Is the Pope a 'useful idiot'?
William Kilpatrick: A reader asked for some specific practical ways that Catholics could resist Islam. I replied with a short list of steps Church leaders could take:
Break off dialogue with Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups such as ISNA and ICNA. Stop lending them legitimacy.
Stop backing the phony “Islamophobia”/hate crimes campaign manufactured by Islamist groups. The “Islamophobia” campaign is aimed at shutting down all legitimate examination and criticism of Islam.
Develop apologetics and educational materials that will provide Catholics with a fuller understanding of Islam.
Develop programs in Catholic schools, colleges, and seminaries that will better inform Catholics about Islam. Currently, most Catholic schools are acting as apologists for Islam—simply echoing the Islamic apologists.
Catholic refugee resettlement programs should concentrate on resettling Christian refugees from Muslim countries. Catholic encouragement of Muslim migration to Europe has already had disastrous results and may eventually lead to the extinction of Catholicism in Europe.
Catholic media need to present a more balanced picture of Islam. For the most part, the Catholic fourth estate simply seconds the Islam-positive view of the USCCB.
At that point I realized that these suggestions would not even be considered by the great majority of the Catholic leadership. They would be dismissed out of hand as both unnecessary and discriminatory. In short, Catholic leaders won’t take steps to resist Islam because they see no reason to resist it.
Klevius: Much like Harvard professors showered by Saudi sharia oil money.
No other country has a proportional influence over Harvard even close to that of the islamofascist war crime committing Saudi dictator family and its sharia hate mongering and intolerance.
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international (pro-Saudi) relations at Harvard University. He offers 'Top Five Reasons There Is No Islamic Threat'.
1: The Balance of Power Is Overwhelmingly in Our Favor. Let’s start with some good old-fashioned power politics. Imagine for the moment that all of Islam was in fact united in an effort to overwhelm the United States and the rest of the West. If they really were united, do the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims have the capacity to do so? Hardly.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": They are united under islam and islam's "custodian" is the islamofascist Saudi dictator family who also possesses all muslims' world Umma organization, Saudi based and steered OIC and its sharia "human rights" via UN.
There are 47 Muslim-majority countries in the world. If you add all of their economies together, they have a combined GDP of slightly more than $5 trillion. That sounds like a lot, but remember that the United States has a GDP of more than $17 trillion all by itself and so does the European Union. In terms of raw economic power, in short, the “West” has this fictitious coalition of Muslim states out-matched from the start.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": US economy is a house of cards glued together with printed papers called dollars and bonds. When Saudi & Co steered OPEC strands the dollar, its world currency status implodes while heavily staining the bonds. Effect being similar to when the World Trade towers came down by Saudi hands.
The imbalance is even more striking when it comes to military capability. This same imaginary coalition of Muslim-majority countries spent roughly $270 billion on defense last year, and if you take out U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia ($87 billion) and the United Arab Emirates ($22 billion), the number drops to less than $200 billion. By contrast, the United States alone spent roughly $600 billion — more than twice as much — and that’s not counting its various allies like the United Kingdom, Japan, Israel, or others.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": Islam has proved to be militarily much more effective than the US. The war on islamic terror sponsored by the islamofascist Saudi dictator family (plus some other muslim "states") has no end in sight.
But these raw figures on defense spending greatly understate the West’s advantage. The entire Muslim world produces no indigenous advanced combat aircraft (though Turkey produces some U.S.-designed F-16s under license) and no indigenously designed modern battle tanks (though Pakistan makes a modified Chinese tank and Turkey is working on one of its own). The navies of the Muslim world have no major surface combatants larger than a frigate (though Iran is reportedly building a single destroyer), no aircraft carriers, no long-range bombers, and no nuclear submarines. Indeed, the power projection capabilities of all of these states are extremely limited. And to the extent that these states have much modern military power, it is because the United States, France, the U.K., China and others have been willing to sell or license advanced weaponry, for various strategic reasons of their own. Yet Saudi Arabia’s unimpressive performance in its recent intervention in Yemen suggests that the Muslim world’s capacity to project power even short distances is quite modest.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": Well, in Yemen the islamofascist Saudi dictator family kills innocent children without coming any further precisely because the enemy is their own creation. The Saudi military efficiency is called islamic terror and extremely effective. Moreover, Mr. Walt has no clue about how effective because the numbers of "successful" street jihad resulting from Saudi hate mongering/sponsoring is impossible to estimate, not the least because of this strange dumbness and "sensitivity" about islam that Walt himself encourages.
Thus, even if one started with the wholly unrealistic assumption that the Muslim world is a single unified movement, it’s much, much, much weaker than we are. Maybe that explains why foreign powers have intervened in Muslim-majority countries repeatedly over the past couple of centuries, while the reverse hasn’t occurred since the siege of Vienna in 1529. Not once. It wasn’t Egypt that invaded France in 1798; Saddam Hussein didn’t send a mighty expeditionary force around the world and up the Potomac to occupy Washington and depose George W. Bush in 2003; and Muammar al-Qaddafi didn’t order his air force to bomb Paris in order to oust Nicolas Sarkozy in 2011. Surely this one-sided history tells you something about the relative power of Western states and those from the Islamic world.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": Incredibly stupid - what has happened with Harvard? On the contrary, we are much weaker, because of resting our moral on universal Human Rights and "freedom of religion"! So the only way out is to make the muslims respect us as much as we respect them. And yes, that would be the end of sharia islam in any meaningful form - sorry about that. Potomac? The enemy has long since already entered Harvard!
