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ISLAM IN AMERICA

by Kathy Shaidle

PART ONE: AN OVERVIEW OF AMERICAN ISLAM

Imagine a Super Bowl with all male cheerleaders and half-time prayers. In that America, they drink Jihad Cola instead of Coke and thank Allah when they win an Oscar.

Luckily, that America is fictional, one vividly described in Robert Ferrigno's 2006 futuristic novel, Prayers for the Assassin, set in 2040. But is it really so hard to imagine, in a world in which a man named "Barack Hussein Obama" can get elected President just a few years after Muslim hijackers destroyed the world's tallest buildings in the heart of New York City?

Today many Americans are either blissfully ignorant of, or simply indifferent to, the slow, incremental growth of radical Islam in their midst.

We sometimes hear about terrorist cells or suspicious Muslim "compounds" on the news. However, these stories represent merely the tip of an Islamic iceberg that could very well doom America. Not today or tomorrow. But in our lifetimes? That is a real possibility.

And don't shrug off Islam as "just another religion." Muslim sharia law deems women to be inferior to men, and allows husbands to "lightly" beat their wives. Polygamy and child bride marriage are condoned and encouraged, due to the example of Mohammed himself, whose many wives included a nine year old. Anti-Semitism and slavery are enshrined in the Koran, as is exploitation of and even violence against all "unbelievers."

Radical Muslims have learned they don't require bombs or hijacked airliners to destroy America. They can just use America's own ideological infrastructure against itself.

Using a kind of ingenious political jujitsu, radical Muslims rely upon everything from the rights to freedom of speech and worship enshrined in the U.S. Constitution to the current atmosphere of hypersensitive political correctness to push their agenda.

For example, the "Islamification" of the educational system is now underway. Textbooks whitewash Islam's bloody history. Public school children forbidden to pray or recite the Pledge of Allegiance are, however, obliged to play "Muslim for a Day." Meanwhile, universities eagerly introduce footbaths, Muslim prayer rooms and hallal cafeteria food.

Increasingly, Muslim employees are suing companies for the "right" to refuse to handle "unclean" pork or alcohol, or the "right" to wear headscarves. It is no coincidence that these companies include household names like UPS, Wal-Mart and McDonalds's — radical Muslims are sending a message to smaller firms who won't have the means to fight similar suits in the future.

These demands for accommodation extend even behind prison walls, where Muslim prisoners (indoctrinated by Muslim chaplains trained by foreign extremists) insist on getting special treatment as well.

"Lawfare" is on the rise, too. Muslim groups now file expensive, time-consuming lawsuits against critics of Islam, and while these suits are currently confined mostly to Canada and Europe, they have a "chilling" effect on American publishers, writers, journalists and filmmakers. Last year, it only took a couple of threatening emails to persuade a major U.S. publisher to cancel an upcoming novel about Mohammed.

Few Americans realize that their neighborhood mosque was probably built and financed by well-heeled terrorist sympathizers abroad. In fact, 80% of American mosques are Saudi-supported, and serve as safe gathering places for radical imams and dubious "charities" with anti-American agendas.

Islamic terrorism has also found a home on the internet, where (according to one UK think tank) a "virtual caliphate" (or Muslim supremacist empire) thrives, beyond the reach of authorities. The web has become an invaluable arena for radical Muslim recruiting, training, communication and organizing.

Americans looking to the government to protect them from these threats don't realize that federal agencies in the thrall of political correctness actually undermine the war of terrorism. Few Muslims currently hold public office in the United States, but this may change if Democrats begin to view them as a new source of donations and votes.

Over the next few months, I'll be your guide to the growth of radical Islam, both at home and abroad. You'll learn about "moderate" Muslim spokesmen who turn out to be anything but, and meet writers and authors censored by their governments for critiquing the Koran.

I'll be talking to experts in the fields of intelligence, religion, crime and foreign policy and sharing their insights with you.

Many Americans have already forgotten what happened on 9/11, or simply don't want to think about it anymore. Our fear, disgust or indifference is exactly what radical Muslims are counting on. As exhausting and demoralizing as it can be to educate ourselves on the facts, we must remember that "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

PART TWO: ISLAM IN AMERICAN PRISONS

It was small story[1] in a local newspaper called the Daily Herald out of Everett, Washington, but it spread quickly around the internet, thanks to that startling claim.

The paper's February 2009 investigation declared that so-called "prison Islam" was the fastest-growing religious group in U.S. correctional facilities.

Some of those worshippers claim affiliation with the Nation of Islam (NOR), a black separatist movement that was launched and promoted by two convicts, Elijah Mohammed and his protégé Malcolm X. Strictly speaking, however, NOR has little in common with orthodox Islam; it is more accurately described as a political pseudo-religion, held up to African-Americans as an alternative to "pacifist" "Eurocentric" Christianity.

