Weekly Radio Show: November 23

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, November 23: SPECIAL SHOW!

This week's guest at the top of the hour: speaker, economist, and terrorism expert Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld. She is the director of The American Center for Democracy, which monitors and exposes the enemies of freedom and their modus operandi, and explores pragmatic ways to counteract their methods. Dr. Ehrenfeld is also the author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is financed and How to Stop It.

Our guest at the bottom of the hour is my dear friend and "brother," and my techie advisor Warren of the blog Long Range. We'll be discussing leftism and blog-site management, including dealing with trolls.

You do not want to miss this show!

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

Video from Dr. Ehrenfeld (8 minutes):

"The Libel Tourist" is a short-form documentary film. In 8 minutes, our eyes are opened to a new and chilling threat: how Saudi petrodollars have cowed, silenced, and almost broken freedom of speech in the West.

The film documents the true story of how an American – Israeli author Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld was ordered to destroy all copies of her book in a country where it had never been published- England—after a notoriously litigious Saudi billionaire sued her in a British court. Ehrenfeld's book Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed – and How to Stop It, accuses the Saudi billionaire of funding of terrorism.

Now Ehrenfeld is fighting back, counter-suing him in the New York, to defend her and our First Amendment rights.

More information about The Libel Tourist

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

Obfuscation At The Islamic Saudi Academy

I have blogged many times about the Islamic Saudi Academy, alma mater of wannabe Presidential assassin Ahmed Abu Ali, valedictoriam at the school a few years before. One example of what I've previously written is here, and here is another.

Now comes this November 19, 2007 article, from AAFAQ: The Leading Arab Reform Web Site:

American Senators demand Closing of Saudi Academy in Washington

(Washington – Aafaq) - On Thursday, 12 members of the United States Senate demanded that the Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice, close the Saudi Islamic Academy in Washington because of the refusal of the Saudi officials to make available for inspection the curricula that are taught in the Academy. [Full Story in Arabic]

The Saudi News Agency (WASM) said that members of the Senate demanded that the Department of State follow up on the agreement that the United States and the government of Saudi Arabia made last year on improving the freedom of religion in Saudi Arabia and stopping the export of religious extremism.

The director of the Saudi Academy, Abdullah Al-Shabnan, held a press conference on Thursday, in which he denied the use of Saudi curricula in the school and also pointed out the curricula used do not contain any enmity toward other religions or sects.

The Saudi Academy refuses to make its curricula available for inspection to the American government or to the news media.

It may be mentioned that the Institute for Gulf Affairs Washington issued a lengthy report last year, in cooperation with Freedom House. The report received worldwide attention, because it showed that the curricula used in schools in Saudi Arabia are still filled with extremism, intolerance toward of other religions, and the incitement of hatred and violence toward other religions and cultures, despite claims of the Saudi government to the contrary.

Contrast the above with the following, which appeared on November 16, 2007 in the Washington Post:

Officials of a Northern Virginia Islamic school yesterday criticized a federal commission, saying that the panel unfairly damaged the school's reputation by recommending it be shuttered until it could prove that it is not promoting intolerance and violence through its textbooks.

Abdalla Al-Shabnan, director general of the Islamic Saudi Academy, said a report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom calling upon the State Department in September to close the school had taken everyone by surprise and left those affiliated with the school shaken.

Yesterday, Al-Shabnan invited a few reporters, including one from The Washington Post, to tour the school and meet with teachers, students and parents. Officials displayed some of the textbooks used, including a few routinely used by students in Fairfax County public schools. Others, written in Arabic, are religious or language texts, academy officials said. They denied that any of the texts promote religious extremism.

"Some people believe we get our orders from the [Saudi] Embassy," Al-Shabnan said. "That is not the case. I am the one in charge. I am responsible for all the action in the school."

Parents and students say the commission's views do not describe the school they know. Dana Nicholas, assistant principal of the girls' school, said the academy uses a curriculum similar to the one used by Fairfax public schools. There are religious classes and Arabic is taught, said Nicholas, who described herself as a devout Christian. But, she added, "we are just a normal school."

Commission members said they were not persuaded by the school's invitation to reporters, nor a letter they received from Al-Shabnan on Wednesday. In the letter, dated Nov. 12, Al-Shabnan stated that the school had made its textbooks available to a Fairfax County supervisor for review. Supervisor Gerald W. Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) said yesterday that his office had received six boxes of books from the school and that a translator from the county's library system was looking through them.