2. Islam Is, in Fact, Deeply Divided. From time immemorial, threat inflators like Bannon & Co. have portrayed adversaries as part of some grand unified coalition. Remember the “communist monolith” or the “axis of evil?” Today, fearmongers use phrases like “Islamofascism” or “radical Islam” to imply that our enemies form a tightly integrated and centrally directed movement working tirelessly to bring us to our knees.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": No need, islam is islamofascism! As Erdogan use to say, there's only one islam. And it's not so much that the Saudis want 'to bring us to our knees', but rather that the islamofascist Saudi dictator family's own survival and expansion rests on the evil (compare islam's bloody origin for the sole purpose of getting booty and slaves) religious tool called ïslam.
But in reality, the Islamic world is more disunited today than at any time in recent memory. It is divided among many different states, of course, and many of those states (e.g., Iran and Saudi Arabia, or Turkey and Syria) don’t get along. There are vast geographic and cultural differences between Indonesia and countries like Yemen or Morocco or Saudi Arabia. There’s also the core division between the Sunnis and the Shiites, not to mention a number of other minor schisms between various Islamic offshoots. And let’s not forget the sometimes-bitter rivalries within the jihadi movement itself, both across the globe and within particular countries. Just look at all the radical groups who hate the Islamic State, and all the jihadis whom the Islamic State regards as heretics because they don’t embrace its full ideology.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": Islam has since its origin been deeply divided in its hate based existence. But there has always been someone at the top benefiting the most - and today it's the islamofascist Saudi dictator family and its evil friends and collaborators.
These divisions do not mean extremists pose no danger at all, of course, but Bannon’s specter of a rising Islamic tide that threatens to overwhelm us is pure fantasy. Instead of treating all of Islam as a threat — which might eventually unite more of them against us — the smart move is to play “divide-and-conquer.” But that means recognizing that the danger we face is not a hostile “civilization” or an entire religion, but rather just a small number of extremists who are unrepresentative of the larger cultural category (and opposed by most of it). To beat them, we want the rest of the Muslim world on our side.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": Quite the contrary again! It's yours and other idiots' defense of "the great and peaceful religion" that keeps its evil ticking. And 'the rest of the muslim world' is on their side precisely by sharing this same sharia islam. Moreover, every muslim is, as it stands now, "excused" and even hailed as long as s/he says 'it's not my islam' or 'you're no muslim, Bro'. However, islam has equally many different understandings as there are muslims, but only one book and only one "prophet" which both perfect models.
3: You wouldn’t know it if you listened to Trump, to CNN, to Fox News, or to most of our politicians, but the danger of terrorism is miniscule. Not zero, but really, really small. We’ve been obsessed with terrorism ever since 9/11 but the reality is that the risk it poses is way, way, way down the list of possible harms that might befall us.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": Especially if you only steer at the visible part of the iceberg.
For example, based on the evidence since 9/11 (and including that attack), the likelihood an American will be killed by a terrorist is less than 1 in 3 million per year, and the lifetime risk is about 1 in 45,000. That’s pretty damn good odds: You are much more likely to die from being struck by lightning, falling out of bed, a heat wave, or accidentally choking on food. But don’t expect Trump, Bannon, Flynn, Gorka, Gaffney, or any of the well-compensated “terrorism experts” to highlight this fact, because their livelihoods and their ability to seize more and more power depends on keeping you very, very scared. And don’t expect the media to downplay the danger either, because hyping terrorism whenever it does occur is a good way to get your eyeballs glued to the screen. (Among other things, this is why Trump’s recent statements suggesting terrorism was being “underreported” are so absurd.)
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": What do you know about "under reported"? As a criminologist and sociologist Klevius knows for sure that crimes that are popular among politicians etc. are always considered "under reported" (compare the incest hysteria of the 1980s and 90s) whereas the opposite is true when there's a will to blink crimes (compare muslim sex abuse - allowed against "infidels" according to the Koran and the "prophet").
In some ways, in fact, terrorism remains the perfect bogeyman. It’s easy to hype the threat, and to convince people to worry about random dangers over which they have little or no control. Unscrupulous politicians have long understood that you can get a lot of leeway when the people are scared and craving protection, and it’s pretty clear that Trump and Bannon see this tactic as the ideal way to retain public support (and to consolidate more presidential power), and the specter of terrorism serves well because it scares people but isn’t actually an existential threat that might require a serious, sensible, strategic, and well-thought response. For would-be authoritarians, “terrorism” is a gift that just keeps giving.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": That's precisely why we should talk much more about the Saudi based and steered OIC and its world sharia via UN etc.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying the danger is zero or that sensible precautionary measures should not be taken. But to believe that ragtag radicals like al Qaeda or the Islamic State constitute a threat on a par with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, or some of the serious opponents the United States has faced in the past is silly. Frankly, it makes me question the guts, steadiness, and judgment of some of our present leaders, if they are so easily spooked by such weak adversaries. Let’s hope these fraidy-cats never have to deal with a truly formidable foe.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": Poor blind man who can't even see the enemy. How could he ever understand the threat?
