dirty internet tricks above him after all. I noticed it on September 27th, but who knows how much earlier it had been reinstated…

Didn’t Robert Spencer owe his readers another 1000-word enlightened clarification of why he re-posted the same article he had earlier repudiated as ill-conceived and ignorant of the disreputable people involved? Or was the initial retraction coupled with the public repudiation of the European neo-fascist participants of the Cologne Conference an insincere attempt to appease Charles Johnson nothing but a farcical little show?

September 28th 2008: Robert’s conference-crashing buddy Andrew Bostom emphatically proclaims so:

Following Johnson’s e-mail threat to another close friend — the brilliant scholar and author Robert Spencer — after Raymond Ibrahim (editor/translator of The Al Qaeda Reader) simply blogged a favorable discussion (subsequently removed by Spencer, pace Johnson’s threat!) of Diana West’s September 18, 2008 Town Hall.com column at the Jihad Watch/Dhimmi Watch website — I noticed that National Review Online had a featured link (on 9/19/08) to the same West column.

Spencer has recurrently uttered vicious personal invectives against both myself and my husband on numerous occasions, with labels including but not limited to dishonest, smearing, mendacious, swamp-fevering character assassins, malicious and slanderous, liar liar liar, inveterate and consistent liar, manifold, intricate, and subtle liar who uses formidable intellect only for evil, and my favorite, Nazi emulator. Most of Spencer’s seething attacks, not included here due to their dull redundancy, tend to compulsively charge me with ‘libel’ over the contents of my report, which barely deals with Spencer personally but rather airs out the dark closet of his friend and associate James Jatras of the so-called American Council for Kosovo the front group for a radical and violent organization called the Serbian National Council for Kosovo and Metojiha.

Spencer’s reaction has been so oversensitive and overblown, that I am amazed he hasn’t virulently charged Bostom (who supports the participants of the Cologne Conference and clearly alludes to Spencer also sharing such sympathies underneath the lip service paid to Charles Johnson out of fear) with making libelous accusations and smearing his character! For what could be more libelous, more smearing, more demeaning and shaming for an aspiring “scholar” than to be accused of prostituting his public assignment of grave characterizations (such as “fascist,” “racist,” or “race supremacist”) to various people and organizations just in order to salvage his personal relationship with some blogger?!!

If I were a public figure and anyone publicly stated or implied that I don’t mean what I write or what I retract but merely act under coercion against my true convictions, I would: consider it a grave insult, vehemently deny the charge, demand an apology, and if not granted, entertain a lawsuit. In fact I would react the same way even in my own shoes of obscurity, minus the lawsuit part which I cannot afford to even entertain. Bostom has essentially ruled that Spencer does not actually believe the organizers and participants of the Cologne Conference to be neo-fascists worthy of being shunned, but “being vulnerable” (in Bostom’s own words), he acquiesces to Johnson and toes the line. If so, Spencer would ironically be guilty of the charge he loves to hurl at others libel namely making allegations he knows to be false, which give various individuals (the alleged/disputed crypto fascists) a bad reputation!

If, on the other hand, Spencer knows these organizations and individuals to be neo-fascist in agenda and character (as his post suggests), yet believes that’s all fine and dandy so long as he can subvert them toward his holy crusade again Islam his pet-boogeyman what then? What would that make him? A fascist apologist? A fascist sympathizer?

But Robert does expliticly state the anti-jihad movement should not indulge that side of the political spectrum in Europe or elsewhere. Only that Andrew Bostom claims Spencer doesn’t really mean this, and the pro-Cologne article sneakily crawling back up on JihadWatch shortly after the curtains went down on that little show Spencer put for Johnson certainly reinforces such impression. What does that make him then? A spineless hypocrite?

What kind of “scholar” triangulates his public positions so tightly between hypocrisy, fascist sympathy, and cowardice-induced libel? Then again, what kinds of “scholar” foams at the mouth over an obscure blog post of a 22-year-old college girl and goes as far as to call her a Nazi-emulator over it? Well Robert Spencer the Beetlejuice of Internet forums who magically appears anywhere his name is invoked more than twice in order to furiously intimidate any critics does.

But perhaps the points raised so far are too tangential. Robert Spencer discredits himself through his own words in much less equivocal terms. He writes:

The post in question was written by Raymond Ibrahim. I have discussed it with Raymond, who was not aware of the affiliations of the people involved when he posted it, and he was fine with my taking it down.

The only problem here is that forgetting for a moment what Raymond did or didn’t know Hugh Fitzgerald himself, the vice president of JihadWatch (whatever that means) made the following comment on the post in question on the very first day it was published:

If this Conference is left solely in the hands of those who are not only certifiably “right-wing” but lepenesque, and therefore disreputable, then it is the duty of others, the respectable anti-Islam legions, not to ignore the Conference or to stay morally pure, but rather to attend, even to swell its numbers, and change its nature, by appearing in force. Show Cologne, show Germany, show the E.U. that one can be just as sweet and liberal and anti-Fascist as all get out, and also want, for those very reasons, a complete halt to Muslim migration to Europe, and a deliberate policy of countering the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da’wa, and demographic conquest — all over Western Europe, resulting in a greatly diminished Muslim presence in the Lands of the Infidels. This has to be done. It will have to be done now, peacefully, or later, less peacefully. It can’t be avoided. It’s what’s to come. It is not still unsure. But, to quote an old poet, and to appropriate his more traditional use of the carpe-diem imperative, in delay there lies no plenty.

So get cracking.

Hugh knew of the lepenesque character of the conference’s protagonists and was clearly instructing his minions to not “stay morally pure” notwithstanding the neo-fascist agenda of the upcoming Cologne rally. In a lunatic leap of logic, he proposes that rallying up behind fascists and appearing in force at their events will show Cologne, Germany, and indeed all of Europe, that not only fascist agitators, but also sweet liberal anti-Fascists are concerned about Islam.

Wait… I thought anti-Fascists would never ally with fascists by definition. What about that rant regarding the inevitable clash of civilizations, demographic battles, and the need to greatly diminish Muslim presence in the lands of the Infidels? It can be done peacefully now or less peacefully in the future he says but done it must be. Is it me or this fatalistic tone foreshadows a borderline genocidal scenario Hugh sounds to be creaming his pants at the contemplation of?