Al-Shabnan also invited commission members to come to the school to review the textbooks.

Commission Chairman Michael Cromartie said the offer was not taken up because academy officials wanted mutually acceptable scholars and translators to review the textbooks. He said the commission had repeatedly asked Saudi Embassy officials in Washington for the books but had not received them.

The commission, created by Congress under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, issues an annual report about religious freedom around the world. Its members are appointed by the White House and congressional leadership.

Officials with the commission said they had spent several years examining textbooks used by schools in Saudi Arabia, which gives the Northern Virginia academy much of its funding. Those textbooks, the commission members said, promoted violence against Christians, Jews, Shiites and polytheists.
The Islamic academy, which has two campuses in Northern Virginia, was founded in 1984 to educate children of Saudi diplomats from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. About 30 percent of the roughly 1,000 students are Saudi, school officials said. The school's governing board is led by the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

Officials of the school said the materials used there are unique, obtained from Saudi Arabia but changed to meet the needs of an American student body.

Al-Shabnan said yesterday that he had turned over the school's textbooks to the Saudi Embassy. He said he expected that embassy officials would turn the textbooks over to the State Department.

Department officials and others with knowledge of the issue, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing inquiry, said U.S. officials think the commission's recommendation to close the school was premature. They said the State Department was proceeding cautiously, speaking with Saudi officials about issues of religious tolerance and school curriculum, to avoid creating a crisis.

Hello, State Department? The crisis has already been created.

Weekly Radio Show: November 16

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, November 16: Two guests! Our interviewee at the top of the hour is Elisabeth of Austria. At the bottom of the hour WC and I will be interviewing Fausta of Fausta's Blog.

We'll be discussing with Elisabeth the latest anti-jihadist news from Europe: the Islamofascist conference in Brussels, Switzerland's banning of minarets, and legislation in Italy and France, both of which are passing laws to ship out Muslim trouble-makers.

According to Fausta's profile, Fausta was born and raised in Santurce, Puerto Rico and is a long-term resident of Princeton, New Jersey. She discusses New Jersey, taxation, current events, and how news are reported in the French and Spanish-language media.

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: November 9

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, November 9: This week's guest at the bottom of the hour is Dan Zaremba of Australian Islamist Monitor. We will be discussing with Mr. Zaremba the threat of Islam in general and Australian Islamist Monitor's role in exposing the Islamist agenda.

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

Australian Islamist Monitor's "About" page is HERE, and the statement of objectives is HERE. You can read Mr. Zaremba's essays HERE. According to this excerpt from "Always Victims":

No other totalitarian ideology mastered deception and playing the victimhood card better than Islam. Nazi stories about the martyrdom of the Sudetten Volk or even Communists attempts to spin the facts and play victims appear clumsy and childish in comparison....

Join us for an informative discussion from the Aussie point of view!

WorldNetDaily: Hillary takes cash from terror suspects

From WorldNetDaily via Jihad Watch, Hillary's campaign accepts from money from terrorist enablers, including local residents M. Yaqub Mirza and M. Omar Ashraf. Omar Barzinji, another contributor, is related to Jamal Barzinji, a Herndon resident with questionable terrorist conncections.


M. Yaqub Mirza

Any information about these characters is welcome.

Jihad Watch: Close The D.C. Madrassa

The latest on the Islamic Saudi Academy from Jihad Watch:

Close The D.C. Madrassa

Why is this militant madrassa still operating just across the Potomac from the White House and Capitol? Because Fairfax County is still leasing it an old high school building, and the Democrat county supervisor in charge of the lease doesn't see any problem with the school.

Will someone come forward to out this Democratic county supervisor?? Tuesday is Election Day. Is there an opportunity to vote him/her out of office??

This touches on a personal story. We were talking with a man (not a Muslim) who championed ISA, sensing "prejudice" among his neighbors. Perhaps his neighbors might have been hacked off at the county allowing the KSA to extend itself further, especially when it has insinuated itself into the Washington political scene. Perhaps they objected to gender apartheid and the total absence of freedom of religion in KSA. That's "prejudice"?