4: “Creeping Sharia” Is a Fairy Tale. Die-hard Islamophobes have a fallback argument: The danger isn’t an actual military attack or a Muslim invasion of America or Europe. Rather, the danger is the slow infiltration of our society by “foreigners” who refuse to assimilate and who will eventually try to impose their weird and alien values on us. One sees this argument in the right-wing myth of “creeping Sharia,” based on trumped-up (pun intended) stories about “Sharia courts” and other alleged incidents where diabolical Muslim infiltrators have tried to pollute our pristine Constitution with their religiously inspired dogma. If we’re not ceaselessly vigilant, we are told, someday our daughters will be wearing hijabs and we’ll all be praying to Mecca.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": Or being killed, or mistreated in a variety of possible ways when the percentage of muslims in the public sphere - not to mention officials - increase and therefore also the chances for so called "extremist muslims" facing you.
Seriously, this anxiety almost sounds right out of Dr. Strangelove, and especially Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper’s rants about fluoridation and the need to protect our “precious bodily fluids.” To repeat: There is simply no evidence of “creeping Sharia” here in the United States, and no risk of it occurring in the future. Not only do we still have formal separation of church and state here (at least so far!), the number of Muslims in the United States remains tiny. According to a 2016 Pew Research Center survey, there are only 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States, a mere 1 percent of the population. That percentage might double by 2050 to a vast, enormous, dangerous, and overwhelming 2 percent. Being a tiny minority makes them ideal victims for ambitious power-seekers, but hardly a threat to our way of life.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": So why does UK have a problem with its many sharia courts? To an extent that even the PM is behind it - although missing the point by having a sharia muslim investigating sharia muslims. How exactly does US differ so much from UK's muslim sharia problem?
5: The “Clash of Civilizations” Is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. The final reason to reject Bannon and company’s depiction of a vast and looming Muslim threat to us is that this worldview encourages us to act in ways that make the problem worse instead of better. As George Kennan wisely observed in 1947, “It is an undeniable privilege of every man to prove himself right in the thesis that the world is his enemy; for if he reiterates it frequently enough and makes it the background of his conduct he is bound eventually to be right.” If U.S. leaders keep demonizing an entire religion, impose ill-considered bans on Muslim refugees, and most important of all, continue to intervene throughout the Arab and Islamic world with military force, they will convince more and more people that Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were right when they claimed the West had “declared war” on their religion.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": 'Entire religion'?! What a classic in the hopeless strive to defend the undefendable. If the core and origin of the religion is its evil, then how would this evil be lesser by referring to a surrounding muslim gray zone? Hopeless because islamic sharia, in whatever Human Rights violating form, is unacceptable in a civilized society where we intend to respect each-others as equals. Klevius thinks so, the European Court of Human Rights thinks so, and no one can logically think differently without slipping into a racist/sexist hate swamp.
Despite the mountain of evidence that shows that anti-Americanism in the Muslim world is overwhelmingly a response to U.S. policy (and not because they “hate our freedoms”), people like Bannon, Gaffney, and their ilk want us to double down on the same policies that have inspired extremists since the 1950s and especially since the formation of al Qaeda. Frankly, given how often we’ve used our superior power to interfere in these countries, it’s somewhat surprising the reaction has been as modest and manageable as it is. Ask yourself how Americans might react if a powerful foreign country had repeatedly bombed the continental United States with aircraft and drones, or invaded, toppled our government, and then left chaos in their wake. Do you think a few patriotic Americans might be tempted to try for some payback?
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": Islam hates the most basic Human Rights. This is the very allure of islam's original inborn racism and sexism.
Perhaps the most important task for any strategist is to figure out what the main threats and opportunities are, and then to devise policies that can defuse the former and exploit the latter. Making all of Islam our enemy and viewing the world through the lens of a vast “civilizational clash” fails on both criteria. If followed, it will bog us down in more interminable conflicts in places that are not vital U.S. interests, distract us from other foreign-policy issues, and sap the wealth and strength that we may need to deal with more serious challenges, including long-neglected problems here at home. I’m sure plenty of anti-Americans are hoping that we take the bait and do just that; what scares me is that there are now people in the White House who agree with them.
Klevius correction of this fake (or just ignorant) "info": Read my pen, dear Walt! The main threat is sharia islam and the main vaccine is Universal Human Rights equality exactly as stated in the 1948 Human Rights declaration which was agreed on to avoid any sort of totalitarian fascism rising its ugly head again. However, Mr. Walt has apparently missed this most important part in his education.
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