"Where's the Big W...?"

Recently, I commended a fellow who goes by the moniker "thebig_W" -- a new (or apparently  new) member of the Counter-Jihad Readership (defined as such, at minimum, by lodging comments on various discussion forums and/or social media sites -- pre-eminently Jihad Watch, followed by the Front Page and Gates of Vienna sites).

The link above leads to a posting on Jihad Watch and to Big W's bold dressing down of Robert Spencer. I kept checking back to see how other members of the Readership reacted to Big W's comment.  Surely, they must agree, right?  Wrong.  Even though the posting aroused over 70 comments, the only responses to Big W were from our old friend "gravenimage" insisting counter-factually that Robert Spencer is not being fooled by stealth jihadists, even though Big W showed, through the simple examination of Spencer's own words, straight from the horse's mouth, that in fact it does seem that he evidently is being fooled (or is lying).

Interestingly, we see among those comments linked above a pro-Islam reader, one "lebel", making the interesting claim, in response to Big W, in effect that Robert Spencer is only pretending to be equivocating on the problem of Islam so he can have "plausible deniability". I've often wondered if Spencer is doing that, sort of the Counter-Jihad version of the Stacy Keach character in the movie American X. But I tend to think Spencer actually has an underbelly of nougat about the whole problem. Either way, Spencer's rhetoric, I maintain, is putting the brakes on the much needed cultivation of rational prejudice in the West.

Over at the Gates of Vienna blog, a commenter named "leCanadien" posted the following, I would say, rather common sentiment in the Counter-Jihad. It was his follow-up comment to requesting of another Civilian of the Counter-Jihad Readership a link for the beheading video of the two Scandinavian girls recently butchered by Muslims in Morocco:

Never mind. Please do not post the link to the video of the beheading.
I saw it. Now wish I had not.
It is very disturbing to see such brutality against young innocent people.
I think though that it is necessary viewing for any one who believes islam is peaceful and not a threat to us.

leCanadien's conclusion at the end exemplifies one of the shaky pillars of the "problem3" -- the problem of the Counter-Jihad as it grapples inadequately with both the problem of Islam, and with the secondary problem of the West failing to deal with the problem of Islam.

Namely, an inflated sense of optimism and, related to that, an unrealistic appraisal of what it takes (or would take) to wake up Western Denialists (who abound all around us).

What leCanadien doesn't fully appreciate is just how deep and complicated the Denial is. Here's what the typical carbon-based oxygen-breathing Westerner with opposable thumbs will do upon watching that beheading video:

"Oh that's terrible! Those murderers show how bad the Tiny Minority of Extremists are who don't represent the mainstream Islam of the vast majority of nice Brown Muslims Who Just Wanna Have a Sandwich; and because of that, I'm worried now that all those dangerous far right white supremacists in the West will try to use this video to tar all Muslims with the same brush and have a backlash against them with hate crimes!"

I.e., the last 18 years of the glacially growing Counter-Jihad trying to educate our fellow Westerners has achieved practically nothing.

Put Big W's coffee & donuts on my tab!

Our new friend Big W just gets better and better in his comments on Jihad Watch.



Commenting on a Jihad Watch posting featuring Robert Spencer's latest batch of nougat, our new friend Big W quotes Spencer --

“There are indeed Muslims who are “driven by an ideology” and other Muslims who “practise their own religion in their own way with their own family and their own friends,” that is, Muslims who are bringing Sharia to the UK and advancing the cause of political Islam, and those who are not. ”

-- then drops this devastating bomb of a precisioned surgical strike:

I beg to differ. All Muslims are advancing the cause of Islam (for one thing because it’s the same damn thing as “political Islam”). A lot of Muslims are just doing the advancing in ways that seem okay, and one way to see how successful they are is the fact they’ve fooled Robert Spencer into thinking they’re not advancing “political Islam” (same damned thing as Islam).

The only question I have for Big W is: glazed, powdered or plain? With donuts, I suspect he knows as well as I know, it makes a difference; but with Muslims, pace Robert Spencer, it don't make a damned bit of difference.

(Except, of course, to the diverse strategy of jihad we reasonably assume Muslims in various ways are enacting.)

Mmmmm... nougat!

Back in the spring of last year, I wrote a useful analytical overview of Robert Spencer's nougat.

The key to the puzzle

Nougat is my technical term for varying degrees of tasty, chewy softness about the problem of Islam. Some forms of nougat are less coherent than others. Spencer's nougat is probably the least coherent in the Counter-Jihad. The reader who clicks on the above link, carefully reads my essay (and follows the links therein to carefully read more) will begin to see why I say that.