Checking Curriculum At The Islamic Saudi Academy

Fairfax County has decided to take a look at the materials being used at the Islamic Saudi Academy, alma mater of aspiring Presidential assassin Ahmed Abu Ali. Essay by J. Grant Swank, Jr:

Per Washington Times’ Julia Duin, hate is taught at the 23-year-old Islamic Saudi Academy, Alexandria, VA.

The school has been under investigation before. Presently citizens are asking the State Department to close the school because it threatens other religions and could undo our Republic.

“The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which advises Congress, the State Department and the president on religious-freedom issues, has issued a 30-page document saying the Saudi Embassy, which operates the 933-student academy, is violating U.S. law.”

This is not hysteria on the part of USCIRF. It is cold logic, as anyone who has been following the history of this school’s instruction is aware, not to mention verses in the Koran that advocate killing all non-Muslims.

Those who seek to bar the publishing of these verses are a party to the atrocities instigated by extremist Muslims. It is akin to Germans who shied away from exposing Hitler setting up camp to extinguish Jews and Jewish sympathizers.

In other words, bald fact, no matter how unpleasant, must be put “out there.” Those who hope it simply “will go away” are integral to the threat.

“At issue are textbooks the USCIRF says contain ‘highly intolerant and discriminatory language, particularly against Jews, Christians and Shi'a Muslims.’ Its findings are based on a three-year study of Arabic-language textbooks, some of them from the Saudi Academy, by the Center for Religious Freedom in the District.

“The textbooks instructed students to ‘hate’ Jews, Christians, ‘polytheists’ and other ‘unbelievers,’ praised violent jihad as a ‘religious duty’ and to believe as fact the anti-Semitic forgeries known as ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’"

Now would it surprise anyone that the academy heads inform media that no such hate literature exists?

What knowledgeable persons know about extremist Islamics is that they believe Allah permits them to lie, considering deceit a virtue when it furthers Islam World Rule. Therefore, for academicians at the school to boast that texts and instructors’ lectures are void of hate is exactly what Allah would decree.

“Saudi officials said in response that the textbooks were being revamped and an official at the academy, who asked not to be named, said school textbooks were revised in 2006.

“The USCIRF was rebuffed when it asked the embassy this summer to see copies of the new textbooks, spokeswoman Judith Ingram said.

"’We've simply gotten nowhere with our requests,’ she added.”

Nowhere? What does that honestly say about academy officialdom? This is not rocket science. This is in-your-fact warning.

If fundamentalist Bob Jones University was accused of teaching hate, it would welcome outsiders to read every text on campus as well as attend every lecture in every lecture hall.

If evangelical Wheaton College were accused of instructing Christians to kill non-Christians, campus officials would hold press conferences, invite any personages to investigate curricula and sit in on any teaching forums throughout an entire school year.

Why then is the Islamic Academy not opening up its classes and texts to anyone? This school is located in America. It is using our soil to destroy our nation.

If that is not the case, then the academy must come forth with the evidence.

“The Saudi Academy is one of 20 international Saudi schools around the world. The Virginia academy's main campus is on Richmond Highway in Alexandria and a west campus for young children is on Popes Head Road in Fairfax. Twenty-eight percent of its students are Saudi citizens.

“The USCIRF has long been critical of Saudi Arabia, and in 2004 it named the kingdom a ‘country of particular concern’ in terms of religious-freedom violations. As a result, the Saudi government promised the State Department it would allow greater religious tolerance within its borders. During a visit there this spring, USCIRF officials said they were stonewalled by the Saudis on several issues, including the content of current school textbooks.”

There is reason for suspicion. Anyone who sidelines that suspicion is part of the problem, furthering the plot to undermine America.

There is going to be an investigation of sorts. Excerpt from the Associated Press, October 29, 2007:

Fairfax County officials are reviewing Arabic-language textbooks at a private Islamic school following a federal panel's recommendation that the school be shut down.

The county does not expect to find any problems with the textbooks at the Islamic Saudi Academy, but wants to study the issue "to put the matter to rest," Fairfax County spokeswoman Merni Fitzgerald said Monday.

[...]

Fitzgerald said the county is not concerned about the books' contents, but because it is the academy's landlord it wants to investigate in light of the commission's report.

"In order to put the issue to rest, these actions are being taken," Fitzgerald said. "I'm sure there won't be anything in there that people would find objectionable."

Sounds as if Ms. Fitzgerald is "investigating" with a certain mindset. How objective will this investigation be?