Spencer’s 922-word backpedaling clarification for pulling down the pro-Cologne article from which Hugh’s comment is drawn, also absolves Hugh himself and in fact uses his articles as an example of how opposed to fascists “we at JihadWatch are.” In the meanwhile, Hugh has been drifting in an entirely different direction as we’ve just seen. So what happened? Did Hugh acquiesce to Spencer or to Johnson in towing the line? Are the internal affairs of JihadWatch so chaotic that Spencer cannot learn from his “VP” what is happening at his own blog, but rather needs problematic content to be second-handedly reported to him by readers of other blogs?

Again, why has the post been put back up on JihadWatch since at least September 27th without explanation?

Satisfied that no rational reader at this point can escape the conclusion that this has been a disgraceful flip-flop on Spencer’s behalf, I will move on.

October 25th, 2008: Spencer posts a rather awkward article lionizing a certain long-winded smarmy European pseudo-intellectual by the penname of Fjordman, whom Charles Johnson has long exposed as a fascist sympathizer. Robert Spencer’s justification for so unexpectedly standing assuredly by Fjordman and vouching for his character must have struck his readers as out of place:

The learned European essayist Fjordman here reviews Ali Sina’s Understanding Muhammad. Since Fjordman has been accused of being a white supremacist and a neofascist, some people have also accused me of being a white supremacist and neofascist, because I publish his fine essays on jihad and the Islamization of Europe. So I thought I would take this opportunity to say that while white supremacism and neofascism are wrong and should everywhere be opposed, I do not believe Fjordman is a white supremacist or a neofascist.

Who are these people who have smeared poor Fjordman with such naughty epithets? And who is trying to drag Spencer down along with him? This is a passive-aggressive thinly-veiled affront to Charles Johnson and me, respectively, though I have never called Spencer a neo-fascist or white supremacist to date, and I believe Charles has characterized Fjordman as merely a sympathizer and apologist of said unsavory ideologies.

Johnson has made his repudiation of Fjordman public for almost a year now, so why did Spencer take so long to absolve Fjordman? He was obviously trying to play nice with both sides but finally tipped over the edge. This was his way of telling Charles he had chosen Fjordman, along with the associations the latter’s endorsement carries with it (Vlaams Belang, The Austrian Freedom Party, Sweden Democrats, The National Front, the BNP, The Brussels Journal, Gates of Vienna, etc.). In fact shortly thereafter, Spencer re-blog-rolled the last two, despite their well-documented support for European fascists.

I find curious Spencer’s choice in illustrating Fjordman’s anti racialist worldview: He quotes an excerpt which Fjordman had written Spencer says long before any allegations of race supremacism were uttered against him. In this very chosen passage Fjordman defines the challenge for cultural preservation against Radical Islam in racial and xenophobic terms!

We shouldn’t idealize mass-immigration too much. When one group of people move into a territory where another group of people already live, this has usually throughout human history ended in war. Either the newcomers will be expelled, or they will subdue or wipe out the previous inhabitants, or the groups will divide the country between them.

What a gem of historical determinism we have here: classic collectivistic chauvinistic European xenophobia. Hegel would be proud! Fjordman treats people in terms of groups moving into territories, as flocks of sheep or wolves in a perpetual struggle for territorial supremacy.

He advocates “sticking with one’s own kind,” one’s “culture,” one’s “race,” and resisting assimilation a very ideologically and literally inbred worldview. I wonder what Fjordman makes of the American experiment where people from all cultures and races flooded into the melting pot: no invasions, no ethnic cleansing, no expulsions, no subduing, no wiping out of anybody. Fjordman is clearly stuck in cultural medievalism and considers all potential immigration as an invasion of his pure genetic and ideological pool by hordes of barbarians.

I see little reason to expect any different result where the indigenous population happens to be white. I do not see why I should have to choose between White Supremacy and White Worthlessness. It is one thing to reject the idea that your culture should be forced onto others, it is quite another thing to say that you shouldn’t be allowed to retain your culture even in your own country. The latter is simply a matter of self-preservation, the most basic instinct of all living things down to bacteria level.

No talk of institutions, no talk of what European culture is supposed to consist of: only racialist remarks and allusions to White Supremacy as the politically incorrect term for legitimate self-preservation. Yes, I can and do read between the lines.

I have a right to preserve my culture, too, even though I have blue eyes, and cannot see anything “racist” in not wanting my children to become a persecuted minority in their own country through mass immigration. That you are denounced as a White Supremacist for just stating the obvious shows how deeply entrenched and internalized this anti-white bias has become.

And what is it that your culture consists of, Fjordman, other than your blue eyes? You never elucidate on it beyond that. Why are you even bringing up unfair accusations of White Supremacy before anyone has implicated you? Are you making any “preemptive” moves in that direction?

Is this passage the best Robert Spencer can find toward exculpating Fjordman? Just what is Robert Spencer trying to get at here? He continues on:

More recently (two weeks ago), the genuinely neofascist VNN Forum (an evil site to which I will provide no link) criticized one of Fjordman’s articles about Europe for not blaming Jews for the problem. VNN Forum writers called Fjordman “a neocon jew-ass-kisser who is either oblivious of the fact that jews are responsible for what is happening or is aware but doesn’t have the guts to name the jew.” They also pointed out that “the Brussels Journal is never critical towards the Jew” and went on to complain that “multiculturalism stops when the Jew is down and out. Those Islamophobic ‘nationalist’ parties accomplish nothing….I would rather see anti-synagogue marches over anti-mosque ones. The mosques become a non-issue if you defeat the wretched sheeny.” I would rather stand with Israel, and Fjordman, than with those racist neo-fascists.

He would rather stand with Israel, and Fjordman, and Markus Beisicht of Pro NRW, with blaster-of-the-fags-running-down-his-fatherland and fascist-slogan-waving Henry Nitzsche, with white-Europe-choosing Filip DeWinter of Vlaams Belang, with Moroccan-child-beating arsonist Mario Borgheze, with Nazi-insignia-wearing and falafel-ophobic Heinz-Christian Strache of The Freedom Party, and with Jean-Marie Le Pen, because they too are opposed by some hard core neo-Nazis on the grounds of going after Muslims rather than Jews.

