by Damla Aras*

In June 2010, the deepening rift between Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) unexpectedly came to the public eye when seventy-two retired ambassadors and consul-generals issued a written statement protesting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s lack of respect in dubbing them “mon chers” and criticizing the government’s foreign policy.[1] Why did the prime minister publicly snub his diplomats? By way of answering this question, this article reviews the ongoing rift between Erdoğan and his diplomats before carrying an English translation of the ambassadors’ statement and interviews with two retired senior diplomats.

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by Stephen Schwartz*

Ingrid Mattson, a professor of Islamic studies and Christian-Muslim relations at Hartford Seminary, recently ended a term as the first female and first Muslim convert to serve as president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). But she promises to continue her career as a promoter of radical Islam.

As an example of her ideological commitment, Mattson is advertised as a prominent participant in a conference to be held at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis/St. Paul on February 24/26, 2011. The conference program is breathtaking in its triumphalist view of Islam and its relations with the world. Titled “Shared Cultural Spaces” and benefiting from a grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) — paid for by federal tax revenue — the Minnesota conference program announces very little that is “shared” by Islam and other cultures, but rather is replete with uncritical glorification of Islamic history.

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British Prime Minister David Cameron has taken a very public stand against Islamic extremism, giving me hope that Europeans are getting tired of their teeming mass of restive, violent Muslim immigrants. Cameron spoke Saturday February 5 at the Munich Security Conference. Here is the full text of his speech. Please read it and pass it on:

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by Daniel Pipes*

Perhaps alone in the coterie focused on the Islamist threat to Europe, I am cheerful these days. That’s because I see the anti-Islamist reaction growing even more quickly than the Islamist threat itself.

The stirring speech by British prime minister David Cameron on Feb. 5, in which he intelligently focused on what he called the “hands-off tolerance” of “Islamist extremism,” including its non-violent forms, exactly fits this pattern.

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by Andrew M. Roe*

The Afghan conflict has refocused world attention on Waziristan. Once one of the British Empire’s most volatile territories, the remote small province in northwestern Pakistan is now home to Taliban insurgents, al-Qaeda fighters, rogue elements within the Pakistani military, and Western jihadists, who use it as a base to rest, heal, rearm, train, and plan before they launch again across the porous border into Afghanistan. It is also the area where Osama bin Laden and many of his top lieutenants are probably hiding and a regular target for U.S. air strikes against key Taliban personnel. Pakistani military operations destroyed insurgent forces and caused mass civilian dislocation, yet efforts to produce a lasting peace deal with the local tribesmen and the Taliban have proved futile. Waziristan remains a dangerous and unpredictable region with the potential to unhinge President Hamid Karzai’s fragile regime in Afghanistan, threaten the Pakistani government, and pose a major challenge to regional stability.

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by Adam Turner*

Revolution Muslim, a U.S.-based radical Islamic jihadist organization, has become the Kevin Bacon of Islamic fundamentalism. Whenever jihadist groups threaten free speech in America or Europe, you can bet an associate of Revolution Muslim is somehow involved.

During an 18-month period, eight of the 27 reported cases of homegrown terrorism saw U.S. terror suspects frequenting, blogging on, or directly linked to Revolution Muslim or a related group. The group’s website was originally at RevolutionMuslim.com. When their service provider shut them down on November 5, 2010, they reconstituted at IslamPolicy.com. To date, the threats that have emanated from the Revolution Muslim websites have never been adequately legally addressed by the U.S.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Recent remarks by Attorney General Eric Holder on the threat posed by “radicalized” American Muslims are revealing — not just because of what they say regarding the domestic situation, but for their international implications as well. According to Holder:

“[T]he threat is real, the threat is different, the threat is constant. The threat has changed … to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born. It is one of the things that keeps me up at night. You didn’t worry about this even two years ago — about individuals, about Americans, to the extent that we now do.” Holder noted that while he was confident in the United States’ counter-terrorism efforts, Americans “have to be prepared for potentially bad news…. The terrorists only have to be successful once.”

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by Daniel Huff*

On December 29, Scandinavian authorities arrested five terrorists planning an attack in Denmark. Almost as interesting as what they targeted is what they spared and the lessons it holds for future counterterrorism efforts.

The plot was to storm the Copenhagen newsroom of Jyllands Posten and murder its staff. It was the fourth attempt this year by Islamic extremists to punish the newspaper that published the Mohammed cartoons. But the terrorists are guilty of selective prosecution. They have yet to strike Politiken, which also published the cartoons, even though its offices are literally next door.

