The Real Threat

Professional crazy person Daniel Pipes explains that the real threat's not from terrorists, it's from peaceful Muslim moderates:

“It is hard to see how violence, how terrorism will lead to the implementation of sharia,” Mr. Pipes said. “It is much easier to see how, working through the system — the school system, the media, the religious organizations, the government, businesses and the like — you can promote radical Islam.”

You see, first Harvard starts trying to accommodate Muslim students who want a gender-segregated exercise space. From there, it's just a hop skip and a jump to taking over the school system and -- bam -- dhimmitude! All while Chamberlain-esque liberals were distracted by the mirage of violent radicals who kill people and wasted our time trying to build bridges with other Muslims to isolate and eliminate the hardest-core jihadis. Silly us.

Comments

Obviously wack jobs like Pipes don't see the irony in people like himself trying to take over America(and various institutions like education and the like).

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | May 5, 2008 9:53 AM

I really, really wish Americans would grow a pair and stop being scared s***less of Muslims. Okay, so we suffered a huge (if unconventional) military defeat at their hands. That does not mean that they are a grave threat to America or to Western civilization in general.

Posted by Peter | May 5, 2008 9:56 AM

The guy deserves a little break as he must have been pissed off for having to pay jazia to the IRS on the 15th April for being a non-Muslim. You should be too, unless your jazia is forgiven due to your support for Islamofascists.

Posted by gregor | May 5, 2008 9:57 AM

I really, really wish Americans would grow a pair and stop being scared s***less of Muslims. Okay, so we suffered a huge (if unconventional) military defeat at their hands. That does not mean that they are a grave threat to America or to Western civilization in general.

Posted by Peter | May 5, 2008 9:58 AM

I just finished Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine". I am much more afraid of a (complete) corporate takeover of the U.S. during the next energy or water crisis than I am of people who pray in a building called a 'mosque' instead of a 'church'.

Posted by An Outhouse | May 5, 2008 9:59 AM

Well, duh. The goons at Powerline didn't shit a brick over Keith Ellison because they think he's going to suicide-bomb House chambers.

Posted by mark f | May 5, 2008 10:01 AM

I really, really wish Americans would grow a pair and stop being scared s***less of Muslims.

Agreed, Peter, though I wish we'd stop being scared of everything.

I mean, capitalism and democracy work pretty darn well. Even if Osama bin Laden, Hugo Chavez, and both Castro brothers teamed up, they still wouldn't conquer us. Can't we have a little bit of faith in our country?

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | May 5, 2008 10:08 AM

Daniel Pipes, as in, the President's appointee to the Near East Institute? The guy even Chris Hitchens agrees is an islamophobe?

Posted by America fuck yeah | May 5, 2008 10:19 AM

My employer is owned by an Islamic investment bank. Doing modern finance while pretending not to pay interest (which is forbidden by shari'a law) generates huge fees for New York / London / Dubai lawyers who paper the deals. Really huge fees.

Posted by Oberon | May 5, 2008 10:20 AM

agreed but the harvard decision was ridiculous anyway

Posted by rapid | May 5, 2008 10:23 AM

“It is much easier to see how, working through the system — the school system, the media, the religious organizations, the government, businesses and the like — you can promote radical Islam.”

Yeah, kinda like the religious right in the US for the last two decades, or Le Pin's party in France. Same tactics.
.

Posted by Grand Moff Texan | May 5, 2008 10:30 AM

The reason he worries is stuff like this:

Wife beating excused

As incidents like that are excused by tolerant multi-culturalists, some of us worry.

Posted by James Robertson | May 5, 2008 10:34 AM

Mr. Yglesias doesn't bother to comment on the refusal of Muslim cab drivers in Minneapolis to provide service to individuals carrying alcoholic beverages. Not even an apologist for Islam like him could defend that.

Posted by SLC | May 5, 2008 10:37 AM

Alright Pipes is wrong but then explain Europe. Why is it that this extremely tolerant and multicultural society suffers from so much radicalism? America may have had 9/11 but we don't have debates about the merits of teaching the Holocaust in school or violent protests over cartoons. Perhaps a confrontational approach as Pipes suggests will not work but clearly neither does Chamberlain style appeasement.

Posted by Gordon | May 5, 2008 10:43 AM

The Debbie Almontaser case is really ludicrous and deserves wider attention on its own. An Arabic language public school became a "madrassa" and the principal the target of a nation-wide witchhunt, based on pretty much nothing but raw racism - and, so far, the racists have been winning. Kudos to Matt for linking to the surprisingly good NYT article, but Pipes' insanity is not the only noteworthy part.