However, Lawrence Mimiya told the Daily Herald that most Muslims in prison today are Sunni converts. Mamiya, a professor at Vassar College who studies Muslim prison ministries, says that "just one in five who convert to Islam while in prison continue on in that faith once they are released." (Note: the number of Muslims in the U.S. population at large is estimated at one percent, or 8 million individuals.)

Some experts question the importance of such "1 in 10" statistics, however. For example, by their own admission, many inmates convert to Islam merely to receive special perks, like prayer rugs, incense and superior halal food.

However, that fact should still give readers pause: after all, these endless "religious" demands demonstrates radical Islam's innate sense of superiority, and its demand to be seen as "special." It doesn't help matters that groups like the ACLU file lawsuits to guarantee such special treatment to Muslim inmates. After a 2008 suit, for example:

In another lawsuit settled in November 2008, a California jail was ordered to allow female Muslim inmates to wear "county-issued" headscarves — and to pay $45,000 in "damages" to the aggrieved prisoner.

Indeed, Islam teaches that "infidels" are obliged to pay the "Jizyah" — an onerous tax/ransom — to their Muslim superiors. Many radical Muslims view the booty won in such parasitical lawsuits as a variety of "jizyah" — a "ransom" they are forced to extort surreptitiously until they can establish their worldwide "caliphate."

However, in some ways, ACLU collaboration with our enemies is a laughable sideshow when compared to more serious implications. A highly regarded 2006 study called "Out of the Shadows"[2] simply states the obvious: that "tight-knit communities of Muslims in prison are ripe for radicalization, and could easily become terrorist cells."

Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber" and Jose Padilla, the "dirty bomber", are two of the most famous Muslim convert/prisoners turned would be terrorists.

If captured and incarcerated after committing or plotting terrorist acts, Muslim radicals create further problems within the international prison system, according to a 2008 report[4] by the NEFA Foundation.

"While in prison," according to the report, "jihadists have caused officials fits by radicalizing fellow inmates, planning jailbreaks, distributing propaganda to associates, continuing to exercise operational control over their organizations, and plotting attacks."

Change has been slow in coming. Only recently has the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) begun conducting more thorough background checks on religious "service providers" such as Muslim chaplains. According to the 2007 research paper "Radicalization: Behind Bars and Beyond Borders," the FBOP has relied on "just ten Muslim chaplains for the entire federal prison system. These ten chaplains were responsible for vetting and endorsing contractors and volunteers who enter prisons to provide religious services, a Herculean task when one considers the thousands of contractors and volunteers who enter prisons each month."

Encyclopedia of Terrorism author Harvey W. Kushner[5] is an internationally recognized authority on the subject. His first hand experience running educational and vocational programs at New York's Rikers Island prison has given him a unique perspective into the way the system operates.

He explains that, along with political correctness and the constant threat of costly, frivolous lawsuits, the prison system's entrenched bureaucracy and "culture" make reforms difficult. Overstretched administrators sometimes find it beneficial to permit gang activities — Islamic and otherwise — because that way inmates will "police" themselves, albeit crudely.

Kushner adds that given the current economic climate, anti-jihadist prison reforms will now be even lower on the list of priorities than ever before.

Clearly, Americans have reason to be concerned. In some respects, the very institutions intended to keep the public safe are instead serving as accidental breeding grounds for violence and radicalism. Since large bureaucratic institutions like the Federal Bureau of Prisons are notoriously slow to evolve, it would be unrealistic to expect this situation to change in the immediate future.

Meanwhile, after being released from prison, Muslim felons return to the community and attain employment in Muslim run businesses. Along with halal food restaurants, these businesses (according to Harvey Kushner) include Nation of Islam security outfits, employed by local law enforcement to keep order in largely African American communities.

Some ex-cons even drift towards so-called Muslim compounds[6] also see todays press release on 35 compounds in the US,[7] where they may have access to firearms. This phenomenon[8] will be the subject of the next installment in our series "Muslims in America.

[2] http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/
ciag/publications/out_of_the_shadows.pdf

[6] http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.
aspx?GUID=7C52675D-0E6C-4026-BADE-D2A80C777099

[7] http://www.rightsidenews.com/200902093626/
homeland-security/never-before-revealed-terrorist-training-
video-exposes-35-compounds-on-american-soil.html

[8] http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2005/
10/jamaat-ul-fuqra-in-virginia-part-1.html

Kathy Shaidle blogs at FiveFeetOfFury.com. Her new book, The Tyranny of Nice: How Canada crushes freedom in the name of human rights — and why it matters to Americans, features an introduction by Mark Steyn. Shaidle is also an advisor for the International Free Press Society.

Part One appeared January 27, 2009 in Right Side News and is archived at
http://www.rightsidenews.com/200901273452/homeland-security/ muslims-in-america-the-series.html

Part Two appeared February 10, 2009 and is archived at
http://www.rightsidenews.com/homeland-security/ muslims-in-america-the-series-part-two.html