Mentioned this column on the show this week. Written by a brave and reasonable young woman, Asra Nomani. Her column stares squarely into the eyes of political correctness and finds that mindset sadly wanting. Nomani is a Muslim female who gets the issue. She understands that our airport security and national struggle against terror is largely a Muslim problem. Problems can be analyzed if we will just examine and use the data rather than denying it. She recognizes that you solve the problem more easily by dealing with the persons most likely to create terror, younger Muslim males, usually from several key countries. Profile and analyze the most likely candidates, and feel free to leave 87 year old grandmothers in wheelchairs alone. Read her column. It is excellent and thoughtful.

Since Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf wants the new Cordoba Center (Ground zero mosque) to be a place of dialogue, I thought I would share something I came across a week or two ago. In September of 852, Spain lay under the occupation of the Muslim Moors (who had earlier peacefully raided, sacked and pillaged Spain to subjugate it to Islam). A monk named Rogellus arrived in Cordoba (the town for which Imam Rauf seeks to name his edifice). With Rogellus was Servus Dei, a Catholic pilgrim from Syria. Syria had been a Catholic center before it too was peacefully pillaged by Muslim raiders who sought to eradicate Christians (peacefully of course). Cordoba was being governed by Abderraman II, who had authorized Muslims to slay without trial or inquiry any Christian who spoke against Islamic founder Mohammed. Not too much free speech or freedom of worship, huh? So Rogellus and Servus Dei took the bold (and fatal) step of entering a mosque in Cordoba where they shared their Christian beliefs with Muslims. The audience became so enraged that Rogellus and Servus Dei were quickly condemned to a brutal form of execution, suffering the amputation of their hands and feet prior to their being beheaded. And thus, Imam Rauf chooses Cordoba as the inspiration for his $100MM glorification of Islam in the shadow of Ground Zero. Cordoba evidently represents peace, dialogue, and cooperation to Imam Rauf. He might want to ask Rogellus and Servus Dei how that worked out for them.

Superman had his Bizarro World. You and I now have Islamerica. Where up is down, left is right, hot is cold, and the First Amendment is getting a thorough scrubbing and security check. After all, freedom of speech is just so old. It was written so many years ago. We really do need to rethink that. After all, people's feelings are at stake. In Islamerica, you have freedom of speech so long as what you say does not offend Muslims. Take Derek Fenton, the New Jersey transit worker, who burned a few pages of the Koran on Saturday, September 11. He chose to do so in front of the proposed Ground Zero mosque site in New York. Police quickly escorted him away, presumably for fear his actions would send already rambunctious protesters into a rabid frothing frenzy. On Monday, Fenton went to his New Jersey state job and received his pink slip. He was fired. For weekend behavior in another state. Derek Fenton became a casualty of the new Islamerican rethinking of the First Amendment. Fenton lost his job for distasteful behavior on his weekend. According to the New Jersey officials, he violated their employee code of ethics. First, who knew the state of New Jersey had a code of ethics? Second, does that code of ethics provide a list of things that state workers cannot do on their own free time during a weekend? Could Mr. Fenton wear open-toed shoes that reveal his foot fungus? Could he sacrifice a goat in his front yard as a religious act? Exactly, what can a New Jersey state employee do to express himself and how can one worship without losing his job? I imagine he can burn an American flag (an act protected by the Supreme Court) and burn a Bible (an act protected by Christians who have grown accustomed to tolerating those who disagree). Just not a Koran. Shortly after Mr. Fenton found his pink slip, Seattle Weekly announced that Molly Norris no longer existed. Molly is the political cartoonist who was outraged at the censoring of South Park by Comedy Central (an act which also gave us Faisal Shahzad and his failed attempt at blowing up Times Square). As an expression of her disgust, Molly drew a cartoon of several items all claiming