Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Mainstreaming Radical Islam

By J. Matt Barber

The term "useful idiot" is believed to have been coined by Vladimir
Lenin. It originally described liberal Communist sympathizers in
Western nations who, as the Soviet leader explained, would "sell us
(Soviet Russia) the rope with which we will hang them (the West)."

Today's useful idiots are a swath from that same politically correct
cloth. They comprise: secular "progressives" (to include the liberal
media); pinko anarchists and other Berkeley-types; President Obama and
his motley stable of cracked czars and policy advisors; and the
majority of Democrats in Congress.

Only the role of "international-villain-bent-on-world-domination" has
changed. We've gone from the Soviet hammer and sickle to the Islamic
crescent moon and star.

Abraham Lincoln once said: "America will never be destroyed from the
outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we
destroyed ourselves."

I submit that our own useful idiots on the American left represent
every bit the threat to both this great Republic and her unalienable
freedoms as do the Muslim extremists with whom they play footsy.
Liberals are the naïve, codependent enablers of a global Islamofascist
movement bent on taking-down the "Great Satan" and his "Zionist" ally,
Israel.

Although their long-term goals differ significantly, militant
"progressives" and radical Islamists have a common mid-range vision:
The left seeks to "repeal and replace," if you will, our
Constitutional Republic with a Euro-style secular-socialist utopia.
Hard-line Islamists seek to destroy us outright and supplant our
government with a global Islamic State.

Exhibit A, of course, is the "Muslim Brotherhood" – a worldwide
Islamofascist organization heartily embraced in recent weeks by the
mainstream media and the larger "progressive" movement. The
Brotherhood, in its own words, seeks to "destroy" our "Western
civilization from within…so that it is eliminated and God's religion
(Islam) is made victorious over all other religions."

Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy explains the group's
objective concisely: "The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in
1928. Its express purpose was two-fold: (1) to implement Shariah
worldwide, and (2) to re-establish the global Islamic State
(caliphate)."

Although the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and other terrorist
organizations certainly represent a sizeable menace, I think there
remains a more subtle, yet equally ominous threat to our way of life.

I recently received an email from the National Muslim Law Students
Association promoting an upcoming conference at Penn Law on February
26. As I began to read, my jaw dropped.

The conference is titled: "Constructive Roles for Islamic Law in
Western Society."

"Constructive roles?" I thought. "For Shariah law?" I read further. As
it turns out, Asifa Quraishi, a University of Wisconsin law professor
and founding member of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers, is
to speak.

Among other things, Quraishi has advocated incorporating Shariah law,
through "local Muslim tribunals," into the US judiciary.

In a paper headlined: "No Altars: A Survey of Islamic Family Law in
the United States," she wrote: "The attitude of the US courts to the
rise of these tribunals is yet unknown, but there is indication that
some judges would welcome the existence of reliable arbiters of
Islamic family law issues, and may even be undertaking their own
consultation from Muslim authorities in the interim."

This begs the question: Which parts of Shariah do we incorporate? The
provision that renders women chattel to be beaten or killed with
impunity? Or how about the death penalty for homosexuals? What about
the part offering the choice between conversion to Islam, enslavement
or death?

Keep in mind, Quraishi is no fly-by-night radical. She was actually
tapped by the Obama administration to accompany Hillary Clinton at
last year's U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

This is frog in the pot kind of stuff. Whereas violent Islamic
terrorists might prefer to take-out toady with a suicide bomber, more
"moderate" Islamists appear to favor bringing down Western
civilization from within by turning up the heat ever-so-slowly. And
they're using liberal academia and our own constitutional freedoms to
do it.

This mainstreaming of radical Islam, to include Shariah law, has
prompted lawmakers in Oklahoma to pass – and 13 other states to
introduce – laws blocking consideration of Shariah by judges on the
bench. Not a bad idea when you consider that five of nine US Supreme
Court Justices have admitted weighing international law while ruling
on cases.

Yes, the useful idiots will, no doubt, call me an intolerant
"Islamophobe" for questioning the irrefutable desire, shared by
Muslims of many stripes, to impose global caliphate upon the
international "infidel" collective.

That's because they're idiots.

Indeed, if the American left has its way, we may just "tolerate"
ourselves right out of existence.

Matt Barber (jmattbarber@comcast.net) is an attorney concentrating in
constitutional law. He serves as Vice President of Liberty Counsel
Action. Facebook/jmattbarber / Twitter/@jmattbarber (This information
is provided for identification purposes only.)