Impressive argument: So because Wahabbis claim Shias are apostates or otherwise infidels and we know Wahabbis to be indisputably Muslim, then we must conclude that Shias are indeed not Muslims because Wahabbis say so. Yes, that makes a whole lot of sense. So because the “genuinely evil” VNN Forum (as opposed to what, the “evil lite” Le Pen et al?) disavows those neo-fascist parties that are shrewdly picking their battles and choosing to demonize Muslims wholesale rather than Jews (the latter being a much less tenable target these days), then said parties cannot actually be neo-fascistic. Because they target Muslims, that is.

How mighty convenient for Spencer, who would just about sell his soul in order to witch-hunt Muslims and Islam all the world over, to have the definition of “fascist” so elegantly rewritten: “if you are anti-Muslim, you cannot be fascist because the VNN Forum would oppose you and one fascist/Nazi cannot be against another.” Whatever is going to happen now to JihadWatch’s long record of opposing Le Pen, the FPO, and Vlaams Belang? They’re magically not fascists now because they are anti-Muslim, and the two are mutually exclusive as we know from the VNN’s annals of wisdom?

It is on the comment section of this very post that Robert Spencer bursts in unprovoked despicable insults against me and starts compulsively scratching a spot that must have been itching for a while: He makes the following fascinating contention:

I went back and took a look at Kejda Gjermani’s libelous “expose.”

Much of her case hinges upon this assertion:

“The deceptively named American Council for Kosovo is in fact a front group for the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija, whose president Milan Ivanovic was arrested by the UN administration (he took his sweet time to turn himself in after initially going into hiding) on charges of attempted murder (later dropped) and of leading a violent demonstration, during which at least one hand-grenade was thrown at the police (Ivanovic has been personally accused of this act but evidence was inconclusive for a conviction, hence the dropped charge of attempted murder), and 22 mainly Polish peacekeepers were injured. […]

Mr. Ivanovic is a hard-line nationalist by anyone’s definition, a staunch supporter of the neo-fascist Serbian Radical Party— an ultra-nationalists‘ melting crackpot of greater scale and proportion than even its name suggests. For starters, the Party organized the recent rallies in Serbia to protest Radovan Karadzic’s arrest, in which the same Ivanovic was visibly involved…

The only problem with this is that her basic assertion, that the American Council for Kosovo is a front group for Ivanovic’s group, is false, and she provides no evidence to establish it. ACK spokesman James Jatras says this:

With respect to the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija as identified in the American Council for Kosovo’s disclaimer, and the suggested relationship with Dr. Milan Ivanovic: in Kosovo today there is more than one organization operating under the name “Serbian National Council,” or some variant of that name. These groups, some of them quite small, have differing political perspectives — though all categorically reject separation of the province from Serbia — and accordingly may align themselves with different Serbian political parties. As already noted, the American Council for Kosovo reflects the views of the Kosovo Serbian community as voiced by Bishop Artemije. I am unaware of Dr. Ivanovic’s affiliation with any organization connected with the Bishop. If the implication of the comment is that the American Council for Kosovo is somehow controlled or directed by Dr. Ivanovic, that absolutely is not the case. However, I have met Dr. Ivanovic in the course of my visits to Kosovo and believe the aspersions cast against him are unwarranted. There is nothing “radical” or “anti-American,” much less “supremacist,” about him as far as I am aware, unless one regards opposition to Washington’s illegal, pro-jihad anti-Serbian policy as being anti-American.

Kejda Gjermani is an accomplished liar, but in the final analysis that is all that she is: a liar.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Like momma said: “Don’t scratch that itch or it will only get worse!” Robert didn’t have to go there. If the investigative digs of an unknown college girl made him uncomfortable, the most sensible response for him would have been to ignore them and wait for my post to fade away in the vast cold blogo(atmo)sphere. But Robert just couldn’t let it go. He frantically calls me an “accomplished liar,” but I haven’t accomplished anything noteworthy and I only post articles at my private website once in a blue moon on miscellaneous topics of my interest.

Robert is the one who has built an entire career out of selling demagogic incendiary books demonizing Muslims and extolling the Crusaders, and out of giving public speeches trying to convince Muslims that their religion is indeed inherently and incorrigibly violent and supremacist and that they better get consistent in taking seriously any and all genocidal verses of the Qur’an quite an accomplished demagogue, wouldn’t you say? Yet Robert’s career and, most importantly, his self-esteem, depend on his ability to maintain an aura of respectability and an image of erudite “scholar.” Exposed associations with vile extremists chip away at such carefully crafted public image, so Robert can’t help foaming at the mouth and impulsively suppressing anyone shining the spotlight on his putrid closet. Indeed he is outraged that I have not been banned on LGF and has even sent his sock-puppets to intimidate me with legal threats at my own blog.

Oh, but he has done it now! I have supposedly asserted without proof that A equals A: that the Serbian National Council for Kosovo and Metohija whose leader is the outrageous violent-protest organizer, alleged hand-grenade thrower, Radical Party supporter and flaming Karadzic devotee Ivan Milanovic, is the same Serbian National Council for Kosovo and Metohija for which Robert Spencer second-handedly works. As if linking organizations of the same exact name with the same identity begs any proof…

When doing my background research on Jatras, I was so struck by this man’s sheer maliciousness, callousness, and pathological lying pattern that I assumed he was some sort of evil mastermind concocting genial campaigns of nauseating Belgrade propaganda. But in Robert’s comment I am reminded again of the banality of evil. The claim that somehow there are many small organizations in Kosovo by the same exact name which act independently of one-another and bear no responsibility of each-others’ members’ and leaders’ acts or statements is a laughably desperate (and just plain laughable) attempt to evade the scrutiny that naturally comes with Ivan Milanovic’s disreputable background.

The claim doesn’t stand even at face value: Who has heard of multiple unaffiliated organizations by the very same name operating within the boundaries of a 10,908 km2 region? Wouldn’t people confuse them all the time among each other? Wouldn’t the self-respectable ones among these organizations, if there be any, adopt a different name in order to distance themselves from the anarchic ones which are staging riots against the police? How do they keep track of one-another? Do they have separate serial numbers by any chance?