to be Mohammed and facetiously suggested an “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.” Others took her idea literally and created a Facebook page to do just that. Result? Anwar al-Awlaki has posted a statement to his followers that arson and assassination are the legitimate forms of retaliation against Ms. Norris. Thus, Seattle Weekly announced that Molly has entered something akin to the witness protection program. At the FBI's urging, her identity has been wiped clean. She has relocated to a new town, with a new name and a new job. There is no more Molly Norris. The kicker? Molly herself is footing the bill for all this. Do not offend Muslims or you will pay a high price with your wallet, your job, and even your life. Intimidation works pretty well. “Like us or we will kill you” is often an effective strategy. Just ask the Mafia. Meanwhile, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Laurie Cardoza-Moore has been leading protests against the proposed construction of a 50,000 square foot mosque. She has received multiple death threats. She has turned those threats left on her cell phone over to to law enforcement. As far as we can determine, FBI protection appears nowhere to be found. However, Cami Ayash, the organizing leader of the Murfreesboro mosque, has asked for and received FBI protection at taxpayer expense. Although a piece of construction equipment at the construction site was torched, Ms. Ayash and her colleagues appear to have received a grand total of zero death threats. They did report hearing some gunshots in the distance, a sound I hear nearly every weekend where I live in the South. Her fears were enough for federal agents to rally to her side at public expense. Apparently, what matters is not real threats so much as perceiving that they may exist. Ms. Ayash's protection and that of her fellow worshipers is a result of Attorney General Eric Holder's aggressive initiative to marshal federal resources to protect Muslims. Holder has stated that position on multiple occasions. After President Obama's Cairo speech, Holder said, “The President's pledge for a new beginning between the United States and the Muslim community takes root here in the Justice Department where we are committed to using criminal and civil rights laws to protect Muslim Americans. A top priority of this Justice Department is a return to robust civil rights enforcement...” Mr. Holder's “robust civil rights enforcement” appears to apply to abortion clinic operators (of whom one has been killed in the last decade) but not to pro-life demonstrators (of whom one has been killed in the last decade). “Robust civil rights enforcement” also applies to Muslims who receive any pushback against their plans and to Muslims who are offended by the free expression of others. “Robust civil rights enforcement” does not appear to apply to anyone who says or does anything that ruffles the feathers of Muslims. You can lose your job, and Mr. Holder's people will not defend your right to free expression. You can receive global death threats, and Mr. Holder's team will assist you as long as you are willing to pay for it. You can receive death threats from mosque proponents, and Mr. Holder's team might, must might, take your call when you complain. However, should you be Muslim, receive no death threats, but still fear something (real or imagined), Mr. Holder's justice will be on your doorstep at your beck and call. At no cost to you. One can only draw the obvious conclusion. We are scared of Muslims. America is intimidated by Islam. We tremble and quake at the men who live in caves and scheme with their medieval minds. We worry that our actions may cause them some perceived slight that results in their choosing to riot and to kill each other. So we lay down our freedoms and relinquish our rights in the vain Sally Field-esque hope that somehow they will “like” us. We lay down those rights without even a battle. When did America become cowardly? For two centuries or more, America has stood for human rights. Now those human rights and freedoms apply only to a select few whose sensitivities will determine the rights that the rest of us enjoy. We have been the moral beacon of the world. Now we are scared, even in our own country, so much so that we are even editing and trimming the beloved First Amendment. Say whatever you like, just as long as it does not offend Muslims. Welcome to Islamerica.

