What The Blogosphere Can Do (With Addendum From The WaPo

Check out this news at The Center for Vigilant Freedom. Excerpt:

...Esam Omeish of the Muslim American Society will step down from the Virginia Commission on Immigration, to which he was appointed by [Virginia] Governor Tim Kaine....

Read the whole thing.

Addendum: Article from the September 28, 2007 edition of the Washington Post (emphases mine). Be sure to watch the videos!

A prominent Northern Virginia surgeon and Muslim activist appointed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to a state immigration commission was forced to resign Thursday after videos surfaced of him referring to the "Israeli war machine" as well as statements he made seven years ago in support of the "jihad way" in the Middle East.

Last month, Kaine (D) appointed Esam S. Omeish, chief of the division of general surgery at Inova Alexandria Hospital, to a 20-member panel that is spending six months examining whether Virginia needs to do more to curtail illegal immigration.

On Thursday, videos surfaced showing Omeish, who is also president of the Muslim American Society, giving speeches about Israel's relationship with its Arab neighbors.

After reviewing the videos, which were brought to Kaine's attention by a caller to his live monthly radio program, Kaine asked for Omeish's resignation from the Virginia Commission on Immigration.

"Dr. Omeish is a respected physician and community leader, yet I have been made aware of certain statements he has made which concern me," Kaine said in a statement. "Dr. Omeish indicated he did not want this controversy to distract from the important work of the commission."

The resignation could be embarrassing for Kaine as he tries to respond to calls to do more about illegal immigration. Republicans are using the overall issue to try to win votes in this fall's campaign for control of the General Assembly.

Kaine has taken a measured approach, placing blame on the federal government's failure to secure the borders and enact immigration reform. He has said he wanted the 20-member immigration commission, which the General Assembly created this year, to develop recommendations. House and Senate leaders appointed 10 members of the committee; Kaine appointed the other 10.

Omeish, of Fairfax County, is also on the board of directors of the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church. He graduated from Georgetown University. He was unavailable for comment.

In one of the videos,...Omeish is shown speaking in August last year at a rally on the Mall in opposition to Israel's invasion of Lebanon that summer. Omeish demands that Israel release Lebanese political prisoners and condemns President Bush's use of the phrase "Islamic fascism."

"The invasion of Lebanon, the destruction of its infrastructure and the deliberate targeting of civilians during the barbaric and disproportionate Israeli war machine is indeed criminal and must end now," Omeish says on the video.

In another video,...Omeish is speaking at a "Jerusalem day" rally in Lafayette Square. In the clip, dated Dec. 22, 2000, he urges the crowd to stand with Muslims fighting in the Middle East.

"We, Muslims of the Washington metropolitan area, are here today in subfreezing temperatures to tell our brothers and sisters that you have learned the way, that you have known the jihad way is the way to liberate your land," Omeish says. "And we, by standing here today despite the weather, we are telling them we are with you. We are supporting you." The clip shows 38 seconds of Omeish's speech, so the context of his remarks about jihad are unclear.

The Washington-based Investigative Project on Terrorism, which tracks what it thinks are radical Muslim groups, posted both videos on YouTube.

Omeish told the Associated Press late Thursday that his comments in the videos were taken out of context and that his reference to "the jihad way" was not a call for violent attacks.

"In Islam, jihad is a broad word that means constant struggle -- struggling spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, physically -- in all respects. So my words were in support of people who are resisting occupation and people who are trying to . . . remove oppression from their land," Omeish said.

Kaine appointed Omeish to the immigration panel because the governor wanted the group to be diverse and include a Muslim representative, administration officials said. The legislation establishing the panel also required that at least one member be a medical professional. Kaine said he will replace Omeish with another Muslim.

Omeish is on the board of directors of the Dar Al Hijrah center, one of the Washington area's oldest and largest mosques. It was scrutinized after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. At Inova Alexandria, Omeish was the surgeon on call after the Pentagon attack.

The FBI and the federal 9/11 commission concluded that two of the Sept. 11 hijackers briefly worshiped at the mosque after one of them befriended its imam in San Diego. FBI officials have said they found no evidence that the imam, who has since resigned and left the country, had prior knowledge of the attacks.

