Men of No Appearance and a Jooooooo..ess

Carefully documented (for eg. here, here and here) by Tim Blair, and reported by none other than the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), Men of No Appearance have been hitting the streets of Sydney in rage. Note that they are the perpetrators of crimes.

Contrast this with how they describe the victim of a strangulation and disposal in a wheelie bin (moreover in the first sentence):

An elderly Holocaust survivor strangled to death and dumped in a wheelie bin was a "very timid and very kind" woman who never bothered anyone, neighbours say.

Also notice the description of the investigation:

Police have mounted an unusually big investigation, with a team of more than 20 detectives questioning local residents and shopkeepers about the murder.

No doubt, because the Elders of Zion have tapped the Commissioner on the shoulder. Maybe it is unusually large. But thats besides the point.

The SMH sees it fit to give a good description of the victim of a crime and the nature of the police investigation in this particular instance. The question I have is, why doesn't the SMH report the contents of actual police reports of incidents involving Men of No Appearance accurately to its readers?

For the dummies (dhimmis): it might be something to do with the ethnicity of the perpetrators/victims.

Update [28 December 2006, 5:49PM EST]: Notice how News Limited is reporting the story? No mention of an "unusually big investigation". More accurately they report that a Strike Force has been assembled to investigate the apparent murder:

Strike Force Miriam, comprising detectives from State Crime Commands Homicide Squad and Rose Bay Local Area Command, has been formed to investigate the death.

SMH still sticking with "unusually big investigation".
Update [29 December 2006, 9:51AM EST]: The SMH has dropped the "unusually big investigation" line. Instead it mentions that 20 detectives have been allocated to investigate this apparent murder:

Twenty detectives were assigned to investigate a death that was burdened by added sorrow once details of Mrs Schweitzer's life story emerged.

No mention of the Strike Force set up to investigate her death.

To be or not to be

A debate is being contested over at PJM by Ralph Peters and Paul Belien over whether or not Eurabia is fact of fiction. The following two articles have appeared on the UK Telegraph's website today illustrating the inconclusivity of the matter (at least in the UK):

For (Islam flexing its muscle)

Islamic sharia law is gaining an increasing foothold in parts of Britain, a report claims...Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, says there is an "alternative parallel unofficial legal system" that operates in the Muslim community on a voluntary basis... Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi, a barrister and principal of Hijaz College Islamic University, near Nuneaton, Warwicks...predicted that there would be a formal network of Muslim courts within a decade.

Against (Traditional Europe flexing muscle):

One in three people would support a ban on the Muslim full-face veil in public places, according to a new survey.The survey shows broader support for the prohibition of the veil under specific circumstances, with 63 per cent approving a potential ban in airports and at passport control, and 53 per cent saying the ban was a good idea in courtrooms and in schools.

I am a self-confessed agnostic which a strong conviction either way. I have read Oriana Fallaci, Robert Spencer and Mark Steyn all arguing for the Islamisisation of Europe. I have on the ground anecdotal evidence suggesting a growing resistance being put up by traditional Europe to Eurabia. I am not sure. This is definitely a wait-and-see situation.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Update: Daniel Pipes has cause to rethink Eurabia...at least in the UK.

Iraq: Children being cooked

Just when you thought the bloodshed in Iraq could not be worse. I think, hope and pray we've hit rock-bottom. From the Barnabas Fund's email newsletter:

...Christians like the thousands of frightened Iraqis who face Christmas in the context of escalating anti-Christian violence. In the most shocking report from Iraq we have received, a toddler was kidnapped in Baghdad in October 2006. The mother could not afford to pay the ransom, and so the kidnappers killed the child. They returned the body to the mother. The little child had been beheaded, roasted and was served on a mound of rice. In another incident a 14-year-old Christian boy was held down by his limbs and beheaded, or, as Iraqi Christians have described it, “crucified”. His Muslim attackers called him a “dirty Christian sinner” and chanted “Allahu akbar” (Allah is great).

This is the most barbaric of the events that the email discusses.

Stunned by the viciousness of this attack, earlier this evening, I called Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Barnabas Fund. He is a world expert on political Islam and his organisation clearly understands the Eurabia and Dhimmitude concepts seeking to assist Christians in the Dar-al-Islam (from Dhimmitude) and Dar-al-Harb (from Suicidialism).

He personally confirmed the veracity and accuracy of this information. There seems to be a complete and total media blackout of these massacres. Patrick is not sure why this is the case. He also seems to be circumspect about the nature of blogs to help him get his message out saying, in his usual self-effacing manner, that they are not nice to him. So brilliant bloggers, unite. Bring this catastrophe to light and make people aware of the suffering of Christians in Iraq. Let's not have another Armenia/Aramean genocide on our hands.