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Here… we… go… again… Attempted murder of innocent civilians over a frickin’ cartoon!

Police in Denmark and Sweden said they thwarted a terrorist attack possibly hours before it was to begin Wednesday, arresting five men they say planned to shoot as many people as possible in a Copenhagen building housing the newsroom of a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Four suspects were arrested in the suburbs of Copenhagen, including a Tunisian, a man from Lebanon and an Iraqi asylum-seeker. A fifth suspect, a Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin, was arrested in Sweden. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service said it seized a submachine gun, a silencer and ammunition.

“An imminent terror attack has been foiled,” said Jakob Scharf, head of the service. He said three of the men were arrested as they left a suburban Copenhagen apartment, “either heading out to carry out the terror attack or to do some kind of reconnaissance.”

Scharf described some of the suspects as “militant Islamists with relations to international terror networks.” He said more arrests were possible. …

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By David Rubin

Book Review by Fern Sidman

Issuing an impassioned clarion call to the Western world on the litany of existential dangers that radical Islam represents to America’s cherished democratic principles, author David Rubin’s meticulously researched monograph reveals that Islam is in actuality a political ideology predicated on a pernicious dogma, rather than the “religion of peace” that its proponents purport it to be.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Back in 2004, in one of his most recognized messages to America, Osama bin Laden, responding to then President George Bush Jr.’s claims that Al Qaeda hates freedom, rhetorically asked, “If so [if Al Qaeda hates freedom], let him [Bush] explain to us why we have not attacked Sweden, for example.”

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Interview with Daniel Pipes*

Citizen Times: Mr. Pipes, you head various organizations concerning the Middle East and Islam, and are one of the best known American writers on these subjects. How did this all begin for you?

Daniel Pipes: I am a historian of Islam with a special interest in the role of Islam in public life. I received my Ph.D. in 1978, just as Ayatollah Khomeini appeared. For the first time in modern history, Islam had a large and obvious role in Western public life. What had been in the 1970s an abstract interest turned very practical. Islamic matters subsequently became very topical. That prompted me to transit from medieval history to current events. While I cover many other topics besides Islam, Islam remains central to my interests. I have a perspective I hope is useful to understand the role of Islam in politics.

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By Andrew Whitehead

The truth of the founding of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to support Islamist terrorists has been proven, over and over again. A sealed ruling of the Holy Land Foundation trial by Judge Jorge Solis has been unsealed and officially reveals what many already knew: CAIR was specifically created to support the terrorists of Hamas and advance the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Several years ago, CAIR all but admitted its connections to Islamist terror by refusing to defend itself in litigation CAIR initiated against Anti-CAIR.

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Yes, the Islamist/jihadi thugs have once again had their evil dreams of mass murder thwarted because jihad = stupidity = terrorism = an unquenchable thirst for blood, blinding all reason. Here we have some psychopathic Somali gutter-snipe, enjoying the freedoms and protections afforded by living in the U.S., plotting to kill as many of his neighbors/countrymen as possible:

A Somali-born teenager plotted “a spectacular show” of terrorism for months, saying he didn’t mind that children would die if he bombed a crowded Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, according to a law-enforcement official and court documents.

He never got the chance. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested Friday in downtown Portland after using a cell phone to try to detonate what he thought were explosives in a van, prosecutors said. It turned out to be a dummy bomb put together by FBI agents. Authorities said Mohamud was acting alone. …

The official said Mohamud was very committed to the plot and planned the details alone, including where to park the van to hurt the most people.

“I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave dead or injured.” Mohamud said, according to the affidavit.

“It’s in Oregon, and Oregon, like you know, nobody ever thinks about it,” the suspect told an agent in one discussion. …

Isn’t that sweet? Anyone else getting tired of this shit? Time to take out the trash.

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By Jonathan Spyer

The revelations last week of a sophisticated plot emanating from the Yemen-based al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula organization have belatedly refocused attention on this most backward and poverty stricken of Arab states. The sending of explosive packages to synagogues in Chicago is only the latest act of international terror to have emerged from Yemen in the last year.

Yemen today exemplifies the central malaise of the Arab world in particularly acute form. Throughout the Arabic-speaking world, failed development, a political culture in which extremist Islamist ideology thrives and Iranian interference and subversion from outside serve to create a breeding ground for political violence to grow and proliferate.

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