Is any event so small that President Obama does not feel compelled to weigh in on it? Apparently not. Witness his recent impression of Mrs. O'Leary's famous cow when he turned Pastor Terry Jones into an international crisis President Obama's intervention turned over a tiny lantern and set the entire world ablaze with hysteria over the pastor's plans to have his 50 church members burn a whopping 200 Korans. In Chicago, one cow's misstep set the whole city on fire. This time, thanks to the president, from a small ember in Florida came a globe-engulfing wildfire. Clearly, the president prefers micromanagement. First we had the beer summit, when the president chose to step into an unfortunate incident in Cambridge, Massachusetts, between a black professor and a white police officer. Then we had the president expressing his views on a local zoning matter in New York City where an imam sought to construct an unpopular mosque. Now, Mr. Obama cannot restrain himself in the face of a small-time pastor in Gainesville, Florida. We only thought Jimmy Carter was a micro-manager. The free world's leader engaging at this level of detail is truly something to behold. By stepping into such a tiny affair, President Obama (or President O'Leary) kicked over a lantern and turned what should have been a non-event into a geopolitical crisis. Reminds me of the old ditty Late one night, when we were all in bed, Mrs. O'Leary lit a lantern in the shed. Her cow kicked it over, Then winked her eye and said, "There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight!" President Obama's logic (or lack thereof) was clear. To burn 200 Korans might incite violence from Muslims here and abroad. We heard the same “logic” (or extortion) last week from Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf when he suggested on CNN that to move the Ground Zero mosque would likely incite violence from Muslims here and abroad. In other words, saying no to Muslim demands at any level will incite violence. Perhaps it would be easier to draft a list of things we Americans can do that will NOT incite violence from Muslims. That appears to be a very short list. And we know it does not include cartoons. So if I understand the leader of the free world, if someone burns paper and binding in America in a small town in America, Muslims around the world will rage, riot, revolt, kill people, and harm American soldiers. But the burner of paper and binding is to blame, not those who commit murder and violence in the name of their religion of peace. Therefore, according to this micromanaging president, we Americans should walk on collective national eggshells to be sure that we do not incite violence from those who hate us and plot our destruction anyway. What am I missing here? We are the United States of America. The world's moral beacon. The globe's economic and innovation engine. The planet's military leader. And we should cower in fear of what someone MIGHT do if they do not like what we do? And one man in America with 50 followers can burn a few books and create global mayhem? Wow. Who knew? The problem here is not Pastor Terry Jones or any other two-bit leader in Kansas, Wyoming, or Tennessee who desires to make a small statement in a small town with a small group of followers. The problem is overreaction. Overreaction by Muslim communities who have hair-trigger instincts when it comes to perceived affronts. And overreaction by a micromanaging president who never met a circumstance that he did not feel compelled to control and correct. Will he soon be personally patrolling every street and neighborhood to ensure that every action in America measures up to his satisfaction? Pastor Terry Jones almost made me proud to be an American. His plans to burn Korans were wrong-headed and mean-spirited. Rather than helping the situation or loving his neighbor and enemy, he desired to choose a tasteless tactic. At the same time, however, his position provided the perfect case study for what freedom looks like. Freedom of religion. Freedom of speech. And freedom of expression. Here was a man standing nearly alone in the face of blistering pressure from the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, General Petraeus, and even the Pope. And here was a man with the right to do so. The right to do the offensive. A true case study for the world to see what freedom really looks like. Freedom to do the stupid and not cower in the fear of being beheaded. Freedom not to be intimidated by power or by public opinion. Freedom of conviction, no matter how misguided. Instead of acknowledging that freedom, the president chose to squash it. By bringing his considerable official power to bear, he thereby sent a message to the world that we value their opinion and threats more than we value our own citizens' freedom. That we will pay Mafia protection money to those who seek to bully us. We will spend our freedoms to satisfy your bully threats. Afghans chant “Death to Christians” and “Death to America” while burning our flag all at their outrage over one man and 200 books. Meanwhile, we tremble in our boots. “What do you want us to do to make you stop? Sacrifice our freedoms. Sure, as long as it makes you happy.” How did America come to acquire greatness only to lay it down in fear and cowardice? Maybe, just maybe, the issue is that Islam is intolerant at its core and there is nothing we can do to appease that other than acquiesce and convert en masse. I just hope my speaking this truth does not incite violence. For if it does, according to our micromanaging president, the flaming results will be my fault.