My second sort of boring not necessarily very informative podcast now available!!!

My 0.5 readers can catch it here:

Daily Decaf 2

"Better Cops" means better coffee & donuts!

As I've said many times, I've written a whole slew of essays over the years about the "Better Cops" phenomenon (Or "Better Mo" as I've sometimes tongued in cheek).  One of the more interesting and in-depth postings I composed was titled "Better Cops in the Trump Era" which I wrote back in February of 2017.

Whenever I've gone looking for older essays of mine on this subject, I've tended to bypass this one because, since I'd forgotten the details, the title made me think it was super-specific, regarding the Trump context. On re-reading it recently, I see it's an excellent introduction and analysis of the phenomenon generally speaking, with detailed examinations, relative to the inept views of various readers of Jihad Watch, of two specimens of the genre, Shireen Qudosi and Asra Nomani.

I was going to post this anyway, as part of my intent to use The Daily Decaf as, in part, a venue for re-publishing particularly good essays from my now defunct blog The Hesperado.  But Flo's Diner is offering a two-fer today, since I noticed recently the Jihad Watch Readership once again -- for the umpteenth time -- dropping the ball on one of these Better Mos, a Muslim cleric from Australia otherwise known as the "Imam of Peace" (whom we've met before on The Daily Decaf -- and if you have a time machine, later in time in a posting in May of 2019) who has been making a show of how "reformist" and "moderate" he is.  And never mind that the Leadership -- Robert Spencer in this case -- also dropped the ball, as he so often does in these more nuanced matters.

The Jihad Watch Readership dropped the ball in two ways: 1) by three of them either praising this Better Mo (or giving him the benefit of the doubt); and 2) by not speaking out (i.e., typing out) comments of appropriately devastating suspicion of this "reformist" cleric.  Only one Jihad Watch reader did so, our new friend "Big W":

thebigW says
Dec 16, 2018 at 4:54 pm

[Big W quotes a Jihad Watch regular here, "Walter Sieruk"]

“It’s an awful vicious thing to do as to call for the death of a man who is only engaging is an unrealistic goal of “reforming Islam.” That imam who wants to reform Islam might, very much, be sincere in his quest of the to have a “reformation of Islam” is not actually possible, it’s an action of futility but that to no excuse or reason to kill him.”

[Then Big W says]

That ain’t the issue, the issue is why does this so called “Imam of Peace” Tawhidi still support the same ideology that justifies him being killed? And why doesn’t this Tawhidi guy explain how he disagrees point by point with the fatwa (probably because he can’t). 

God bless you, Big W!  Have a glazed donut and a cuppa joe!

Meanwhile, the other two Softies, one "Angry Aussie" and one "Lynda Hynes" had to virtue-signal in favor of this Brown Person, Imam Tawhidi.  "Angry Aussie" in particular really laid it on thick:

Angry Aussie says
Dec 16, 2018 at 7:30 pm

Imam Tawhidi is the real deal. He is not a fraud. He is highly intelligent and respected by most Australians that know him or know of him. Of course the terrorist types don’t like him. 

I have met and spoken with Imam Tawhidi. He is sincere. He is also very aware of flaws in scripture relied on by many as being accurate. 

The world needs people like Imam Tawhidi. He doesn’t want sharia law in Western nations and speaks out against it and the rapid islamisation of the West. 

I like him because he is in a position to influence the thoughts and minds of young Muslims. If he abandoned his robes, he would have less impact on people. Authorities don’t listen to any of us now, but they do listen to him. 

He is the only Imam in Australia that I would back. 

Tawhidi thinks very logically. He is quick witted and very funny. He is Shia, which is why the Sunni call him a fake. He is very well educated, unlike the Sunni that wake up one day and decide to be an imam. 

After reading this steaming pile of horseshit, one wonders what exactly Angry Aussie is "Angry" about.  Not, evidently, the Islam & the Koran & the Mohammed whom his Favorite Cleric adores and affirms and supports (and routinely lies about by brazenly implying that his "reformism" is not monstrously contradicted by that same Islam, Koran and Mohammed) -- the same bloody Islam, Koran and Mohammed which motivate and inspire all the jihad and terrorism and oppression Angry Aussie no doubt is angry about.

