by Stephen Schwartz*

At the end of a week in which U.S. military forces in Pakistan carried out the execution of Osama bin Laden and the Afghan Taliban declared that the death of “Sheikh Osama bin Laden will give a new impetus to the current jihad against the invaders in this critical phase of jihad,” a stunning display of Islamist insensitivity and arrogance took place at the University of California, Berkeley. On Friday, May 6, 2011, Ebrahim Moosa, a South African Muslim and professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University in North Carolina, speaking at a UC Berkeley workshop on “Religious Norms in the Public Sphere,” defended Deobandism, the madrassa-based radical ideology that inspires the Taliban.

(more…)

by Janet Doerflinger*

How well did Middle East studies professors at American universities interpret the Egyptian uprising, particularly the risk of the Muslim Brotherhood gaining power? Among fifteen prominent professors who commented publicly on the uprising before and immediately after Mubarak’s ouster, fully thirteen believed that overthrowing Mubarak would lead to democracy in Egypt and that the Muslim Brotherhood would play a constructive role. Instead of explaining the Brotherhood’s Islamist agenda to the American public, they naively discounted it.

(more…)

by Raymond Ibrahim*

Days ago in Egypt, throngs of Muslims (henceforth, “Islamists”), estimated at 3,000, fired guns and rifles and hurled Molotov cocktails at Coptic churches, homes, and businesses in the Imbaba region near Cairo: twelve Christians were killed — some shot by snipers atop rooftops — 232 injured; three churches were set aflame to cries of “Allahu Akbar,” while Coptic homes were looted and torched.

(more…)

By Fern Sidman

Now that the hoopla over the successful United States “hit” on arch terrorist Osama bin Laden has begun to fade into the annals of history, the stark realization that the US and the free world are still bereft of a concrete plan of action to stem the tide of al-Qaeda terrorism is beginning to set in. Having spent close to 10 years assiduously tracking down the elusive 9/11 mastermind, we hasten to remind the CIA, along with the various and sundry intelligence networks, that the task of eradicating Islamic radicals bent on global domination demands replication of the kind of “muscle” that bagged bin Laden.

(more…)

by Harsh V. Pant*

As the Afghan war enters its final and most decisive phase, India’s strategic position in the country has turned a full circle. Having maintained a close relationship with the post-Taliban government for years, New Delhi suffered a humiliating setback last January when its warning against the folly of making a distinction “between good Taliban and bad Taliban” was summarily ignored by the Afghanistan Conference in London.[1]

At a stroke, Pakistan squeezed its nemesis from the evolving security architecture by persuading the West that the time had come to incorporate the “moderate” faction of the Taliban into Afghanistan’s future state structure and to give Islamabad a key role in mediating this process.[2] Meanwhile, despite its best attempts to keep a low profile, India and its nationals have been increasingly targeted by extremist forces in Afghanistan. The Indian embassy in Kabul was struck twice over the past two years, and guest houses frequented by Indians were attacked with nine Indian nationals killed.[3]

(more…)

By Fern Sidman

There is no doubt that the infamous attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 constituted the most definitive moment in modern history. On that frenetic day the world stood still; frozen in time as gruesome memories were etched in our collective psyches for eternity. It was on that day that an elusive, shadowy figure named Osama bin Laden, (who hitherto was considered a parenthetical nemesis) was suddenly and unceremoniously plucked from historical obscurity and catapulted head first into the global amphitheater.

(more…)

By Gary Gerofsky

Like the many-headed Hydra of Greek mythology, the al-Qaeda terror network does not have just one head. The heroic slaying of Osma bin Laden by American forces in an up-scale neighborhood near Islamabad and in sight of a Pakistani military base will be the stuff of legend but will not, as the facile pronouncements on CNN say, be the end of the war on terrorism. The Hydra will grow back its head or be replaced with many heads.

As President Obama basks in the glory of a well-planned military mission, taking ample credit for the hit, we must remind ourselves that his foreign policy is in disarray. The mission in Libya is terribly flawed — with its reluctance to honestly target Gadhafi and the joining of forces with those insurgents-come-terrorists in Libya responsible for a significant number of American soldiers’ deaths at the hands of the Taliban terrorist network. The situation in Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt, Nigeria, and in many Islamic countries worldwide is in a state of confusion and bloody insanity.

