Another Better Cup of decaf spotted at the Counter-Jihad Mainstream Cafe ...

Over the years at my former blog, The Hesperado, I pointed out new "Better Cop" Muslims I kept seeing pop up. Since this type of Muslim is mainly targeting the Counter-Jihad to fool with his (or her) taqiyya and mostly ignores the broader Western Mainstream (already fooled by the relatively more transparent "Good Cop" Muslim who continues to insist with a straight face that "Islam is peace" and is "opposed to terrorism of all kinds"), one sees Better Cop Muslims pop up largely in the Counter-Jihad Mainstream, most of whose Leadership and Readership seems to swallow their sweeter taqiyya without any significant signs of suspicion.

This sub-topic of mine I never pursued exhaustively; I don't doubt there are dozens more of these Better Cop Muslims busy as beavers out there who have escaped my notice. At any rate, one of them I noted in an essay back in February of 2017, a personably young and attrractive Muslima named Uzay Bulut, was so good at crafting her appearance of hard criticism of Islam, it was difficult to tell if she was a Better Cop or an actual Reformist on our side.  Of course, my whole point in this exercise has been to establish the principle of rational prejudice, whereby we cease worrying about trying to prove or disprove their allegiance to the free world and simply condemn them for self-identifying as Muslim (thus ignoring their insistence that they can somehow be both an ally of ours and a Muslim at the same time).

Well, wouldn't you know it, in this panel at the OSCE, where numerous Counter-Jihad warriors-of-ideas have been speaking recently in panels on a whole constellation of issues radiating out from the primary problem of Islam, guess who's sitting three chairs down from Katie Hopkins?  Our old friend, Uzay Bulut.

"Barista-terrorista, why is this coffee giving me Tourette's-like spasms of political correctness...?"

Not too long ago, Robert Spencer was interviewed by a barbershop quartet of Italian wise guys subbing for Joe Piscopo -- the ambiance, needless to say, was no-nonsense neo-con with a whiff of street-wise Rudy Giuliani conservatism in the studio.  The panel was Frank Morano, Anthony Pope, John Tabacco, and Al Gattullo (what a name -- "John Tabacco"!).

Just 5 minutes or so into it, after trading pleasantries and after Spencer began sketching out the basics of the the alarmingly horribly nature of Islam through the ages into our time now, including passages in the Koran commanding open-ended warfare against unbelievers, one of the three Italian guys just had to have an anxious spasm of double-virtue signalling:

Just to be fair, isn't it true that there are more than a smattering of violent suggestions in the Bible?

And Spencer responded:

Yeah, sure, absolutely. There have been 30,000 jihad attacks around the world since 911.

The Italian goombah went on:

And you say, in the Koran this chapter says kill, this chapter says behead, this chapter... but the truth is, like Frank was saying before, 99% of the people out there are not so zealous --

With which Spencer rejoined:

Yeah, sure.

Italian gumbazzo:

-- that they're following the Koran down to those three citations.

Spencer:

Yes, exactly.

Joey Pants winds his anxious spasm of politically correct multiculturalism to a finish:

Most people who follow Islam, and Muslims, they don't take it to that zealous end.

Spencer's response -- instead of schooling this needless, senseless and recklessly irresponsible spasm -- had to throw a bone to it:

This is the thing about it. There have been 30,000 jihad attacks around the world since 911. All of them by people who point to the Koran to justify what they're doing. How many attacks have there been by people who point to the Bible and say "I'm killing people because the Bible has Joshua going in and clearing out a city"? Absolutely zero. So you've got in the first place a big difference in interpretation, that the Koran teaches these things as open-ended commands of warfare against unbelievers, and the Bible doesn't. And obviously this is how Muslims are taking it. And yes, there are many Muslims who are not doing this,

Better Cup (of Mo Jo...)

The Better Cup of Mo Jo is a deceptively caffeinated cup of decaf -- it actually tastes like the real coffee you're supposed to wake up and smell!

It harks back to my meme, the "Better Cop" Muslims -- who are better at fooling the West into thinking they're really moderate and "reformist".  So good are these Better Cop Muslims, they fool even the Counter-Jihad. In fact, that's their main purpose, and they will risk falling out of favor with the broader Western Mainstream just so they can appear daringly "reformist".