Posted by Kalkin | May 5, 2008 10:44 AM

Matt,
As a liberal, cultural anthropologist, a life-long Democrat, currently a strong Obama supporter, I share few points with a writer pundit such as Christopher Hitchens. But this one on the creeping capitulation to illiberal demands of Muslims for their own styled spaces and other accommodations in public settings is one. There is no good compromise to be made with these kinds of insistences on separately gendered spaces. If a private institution decides it wants to go this route, it is their right, but the precedent it sets is a huge setback. If this were to tried in a public institution, there should be fierce opposition to it. I would join it. Our society has developed the freedoms for sub-cultures to carve out their spaces as they see fit, in private, in largely unsubsidized organizations. Catholic parochial schools is a a great example. The LAST thing we need is to go in this direction in public sectors.

Posted by Chris Darrouzet | May 5, 2008 10:46 AM

Wife beating excused

Yeah, no Christian has ever beaten his wife, or tried to look to the Bible for justification for violence . . .

Posted by rea | May 5, 2008 10:47 AM

Do you know there's a religion that's so powerful it actually forces the US government to shut down on its holy day?

Posted by William Burns | May 5, 2008 10:48 AM

The females-only gym hours kerfuffle is bad-faith nonsense. Queens College long ago instituted such a policy to accommodate Orthodox Jewish women. A college in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where the term "Christian" generally excludes the Whore of Babylon and the more high-rent Protestants, has a similar scheme to accommodate modest Christian women. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples having nothing to do with dhimmitude.

Posted by CJColucci | May 5, 2008 10:51 AM

Alright Pipes is wrong but then explain Europe.

As an American who's lived in Europe for nearly five years, I always find it immensely amusing to hear Americans talking about Europe as though it's on the verge of submitting to Sharia. Sure, radicalized Muslim migrants are a problem here, but they're not even close to a big problem. No one here is really all that worried about it except Martin Amis types and hard right immigration restricionists. Silly.

Posted by JH | May 5, 2008 10:52 AM

rea: Please name me a judge in the modern era who accepted "it's biblical" as an excuse for wife beating by a Christian or a Jew.

I won't hold my breath. And even if you could: would such bad behavior excuse what happened? I don't care which illiberal acts are being given multi-cultural "tolerance" - it's simply a bad idea.

Posted by James Robertson | May 5, 2008 10:54 AM

Chris - my Ivy League university, Columbia, runs a dual degree program with the Jewish Theological Seminary, a Conservative institution, and being in New York attracts a large number of Orthodox Jewish students as well. Many of these students are not supposed to be alone with members of the opposite sex. The University makes a number of accommodations including same-sex dorm floors, not to mention Jewish frats & sororities, scheduling exams around Passover and other holidays, funding for the privately-run Hillel out of student activities fees, etc. I assume, since your motivated purely by an ardent liberal universalism rather than any sort of irrational fear of Islam, you find all this totally outrageous?

Posted by Kalkin | May 5, 2008 10:59 AM

I'm sure there are plenty of other examples having nothing to do with dhimmitude.

Curves Gym for women. Women-only dormitories. The annoying (to me, when I was a kid) adults-only swim times at the pool.

Radicalization of Islam in immigrant communities seems to be a symptom of an intolerant society, where moderates are alienated. It's because America is willing to work around the sensibilities of Muslim moderates that we don't encounter the same problems.

Posted by Tyro | May 5, 2008 11:01 AM

but then explain Europe. Why is it that this extremely tolerant and multicultural society suffers from so much radicalism?

In France they don't even let Muslim girls where headscarves in public schools.

France, at least, is not more tolerant and accomodating than the U.S. on this front.

Posted by SoCalJustice | May 5, 2008 11:03 AM

wear.

MY is contagious.

Posted by SoCalJustice | May 5, 2008 11:06 AM

"There is no good compromise to be made with these kinds of insistences on separately gendered spaces. "

Next they'll want "women only" bathrooms. Where will it stop?

Posted by Njorl | May 5, 2008 11:10 AM

Daniel Tubes has never hidden his agenda in this regard -- he wants to fight things like mosque construction, Muslim politicians, religious accomdoation in the workplace, etc. He endorsed the nutcase book "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington".

Daniel is about as crazy as his father, Richard Pipes was -- the leader of the CIA's "Team B" and member of the original Committee for the Present Danger.

Let's hope Pipes has no children. The world needs less Crazy.

Posted by Ikram | May 5, 2008 11:11 AM

Forget about dhimmitude -- what about Sudden Jihad Syndrome?