In 2005, Omeish joined a group of moderate Muslim clerics in the United States in denouncing Islamic terrorism overseas.

The Islamic center is closely affiliated with the Muslim American Society. Several of the group's founders had been active in the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement that started in Egypt in the 1920s and advocates a purer, more restrictive form of Islam in the Middle East.

Before the videos surfaced, Del. C. Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) had written a letter to Kaine on Tuesday expressing concern about Omeish's links to the Muslim American Society.

"There are many of our fellow Muslim citizens who value our democratic institutions and constitutional guarantees," Gilbert wrote. "The origins, affiliations and goals of the Muslim American Society, however, should be a matter of grave concern to all Virginians."

Before he saw the videos, Kevin Hall, Kaine's spokesman, dismissed Gilbert's letter as xenophobic. After Omeish resigned, Gilbert praised Kaine for acting swiftly to remove him.

"I would hope that the governor's staff was vetting candidates for state commissions a little better, but I am certainly pleased the governor himself has taken action," Gilbert said.

Hall said the governor's office carefully scrutinizes appointees to state commissions. "But I think it is fair to say that YouTube was not part of the vetting process in this case," Hall said. "It certainly will be from here on out."

Dr. Omeish will be holding a press conference today, September 28, 2007, at 11:00 AM. Taquiyya alert!

Dhimmi Kaine

lgf: Outrage of the Week: Leader of Muslim Brotherhood Front Group Appointed to Virginia Commission on Immigration

The Democratic governor of Virginia, Timothy M. Kaine, has appointed Dr. Esam Omeish of Muslim American Society to the Virginia Commission on Immigration.

Google information about Dr. Esam Omeish's medical practice.
Do a people search on "Esam Omeish" at SuperPages.com

Weekly Radio Show: September 28 (Updated Near The Bottom!)

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday for one hour at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Friday, September 28: Our interviewee this week at the bottom of the hour is The Merry Widow of The Merry Widow blog, which presents a Christian view of events, near and far.

The Merry Widow will be discussing with us the North American Union, developments about which she has been following for some time. She will provide background on the NAU and will bring us up to date with the latest happenings occurring under the radar of most mainstream media sources.

The Merry Widow's profile is HERE. Additionally, The Merry Widow's ancestors have been here since 1625. Her ancestors or those of her late husband fought in every single war in which our nation was ever engaged, so she has a proprietary interest in the path which America is taking today.

Update @ 7:38 P.M, on Thursday, September 27: We are now expecting Christine of The Center for Vigilant Freedom and Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the think tank Center for Security Policy, as our interviewees for the first half hour of the show. The topic of discussion for that portion of the show will be The Law of the Sea Treaty.

If you are unable to listen live to the radio show, you can listen to recordings of the radio broadcasts later by CLICKING HERE.

Weekly Radio Show: September 21

(This posting stuck at the top for a few days. Please scroll down for other postings)

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday for one hour at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Friday, September 21: Special Show! Foe Hammer of Foehammer's Anvil will be on the air for the full hour because our previous thirty-minute interview with him did not afford us enough time to cover what this expert is able to share with us. Join us for an in-depth discussion with a fearless blogger who pulls out all the stops as he pursues his calling in the counter-jihad!

Foe Hammer's state-of-the-art blog carries the header "Truth, not Islam" and just below states the following: Welcome to the Anvil. You’re about to enter the fight in a way that most are too afraid to even discuss. This is not a site for the faint-hearted infidel, so if the idea of discovering the truth about Islam and the ‘Long War’ frightens you, turn back now. Otherwise, come on in and make use of the information here, participate, learn and educate. Frequenters of Jihad Watch often see Foe Hammer's fearless comments there.

If you are unable to listen live to the radio show, you can listen to recordings of the radio broadcasts later by CLICKING HERE.

CAIR's Threat

I'm in a hurry to get ready to leave for work, so I have time only to post this link. Read the story for yourself.