Given the recent studies that show the average American knows next to nothing about Islam, I asked 10 basic questions on the show this week. Here they are: test your Islam IQ Good luck! Understanding Islam obviously is more important today than ever before. Answers follow below 1)What is the Islamic name for God? 2) What is the name of the Islamic holy book? 3) How many times does the Islamic holy book describe God as "love" or "loving"? 4)What are the 5 pillars of Islam - the 5 basic expectations of a Muslim? 5) Who founded Islam? 6) How many wives did he have by the end of his life? 7) What age was his youngest wife? 8) How many Jews of the Quraiza did the founder of Islam personally slaughter or oversee the death of in 627 AD? 9) What is the prescription in Islam for Muslims who leave the faith and convert to another faith? 10) T/F: When you add together the total exports of all Muslim lands (not counting oil),that figure is less than the total exports of Finland, a nation with 5MM people. Answers: 1) Allah 2) Koran 3) Zero - in fact, of the 99 Muslim names for God, "Love" is not one of those. 4) Confession of Allah as the one God, prayer 5 times a day, giving of alms to the poor, fasting (particularly during Ramadan), and a pilgrimage to Mecca 5) Mohammed 6) 14 7) 9 8)Between 600 and 800 men were beheaded one by one and buried en masse at Mohammed's direction. In fact, the Islamic calendar begins not from the date of Mohammed's birth or his revelation from God but from the date of his flight to Medina and his establishment of an army for the first time. 9) Death 10) True. The Islamic economic and innovation contribution to the world economy, excluding oil, is nearly non-existent

I have shared before (and on the Resources section of this site) a recommendation of Robert Reilly's excellent book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist. Reilly provides a thorough analysis of Islam's wrong turn in the 8th century where it essentially abandoned reason as a means through which to know God. Once God became unknowable other than through the Koran, violence became permissible, even encouraged, as an action on behalf of faith. Reilly rightly notes that Islam has a desperate need for intellectual reform to reclaim reason and rational thought as an expression of the divine gift to us humans. In a few small corners of the world, that conversation is occurring within Islam itself. That is good although those thinkers have a long, treacherous, even life-threatening road ahead of them. However, the Wall Street Journal published a helpful column this week from various thinkers, most from within Islam itself, as they consider this. The symposium focused on whether such a thing as "moderate Islam" exists and what it looks like if it does exist at all. A small sign but a good one that Islam can take a long look at itself in the mirror and potentially generate a serious self-inventory leading to real change in the mind of Islam.

Not surprisingly, President Obama's comments over the weekend about the Ground Zero mosque set off quite a firestorm of reaction. Unfortunately, the president framed the issue as one only of religious freedom when really it is a matter of charity and grace. No one disputes that Muslims have the freedom to build a mosque in New York City. Of course they are free to do so. However, if the leaders behind the mosque truly desire to demonstrate goodwill, they will voluntarily offer to move to a less controversial location, farther away from the scar/scab that is Ground Zero. Such a move would be charitable and loving. This thoughtful act is much to be preferred over a stubborn forcing of their will and their rights on those who will rightly be distressed that a mosque is not only located in the shadow of Ground Zero but in a building where part of the plane flown by the Islamic terrorist, Mohammed Atta, actually crashed through the roof. It is the job of planning commissions, zoning boards, and local planners to assess the appropriateness of any construction and its location. Just ask any Christian pastor who has tried to get zoning approval for a new church or ministry facility. I have never met a single pastor, myself included, who got a project approved by the government exactly as it was originally submitted. That is what governments do - decide how much and in what location certain building projects will fit. Governments and planners do that in every situation, it appears, except this one. To study the origin of the conflict that Islam has with the West, and the values of freedom and equality, I recommend a book I just came across. Not the easiest of reads but gets to the core of the issue on how Islam rejects serious reason and reflection. And that the conflict is not economic or political but rather theological and philosophical. Robert Reilly's The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis

Imam Khalid Latif, a chaplain for New York University and the New York Police Department, recently appeared on CNN. He suggested that the New York public schools should close for at least two important Muslim holidays each year. I could not agree more. Latif suggests that American Muslims are trying to develop their own contemporary identity as the religion of peace and tolerance. In his view, closing schools for major Muslim holidays would help that process since an Americanized modern and moderate Islam would benefit all Americans. However, I would alter Latif's suggestion slightly. We should treat the various Muslim holidays as we have the birthdays of American presidents with the singular Presidents' Day. My recommendation: we roll all the Muslim holidays into one National Muslim Day and celebrate it on September 11 each year. The New York schools can then follow suit along with the rest of the country. Rather than working to educate us slow-learning Americans about the merits of holidays like Eid al-Fitr and the birthday of Mohammad, it seems most fitting that we celebrate the contributions and significance of Islam in America's history with one special day each September 11. Mohammad likely does not enjoy birthday cards anyway because those cards too often are filled with cartoons and sketches. For the inaugural National Muslim Day, President Obama and the mayor of New York can offer inspiring words from the newly proposed $100MM Cordoba Center located a few hundred feet from Ground Zero in the former Burlington Coat Factory whose roof was battered and beaten with burning debris from the collapsing Twin Towers. The Cordoba Institute will place a 13-story mosque, gym, bookstore, and meeting place in the shadow of the unfortunate man-caused disaster in Manhattan. This location seems most fitting for the new holiday's festivities, given the Islamic invasion and takeover of the original Cordoba in the eighth century. One of the Islamic conquerors' first acts was to “convert” the Christian Church of Saint Vincent there into the Great Mosque of Cordoba as a symbol of Muslim conquest and rule. In other words, we destroy your iconic symbols and replace them with ours, kind of like what is happening at Ground Zero right now. Perfect place for the headlining events of National Muslim Day. During his keynote address that day, President Obama can expand on his recently expressed thoughts and concerns that al-Qaeda is a racist organization who does not value African life as much as it does other human life. Those comments were made in his interview with South African broadcasters in the wake of the tragic Islamic al-Shabaab terror attack on World Cup viewers and soccer fans in Uganda. To the untrained eye, it would seem that al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab and other Islamic terror organizations have no appreciation for any human life at all, given their predilection for seeking to blow up planes over Detroit, kill soldiers at Fort Hood, explode bombs in Times Square, and plot nationwide mayhem with young Muslim American citizens like Najibullah Zazi. President Obama's comments can enlighten us all to just how these terrorist groups view African lives differently than those lives of the other people they blow up and decapitate. Yes, their anti-African bias really should concern us. As the nation rejoices and celebrates on September 11, NASA can showcase special events across the country to feature its new efforts at collaborating with and inspiring the Islamic world. NASA executive, Charles Bolden, will serve as ringmaster for the tent displays featuring the scientific discoveries or international contributions of note that have come from the Muslim world in the past century. Unfortunately, there are no such discoveries or contributions as evidenced by the relative dearth of Muslim Nobel winners or patent filings. A better use of those tents might be to host some medieval festivities like stonings of Muslim adulteresses (if Iran will provide them for the occasion) and honor killings of Muslim daughters whose words or actions have brought shame to their families (Rifqa Bary will not be available). On second thought, maybe NASA just should not participate on September 11. Perhaps they can occupy themselves with other tasks that day like air, space, aeronautics, that kind of thing. One day a year on those tasks should not be too distracting. At the Pentagon, Janet Napolitano will offer inspiring words about man-caused disasters and how we are avoiding those now. Eric Holder will expound on how there is no such thing as “radical Islam,” nor is there any connection between Islam and terror at all. And John Brennan can recite in Arabic the wonderful dimensions of jihad since the rest of us evidently do not comprehend the nuances of that glorious idea as well as he does. During these lectures and encomia, free copies of Orwell's 1984 will be distributed in order to advance the public understanding of doublespeak. Finally, the one unifying event of the day that will happen in households all across the country on September 11. Every family and person will be required to view Alice in Wonderland. After all, Alice seems like the perfect inspiration for National Muslim Day, doesn't she? “If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” What a wonderful day it will be. I could not agree with Imam Latif more. I only wish he could expand his vision to include all of America rather than just the public school students of New York.

Been waiting a long time to read or hear a Muslim American tell the truth. And this gentleman does it very well. With a few folks like this, the internal conversation that needs to occur within Islam itself can eventually begin. If he is not killed. Islam cannot be changed from the outside. With men like this, perhaps seeds of change can be sown from within.