For those with the means, please donate some money to the Barnabas Fund's Christmas Appeal 2006 - Iraq. For those that are not able to contribute financially, please pray, and pray ceaselessly for justice to be served on those driving the violence and pray for the protection of those on the receiving end of the violence.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Update: Here is the newsletter and the email in full.

Update II: Healing Iraq has spot reports from around Iraq regarding the upsurge in violence. Mohammed @ Iraq the Model on the same. This is not surprising and should have been expected. The US is flailing around trying to find someone to "help" them reduce the violence. Think Iran, Think Syria. Well, it would be at precisely this time that Iran and Syria would push the US's head under the water, by instructing their Iraqi proxies to increase their attacks, increasing pressure on the US to acquiesce to their demands. (H/T: LittleGreenFootballs). Interestingly, no mention of the suffering the Christians are facing. This probably reflects how marginalised they have become, even in the eyes of supporters of peace and stability in Iraq.

Update III: I have been provided further information by the Barnabas Fund supporting the claims made above. Understandably, due to the security of the eyewitnesses, I have been asked to preserve confidentiality.

Christians and the Middle East

Two good pieces of reading:

1. Robert Spencer gives us an update on Abdul Rahman and the jihadist attempt to have him repatriated to Afghanistan to a death sentence.
2. Tom Bethell @ Spectator on Middle East demographics and the waning Christian presence there and the weaking influence of Judeo-Christian values on Western Society.
   

Iraq: Syrian-Orthodox Clergyman Decapitated

No-one promised that being a dhimmi will protect your life [H/T: The Jawa Report via AINA]:

The Syriac-Orhtodox [sic] priest Paulos Iskandar was kidnapped this Monday, October 9, and beheaded today Wednesday October 11.

Christians are living a terrified life in Mosul and Baghdad. Several priests have been kidnapped, girls are being raped and murdered and a couple of days ago a fourteen year old boy was crucified in the Christian neighborhood Albasra.

Corroborated by Persection.org. Also being reported by The International Herald Tribune:

Relatives of an Orthodox priest who was kidnapped and found beheaded three days later said Thursday that his captors had demanded his church condemn the pope's recent comments about Islam and pay a US$350,000 (€280,000) ransom.

The Persecution.org piece linked above states that the motives for the kidnapping and murder are unknown. However, the AINA piece and IHT story linked above purport that the motive kidnapping and murder of Father Iskandar was in response to Pope Benedict XVI's infamous Regensburg address titled "Faith, Reason and Uncertainty".

In this speech, the Pope assailed the West's redundant approach to debate and discussion and challenged for other "cultures" to engage with the West with "logos" (or knowledge/reason):

The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.

This was his main point. It had nothing to do with slandering Islam. I will not do his fine speech the injustice of reproducing his quote of a quote of a Christian Byzantine Emperor that was widely quoted in the MSM and drew ironic angry and violent responses from the Ummah. Indeed, far from attacking Islam or inciting hatred of it, he was challenging the Ummah to engage in meaningful (ie. reasonable) dialogue with the West.

Note however, that being a dhimmi, did not spare Father Iskandar's life:

Before Iskender was kidnapped, his relatives said, the church already had put up signs condemning the statement and calling for good relations between Christians and Muslims. The message was posted again, they said, after the priest's kidnappers made their demand.

Since Saddam's regime fell, Christians of all stripes in Iraq, dhimmi and non-dhimmi, Catholic, Syrian-Orthodox or Reformed, have been attacked and harrassed. This has been covered in drips and draps in the MSM and other outlets:

1. The Guardian (6 October 2006)
2. ABC Lateline (2 October 2006)
3. ABC Lateline - again (3 December 2004)
4. Fox News (13 November 2004)
5. Al-Jazeera (2 August 2004)
6. The Christian Science Monitor (21 April 2003)
7. GlobalSecurity.org (Undated)

Clarity & Resolve states that:

This is the vicious, ancient religious behavior that Saddam kept in check with his vicious modern secular behavior.

Correct in that Saddam didn't annihilate Christian Iraqi villages, very incorrect in that he annihilated Kurdish Iraqi ones and was responsible for the murder of thousands Iraqi dissidents. That's why he is in the dock in Baghdad.

The irony of the coverage of the poor plight of Iraqi Christians is that the stories are published by a media that lusts for a withdrawal from Iraq. This will only serve to worsen their situation. This sort of logic was that which the Pope assailed in his Regensburg address. However, it is also this part of the Pope's speech that was stubbornly ignored by the West and the Ummah.

It has been my opinion for some time that Iraq was a major strategic blunder in the WIF.

But if this incident (and many others like it) demonstrates anything, it is this: the West should redouble its efforts in targeting and killing Islamofascists running amok in Iraq, not cut-and-run.

Disclaimer: I am a Christian with close (and friendly) links to the Syrian-Orthodox Church.

