Well folks, whadya think?

I think we're in trouble.

This is not the first place I have seen exposed the same strategy of the jihadists to take over the West.


http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26909

The Stealth Jihad in Turkey
by Robert Spencer

Anyone opposed to the global jihad should be watching recent developments in Turkey very closely -- not just for what they reveal about the direction in which that country is headed, but so as to understand nothing less than the new direction of the jihad movement.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, along with President Abdullah Gul and their ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), have been moving for quite some time to dismantle Turkish secularism and transform Turkey into a state governed by Islamic law. But as Prime Minister, Erdogan has not engaged in a direct assault on Turkish secularism. Instead, he and the AKP have steadily chipped away at it, reintroducing provisions of Islamic law piece by piece, while professing to uphold the country’s secular character.

In 2004 Erdogan took steps to criminalize adultery, and late in 2005 the AKP banned alcoholic beverages in government cafes and restaurants in Ankara. In May 2008 a new law came into effect that effectively outlawed sale of alcohol by the glass in bars and restaurants.

In the 1990s, as mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan was forthright about this goal, expressing his opposition to secularism in no uncertain terms: “You cannot be both secular and a Muslim! You will either be a Muslim, or secular!...It is not possible for a person who says ‘I am a Muslim’ to go on and say ‘I am secular too.’ And why is that? Because Allah, the creator of the Muslim, has absolute power and rule!”

Saying that Allah has “absolute power and rule” is a fundamentally political statement. And from its inception Islam has been a political and social system, not just a religious faith in the way most Westerners conceive of religion. The establishment of Islamic law as the only legitimate system of government is a goal that Erdogan shares with Osama bin Laden and other jihadists around the world; they only differ regarding the best means to go about this.

While Al-Qaeda and other jihad groups have focused on violent attacks on Western targets, Erdogan has shown himself a master of the stealth jihad: the slow, steady, step-by-step encroachment upon secular societal norms, continuing until Islamic law is fully in place.

This effort is proceeding, too, in the West. As a Muslim Brotherhood operative, Mohamed Akram, put it in 1991 memorandum outlining the organization’s strategy in the United States: “The Muslim Brotherhood must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” Akram explained that this sabotaging of Western civilization would take place not through terror attacks, but by numerous non-violent initiatives carried out by a variety of Islamic organizations. With the public geared to be on guard only against terror attacks, these efforts would slip by unnoticed.

And so they have in Turkey -- at least up until last week. In line with its small-step, indirect approach, for years now the government has been trying to overturn the law banning the Islamic headscarf in Turkish universities. But on Thursday the Turkish Constitutional Court, the nation’s highest court, overturned a new AKP-backed law allowing the headscarf in universities, saying it contravened the Constitutional tenets providing for Turkish secularism. With the possibility looming that the Constitutional Court could even ban the AKP itself, on the grounds that it posed a threat to Turkey’s Constitutional order, Erdogan canceled a trip to Switzerland and returned to Ankara, where he and his top aides met in an emergency strategy meeting on Friday. If the party is outlawed, Erdogan and Gul could be barred from holding political office.

The Turkish courts and military have intervened to save Turkish secularism before. They may now, and soon again. If Erdogan were to be down, he would not be out, and analysts would be well-advised to study his stealth jihad in Turkey: there are groups in Western Europe and the U.S. that are pursuing exactly the same kind of small-scale, step-by-step approach that the AKP has followed with so much success until last week.

With story after story appearing documenting the disarray and decay of Al-Qaeda, the stealth jihad could be the wave of the future around the world. And its guiding light, however his personal political fortunes may shift, will be Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Whoever wrote this is talking out of his neck, and is not acquainted with the most elementary facts about Turkey or contemporary Muslim movements.

quote:

Originally posted by sweetsuds:
Whoever wrote this is talking out of his neck, and is not acquainted with the most elementary facts about Turkey or contemporary Muslim movements.

And you are of course?

How can it be a "stealth" operation when the AKP was freely elected by voters who knew very well what they were voting for? Just as in Palestine and Lebanon and in what would be the case if free elections were allowed in Saudi Arabia or Eygpt or Jordan or Kuwait or the Gulf Emirates or Oman.

