Lightning Times

The Second Conversation

I've re-posted my piece The Second Conversation, which was originally published on August 19 in the now-defunct Media Tapper. Events since then - the Benghazi consulate attack and the attacks on Buddhists in Bangladesh - only further illustrate how eagerly Muslim extremists will seize on some perceived (or imagined), purely symbolic "insult" to excuse their own acts of violence. This must not be rewarded or tolerated.

New Piece in Media Tapper

I've had the honor of being added to the list of contributors to Media Tapper. My first article is here:

Jihad, Counter-Jihad, and Why You Should Care

Morsy Un-Dissolves Parliament

'Cairo (CNN) -- Egypt's newly elected president announced Sunday that he's overriding a military edict that dissolved the country's elected parliament and calling on lawmakers back into session in defiance of the generals. ...'

YNet: 'Egypt's official news agency says President Mohammed Morsi has ordered the return of the country's Islamist-dominated parliament that was dissolved by the powerful military. ...'

A friend on Facebook comments: 'MB would never do this unless they were confident. Look to the Obama administration to have their back on this. It's inconceivable this could happen without a green light from the US.' I'm afraid he's probably right.

Obama invites Egypt's Islamist leader to US: 'President Barack Obama has invited Egypt's newly elected Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, to visit the United States in September, an Egyptian official said on Sunday, reflecting the new ties Washington is cultivating with the region's Islamists. ...'

"And so I did a lot of bad things, thinking they were good things."

Eric Allen Bell comes clean about the Murfreesboro mosque and the film "Not Welcome."

Cinnamon Stillwell at Berkeley: Imaginary Islamophobia vs. Real Islamism

Cinnamon Stillwell at FrontPage:

The Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project (IRDP)—a program of the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender (CRG)—recently held its third annual conference, “Critical Discourses on Islamophobia: Symbols, Images, & Representations.” As in previous years, speaker after speaker decried an imaginary racist, imperialist, Orientalist Western juggernaut, while disregarding the very real predations of Islamism.

The first day of the conference brought in approximately eighty people at its peak, including a number of women in hijab (head scarf), typing furiously on laptops. Others sported keffiyehs and dreadlocks; a smattering of Arabic and French could be heard; and a scruffy, bearded fellow wandered around with what appeared to be a journal under his arm, Historicizing Anti-Semitism, that one suspects is not exactly kosher. It was just another day in Berkeley. ...

Read the rest at the link.

Eurabia

Andrew Bostom:

Serendipitously, perhaps, in the midst of Geert Wilders’ visit to the U.S., warning of the consequences of Europe’s ongoing Islamization, today I came across a State Department memo from the U.S. embassy in Madrid, dated September 19, 1974 (1974 Madrid 05880), declassified June 30, 2005. This document reveals that the U.S. was fully aware of the advent of “Eurabia,” precisely as self-characterized in an official European socio-political journal bearing the title Eurabia.

Eurabia was the title of a journal published in the mid-1970s by the European Committee for the Coordination of Friendship Associations with the Arab World. ...

Go read the rest.

Geert Wilders: Speech at Gatestone Institute, New York

Geert Wilders:

It is great to be in America, the beacon of liberty, the land of the free, the land where people are still allowed to speak freely. I know what I am talking about. I was acquitted after a legal ordeal that lasted almost 3 years. I had been brought to court for criticizing Islam.

Though at the end of the day I was acquitted, the court case had been a disgrace. It was a time-, money- and energy-consuming nightmare. This charade that happened in the Netherlands for the last few years could not have happened in your great country, where the First Amendment guarantees people the freedom to express their opinions.

The first Amendment is what we need in the Netherlands and Europe.

I am in New York for the release of my book "Marked for Death". It explains why Islam is the largest threat to freedom which the world is currently facing. It argues why Islam is a totalitarian ideology rather than a religion. It reveals how Islam has already profoundly changed Europe in the last decades. It exposes the cultural relativism which has affected Europe so deeply that many in Europe refuse to stand for liberty and prefer to appease Islam.As you know, people who speak out like myself and I pay a steep price for speaking these truths. Apart from legal attempts to silence me, there are also the threats by radical Muslims to kill me. I have been living under permanent police protection for almost eight years now. People like me pay this price for speaking the truth about Islam. But I do not regret one word. I see it as my duty to warn the West. ...