Meanwhile, all "Lydia Hynes" did was give a warmly firm thumbs up to Angry Aussie's steaming pile of horseshit, adding a bit of cowshit garnish of her own:

Lynda Hynes says
Dec 16, 2018 at 11:12 pm

Well said, ‘Angry Aussie’. Imam Tawhidi is genuine and courageous. His somewhat unusual interpretation of Islam is perfectly compatible with Western values and democracy. If they were all like Imam Tawhidi, there would be no need for Jihad Watch! 

And of course, none of the other Jihad Watch regulars saw fit to chime in to set the record straight and articulate what should be the Counter-Jihad norm by now: a rational prejudice against all Muslims.

As I said up top, a healthy antidote to this nonsense my readers will find in my older analysis of Better Cops like this "Imam of Peace" (which I'll relink here for those too lazy to lift their little finger in order to hit the "PgUp" key on their keyboards).

Flo and the guys at the No Nonsense Diner on Highway 72 wish you all a Merry Christmas!

The Holy Family

A painting by Jan Breughel the Elder (1568-1625), depicting Mary and Joseph with their child, along with many cherubim in attendance around the holy, wholly other yet as intimate to us as this; unseen to the gimlet eye of science, yet evidence from faith and art.

"Hey Flo, get 'Big W' another cup of Joe!"

I'm beginning to like the cut of Big W's jib. Who is this feller, you ask? He's a relatively new commenter on various Jihad Watch comments threads who seems to cut through the camelcrap and point out the essential core of the problem (however that problem happens to permutate at the time, given the different contexts of different reported incidents relating to Islam).

The actual spelling of his nickname is 'thebigW'. One can do an Advanced Google Search specifying the Jihad Watch website and type in that name exactly, and that will yield most (if not all) of his comments over however much time it's been since he first arrived there. (It helps when a nickname is so unusual it can be zeroed in on in a search.)

So Christmas came early when I saw a recent comment by ol' Big W, doing something the veteran regulars there have been too afraid to do for years -- namely, boldly reprimand Robert Spencer for an egregious lapse in his Counter-Jihad Cohones.  In a recent posting on Jihad Watch, Spencer was taking a conservative pundit, Ron Dreher, to task for his airheaded optimism about American Muslims.

As the Jihad Watch headline ran:

Rod Dreher: No need for “anxiety” about Islam in US, for “America will turn Islam into Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” 

Robert Spencer's gaffe came purt near right out of the box:

Are there secular Muslims in the United States? Of course. 

Woah Nelly, Bob. Are you that anxious to Double-Virtue-Signal...?

Luckily, our new friend Big W was there to point out, with a refreshing blast of common sense, what should be the obvious:

thebigW says

Dec 21, 2018 at 5:06 pm

“Are there secular Muslims in the United States? Of course”

with all due respect Robert Spencer, that’s bullcrap. There might be Muslims who’ve fooled you into thinking they’re “secular” but that’s sadly a different story.

Yo, Flo! Another cup of coffee for Big W here -- real coffee, not that semi-decaf crap they sell over at Bob's Diner!

Tourism & Terrorism

Back in late summer here, I posted an essay on an interesting aspect of the larger issue of the Jihad. The essay was titled Do-Gooders Without Borders. Unfortunately, it dealt only in passing with this phenomenon.

Part of the problem is that, to do this phenomenon justice, an analysis would have to spend a lot of time researching and marshaling data to back it up. Over the years, I've seen indications and dots-worth-connecting about it, but more often than not, I had other fish to fry and neglected to do my due diligence in bookmarking them.

At any rate, I was recently reminded of this phenomenon by the latest, grisly example of Do-Gooders Without Borders (or, in this case perhaps, Multiculturalist Airheads Without Borders), the two Scandinavian women who were hiking in Morocco and were attacked and murdered by at least three Muslims explicitly in the name of Islam according to the murderers, one of them decapitated (it's shocking that both of the non-Muslim girls weren't decapitated).(This update indicates four Muslims were arrested for the murders, and nine others also arrested for possible complicity.) (Yet another update, indicating up to 20 Muslims were involved; meanwhile authorities are apparently trying valiantly to maintain that this wolf pack was actually some sort of random collection of "lone wolves".)

I noticed one Jihad Watch reader (one "kenek") posted the most relevant data on this:

Calling them naive is a little kinder than I would be.
 
“Both were students of “outdoor activities and cultural guidance” at the University of Southeastern Norway. ”
 
These were obviously islamic supporters and good little dhimmis. As liberals they likely shamed anyone who tried to explain the true nature of islam to them and felt very self-righteous about it afterwards. If safety were an issue they would never have gone alone and they certainly never would have gone to any islamic country!
Was it karma? Some of their pets turned on them. The only uncommon part about this case is that we heard about it at all. The only reason it continues to be in the media is because the terrorist cell might kill other moslems.