IBD, February 20, 2007 Sudden Jihad Syndrome

Terror: It looks like the Muslim teen who opened fire on shoppers in a Salt Lake City mall is yet another case of 'sudden jihad syndrome,' a condition in which normal-appearing American Muslims abruptly turn violent.

Taken together, this and other cases add up to an invisible jihad inside America. But don't tell that to the FBI. The politically correct bureau does everything it can to avoid recognizing the obvious Islamic factor in these heinous crimes.

Sulejman Talovic, an 18-year-old Bosnian Muslim immigrant, was loaded with enough ammo to 'inexplicably' kill dozens of victims — and he would have, if an alert off-duty cop hadn't returned fire and stopped him. Talovic still managed to methodically murder five and wound four others with a shotgun.

Witnesses say it was an act of coldblooded violence aimed at random victims — something otherwise known as terrorism. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Talovic attended Friday prayers at a mosque about a block from the mall.

Yet the FBI saw no religious motive, and quickly ruled out terrorism. Nor could it find anything to indicate terrorism in several other Muslim-tied cases since 9/11, including:

• A 30-year-old Muslim man, Naveed Afzal Haq, who went on a shooting rampage at a Jewish community center in Seattle, announcing 'I'm a Muslim-American; I'm angry at Israel.'

• An Egyptian national, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, who shot two and wounded three at an Israeli airline ticket counter at LAX.

• A bearded 21-year-old student, Joel Hinrichs, who blew himself up with a backpack filled with TATP (the explosive of choice in the Mideast) outside a packed Oklahoma University football stadium not long after he started attending the local mosque.

• A 23-year-old student, Mohammed Ali Alayed, who slashed the throat of his Jewish friend in Houston after apparently undergoing a religious awakening (he went to a local mosque afterward).

• The D.C. snipers — John Muhammad and Lee Malvo, both black Muslim converts — who picked off 13 people in the suburbs around the Beltway as part of what Muhammad described as a 'prolonged terror campaign against America' around the first anniversary of 9/11, which he had praised.

• Omeed Aziz Popal of Fremont, Calif., who police said hit and killed a bicyclist there then took his SUV on a hit-and-run spree in San Francisco, mowing down pedestrians at crosswalks and on sidewalks before police caught up with him, whereupon the Muslim called himself a 'terrorist.'

• A 22-year-old Muslim, Ismail Yassin Mohamed, who stole a car in Minneapolis and rammed it into other cars before stealing a van and doing the same, injuring drivers and pedestrians, while repeatedly yelling, 'Die, die, die, kill, kill, kill' — all, he said, on orders from 'Allah.'

• A 22-year-old Iranian honors student, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, who deliberately rammed his SUV into a crowd at the University of North Carolina to 'punish the government of the United States' for invading Iraq and other Muslim nations.

Described by other students as 'kind and gentle,' Taheri-azar was a student council president and a member of the National Honor Society in high school. He told the judge he was 'thankful you're here to learn more about the will of Allah.'

He wrote a letter to a TV station citing Quranic verses justifying his attacks and told a detective that Muslims 'all over the world are being killed, and now it is the people in the United States' turn to be killed.'

This is not terrorism, the FBI said. Just some nutty kid. In all these cases, the feds' first reaction was to shrug. They said the perps were lone individuals who just went ballistic after having a bad day, as if anyone could have done such crimes.

But they weren't just anyone. They were all young Muslim men. Of course, the FBI can't treat all law-abiding young Muslim men as potential killers. But neither should the agency ignore this trend.

We're likely to see more of these seemingly random domestic attacks. They may seem isolated, but all have radical Islam at their nexus. They're not 'senseless' or 'utterly inexplicable' or 'impossible to rationalize,' as the media intone. They are purposeful. These men act as conscripts called up for a mission, sick as it is.

Posted by Fred | May 5, 2008 11:17 AM

This reveals the neocons' very clever strategy. By bombing the shit out of people, they will be driven to terrorism and violence. Therefore, their radical agenda is doomed to failure. However, we must remain vigilant and continue to antagonize potentially radical Muslims so that they continue to try to kill innocent people rather than focus on attaining real power and influence. If only the American people had the will to invade and occupy every secular Arab country we could rid ourselves of the threat of Islamic theocracy once and for all.

Posted by ibid | May 5, 2008 11:22 AM

Fred, it doesn't sound like an "invisible jihad." It sounds a lot like a bunch of people who happen to also be muslim committing crimes.

Notice that all of the ones that mention age are 18-30. Those are prime years for the first onset of schizophrenia.

If you could show me that the rate of criminality among American Muslims of Middle Eastern descent was higher than average or higher than any other immigrant communities, we'd have something. As it is, some of these cases seem similar to the VATech shooting rampage, and no one blamed that on a creeping Korean menace.