Well, we have a new Better Cop on the horizon: Dr. Majid Rafizadeh who, so Robert Spencer informs us,

...is a board member of Harvard International Review and president of the International American Council on the Middle East; he is also the author of the extraordinary book A God Who Hates Women: A woman’s journey through oppression and another, Peaceful Reformation in Iran’s Islam: A life story of struggle and poverty, which is just as shocking and important.  

The Jihad Watch story about Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a reproduction of a recent essay he wrote, published at the Gatestone Institute, a sorta kinda counter-jihadish organization. In his essay, Rafizadah complains about how he has been subtly pressured by Westerners, including Academe, to be less critical of Islam than he is.

As Spencer put it:

In this Gatestone Institute article, he substantiates what we have documented for years at Jihad Watch: that criticism of Islam is a career-killer in the West (“racist!” “bigot!” “Islamophobe!”) and that if critics of jihad terror and Sharia oppression distance their criticism from Islam itself, they have a much better chance of advancement in the political, media, and academic spheres.

To which I would add, Better Cops trying to infiltrate the Counter-Jihad also -- paradoxically -- have a much better chance of advancement in the Counter-Jihad when they distance their criticism from Islam itself  -- i.e., when they studiously evade the 6-million-dollar questions: How in hell can they continue to be Muslim if they are so reform-minded and oh so secular? And why in hell do they still revere the monstrously anti-liberal Koran, Allah, and Mohammed?  Most in the Counter-Jihad -- including Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney, David Horowitz, etc. etc. -- will respectfully avoid asking these supposedly "reformist" Muslims challenging questions like this. Meanwhile, their activity -- particularly under the blessing of the Counter-Jihad -- reinforces our anxiously gullible tendency -- even in the Counter-Jihad -- to suppress our rational prejudice against all Muslims.

"Barista-terrorista, there's an annoying raisin in my scone..."

Today's annoying raisin comes again from our old friend, the otherwise eminent warrior-of-ideas "in the Counter-Jihad", Frank Gaffney,

In this interview with Philip Haney -- a long-time counter-terrorism analyst at Homeland who quit Homeland (and was pressured out) because of his dismay at their "see-no-Islam" policy -- they discuss many interesting things, among them Haney's former career as an entomologist, and his application of that scientific knowledge, particularly about the behavior of ants, to Muslim terror networking.

Haney:  ...attention to detail, that’s another key component of counter-terrorism. That’s what we call connecting the dots. Well, it has direct application in science as well. You connect dots, you make observations, you write things down on your famous clipboard, and pretty soon a picture emerges. Then you do statistical analysis on it. Develop your premise and prove that it was true. Well, the other component is, being a specialist in ants, I simply began to follow the trail and I would find the nest. And in counter-terrorism, you do the same thing."

Gaffney:  So Phil, you migrated within the government from Department of Agriculture to the Department of Homeland Security at its founding in the case of the latter. I know that you wound up developing, in the course of that time, a considerable degree of familiarity with the patterns of behaviour of jihadists and the kind of trail that they would follow. Talk a little bit about the sort of patterns or what impels the behaviour of those Islamic supremacists, this doctrine they call shariah.

Haney: ...Some people have heard about ants, how they leave scent trails. And other insects do it, too, so they can follow each other around and not get lost. Well, that’s essentially what shariah is. That is the universe that Muslims live inside, it forms the boundaries of the world that they live in. And their attempt to implement shariah on a global basis, from their perspective, is an attempt to establish order in this chaotic, violent world that we live in. That’s why they always say that Islam is a religion of peace. Because for them, shariah equals peace. But the caveat to that statement that Islam is a religion of peace is just not right now.

And here's Gaffney's gaffe, his anxious need to interject double-virtue signalling:

Gaffney:  ...And Phil, let me just ask you, this scent trail, as you put it, this attempt to impose order, you mentioned that this is the environment in which Muslims live. I think it’s important to say right up front that that’s not necessarily so for all Muslims, is it?

Haney to his credit (as the reader will see who reads the interview from that point on) doesn't take the bait and pretty much ignores Gaffney's anxious spasm to defend Muslims; though it would have been nice if he had admonished Gaffney all the same.

The old "Nazi" analogy

German Nazis enjoying morning coffee in Paris shortly after Hitler had conquered France.