As my above-linked previous essay discussed, these young women murdered by Muslims in Morocco, due to their politically correct multiculturalist biases probably sought and trusted Muslim locals, translators and guides who were likely part of the group who waylaid them and destroyed their bodies and souls. More research needs to be done about this phenomenon -- of Muslim locals colluding with various mujahideen and terrorists with reference to any terrorist incident that happens when Western tourists recklessly gallivant anywhere in the Muslim world -- to lay the groundwork of a good argument in this respect; but apparently the Counter-Jihad has other priorities (like selling Robert Spencer's latest book).

"Are you saying that all cups of coffee are bad...?"

One thing I'd like to do more on this new blog is use it, once in a while, to feature a good old essay from my now deceased blog, The Hesperado.

I've been a-spelunkin' the archives of that old battle-scarred battleship and have run into many good ones. For now, I'll note this one, with a teaser of a quote from it.  The "character" to whom I refer in the first sentence, James Baron, was just some reader commenting on Jihad Watch nearly two years ago (haven't seen hide nor hair of him since) who... well, let the quote spell out the rest:

What I found interesting was that this character, James Baron, was trying to oppose the Jihad Watchers and their supposed bigotry by standing his ground on the old "tarring all Muslims with the same brush" argument.  Unfortunately, the Counter-Jihad Softies who seem to make up the vast majority of Jihad Watchers have no way to confront this argument head-on -- because, in effect, they seem to agree with their opponent on that point.  Where they run afoul of coherence is where their increasingly learned opposition to Islam logically leads to an open-ended condemnation of all Muslims.  But, being deathly afraid of "going there", they stand their ground at various places short of that.  Hence their incoherence.

Don't forget to "read the whole thing", the essay titled Mainstreams confusion, dated February 7, 2017.

"Waiter, there's a zebibah in my coffee...!"

The zebibah is the dark nodular blemish smack dab in the middle of the foreheads of particularly devout Muslims, their degree of devoutness measured by how many times they bang their foreheads on the floor during their 5 times of daily prayer.  Being a small, dark, round nodule, it resembles perhaps a dead fly -- and apparently the word zebibah (or zabiba) literally means "raisin". It's not that much of a stretch to notice the resemblance of a dead fly on the table and a black raisin, is it? Which in turn has made me wonder if the Hebrew word for "fly" -- zebub -- is not related to the Arabic word for "raisin". Again, it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to say that early Arabs, perhaps influenced by Hebrew and/or Aramaic, appropriated the word for "fly" in order, playfully or poetically, to refer to raisins.  The Hebrew word is most famously used in the name of the evil God of the Canaanites, Baalzebub -- later translated by Jerome in his Vulgate as dominus muscarum ("Lord of the Flies"); and subsequently becoming in the history of Western Judaeo-Christian/Graeco-Roman mythologoumena one of the many names of Satan.

What does this have to do with the Counter-Jihad? Well, only a Westerner severely compromised by political correctness (i.e., damned purt near everybody in the West) would deny that devoutness in Islam is directly related to the violent jihad against the West (along with its crucial corollary, the stealth jihad). So, a recent Jihad Watch article notes that at least one mainstream news source reported that the recent Muslim mujaheed, who killed 3 people at a Christmas festival in Strasbourg (and wounded many others, and of course, it is excruciatingly reasonable to suppose, dearly desired to kill many more), had a zebibah on his forehead.

As the savvy Jihad Watch reader who goes by the name "thebigW" noted in a comment on that article at Jihad Watch, the supposedly Moderate Muslim leader of Egypt, Al-Sisi, himself sports a dead fly on his forehead too (though considerably milder than the norm, as though perhaps his assistant applies pancake makeup to it):


I've written before (on my former blog, The Hesperado) about Al-Sisi as he reflects on the "problem of the problem of the problem" -- which we may explicate thusly: problem3 of the problem2 of the problem1, where problem1 is the problem of Islam; problem2 is the problem of the Western Mainstream's failure to deal adequately with the problem of Islam; and problem3 is the failure of the Counter-Jihad Mainstream (CJM) to deal adequately with the first two problems.