The Dhimmis At The WaPo

Via Jihad Watch (emphases mine):

In "5 Myths About Terrorism" in the [September 11, 2007] Washington Post (thanks to Steve), Alan B. Krueger provides a sterling example of the politically correct myopia that prevents an accurate analysis of the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. And he does so in such a clumsy way that it is remarkable that no one at the paper caught this before it was printed:

4. Terrorism is mainly perpetrated by Muslims.
Wrong. No religion has a monopoly on terrorism. Every major religious faith has had followers involved in terrorism. (Sri Lanka, for instance, has grappled for decades with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group that pioneered suicide bombing as a terrorist tactic and hopes to create a homeland for the country's mostly Tamil minority, who are largely Hindu.) Although radical Islamic terrorists are the worry du jour because of 9/11 and Iraq, the data show pretty clearly that the predominant religion of a country is not a good predictor of whether its people will become involved in terrorism.

After all, it was not long ago that homegrown villains such as Timothy McVeigh and the so-called Unabomber were the most notorious terrorists. That makes sense; the vast majority of terrorist incidents are local, motivated by local concerns and carried out by natives. Even international terrorist events tend to be local affairs, most frequently carried out by local militants who target foreigners who happen to be in their country. (Just think of last week's foiled plot to attack U.S. targets in Germany.) This suggests that the likelihood of attack by homegrown terrorists is far greater than the threat of another 9/11-style attack by foreigners.

Did you catch that? Terrorism isn't "mainly perpetrated by Muslims" because "no religion has a monopoly on terrorism." This doesn't even establish what Krueger wants it to establish, because the fact that people of all religions have committed terrorist acts doesn't disprove the contention that terrorism is mainly perpetrated by Muslims. If one group is responsible for something, say, 80% of the time, it is mainly responsible for it: you can't point to the existence of the other 20% as if it were proof that the 80% group is not mainly responsible.

Also, it should be obviously absurd to everyone at this point, but of course it isn't, to drag out poor old McVeigh, and the Unabomber to boot, and stack them up as equivalent to the plethora of armed Islamic organizations that can be found all over the planet, and the more the 9,000 terror attacks committed in the name of Islam since 9/11. But of course since the overwhelming majority of those have not been reported by Krueger's friends with any significant mention or exploration of the Islamic texts and teachings that the perpetrators used to justify them, most Americans don't realize that they have anything to do with Islam in the first place -- while every schoolchild knows that McVeigh was a Christian (he wasn't).

Finally, it is in no way relevant to a discussion of terrorism in general, much less Islamic jihad terrorism in particular, to assert that "every major religious faith has had followers involved in terrorism." It's a shame that such superficial analysis is so dominant these days. While the statement may be broadly true, it brushes by the central question: does Islamic theology and tradition contain any elements that encourage its followers to be involved in terrorism? Do other religions? This is a central consideration of my book Religion of Peace?, and it is a question media and policymakers should be asking. They don't, of course, because CAIR and others have mau-maued them into thinking that even to ask such questions promotes "bigotry" and "intolerance," as well as that trumped-up concept "Islamophobia." It never occurs to them that such discussions would actually aid the moderate Muslims they profess to support, being a necessary step toward the self-criticism that would have to be an essential component of any genuine Islamic reform.

Today's WaPo on September 15, 2007, is promoting "7th Heaven," an interfaith game for middle schoolers. Article here. CAIR has approved the game. Sample question:

8. On what two levels does Islam seek to promote peace?

Answer: "Peace within one's self and peace with others."

Apparently, the creators of the game have chosen to ignore the last "revelation" of Allah: Sura 9. An excellent explanation of that Sura is HERE. An explanation of the concept of abrogation of verses is HERE. You can find even more about abrogation HERE.

Weekly Radio Show: September 14

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday for one hour at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Friday, September 14: Our scheduled guest this week at the bottom of the hour is GM Roper of GM's Corner.

GM is a licensed professional counselor, and we'll be putting Islam on the couch.

If you are unable to listen live to the radio show, you can listen to recordings of the radio broadcasts later by CLICKING HERE.