A longtime veteran commenter on Jihad Watch, one "gravenimage", still policing comments fields for counter-jihadically incorrect speech (the problem is not so much her policing, as her selective conscience in this regard) zeroed in on a comment by one "eddie" (never seen him before in all my years of reading Jihad Watch comments), who made the preposterous statement:

The serial liar Trump is far more evil than Muslim men who are kind and thoughtful.

To this, gravenimage responded:

In other words, ‘Trump is far more evil than Nazis who are kind and thoughtful’.

Quickly (17 minutes later), eddie shot back:

gravenimage: In my opinion, comparing individual Muslims with Nazis is reprehensible. You need to get out and mix a bit. I’ve bedded a few Muslim women in my time, but I’m not sure I’d like to make love to a woman who’s a Nazi. By the way, not all Nazis ran death camps. Oskar Schindler was a member of the Nazi Party, and he was a very brave man who helped save thousands of Jews, 

As is typical of gravenimage, I've noticed, she didn't fully tackle eddie's point head-on, which was (probably unwittingly) palpating the problem of "all Muslims":

Muslims adhere to a vicious creed. Nazis adhere to a vicious creed.
There is, really, little difference–save that Islam has been around longer, so that more adherents have been born into this vicious creed. That is, really, the only serious contrast between them. Certainly, both ideologies are appallingly brutal and totalitarian.

Perhaps gravenimage should learn from the feet of the Master, Robert Spencer, about what motivates eddie's thought in this regard.  At this old essay of mine, she could read especially from the point where I wrote:

"As for Spencer's Nazi Germany analogy -- ..."

-- as I quote Spencer, arguing against readers of his blog who disagreed (back when Jihad Watch commenters dared to disagree with him), showing Spencer stubbornly defending points like:

Islam is more multifaceted than Nazism, and involves many beliefs, some good, some bad. You are comparing a huge 1400-year-old tradition over many nations with 12 years of Germany. If you met a Nazi in 1938, you would know what he thinks. But the fact is that when you meet a Muslim today you can have no certainty about what he thinks or knows.

Statements which show that Spencer has defended basically the point of view of eddie, not of gravenimage (nor of the other Jihad Watch regulars who piled on eddie along with her).

But she probably won't.  And when I brought this same point up in Jihad Watch comments (years ago, when I was still active there) and showed the proof I show in that old essay, gravenimage's friends attacked me for daring to criticize their Master, while she strangely was doing no comments policing that day...

"Terrorista-barista, there's an annoying raisin in my scone again..."

 

The annoying raisin to which I refer is the dysphemism "radical", inserted so often in sentences alluding to the problem of Islam -- as in "radical Islam"; as though Islam straight no chaser, ordinary, mainstream Islam, isn't already a horrible, dangerous, anti-liberal ideology enshrining, motivating and calling for monstrous human rights violations.  (And, unfortunately, "radical" isn't the only dysphemism in this regard.)

For today's annoying raisin, we revisit our old friend Eric Metaxas, in his interview with Robert Spencer:

Eric Metaxas: [growing up as a Greek] I was taught to hate and fear "the Turks" -- not the Muslims, but the Turks because of what they had done to our people,,, I heard many horrible stories growing up. It's kind of like the Jews hearing stories about what the Nazis did: these are true stories. It doesn't mean that you have to be ethnocentric or that you have to hate a whole group of people -- because as a Christian, I don't believe we're supposed to do that -- but we are called to be "wise as serpents"; we are called to understand things. And so, because I was Greek I was sort of taught to hate "the Turks" and you realize wait a minute, it's not the Turks, it's the people who did this, and the people who did this to our Greek Orthodox forbears, they weren't "Turks" -- they were radical Muslims who happened at the time to be Turkish; but it wasn't their ethnicity as Turks, it was their religion as radical Muslims."

Robert Spencer: Yes, that's quite right, Eric, and it's very important.

Waiting for Spencer to correct Eric's dysphemism "radical"... no such luck. Later, Metaxas raises that metonymic phenomenon of the historical habit of calling them "Turks" instead of referring to the more pertinent aspect, their Islam -- and notice now that he's not directly referring to the problem of their Islam, he evidently feels no need to add that annoying raisin:

Eric Metaxas: ...part of the reason of this confusion with "Turks" and Muslims is because in history, a lot of times Muslims were just called "the Turk" or "Turks" -- there was this very confusing thing, and so when I grew up, the Greeks always talked about, "for 400 years, we were under the Ottoman Empire" and "the Turks, and the Turks, and the Turks" -- and what they really mean, of course, are the Muslims; they don't mean "the Turks", they mean the Muslims. "The Turk" was a term, often, for "Muslim".