Speaking of which, problem3 manifests itself in (among other things) twitches of schizophrenia -- such as these two stories on that bastion of the CJM, Jihad Watch, coming within days of each other:

1. A Jihad Watch headline, quoting Al-Sisi:  Egypt’s el-Sisi: “If you go to a country that welcomes you, you must respect its laws, traditions and culture” -- followed by Spencer's editorial remark:

A remarkably clear-sighted and honest statement. Be sure to read it all. If a European leader spoke this way, he would be excoriated as a racist, bigoted “Islamophobe.”

 (And augmenting this needless spasm of admiration for a Muslim leader, we have Spencer not too long ago penning this:

Sisi’s regime isn’t perfect. Muslims are still brutalizing Christians in Egypt, and the government has done little to protect this despised and defenseless minority. At the same time, Sisi is a bulwark against political Islam in the Middle East. With Turkey rapidly re-Islamizing and the Islamic State still in the picture, that is important. So after the Obama administration’s unwavering support of the Muslim Brotherhood, this is most welcome. [bold emphasis added by yours truly] )

 2. Then we have stories like this, for which one could find dozens of similar stories over the years since Al-Sisi (or El-Sissi) wrested power from the supposedly more extremist Morsi:

Egypt: Christian gets three years prison for insulting Islam.

Until the Counter-Jihad grows a healthy rational prejudice against all Muslims, I will see little reason for optimism for the West's long-term future as Islam continues to undergo an exponential global revival in this 21st century.

"I'll have a triple counter-jihadaccino -- and make it decaf."

Recently, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch dished up a steaming pile of memes jam-packed with subtly specious assumptions.  It revolves around Trump's nominee for America's ambassador to the U.N., Heather Nauert, and her high crime of having a paper trail indicating she knows about (and learns from) Jihad Watch.

 Allow me to reproduce it here, with comments interspersed in square brackets.  (Bolded parts were added by moi.)

I had to laugh. “Nauert’s relationship with Spencer dates back to 2009, when she hosted him and fellow anti-Muslim activists Frank Gaffney, Tarek Fatah and Nonie Darwish to discuss an hour-long segment on ‘stealth jihad.'”

[There's Tarek Fatah, one of the cleverer of the Better Cops -- functioning here precisely as a Better Cop, standing (or sitting) shoulder to shoulder with his Counter-Jihad Colleagues, sharing with them the brunt of the Mainstream attacks (and sharing with them being listed in a Jihad Watch article conveying subliminally the impression that he too is a Counter-Jihad Colleague with the best of them)]

... I don’t remember this hour-long show about stealth jihad at all. But the Huffington Post and Hamas-linked CAIR, their memories are elephantine, and they would have you believe that this is practically the only show Heather Nauert ever hosted, and one of the few noteworthy things about her.

Otherwise, this hit piece by Rowaida Abedelaziz is chock-full of the usual Leftist propaganda...

[Here, Spencer commits the gaffe of implying that a Muslim (Rowaida Abedelaziz) is a Leftist, and/or is acting as a Leftist by slinging Leftist propaganda.  Certainly, a Muslim can exploit Leftist memes to advance the Jihad; but the way Spencer frames this, he's opposing the Huffington Post Leftists along with the Muslim reporter. Other statements he has made in the past indicate a fusion, or confusion, of Leftists and Muslims in his view.]

[Then Spencer details some of the Muslim reporter's "Leftist propaganda" among which is that --]

...Fatah and I are “anti-Muslim activists,” which must mean that foes of the Nazis were “anti-German.”

[Here we have two gaffes for the price of one: 1) including Fatah in with himself as (it is telegraphed) valiant Counter-Jihadsts suffering the attack of "Leftist propaganda"; and 2) still retailing that tired old "Nazi" analogy which years ago, in the summer of 2006, was searingly questioned by Jihad Watch readers (back when they had the balls to dare to question their Fearless Leader).  As for #1, even if Spencer might protest (cagily) that it is not he -- but rather the Muslim reporter -- who is including Fatah with him, that doesn't let him off the hook for the failure to provide a quick sentence or two appropriately distancing this Better Cop Muslim from his side. The impression left by the absence of such a clarification, thus, remains]

Nigel Farage quits UKIP because its leader “seems obsessed with Islam, not just Islamic extremism, but Islam” 

So ran a recent Jihad Watch headline, followed by brief editorial remarks written by Robert Spencer.

Nigel Farage, it should be reminded, is a “conservative” politician of the UK and one who inspired great hope among anti-liberals for his Brexit stance -- only underscoring (yet again) how the problem of the problem is not merely a “Leftist” phenomenon (as Spencer incessantly implies).