Leadership of the Serb National Council at press conference in Belgrade Media Center, May 30, 2003 (from left to right: Dr. Marko Jaksic, Dr.  Rada Trajkovic, Bishop Artemije, Dr. Milan Ivanovic)
Leadership of the Serb National Council at press conference in Belgrade Media Center, May 30, 2003 (from left to right: Dr. Marko Jaksic, Dr. Rada Trajkovic, Bishop Artemije, Dr. Milan Ivanovic)

Perhaps Jatras is banking on casual examiners getting confused upon seeing the acronym for the Serbian National Council for Kosovo and Metohije appear as SNV in some places and SNC in others, and concluding that there must be at least two different organizations by the same name. This is not, however, the case: SNV is merely the Serbian-language-equivalent of SNC and they both refer to the same organization led by Ivanovic and by the Bishop. I invite everyone to look at the source of this photo of the leadership of the Serbian National Council for Kosovo and Metohija, posted at the dear Bishop’s own website, with the caption “Leadership of the Serb National Council at press conference in Belgrade Media Center, May 30, 2003 (from left to right: Dr. Marko Jaksic, Dr. Rada Trajkovic, Bishop Artemije, Dr. Milan Ivanovic)”. That ain’t half bad for a smoking gun, now is it?

In short, Robert: You and Jatras are the liars, though I would not deign you with the “accomplished” prefix, because as fevered demagogues spouting off way too many lies to keep track of, you have accomplished nothing other than discrediting yourselves anew. And don’t bother pulling down the article or deleting the cache, because I have saved everything.

Robert Spencer is the stooge of an organization whose leaders have been blacklisted by the US government for providing support to war criminals, violently opposing legal institutions, and undermining the peace process in the Balkans. What a maverick of a “scholar” Robert is!

October 31st, 2008: Robert Spencer announces the break with Charles Johnson, violently echoed by the manic fascist supporters Pamella Geller and Gates of Vienna. In his long-winded diatribe against Johnson, Spencer wraps it up like so:

Is that not absurd? I have gone on record many, many times explaining why I reject race-based approaches to the jihad threat — most recently in connection with the Cologne conference.

But Hugh did support the Cologne conference, and JihadWatch stealthily reinstated the post it supposedly pulled down.

Hugh and I have been clear here in our rejection of LePen, the BNP, and all those who traffic in such approaches.

But Le Pen and the BNP are anti-Muslim, and by the VNN Forum’s argument which Spencer employed earlier to absolve Fjordman, they cannot be neo-fascists. Also Vlaams Belang, the FPO, Sweden Democrats, et al. all traffic in “such approaches.”

The controversy here is over whether or not some other individuals and groups belong in that category, not over whether one should support race supremacism and genocide or not. Charles has done a grave disservice by acting as if those who reject his judgments about these groups and individuals, or who even — like me — are willing to entertain differing points of view on these matters, are ipso facto neo-Nazi or white supremacist sympathizers.

What would these different points of view of yours on the matter be, Robert? It is nothing but unsustainable middle ground that you are willing to entertain. You either believe these European parties have neo-fascist agendas or you don’t.

Meanwhile, I note also with sorrow that the mendacious Kejda Gjermani (“medaura”) is spreading her libelous attacks on me at LGF yet again, as she has been allowed to do for months. It is telling.

So mendacious that medaura, eh? It is telling she hasn’t been censored for repeating inconvenient yet indisputable facts regarding Robert’s associations.

I want to emphasize that I have not endorsed the Vlaams Belang. This whole controversy is not about the Vlaams Belang, but about whether or not one can disagree with Charles Johnson and not be defamed as a result. I have merely recognized that people of good will, who are not “seriously deluded” (as someone calls them below) and are not racists or neofascists, have mounted a case opposing Charles Johnson’s assessment of the Vlaams Belang. In other words, the question is not whether or not we should support neofascists, but whether or not Vlaams Belang is neofascist. That question is hotly disputed, and those who think that Johnson has not made his case are not evil just for thinking that.

Typical Robert Spencer “open-mindedness”: his official stance on Kosovo is one of only-time-will-tell skepticism, yet he aggressively works on behalf of the Serbian lobby in order to revoke the world’s newest country’s independence. That’s so neutral indeed. He is vehemently opposed to neo-fascists and white-supremacists (and who isn’t, on record?) yet he keeps an “open mind” as to which individuals and organizations deserve such labels. While he keeps his mind perpetually wide open, he supports everyone so long as they can be instrumental to him in attacking Muslims. It is oh-so-easy to vacuously oppose fascism when you don’t believe fascists are fascists, because the opposition can thus remain purely theoretical and abstract!

Spencer also fervently opposes Serbian genocide on principle, yet his closest associates (Jatras, Trifkovic, and Gorin) are Srebrenica genocide deniers. It is easy to vacuously oppose Serbian genocide if you never believe it happened. The genocide Spencer believes in supposedly took place in Kosovo, was perpetrated by the Albanian Jihadists against the poor Christian Serbs indeed, and was aided and abetted by NATO, the UN, and the EU. Yes, they were all in on it!

Of course, it has been exposed by only an anonymous individual claiming to be a current member of the international mission in Kosovo (the unverifiability of such claim due to the writer’s anonymity somehow escaping Spencer) writing under the penname of Iseult Henry. That’s right! After all, he has to be anonymous, otherwise his life would be endangered by the evil spies of the US, UN, and EU entities which are all in on the genocidal master plan and would fall short of nothing to suppress the truth from leaking out!

What kind of “scholar” toys with genocide? Even Albanian supporters do not claim that genocide against Kosovars took place, however more reasonable such proposition would still be compared to the reverse claim made by Spencer. Stephen Schwartz writes:

Ms. Gorin states that NATO bombed Serbia “to prevent a genocide that forensics turned up empty.” Yes, the genocide was prevented. It did not take place. Nobody claimed it had taken place, only that it was attempted. Genocide means the murder of a whole people; obviously, the Albanians were not wholly murdered.

Charles Johnson, whatever one may think of his political leanings, has unequivocally exposed thinly-disguised fascists and repudiated them wholeheartedly again and again. He was never so desperate for allies as to turn a blind eye to the ideological demons swarming right under these European political conglomerates’ insincere pretensions toward “mainstreamness” and moderation. Johnson’s endorsement had been Robert Spencer’s last main reputational anchor into the sane respectable intellectual world. Now that he deservedly lost it, let him agitate away at the fringes where he belongs.