(more…)

by Raymond Ibrahim*

With the killing of Osama bin Laden, we return to the age old question: which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Or, in our context, which came first — the jihadist vision or the jihadist? The ideology or the ideologue?

(more…)

Osama bin Laden Dead was killed today by American troops in a firefight. That means he knew he was going to die, which I find immensely more satisfying than if he were to have been instantly incinerated by a Predator-launched missile and spared pain. Congratulations to our brave men and women in the American military.

Why was bin Laden able to “hide,” basically out in the open, in Pakistan? There must’ve been collusion between Pakistan’s Islamist elements and al-Qaeda. In his announcement of bin Laden’s death tonight, President Obama said Pakistan had cooperated in the operation to kill al-Qaeda’s leader. My gut tells me that was political lip-service to Pakistan. More likely, the U.S. military told Pakistan, “Get out of our way or else!”

And why did Obama have to mention the, “We’re not at war with Islam,” bull-sh*t. Bin Laden was an evil criminal. All free-thinking people should be relieved. The U.S. certainly doesn’t have to cater to any special interest group and/or apologize for killing the world’s #1 scum-bag.

We’ll see as more info comes out. Justice has been done. G#d bless America.

by Phyllis Chesler

One cannot tell the truth or venture one’s opinion about Islam or about Muslim behaviors without risking being slandered, heckled, censored, sued, impoverished, physically attacked, and, more rarely, murdered.

And that’s for those of us lucky enough to be living in the free West. What happens to dissident and feminist thinkers and writers in Muslim-majority countries is far worse; their bravery continues to inspire me at a very dark moment in history.

(more…)

By Fern Sidman

In a surprise announcement on Wednesday, April 20th, Pentagon prosecutors declared their intention to re-file war crimes charges against the mastermind of the deadly attack on the USS Cole (an American warship) in the Port of Aden, Yemen on October 12, 2000. 17 US sailors were killed and 40 other US service personnel were wounded when a small vessel, laden with explosives and manned with suicide bombers rammed into the American Navy warship on that fateful day. The announcement included the original request of the military prosecution for an imposition of the death penalty on self-admitted Cole bomber, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, 46, the former al-Qaeda chief of operations for the Arabian Peninsula. Al-Nashiri hails from Saudi Arabia and is of Yemeni descent.

(more…)

by Efraim Karsh*

It is commonplace for the views of people in power to receive widespread exposure. Having presumably won their stripes in an arduous climb to the top, they are believed to know best what’s going on.

This presumption, however, is not only wrong, but is often the inverse of the truth. Given bureaucracy’s predilection for conformity, it is rarely the best and brightest who reach the top, but rather the yes-men sycophants – whether by rising to their level of incompetence, as the Peter Principle famously asserts, or by stumbling upward through successive failures, or by simply “being there” long enough.

(more…)

by Raymond Ibrahim*

On March 5, Muslims attacked, plundered, and set ablaze an ancient Coptic church in Sool, a village near Cairo, Egypt. Afterwards, throngs of Muslims gathered around the scorched building and pounded its walls down with sledge hammers — to cries of “Allahu Akbar!” Adding insult to injury, the attackers played “soccer” with the relic-remains of the church’s saints and martyrs and transformed the desecrated church into a mosque (a live example of history, which witnessed countless churches seized and transformed into mosques). As a result of Christian girls being abducted and raped and overall terrorization of the Coptic community, thousands fled the village. (See this letter to Egypt’s military leadership signed by twenty congressmen discussing this and similar anecdotes.)

(more…)

by Raymond Ibrahim*

From Congressman Keith Ellison’s emotional breakdown to Congresswoman Jackie Speier’s accusations of “racism,” last week’s hearings on Muslim radicalization have made it clear that those who oppose the hearings have little of substance to offer. Still, the tactics used by such apologists — namely, appeals to emotionalism and accusations of racism — are influential enough that they need to be addressed and discredited once and for all.

(more…)

by Raymond Ibrahim*

“You can sit here and talk about jihad from here to doomsday, what will it do? Suppose you prove beyond any shadow of doubt that Islam is constitutionally violent, where do you go from there?”

Such was Columbia professor Hamid Dabashi’s response to my assertion that Islamists seek to resurrect the caliphate and wage offensive jihad to bring the world under Islamic rule (during a 2008 debate titled “Clash of Civilizations“).

(more…)