Posted by Tyro | May 5, 2008 11:25 AM

SLC writes : "Mr. Yglesias doesn't bother to comment on the refusal of Muslim cab drivers in Minneapolis to provide service to individuals carrying alcoholic beverages. Not even an apologist for Islam like him could defend that."

holy sh!t! it isn't muslim teachers who are gonna band together to overthrow america it's CAB DRIVERS.

quick, run, hide the children.......

Posted by dj spellchecka | May 5, 2008 11:34 AM

The more we lure devout Muslims into our colleges with special accomodations, the easier it becomes to expose them to our superior culture of kegstands and humorous t-shirts. I don't blame the jihadis for freaking out: they must know that, in the long run, resistance is futile.

Posted by Delicious Pundit | May 5, 2008 11:44 AM

Right idea, wrong group of religious whackjobs. Fundamentalist Christians have been trying their own version of this for years.

They push for abstinence-only sex ed, attempt to institute school prayer, market their "Christan" businesses, invent crackpot schools of pseudoscience to compete with evolutionary theory, and try to pass "academic freedom" laws on state and local levels that let teachers tell kids the world was created 5,000 years ago out of nothing.

Posted by Angry Sam | May 5, 2008 12:03 PM

SLC,

How is not picking up riders with alcoholic beverages worse than pharmacists not selling birth control?

Posted by Mo | May 5, 2008 12:54 PM

Yeah, sure. Jesus Christ, is no different from an epileptic camel driver who liked to f--- nine-year-old girls.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Muhammad#Aisha

"Muhammad's marriage to Aisha is particularly controversial, mainly because of her age during the marriage. D. A. Spellberg states that in Ibn Sa'd, the age of Aisha at marriage varies between six and seven.[18] Spellberg states that "these specific references to the bride's age reinforce A'isha's pre-menarcheal status and, implicitly, her virginity. They also suggest the variability of A'isha's age in the historical record."[18] She stayed in her parents' home till she had reached puberty at nine (or maybe ten according to Ibn Hisham) and then her marriage with Muhammad was consummated.[18][19]"

I'm not a supporter of Fundamentalist Christianity either. But to act as though it should be a matter of indifference whether America shall be a mostly Christian or mostly Muslim state, is a betrayal both of our ancestors and of the generations yet to come.

Posted by Hector | May 5, 2008 1:22 PM

How the fuck are radical muslim immigrants a problem here? Name me ONE example.
Muslim-Americans are on average wealthier than the average American and FAR more educated degree-wise (among Pakistanis and Indians, 40% have Phd/Masters, among Iranians, 30%, among all other Americans, 10%). SYFPH.

Posted by America fuck yeah | May 5, 2008 1:32 PM

As it is, some of these cases seem similar to the VATech shooting rampage, and no one blamed that on a creeping Korean menace.

Tyro-- it's North Korea and Al-Queda working together! Just like Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay!

Posted by Persia | May 5, 2008 2:05 PM

Persia's exposure of the Hollyweird-Islamostalinist conspiracy wins the thread.

Posted by Kalkin | May 5, 2008 3:13 PM

"How the fuck are radical muslim immigrants a problem here? Name me ONE example.
Muslim-Americans are on average wealthier than the average American and FAR more educated degree-wise ...."

I'd call Mohamed Atta and his 18 friends as immigrants to America that were a problem here. And for your theory about muslims being educated and wealthy and more apt to assimilate, I'd counter that Mo Atta was a PHD candidate. Ayman al-Zawahiri is a physician, and Khalid Sheik Muhamad is a mechanical engineer.

Read Pape's book "Dying To Win." Pape makes the case that the poor muslims of the world are not a threat. It is the educated and wealthy class that is leading the networks of terror or resistance.

Posted by del | May 5, 2008 5:02 PM

Hector: "I'm not a supporter of Fundamentalist Christianity either."

Yeah, right, tell us another.

"But to act as though it should be a matter of indifference whether America shall be a mostly Christian or mostly Muslim state, is a betrayal both of our ancestors and of the generations yet to come."

See?

Look, stupid - there's ZERO chance that the US will switch to the Muslim religion - or yours, for that matter.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 5, 2008 5:09 PM

Del,

It is also, of course, the more wealthy and educated Muslims who are more likely to import abominations like polygamy, the segregation of women, etc. since they are traditionally the classes that have been able to afford to do these things. It isn't the impoverished peasants who traditionally kept their women in seclusion- those peasant families needed all the labor power they could get from men and women equally. Purdah and polygamy have always been more common among the Muslim upper classes. (I'm not sure about "cousin marriage' but I would suspect that abomination too is more of a middle to upper class thing- maintaining bloodlines and property is less important when your social status and wealth is lower). I wouldn't be surprise if Islamist fervor is also more common among the middle classes- but I'm not acquainted with any data on that.