The spread of Radical Islam poses an eminent threat to the civilized world. Anyone knows it. Even brainwashed cultural-relativist Leftists know, hard as they may try to airbrush the elephant in the room.

Highlighting the need for formulating a strategic response to this menace is not rocket science. Yet it should take no towering genius either to categorically reject and denounce certain ideological proposals for being at least as abominable and dangerous to civilization as the militant islamism they purport to protect it from. The resurgence of neo-fascist activism across the Old Continent is alarming. Such regressive ill-conceived reaction to the rise of Radical Islam is yet another living testament to Europe’s ideological sterility. Disturbing shades of brown are agitating the zeitgeist of many European countries these days. Robert Spencer, James Jatras, Julia Gorin, Andrew Bostom, Pamela Geller, Fjordman, Baron Bodissey, and Dymphna are more than welcome to coalesce toward this violent brown where their ideological affinities truly lie, so long as everyone knows where they stand. It would be nice though, in fact too nice to ask, that they at least not lie to themselves about the nature of the choice they have made. Far from being friends of peace, freedom, prosperity, and civilization, they in fact belong to a hateful and subversive stripe of agitators. which must be marginalized if both progress against radical islamists and future electoral success are to be achieved.

Author: Kejda

Born: Tirana, Albania Residing: New York, NY University of Waterloo, Economics '08

29 thoughts on “JihadwatchWatch: Robert Spencer’s amorous flirt with European Fascism”

  1. Your point about Spencer’s choice to defend the passage from Fjordman is a good one.

    As you know from our email exchanges, I believe it is clear that the Vlaams Belang is an Ethnic Nationalist party, and I think that as such they are inherently dangerous, and inclined to almost inevitable evil.

    Additionally, it is clear to me that the counter-Jihad as a movement is rife with people who have Ethnic Nationalist leaning, many of whom are out and out racial supremacists.

    However, I don’t know why you call Spencer a religious supremacist. You may have made a case for that statement in another essay, but I don’t think you established the criteria for such a statement in this piece.

    Additionally, while you may think there is a good case for the idea of a moderate Islam, I don’t think there is.

    Certainly, there are individual Muslims who are decent people.

    However, to my knowledge, there are no moderate political organizations, media outlets, academic institutions, or governments, of any appreciable size, anywhere in the entire world.

    You say Spencer goes about “trying to convince Muslims that their religion is indeed inherently and incorrigibly violent and supremacist.”

    Tell me how Islam is not inherently violent and supremacist. Islam has established itself, where it has established itself through violence, the taking of booty, the institutions of slavery and dhimmitude, the subjugation of women, the stifling of free speech, the murder of homosexuals and apostates, etc.

    Right? Or, do you have something to tell me that I don’t know about?

  2. Hi Pastorius,

    Thank you for your comment.

    I believe Robert Spencer has made a clear case through his own words for being a religious supremacist: his book praising and romanticizing the Crusaders being one of the shiniest examples. I have elaborated on this theme of him being a religious supremacist on my other article linked to above: Robert Spencer’s Connections: The James Jatras File.

    This is a man who has authored a book by the title “Religion of Peace: Why Christianity is and Islam isn’t”. If that is not religious supremacy, I don’t know what is.

    No, I do not think that Islam is a religion of peace. I don’t think any religion, except for perhaps Quakerism, is. Christianity is just another dogma under whose name even more atrocities have been committed under the Sun compared to Islam. Subjugation of women? You forgot hitch hunting, and anti-abortion initiatives today? Spread by the sword? You forgot the Spanish Conquistadors? The Inquisition?

    Robert Spencer glorifies one dogma over another and his Christianity-vs-Islam dichotomy is overriding of all other considerations in his worldview. He has waged a personal Crusade against Islam and is willing to condemn and demonize Muslim populations worldwide (Kosovars, Albanians, Bosnians, etc.) often employing the most nauseating revisionist filth in order to twist history so that it may fit his simplistic and bigoted narrative.

    He is an “adjunct fellow” at the Free Congress Foundation, –an openly Dominionist institution– and also works for a violent anarchist Serbian organization whose leaders have been blacklisted by the White House as essentially, terrorists.

    He also pursued graduate studies in Christian theology –a red flag if there was any.

    I know you have a lot of respect for him, but I have every reason to be convinced that he is a mediocre pseudo-intellectual scholar wannabe: a charlatan with a dangerous and supremacist agenda. He doesn’t care who he allies with. He might as well sell his soul to the devil, so long as that will help him demonize Muslims and Islam some more.

  3. You said: You forgot … anti-abortion initiatives today?

    I say: You would compare anti-abortion initiatives to the kinds of things women go through in Islamic countries, some of which deny them rights such as whether to be educated, whether to go outside, whom to marry, whether to drive, what to wear, etc. Not to mention the stonings for being raped, the honor killings, the burqa …

    Witch hunting – 1693
    Crusades – 1272
    Spanish Inquisition -1492 (total number killed in Spanish Inquistion = disputed but in the 10-50K range

    None of that compares to Sudan where 2.5 million black African Christians and Animists have been systematically murdered by the Arab Muslim government.

  4. Pastorius,

    Witch hunting – 1693
    Crusades – 1272
    Spanish Inquisition -1492 (total number killed in Spanish Inquistion = disputed but in the 10-50K range

    None of that compares to Sudan where 2.5 million black African Christians and Animists have been systematically murdered by the Arab Muslim government.

    Be that as it may, –and you have forgotten to factor in the Spanish Conquistadors’ decimation of the native populations of the Americas– what has been demonstrated? Arguably, giving you the benefit of the doubt on these numbers, that Muslims have been more violent than Christians. But that would be a matter of relative degree at best, and not an absolute characterization that Christianity is a religion or peace while Islam isn’t.

    Let’s not forget, also, that the world’s population was much smaller and the technology of mass destruction was much more primitive during these acts of Christian massacres, making their respective death tolls far more impressive than they may seem at face value.

    Plus, let’s not forget the Holocaust. Now that’s a sample skewer. Painful as it may be to come to terms with, most ordinary Germans who participated in it were Lutheran Christians. Christian anti-semitism has had far more devastating effects than Islamic anti-semitism.