Never Forget What Our Enemies Are Capable Of

From Society of Americans for National Existence:



Slide show at THIS LINK. Speakers recommended.

Recently Cal Thomas wrote the following essay about 9/11 (emphases mine):

Forget 9/11 at Our Peril
Throughout our young history, Americans have been admonished to "Remember the Alamo," "Remember the Maine" and "Remember Pearl Harbor." These remembrances — and others — were for the purpose of motivating the public to fight on until an enemy was vanquished. When victory was assured, the memory faded into history.

Now, as we approach the sixth anniversary of Sept. 11, there are suggestions that we should begin to forget the worst terrorist incident in America's history. Recently, a front-page story in The New York Times suggested it is becoming too much of a burden to remember the attack, that nothing new can be said about it and that, perhaps, Sept. 11 "fatigue" may be setting in.

Charlene Correia, a nursing supervisor from Acushnet, Mass., is quoted as saying, "I may sound callous, but doesn't grieving have a shelf life? We're very sorry and mournful that people died, but there are living people. Let's wind it down."

Yes, 9/11 forces us to be serious, not only about those who died and why they died at the hands of religious fanatics, but also so that we won't forget that it could very well happen again and many of today's living might end up as yesterday's dead. That is the purpose of remembering 9/11, not to engage in perpetual mourning. The war goes on and to be reminded of 9/11 serves as the ultimate protection against forgetfulness. Terrorists have not forgotten 9/11. Tape of the Twin Towers is used on jihadist Websites for the purpose of recruiting new "martyrs."

What's the matter with some people? Does remembering not only 9/11 but the stakes in this world war interfere too much with our pursuit of money, things and pleasure? Serious times require serious thought and serious action. In our frivolous times, full of trivialities and irrelevancies, to be serious is to abandon self-indulgence for survival, entertainment for the stiffened spine.

"Few Americans give much thought anymore on Dec. 7 that Pearl Harbor was attacked," says the Times writer, who goes on to mention Nov. 22, 1963 (the date of JFK's assassination), the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970 and the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995. The difference between those tragic events and 9/11 is that Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, is dead, as is Timothy McVeigh, and the Vietnam War ended long ago. While all of the 9/11 hijackers died, their ideological and religious colleagues are plotting new attacks in a war that is far from over.

"Why didn't we see 9/11 coming?" was a question frequently asked in the aftermath of that terrorist attack. And the answer should be, because we forgot the attacks preceding that one, or brushed them off as inconsequential aberrations so we could get back to watching the stock market go up and obsess about Bill Clinton's pants coming down. By not remembering those earlier attacks, the reasons behind them and the intentions of the terrorists and those who trained and incited them, we put ourselves in further jeopardy.

Sept. 11 should not be remembered for maudlin, ghoulish and certainly not for nostalgic reasons. Unlike those other mostly forgotten or no longer observed dates, this one is key to defending ourselves from a future attack and further disasters. Not to remember 9/11, is to forget what brought it about. That can lead to a lowering of our guard and a false sense of security, the conditions that existed immediately prior to that awful day six years ago.

Indiana University history professor John Bodnar is asked in the Times story what might happen on Sept. 11 100 years from now. He replies, "It's conceivable that it could be virtually forgotten."

It might be forgotten — or relegated to a "Jeopardy" answer — but only if we win the war against Islamofascism. If we don't, 9/11 will stand as a day of infamy with consequences to humanity far worse than Dec. 7, 1941.

9/11 isn't over and done with for the families who lost loved ones on that terrible day:



[Hat-tip to Gayle for the above video]

Weekly Radio Show: September 7

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday for one hour at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870.

Callers welcome!


Friday, September 7: Our scheduled guest this week is the patriot in the gas mask and satirist supreme — Mr. Beamish of The Crank Files. The header of Mr. Beamish's blog reads as follows: they say I'm crazy, but you're the one reading this blog...

This is going to be some radio show! We'll be discussing leftism and some of Mr. Beamish's renowed adages (Beamishisms).

If you are unable to listen live to the radio show, you can listen to recordings of the radio broadcasts later by CLICKING HERE.