Posted by Hector | May 5, 2008 5:19 PM

Hack,

There's also little chance that the US, or any other country, will submit to your unnatural cult of 'Transhumanism' or whatever you want to call it these days. Thank the Lord.

I have a feeling that you don't really understand what the word 'Fundamentalist' means and are trying to conceal your ignorance. You're in good company- most well educated people in this country don't understand either. Hint: the phrase 'Fundamentalist Catholic' or 'Fundamentalist Hindu' are a contraditiction in terms. The phrase refers specifically to scripture-based religions e.g. Evangelical Protestantism and Islam. Of which I am neither one.

Posted by Hector | May 5, 2008 5:27 PM

"Why is it that this extremely tolerant and multicultural society suffers from so much radicalism?"

Because Europe is multicultural, but not very tolerant. Never has been.

Posted by brenna | May 5, 2008 6:01 PM

As Pipes Snr would know this comes straight out of the Comintern's "Third Period" playbook where the Social Democrats were branded "social fascists" who were a far greater threat to the working class than that obvious clown Hitler. And anyone who said different couldn't see the Social Fascist wood for the Nazi trees...

Posted by James | May 5, 2008 7:55 PM

Re: Yeah, sure. Jesus Christ, is no different from an epileptic camel driver who liked to f--- nine-year-old girls.

If the girl was post-menopausal than I very much doubt she was nine. Most likely what we have is a case of an ancient people with a fairly inaccurate calendar (in fact the Islamic calendar is not accurate by the sun even today) who did not count the years correctly.
In any event this is quite literally ancient history. Forced childhood betrothals were common in the past. You can find examples in Europe of kings making marriage contracts for their sons and daughters before they could walk.

Posted by JonF | May 5, 2008 8:34 PM

Would 'IBD' stand for Investor's Bullshit Daily, the speculators' rag that makes the WSJ's op-ed look sober?

Uh huh.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 5, 2008 9:12 PM

"Would 'IBD' stand for Investor's Bullshit Daily, the speculators' rag that makes the WSJ's op-ed look sober?"

Sounds like a certain bacterium isn't a fan of the CAN SLIM method.

Posted by Fred | May 6, 2008 1:10 AM

BTW, up until the late 1800s, the age of consent in many states in the US was ten years old. California, for example, didn't raise it to fourteen until 1889.

Posted by MikeN | May 6, 2008 1:52 AM

Hector: "There's also little chance that the US, or any other country, will submit to your unnatural cult of 'Transhumanism'"

They don't have to convert - we'll do the converting - one way or the other.

Whether the conversion is to Transhumanism - or your composite chemicals - your choice.

By the way, here's is Wikipedia on "fundamentalism:"

"Fundamentalism, in religion, refers to a belief in the infallibility, and literal interpretation, of a doctrine or holy book.[1] Such beliefs are often the basis for a movement that sees itself opposed to Modernism. Until 1950 there was no entry for "fundamentalism" in the Oxford English Dictionary;[2] the derivative fundamentalist was added only in its second 1989 edition.[3]

The term fundamentalism was originally coined to describe a narrowly defined set of beliefs that developed into a movement within the US Protestant community in the early part of the 20th century. These religious principles stood in opposition to the modernist movement and espoused the strict adherence to and faith in religious "fundamentals".[3]

The term "fundamentalist" has since been generalized to mean strong adherence to any set of beliefs in the face of criticism or unpopularity, but has by and large retained religious connotations (especially since the Iranian revolution, when Islamic fundamentalism became a term used to explain the political Islamic movement based on fundamental Islamic beliefs).[3] The collective use of the term fundamentalist to describe non-Christian movements has offended some Christians who desire to retain the original definition. "Fundamentalist" has also been used pejoratively against those who hold an intransigent set of beliefs. The term has been used to characterize religious advocates as clinging to a stubborn, entrenched position that defies reasoned argument or contradictory evidence.[4]"

I'd say ALL religions qualify under the expanded definitions, and Catholicism most definitely believes in the infallibility of the Pope, who in turn relies on the Bible and its doctrine. Not to mention that there are Catholics - and then there is Mel Gibson and his father, who can definitely be considered "Fundamentalist Catholics".

So stuff your nit-picking and self-justification, religious freak.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 6, 2008 3:40 AM