Despite an ever-spewing undersea oil well, another increase in weekly jobless claims, and a nation ablaze with immigration concerns, President Obama has finally received good news. His approval ratings are declining dramatically in the Muslim world. He should trumpet that plummet from sea to shining sea. The last thing America needs is a president that the Muslim world “approves.” Likability and niceness are overrated; a healthy fear and respect are much to be preferred. Notwithstanding the rhetoric about President Obama's re-booting our image in the Muslim world, and all the fanfare that accompanied his much bally-hooed Cairo speech, Obama's biggest decline in popularity over the last year has come in Muslim countries. In the recent Pew Global Attitudes Project, a majority of the population in five out of the six Muslim nations surveyed lack confidence in the president. The exception is Indonesia, where Obama lived as a child. Even there Obama’s popularity has slipped in the past year. This is great news. Perhaps President Obama, albeit unwittingly, has established respect rather than approval as his dominant image in the Muslim world. This would be a remarkable, unintentional achievement for a man whose own team refuses to use the terms “radical Islam,” “jihad,” and “terror.” How the Muslim world come come to approve less of Obama, who prefers playing a game of semantics to having a real national security policy, is beyond me, but it is news worth celebrating nonetheless. The reasons for Obama's decline in popularity in the Muslim world could find their origins in any number of perceptions. First, given Obama's orders for the Afghanistan surge, he likely won few friends in the Muslim world for an ongoing American military presence in the land of the Taliban. Second, President Obama has failed to close Guantanamo Bay as he so vociferously promised time and again. Such a public failing could well lead many in the Muslim world to perceive Obama as weak, ineffective, even untrustworthy. Third, in dealing with Israel and with Iran, nothing substantive has changed. Obama again looks ineffective, an attribute not respected in the Muslim world. However, two recent news stories have given Americans reason to hope that the Muslim world may well have reason not to like President Obama. As a regular sentinel regarding the threat Islamic values provide to the core Western values of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, I am grateful. First came the story of Yahya Wehelie. Wehelie was born and raised in northern Virginia, failed to find a meaningful life path, and then “studied” in Yemen for the past eighteen months. He claims to be “non-religious” and to “hate Al-Qaeda.” Following a drug conviction in America, he claims to have been sent by his mother to Yemen to study Arabic with other dope-smoking, non-religious American boys. While in Yemen, Wehelie married a Somali woman and consorted with Sharif Mobley, a New Jersey man accused of joining Al-Qaeda. When Wehelie sought to return to America, he discovered that he had been placed on the American “No-Fly list” and was ineligible to board a plane. He is welcome to come home, just not on an airplane. Moreover, federal authorities changed his passport to allow only travel to America and to no other lands. Thus, Wehelie finds himself stranded mid-journey in Egypt, unable to fly and unable to go elsewhere. Whether President Obama had any role in this is immaterial. But, think about it for a moment. Just months after Umar the Underwear Bomber's failed Christmas Day terror attack, maybe, just maybe, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) finally has begun paying attention. In sum, Wehelie consorted with a terrorist (who of course is likely non-religious as well), he comes from the key demographic profile of Muslim males age 20 to 40, and he has just spent a year and a half in one of the key terrorist-training countries on the planet. Score one for President Obama whether he knew it or not. May many more victories follow. Of course, the young man has responded with cries of oppression and violation of civil rights. The ACLU and CAIR have joined the fray in calling for action to free the man from exile. Fortunately, neither Obama nor anyone in his administration has done anything to change the order. That surely causes some decline in popularity in portions of the Muslim world. Good. Second comes the case of Tarek Hamdi, who seeks naturalization as an American citizen after having lived here for several decades. He has raised his children and family here. He has served as an attorney. And he has also donated money to Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), a group designated as a financier of terrorism by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2002. Hamdi's application has been denied. Again, the ACLU has piled on to demand citizenship for Hamdi. Too bad. Citizenship is a gift not a right. A privilege not a demand. The time has long since come for America to take control of its naturalization process, given the recent terror arrests of naturalized citizens, like Faisal Shahzad and Mohammed Wali Zazi, who hail from Muslim lands. Whether Obama is aware or not, he can continue his descent in Muslim approval ratings with a few more of these stories. And America will be better off. The president might even inch up a point or two in his American approval ratings as word becomes known that federal bureaucrats are beginning to take seriously whether it is appropriate to add to the Muslim presence in America. So, for today, I salute President Obama for a job well done, whether he knows it or not. When the Muslim world ceases to love our president, that news is worth celebrating.