Men of No Appearance and a Jooooooo..ess

Carefully documented (for eg. here, here and here) by Tim Blair, and reported by none other than the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), Men of No Appearance have been hitting the streets of Sydney in rage. Note that they are the perpetrators of crimes.

Contrast this with how they describe the victim of a strangulation and disposal in a wheelie bin (moreover in the first sentence):

An elderly Holocaust survivor strangled to death and dumped in a wheelie bin was a "very timid and very kind" woman who never bothered anyone, neighbours say.

Also notice the description of the investigation:

Police have mounted an unusually big investigation, with a team of more than 20 detectives questioning local residents and shopkeepers about the murder.

No doubt, because the Elders of Zion have tapped the Commissioner on the shoulder. Maybe it is unusually large. But thats besides the point.

The SMH sees it fit to give a good description of the victim of a crime and the nature of the police investigation in this particular instance. The question I have is, why doesn't the SMH report the contents of actual police reports of incidents involving Men of No Appearance accurately to its readers?

For the dummies (dhimmis): it might be something to do with the ethnicity of the perpetrators/victims.

Update [28 December 2006, 5:49PM EST]: Notice how News Limited is reporting the story? No mention of an "unusually big investigation". More accurately they report that a Strike Force has been assembled to investigate the apparent murder:

Strike Force Miriam, comprising detectives from State Crime Commands Homicide Squad and Rose Bay Local Area Command, has been formed to investigate the death.

SMH still sticking with "unusually big investigation".
Update [29 December 2006, 9:51AM EST]: The SMH has dropped the "unusually big investigation" line. Instead it mentions that 20 detectives have been allocated to investigate this apparent murder:

Twenty detectives were assigned to investigate a death that was burdened by added sorrow once details of Mrs Schweitzer's life story emerged.

No mention of the Strike Force set up to investigate her death.

To be or not to be

A debate is being contested over at PJM by Ralph Peters and Paul Belien over whether or not Eurabia is fact of fiction. The following two articles have appeared on the UK Telegraph's website today illustrating the inconclusivity of the matter (at least in the UK):

For (Islam flexing its muscle)

Islamic sharia law is gaining an increasing foothold in parts of Britain, a report claims...Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, says there is an "alternative parallel unofficial legal system" that operates in the Muslim community on a voluntary basis... Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi, a barrister and principal of Hijaz College Islamic University, near Nuneaton, Warwicks...predicted that there would be a formal network of Muslim courts within a decade.

Against (Traditional Europe flexing muscle):

One in three people would support a ban on the Muslim full-face veil in public places, according to a new survey.The survey shows broader support for the prohibition of the veil under specific circumstances, with 63 per cent approving a potential ban in airports and at passport control, and 53 per cent saying the ban was a good idea in courtrooms and in schools.

I am a self-confessed agnostic which a strong conviction either way. I have read Oriana Fallaci, Robert Spencer and Mark Steyn all arguing for the Islamisisation of Europe. I have on the ground anecdotal evidence suggesting a growing resistance being put up by traditional Europe to Eurabia. I am not sure. This is definitely a wait-and-see situation.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Update: Daniel Pipes has cause to rethink Eurabia...at least in the UK.

Iraq: Children being cooked

Just when you thought the bloodshed in Iraq could not be worse. I think, hope and pray we've hit rock-bottom. From the Barnabas Fund's email newsletter:

...Christians like the thousands of frightened Iraqis who face Christmas in the context of escalating anti-Christian violence. In the most shocking report from Iraq we have received, a toddler was kidnapped in Baghdad in October 2006. The mother could not afford to pay the ransom, and so the kidnappers killed the child. They returned the body to the mother. The little child had been beheaded, roasted and was served on a mound of rice. In another incident a 14-year-old Christian boy was held down by his limbs and beheaded, or, as Iraqi Christians have described it, “crucified”. His Muslim attackers called him a “dirty Christian sinner” and chanted “Allahu akbar” (Allah is great).

This is the most barbaric of the events that the email discusses.

Stunned by the viciousness of this attack, earlier this evening, I called Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Barnabas Fund. He is a world expert on political Islam and his organisation clearly understands the Eurabia and Dhimmitude concepts seeking to assist Christians in the Dar-al-Islam (from Dhimmitude) and Dar-al-Harb (from Suicidialism).

He personally confirmed the veracity and accuracy of this information. There seems to be a complete and total media blackout of these massacres. Patrick is not sure why this is the case. He also seems to be circumspect about the nature of blogs to help him get his message out saying, in his usual self-effacing manner, that they are not nice to him. So brilliant bloggers, unite. Bring this catastrophe to light and make people aware of the suffering of Christians in Iraq. Let's not have another Armenia/Aramean genocide on our hands.