"Some of my best friends are Muslims..."

Eric Metaxas (I've written about him before), in his 2-part interview with Robert Spencer about his new book, didn't exactly repeat that old cliché, but he might as well have.  Right at the top of his Part 2 of his interview with Spencer, he asks Spencer the good question, why, 17 years after 911, are Americans still so clueless about the problem of Islam? (He could have expanded this to ask why the majority of Westerners in general seem to be clueless about the problem of Islam.)

 In his answer, Spencer avoids the cultural problem of what I have called Politically Correct Multiculturalism (PC MC), but that's beside the point I'm raising here.  At the end of his brief answer, Spencer concludes with the frustrating fact that still in our time throughout the West:

"Those who think that there is a problem of terrorism within Islam are [branded as] racists and bigots and Islamophobes."

To which Eric quipped:

"Like you and me."

Spencer laughed, then Eric had that anxious spasm we've seen or heard so often over the years, even among those who are more or less "in the counter-jihad" (Eric seems to have one foot in, one foot out) which I have called "double-virtue-signalling":

"It's so fascinating because -- look, I have had friends that are Muslims who are nothing like this..."

Prompting the question, "nothing like what, exactly...?" And the deadly follow-up question: "How do you know they are 'nothing like this', eh Eric...?"

Spencer, naturally, let it slide.

Cup of Whitewash

Today's cup of whitewash is from a leading voice in the Counter-Jihad Mainstream, Frank Gaffney.  Interviewing Andrew Bostom, they are discussing John Brennan's murky past, including rumors that he converted to Islam while stationed in Saudi Arabia, and at one point -- in the context of discussing this possibility about Brennan -- Frank just can't help double-virtue-signalling:

"It's not to say that being a Muslim, if he were, is incompatible with having a security clearance; it's just to say that his conduct may bespeak -- and as you say, some of his writings and some of his statements suggests [sic] a willingness himself to place considerations of Sharia adherence above the policy interests of the United States."

Hey, Flo: You call this a cup of coffee...!!!???

"I'd like a strong cup of decaf that will keep me awake..."

Double-talk from Robert Spencer:

“One of the chief elements of the rap sheet on me from the Southern Poverty Law Center and its allied Islamic supremacist groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations is that I have said that there is no reliable way to distinguish jihadis from peaceful Muslims.”

When, that is, you juxtapose that with my immediately preceding post down below, where Spencer is distancing himself from any connection between (the problem of) Islam and Muslims. (And in at least one link in that posting of mine, the reader will find numerous articles detailing this paradox indulged by Spencer over the years.)

Connect the Dots 101

Robert Spencer continues doggedly to resist and even oppose the connection between Islam and Muslims; a connection which the PC MC Mainstream makes all the time (for cogent reasons, I have argued; though of course based upon a specious axiom).

Thus, in the context of discussing Nigel Farage's recent spasm of politically correct multi-culturalism, Spencer complains:

Farage makes the familiar conflation of Islam and Muslims, arguing that if one finds any problem with Islamic texts and teachings, one is condemning all Muslims. There is no reason why that should be so, and if he would foreclose upon any discussion of the motivating ideology behind jihad terror and Sharia oppression, how can he confront them?

Flipping off Filip

For background on Robert Spencer and Belgian anti-Islam activist Filip Dewinter, go to this article of mine posted on The Hesperado in 2010, and scroll down especially to #3 in my list.

From a recent posting on Jihad Watch, it looks like Spencer -- after years of purt near utterly ignoring Filip -- is still keeping him at 6-foot-pole's length to avert catching his allegedly "fascist" cooties. And, consummate master of double-talk as he can be, he makes it sound like he's not still distancing himself from Filip.

Filip Dewinter needs to get a better Jewish agent; either the Counter-Jihad Leadership to a man agrees with Spencer on ostracizing him, or Filip is abysmally inept at marketing himself. (I tend to think it's more the former than the latter.)