    Take Jews in Albania, for example: My mother is of predominately Jewish extraction. Her ancestors left from Spain during the Inquisition, in order to settle into Ottoman-controlled predominately-Muslim Albania where they were welcomed and left completely alone from the 15th century and onward.

    If you aren’t aware of the history of Muslim nations and societies not being bellicose and bent on world-domination or the subjugation of Infidels, could it be because your sources of knowledge, such as the very Robert Spencer we are discussing here, have never shown you that side of history?

    I understand that you are a Christian though, and I think a certain degree of religious supremacy is unavoidable for you too, in fact religious supremacy is implied in the tenets of every religion in a global environment of religious competition. You must of course, believe that your religion is the true one, and others are somehow misguided to various degrees. Even different Christian sects hold such attitudes toward one-another. I am sure that even the most moderate of Muslims must also believe that their religion is better than others’.

    Robert Spencer goes a bit over the top though, and has practically made it his life’s mission to entice violent and hateful religious supremacy against Islam. Such a premeditated and organized effort, is, in my opinion, dangerous and disgusting.

    As an atheist I see all religions through the same lens and favor none. I do not doubt for a moment that if everything in the Qu’ran were to be taken literally by every Muslim, Islam would be a monolithic, internally confused (due to the many contradictions within the Qu’ran), overall hateful, supremacist, bellicose and corrosive dogma. That being said, I could say the exact same thing about Christianity and Judaism, if they took their holy books dead seriously, respectively.

    But I don’t think that’s how religion works on people’s minds, unless they belong to a small geographically and demographically isolated sect. In a modern and ideologically diverse environment people learn their ethics through osmosis from the society in which they live, but if they are religious, they try to sublimate, justify, and trace their moral norms back to/through their religious dogmas.

    That often ends up in mere lip service being paid to the dogma. While Islam as practiced by the goat shepherds in the plains of Pakistan must surely be an insane belief system, I am sure that Islam as practiced by second-or-third-generation Pakistani Americans is perfectly capable of being as main-stream as Christianity is in the country. In fact I personally know the people to prove this contention.

    Muslims need to be convinced and encouraged in the belief that their faith is compatible with modernity should they make the necessary adjustments. What is Robert Spencer’s proposal? That over 1 billion people should either abandon their religion or be declared enemies of civilization?

  5. Ok, so you’re point then is that Christianity has a violent history as well as Islam, but that it has not been as violent of late.

    Your point about the Holocaust is well-taken, but I’m guessing you know that Hitler was anti-Christian in his pronouncements, while at times also using Christianity as a political force.

    So, the foundation of the Holocaust was not Christian.

    That being said, the history of Christian anti-Semitism in Europe was a contributing factor to the Holocaust.

    So, your point there is that Christianity can not be proclaimed to be a religion of peace, because it has not been entirely peaceful. At the same time, I think you would be aware that there are hospitals, schools, and other humanitarian organizations all over the world which were formed either directly as Christian missions, or because of the Judeo-Christian ideology of Western Civilization. There is a tremendous amount of good which comes out of this ideology. I think the good outweighs the bad. I think that is what Spencer is referring to in the title of his book.

    Muslim humanitarians serve Muslims and Muslims only.

    Christian and Jewish humanitarians serve people no matter their race, creed, or nationality.

    You say: As an atheist I see all religions through the same lens and favor none.

    I say: You are conflating massively different phenemena. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Voodoo, Satanism, and other religions are tremendously different. Does it surprise you, for instance that Buddhism and Confucianism, with their emphasis on Acceptance as being the road to harmony/enlightenment, have produced a culture which places an emphasis on conformity, rather than individuality? Does it surprise you that a religious paradigm, such as the Judeo-Christian paradigm with its emphasis on a God who listens and argues with people on an individual basis, and even bends his will in aquiescence to human request, would produce a culture rife with individualism?

    All religions are different, and they have their good and bad points. Some religions have more bad points than good. Some religions produce cultures which promote progress, and some religions do not.

    Judaism is a great example of a religion which produces a culture of learning and progress.

    I think you would agree.

    Intelligence means being able to make distinctions. Conflation of clearly observable differences proceeds from one of two things,

    1) lack of ability to make distinctions

    2) lack of desire to make distinctions

    You say: I am sure that Islam as practiced by second-or-third-generation Pakistani Americans is perfectly capable of being as main-stream as Christianity is in the country. In fact I personally know the people to prove this contention.

    I say: Islam as practiced, but not Islam as codified. The fact remains that there are no moderate Muslim academic institutions, media outlets, or political organizations of any appreciable size. Being that that is true, that means that moderate Muslims, like the second or third generation Pakistani you cite, are not represented by any ideological organization. Their beliefs are their own, based upon whatever synthesis of ideas they have been able to come up with. their beliefs are not supported by their Imams, academicia, or media.

    Cultures improve because knowledge is codified and quantified, so that it can be passed on from generation to generation.

    The only knowledge being passed on from generation to generation in Islam is that which is being taught by academia, Media, and political organizations.

    You say: Muslims need to be convinced and encouraged in the belief that their faith is compatible with modernity should they make the necessary adjustments.

    I say: That sounds good to me. Who do I encourage? I have Muslim friends. If I say to them, good for you, you believe in the equality of human beings, and you respect individual freedom and human rights, does that help Islam?

  6. There are people here saying Christianity is just as violent as Islam because of the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Conquistadors.

    Never minding the fact that the Crusades were a defensive war launched in response to Muslims conquering 2/3s of the Christian world, I would like the people making these claims to point out where the excessive acts committed by crusaders, the evil carried out by the inquisition, and the genocide perpetrated by the conquistadors is supported in Christian scriptures and dogma, the way Jihad is supported by Islamic ones

  7. Kejda .. nice catch.

    Pastorious,

    That’s quite an intimate knowledge you have there of Muslims. First off .. you state that Muslim humanitarians only serve Muslims. Do you have some sort of proof? Considering that Turkey is a secular country with a Christian minority, Bosnia as well a secular country with a large percentage of non-Muslims living in it, Egypt with a Christian minority .. I find that a bit hard to believe. Are you saying that religious organizations need to be formed that provide humanitarian aid to non-Muslims, kind of like the missionary missions that we witnessed in Bosnia which forced Bosnians to go through Bible study sessions before handing out a bag of flour? No thanks man, there’s plenty of secular organizations out there that don’t humiliate people for a bag of flour and what makes you think that Muslims do not partake in such organizations?