What I found ironic was Spencer's sternly firm stance here, built upon an apparent case of temporary amnesia of his own deftly waffling non-position on this very same issue. Here's what Spencer wrote:

...how does Farage propose to separate “Islamic extremism” from “Islam”? ... It’s astonishing that Farage could be so short-sighted.

Let's refresh Spencer's memory here. He has, for example, used the term political Islam (as has his colleague, Christine Douglass-Williams, featured frequently on Jihad Watch) as though that means anything pertinent in this regard and is not rather performing the same function as other similar locutions -- like the “Islamic extremism” of Farage he is poking fun at.

Oops!

You call this a cup of coffee we're supposed to wake up and smell...?

A recent Jihad Watch headline telegraphs Robert Spencer taking issue with someone publishing at his friend & colleague David Horowitz's flagship site, Frontpage.com:

Brian Kilmeade: Barbary pirates who fought US in Jefferson era had “bastardized the Qur’an” 

Brian's essay is a rather sophomoric rant with little grounding. Aside from the howler of a Counter-Jihad solecism pointed out by Robert, when Brian gets to the money quote -- what the Muslim ambassador told Thomas Jefferson in answer to Jefferson asking him why Muslims were attacking Western ships, stealing their cargo and killing and/or enslaving their crews -- Brian reproduces a quote wildly divergent from even the inaccurate versions I found when, back in the Spring of Ought Nine, I took the time and trouble (unremunerated, naturally) to track down the actual quote in a credible source. (And of course, nary a peep from Robert about this; and I'd even bet money his new vaunted best-seller on the history of Islam still gets the quote wrong, as have all other popularizers out there, it seems.)

See my results:

I Struck Gold! Second Addendum to Primary Sources 101

Even more details, in another essay written at about the same time:

Primary Sources 101 and the Blogospheric anti-Islam Movement

Sweet sugar or sweet coffee?

In the vaguely disorganized Counter-Jihad Movement, we see civilians among the Readership occasionally standing up to asseverate that the (unfortunately) common locution "radical Islam" is wildly unhelpful if not actually counter-productive, since it strongly implies that ordinary non-"radical" Islam is hunky dory (if not also peachy keen).

Being a student of the English language, I know that sometimes an adjective distinguishes a noun, and sometimes it just highlights its already essential nature. I don't know the technical grammatical term for these two types of adjectives, but we can illustrate it with the following:

When we say "sweet sugar" we are not distinguishing a sweet sugar from a non-sweet sugar, since we know that all sugar is sweet. We are just embellishing, sort of poetically -- adding a bit of frosting (pun intended) -- when we put it that way.

When, however, we say "sweet coffee" we are indeed distinguishing a particular cup (or pot) of coffee from other coffees that are not sweet(ened).

So "radical Islam" is a redundancy, like saying "sweet sugar". Of course most who employ this term (in both Mainstreams) don't mean it as a redundancy at all, but as a qualifier, distinguishing it from a broader Islam that (it is obviously understood) is not "radical".

Perhaps the more apposite analogy of a redundancy for Islam would be "poisonous arsenic".

Capisce?

Mirror-image Mainstreams

The two Mainstreams I have in mind are the broader Western Mainstream, dedicated to defending Islam and the vast majority of Muslims (other than a Tiny Minority of Extremists who are trying to "hijack" Islam); and the Counter-Jihad Mainstream, still behind the curve on the Problem (of Islam) and the Problem of the Problem -- namely, the secondary problem of the aforementioned Western Mainstream in denial about the main problem (of Islam).

I couldn't have found a more exquisite representation of the interlocking, mobius-strip resemblance between these two Mainstreams -- not even had Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) himself (or his pen-&-ink-wielding Cousin Itt Doppelganger) penned it -- than the one I hit upon in Jihad Watch, penned (naturally) by the Dean & Don of the Counter-Jihad Mainstream, Robert Spencer.

Editorializing on a story about Muslim jihadists killing what appears to be other Muslims in Mozambique, Robert says:

The fact that Islamic jihadists kill Muslims has led many Western analysts to conclude that the jihadists are not actually Muslim, since the Qur’an forbids Muslims to kill other Muslims (4:92). But heresy, apostasy, and blasphemy carry death sentences in Islamic law, and so Muslims of differing sects have frequently killed each other... [bold emphasis mine]

Robert is correct -- this is what the broader Western Mainstream does. What he and his followers seem oblivious to, however, is their own mirror image of this specious reasoning:

The fact that Islamic jihadists kill Muslims has led many in the Counter-Jihad to conclude that the Muslim victims of the jihadists are not jihadists also.