For those with the means, please donate some money to the Barnabas Fund's Christmas Appeal 2006 - Iraq. For those that are not able to contribute financially, please pray, and pray ceaselessly for justice to be served on those driving the violence and pray for the protection of those on the receiving end of the violence.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Update: Here is the newsletter and the email in full.

Update II: Healing Iraq has spot reports from around Iraq regarding the upsurge in violence. Mohammed @ Iraq the Model on the same. This is not surprising and should have been expected. The US is flailing around trying to find someone to "help" them reduce the violence. Think Iran, Think Syria. Well, it would be at precisely this time that Iran and Syria would push the US's head under the water, by instructing their Iraqi proxies to increase their attacks, increasing pressure on the US to acquiesce to their demands. (H/T: LittleGreenFootballs). Interestingly, no mention of the suffering the Christians are facing. This probably reflects how marginalised they have become, even in the eyes of supporters of peace and stability in Iraq.

Update III: I have been provided further information by the Barnabas Fund supporting the claims made above. Understandably, due to the security of the eyewitnesses, I have been asked to preserve confidentiality.

Christians and the Middle East

Two good pieces of reading:

1. Robert Spencer gives us an update on Abdul Rahman and the jihadist attempt to have him repatriated to Afghanistan to a death sentence.
2. Tom Bethell @ Spectator on Middle East demographics and the waning Christian presence there and the weaking influence of Judeo-Christian values on Western Society.
   

Iraq: Syrian-Orthodox Clergyman Decapitated

No-one promised that being a dhimmi will protect your life [H/T: The Jawa Report via AINA]:

The Syriac-Orhtodox [sic] priest Paulos Iskandar was kidnapped this Monday, October 9, and beheaded today Wednesday October 11.

Christians are living a terrified life in Mosul and Baghdad. Several priests have been kidnapped, girls are being raped and murdered and a couple of days ago a fourteen year old boy was crucified in the Christian neighborhood Albasra.

Corroborated by Persection.org. Also being reported by The International Herald Tribune:

Relatives of an Orthodox priest who was kidnapped and found beheaded three days later said Thursday that his captors had demanded his church condemn the pope's recent comments about Islam and pay a US$350,000 (€280,000) ransom.

The Persecution.org piece linked above states that the motives for the kidnapping and murder are unknown. However, the AINA piece and IHT story linked above purport that the motive kidnapping and murder of Father Iskandar was in response to Pope Benedict XVI's infamous Regensburg address titled "Faith, Reason and Uncertainty".

In this speech, the Pope assailed the West's redundant approach to debate and discussion and challenged for other "cultures" to engage with the West with "logos" (or knowledge/reason):

The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.

This was his main point. It had nothing to do with slandering Islam. I will not do his fine speech the injustice of reproducing his quote of a quote of a Christian Byzantine Emperor that was widely quoted in the MSM and drew ironic angry and violent responses from the Ummah. Indeed, far from attacking Islam or inciting hatred of it, he was challenging the Ummah to engage in meaningful (ie. reasonable) dialogue with the West.

Note however, that being a dhimmi, did not spare Father Iskandar's life:

Before Iskender was kidnapped, his relatives said, the church already had put up signs condemning the statement and calling for good relations between Christians and Muslims. The message was posted again, they said, after the priest's kidnappers made their demand.

Since Saddam's regime fell, Christians of all stripes in Iraq, dhimmi and non-dhimmi, Catholic, Syrian-Orthodox or Reformed, have been attacked and harrassed. This has been covered in drips and draps in the MSM and other outlets:

1. The Guardian (6 October 2006)
2. ABC Lateline (2 October 2006)
3. ABC Lateline - again (3 December 2004)
4. Fox News (13 November 2004)
5. Al-Jazeera (2 August 2004)
6. The Christian Science Monitor (21 April 2003)
7. GlobalSecurity.org (Undated)

Clarity & Resolve states that:

This is the vicious, ancient religious behavior that Saddam kept in check with his vicious modern secular behavior.

Correct in that Saddam didn't annihilate Christian Iraqi villages, very incorrect in that he annihilated Kurdish Iraqi ones and was responsible for the murder of thousands Iraqi dissidents. That's why he is in the dock in Baghdad.

The irony of the coverage of the poor plight of Iraqi Christians is that the stories are published by a media that lusts for a withdrawal from Iraq. This will only serve to worsen their situation. This sort of logic was that which the Pope assailed in his Regensburg address. However, it is also this part of the Pope's speech that was stubbornly ignored by the West and the Ummah.

It has been my opinion for some time that Iraq was a major strategic blunder in the WIF.

But if this incident (and many others like it) demonstrates anything, it is this: the West should redouble its efforts in targeting and killing Islamofascists running amok in Iraq, not cut-and-run.

Disclaimer: I am a Christian with close (and friendly) links to the Syrian-Orthodox Church.