    You also stated that second and third generation Pakistanis while able to be as main-stream as Christians are able to be Muslim as Islam practiced but not Islam codified as they are not represented by any moderate ideological organizations. That’s not true. Pakistan itself has Al-Mawrid, headed by Ghamidi – who was on the Islamic Judicial Council of the government – and that is someone you may want to research – he helped with the women’s protection bill in Pakistan and was outraged at having to comprimise on it, he’s considered to be quite the moderate around the world and one of the very few that does not view the scarf as a requirement for women. Turkey is in the process of reviewing all of the hadiths. Here in the states we have people like Khaled Abou El Fadl, Amina Wadud, Amina McCloud. Khamali (from Tunisia I think), while considered conservative has done wonders in turning around Nigeria’s zina laws. Then there is Tariq Ramadan who called for a moratorium on stonings. Al-Azhar’s leading scholar just recently gave a fatwa that it was Islamically acceptable for girls to have hymen reconstruction surgery prior to their wedding (a ruling I think is a cop out to addressing the real issue but the message is still vital).

    Religion is used as an excuse and has historically been used as an excuse for atrocities as Kejda has pointed out. Human nature has its flaws such as greed and hate and will always find a way to exploit other human nature such as fear and sympathy but that’s going to be there with or without religion. You have atheists (ie. Ayaan Hirsi Ali)that would love to militarily crush Islam .. doesn’t sound much different to me than the Al Qaeda mentality. You can take religion out of the picture but you will still have greed and land grabs, power struggles .. etc. The point should be for all of us to be at the point of reason and that can be easier acheived within predominantly Muslim countries through Islam. Sitting here and saying that none of these things exist within the Islamic community is not doing the world any favors. The responsible thing to do would be to promote the moderates – you can start by researching the ones mentioned above.

  8. Samaha,

    Admittedly, I can not prove a negative. I can not, logically, say there are absolutely no Muslim charities anywhere in the world which serve non-Muslims, unless I have done a survey of the entire world.

    However, I can, reasonably, say that there are no Muslim charity organizations of any appreciable size that serve non-Muslims.

    If you know of any, please let me know. I would like to be wrong.

    What bothers me about Islam is the more I know, the worse it is.

    That is not to say that there are no good and decent people who are Muslims. It is, however, to say that the good and decent people are not organized so their voice is not represented.

    And I think that is because of the totalitarian nature of Islam. If a Muslim stands up and criticizes the extremists, he is shouted down, and he has to endure threats of violence and sometimes death.

  9. Actually, you can prove a negative. You are not the first person to make such statements and since the statement is made quite often I would imagine that someone would have taken the time to survey the topic and write about their findings.

    That aside, the reason that isn’t done is because the statement is false – I took the time to do a five minute search and came up with this: http://islam.about.com/od/activism/tp/charities.htm .. check the links but you may appreciate this from Islamic Relief: http://islam.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=islam&cdn=religion&tm=329&gps=35_11_1020_567&f=00&tt=3&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.irw.org/

    And that’s all that I’ve bothered with – one little google search on Muslim charity organizations, connected to the first or second link and voila! Didn’t take much effort.

    Plenty of us stand up to extremists and against the extremist message and ummmmmm .. well, at least I can say that I’ve never received any threats of violence or death. Just the opposite the Muslim community in Chicago reached out to me and said we need more people like you.

  10. HI , am muslim myself and i have loads of friends who believe all sorts of religion . personaly i think religion is simular to a political party,peoplle will vote for different ones, but becouse politics and religions are mixet together it is a catastrophy for us humans,i think we are much more alike then we are diferent ,it dosent matter where you from or what you believe, is who you are that matters,

  11. Toni,
    Yep, until power enters into the equation, and then everyone splits off into their own factions, and the faction of Islam is anti-Western, anti-Jew, anti-progress, anti-homosexual, anti-woman, etc.

  12. pastorius , i gather your name is from greece , am sorry if am wrong . it is very harsh to say that about one religion only, do you know what crusades did in palestine ,now called izrael .they killed 7oooo peoplle in the most brutal way , it took 6 months for them to clean up the bodies and the smell to go away, anyhow i do agree that islam is lackin to move on whith the society we are living in but it is not to say that just becouse you believe in islam , you are a bad person,if any thing the vatican has o lot to answer to the world for abusing kids women and nations,am not agains any religion, i respect peoples belives but in the same time i wish peoplle would respect mine too,no matter what i believe in,we (humans) are very opinionistic whenever we hear religion or see color of the skin,it shouldnt be that way ….

  13. I had no time to attend to this conversation as it unfolded, and now I’m overwhelmed by how much there is to address. I’ll leave my intervention to a minimum:

    Pastorius, Islam has no central authority, no pope, no head of Mosques. This is a good thing because it allows for potential bottom-up experimentation. If a community of Muslims completely breaks of from the violent or misogenous tradition, they have no Muslim Pope to theologically face down. Just as there are Christians who don’t read the Bible (that would be most Christians in North America, probably) there are many Muslims who do not read the Qu’ran and hence save themselves from any confusion or craziness that could result from a literal interpretation of the book. I don’t think much can be inferred by just studying Muslim versus Christian charities since we barely have any exhaustive data on their practices anyway. Anecdotal evidence is not a great point to fall back on, and it can cut both ways.

    Samaha,

    Thanks for your comments. It seems rather clear that you are a genuine moderate of the kind we need to see more of among Muslims. However, I do not at all support your over-the-top rhetoric against Hirsi Ali. A parallel between her and Al Qaeda? That is demented and insulting to a) our intelligence and common sense b) victims of terrorist attacks and their families. If I had had my clitoris butchered off in the name of Islam, I’d be pissed as hell too. It is the sick fundamentalist psychos who are set out to kill her that you should direct your ire against, not her, however you may disagree with her opinions.

    Of course I don’t agree with much of your attitude, but the thing that matters is that I am sure you mean me or Pastorius, or Robert Spencer, or anyone else, no physical harm. As an atheist, I have plenty to disagree and debate with religionists of all stripes. What matters is that they don’t try to kill me over my opinions.

    Toni,

    That’s all fine and well. Don’t assume Pastorius is from Greece though, and don’t assume it would have any relevance whether he was from Greece or not.

  14. medaura,

    hey, I feel for Ayaan and understand that what she’s gone through was something unthinkable that I could never relate to. HOWEVER, I can not let my sympathy stand in the way of condemning statements that she has made in the past which say that Islam should be crushed militarily and I think that it’s pretty sad to stand in defense of her because of things that happened to her. Would you stand to my defense if I called for militarilly crushing the Serbian Orthodox religion just because I may have been raped and tortured by Serbs (and no I haven’t .. it’s a hypothetical). According to Ayaan .. there are no moderates and Islam has to be crushed – those statements need to be condemned by atheists and I RARELY see it done. I’m sorry but I do condemn many things that go on within my religion and I expect others not to make excuses for irrational behavior as well. And, yes, of course I do condemn the nutjobs that threaten her life and freedom of speech, I certainly didn’t mean to imply with my criticism of her that I don’t.

  15. Samaha,

    Point taken, at least in principle. I was not aware that she had painted all of Islam and Muslims with the same broad brush. To the best of my knowledge, she only emphasizes that there deffinitely is a violent, fundamentalist and dictatorial trend within Islam, and that it’s probably underestimated by the cultural relativists and their sympathizers, not that Islam as a whole or all of its adherents are monsters.

    However, to tell you the truth, I have not paid her all that much attention lately and I am not familiar with all the intricacies of her views. Whenever I have heard her speak, on select occasions, I came out with a positive impression.

  16. medaura,

    I have to say this about Ayaan, I’ve seen a video of her at edge (me thinks) where she’s speaking for a Sam Harris event and she is quite eloquent, add to that a pleasant demaeanor, at times timid, shy and the way she seems so flattered and modest by compliments. There really seems to be something likable about her – at least in those videos, I’ve also seen her in interviews where she comes accross as another type of militant. I’ve seen and read her making some statements where she presents herself as an authority on Islam and that she is not. Much of what she has to say is actually false in regards to what is Islam and the concept of shariah.

    Here’s a statement from a reason interview:

    “Reason: Don’t you mean defeating radical Islam?

    Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace.

    Reason: We have to crush the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, “defeat Islam”?

    Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they’re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, “This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.” There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.

    Reason: Militarily?

    Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don’t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.”

    Anyway, I didn’t mention before that no .. I don’t wish any of you any harm. Besides I actually enjoy the disagreeing and debating.

    I just think that we all have to be more responsible in the way we disagree and debate (me included). I think there’s got to be something much more productive that can be done besides obsessing with the “Islamic threat” day in and day out and I’m not blaming you of this. I read much of the exchange between you and pastorious and I have a lot of repect for the way you’ve been handling the subject.

  17. Yep. We definitely need to eradicate the Islamofascists. Thank God for Robert spencer! Don’t forget to read his new book, Stealth Jihad. :^)

  18. meduara, i only assumet pastorius was from greece becouse of hes name , but is eralavant where he comes from . what are you taking about ?

  19. HI SAMAHA,I HAD A LOOK AT SOME OF YOUR POSTS AND I MUST SAY WELL DONE FOR TELLING SOMETHING THAT IS REAL . I THINK SOME PEOPLLE IN HERE CAN AND WANT TO TALK ONLY ABOUT RELIGION AND IN THEIR OWN OPINION WHITH NO PROOF OR COMMON SENCE . WELL DONE .

  20. I’d like to see a list of other organizations, parties, or groups that are resisting the Islamization we all know is happening.

  21. Excellent post.

    Beetlejuice of the internet. Wish I had written it. How true.

    Recently, over on hotair.com, when a forum about the incorrect alignment of medieval mosques in Mecca suddenly turned ugly, I – admittedly this was ill-conceived – decided to argue that Islam was not preternaturally violent. Someone invoked the typical generalities about abrogation and Muslim jurisprudence. They were merely mouthing Spencer’s talking points and I pointed that out, invoking the name of Spencer in the process.

    The next post he appeared. I did not fair well. I wish I had your wit and grace.

    Thanks again.
    Travis

    1. Ha,

      Thanks Travis. I don’t find it very useful or effective to debate him in comments threads because those tend to degenerate quickly. Thorough blog posts such as this are my element.

      He has Google alerts for his name and checks them compulsively. Kinda sad.

  22. He has Google alerts for his name and checks them compulsively. Kinda sad.

    That’s the luxury of not having a real job, real obligations, students’ papers to grade, committee meetings, etc.

    Actually, the job of a polemicist is looking really good to me now.

    Why did I get the Ph.D. Again? Oh yeah. Self-respect.

    Thanks again.

  23. This is pathetic. I’m sorry, but it just is. When someone thinks any stick will do, he’s apt to pick up a boomerang. What make it worse is that you may make good points and then piss them all away on this junk.

    Take this:

    “Who has heard of multiple unaffiliated organizations by the very same name operating within the boundaries of a 10,908 km2 region”

    Well, that’s easy enough. Anyone who has ever seen “Life of Brian”. The reason that the jokes about the Judean People’s Front/People’s Front of Judea got so many laughs is that people recognise the syndrome.

    Or this…

    “out of giving public speeches trying to convince Muslims that their religion is indeed inherently and incorrigibly violent and supremacist and that they better get consistent in taking seriously any and all genocidal verses of the Qur’an ”

    First of all, that’s a matter of opinion. Unprovable. You provide no links, no evidence, that Spencer does incite Muslims to practice the most violent aspects of their religion. Further you go on to complain, a few paragraphs later, that his comment about the VNN would exonerate the FPO, and therefore he should be supporting the FPO… projection much?

    For the record, I happen to think that Fjordman and GatesOfVienna are fascists. However, that’s a severe charge, and it’s one came to by carefully thinking things over and doing my own research, not by listening to the high-octane ranting of a blogger.

    The worst you can charge Spencer with is that he should do some more research on some of his colleagues. Well, fair enough. Your chum Charles Johnson has come out for the Hitler sympathizing Nation of Islam. So I guess we should consider you A-OK with that sort of thing?

    Girl, you’re young and foolish. Take some time to learn and grow up a little, and become a bit more aware of your own fallibility, and show a little more compassion and mercy. You will be a far better person and a far better writer.

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