That's not stealth, my friend, that's the very kind of democracy our soldiers are dying to create in Iraq and the outcome will probably be exactly the same.

You DO believe in democracy, don't you?

quote:

Originally posted by stillkit:
How can it be a "stealth" operation when the AKP was freely elected by voters who knew very well what they were voting for? Just as in Palestine and Lebanon and in what would be the case if free elections were allowed in Saudi Arabia or Eygpt or Jordan or Kuwait or the Gulf Emirates or Oman.

That's not stealth, my friend, that's the very kind of democracy our soldiers are dying to create in Iraq and the outcome will probably be exactly the same.

You DO believe in democracy, don't you?

yea kind of telling when the muslim nations in the middle east are voting in terrorist groups and their ideas to led their countries.....

mayby that minority is really a majority???? and we are too blind to see it?????

quote:

You DO believe in democracy, don't you?

well you know they are free to vote in whoever they want but if their choice is the wrong one then they will suffer the counquencis... if they vote for a gov that is for peace with the rest of the world then we will be their friends but if they want war and vote for terrorist org then they will have war..... you know its like that fork in the road one road leds to riches and the other to death.....

quote:

Originally posted by outlaws93:


yea kind of telling when the muslim nations in the middle east are voting in terrorist groups and their ideas to led their countries.....

mayby that minority is really a majority???? and we are too blind to see it?????

Maybe you're finally beginning to see the light.

Will you now join those of us who see what spreading Democracy around that region is creating and join us in opposing the President's policies?

quote:

Originally posted by stillkit:

quote:

Originally posted by outlaws93:


yea kind of telling when the muslim nations in the middle east are voting in terrorist groups and their ideas to led their countries.....

mayby that minority is really a majority???? and we are too blind to see it?????

Maybe you're finally beginning to see the light.

Will you now join those of us who see what spreading Democracy around that region is creating and join us in opposing the President's policies?

i think its needed... time to separate out the good guys from the bad guys.....get it out get it stomped and get on with life but procrastinating it and continue to allow the bad guys to deceive and hide is not going to help anyone or good for anything... lets get it on and done with....

Who said, "when you get to that fork in the road, take it"?

quote:

Originally posted by stickshauler3:
Who said, "when you get to that fork in the road, take it"?

Yogi Berra ???

Give that man a ceee gar!

quote:

“The Muslim Brotherhood must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” Akram explained that this sabotaging of Western civilization would take place not through terror attacks, but by numerous non-violent initiatives carried out by a variety of Islamic organizations. With the public geared to be on guard only against terror attacks, these efforts would slip by unnoticed.

Oh yeah...this is true. Our politicians are allowing then to slip crap by "unnoticed", or just turning a blind eye. I wonder if the Islamic johadists take into account citizens. Some of us aren't quite so stupid as our politicians turn out to be. Stay locked and loaded.

quote:

Stay locked and loaded.

amen

quote:

Originally posted by stillkit:
How can it be a "stealth" operation when the AKP was freely elected by voters who knew very well what they were voting for? Just as in Palestine and Lebanon and in what would be the case if free elections were allowed in Saudi Arabia or Eygpt or Jordan or Kuwait or the Gulf Emirates or Oman.

That's not stealth, my friend, that's the very kind of democracy our soldiers are dying to create in Iraq and the outcome will probably be exactly the same.

You DO believe in democracy, don't you?

Which is why I have a sneaking suspicion that this is a recipe for another Iran- advocate democracy, note that said democracy does not result in the desired Western puppet government, remove elected government, insert cooperative despot, watch as it all goes to pot. That said, if Spencer can't tell the difference between what's basically a Turkish version of what's called the Amr Khaled effect and a rise of AQ in Turkey, he needs to write less and listen more.

quote:

Originally posted by stillkit:
How can it be a "stealth" operation when the AKP was freely elected by voters who knew very well what they were voting for? Just as in Palestine and Lebanon and in what would be the case if free elections were allowed in Saudi Arabia or Eygpt or Jordan or Kuwait or the Gulf Emirates or Oman.

That's not stealth, my friend, that's the very kind of democracy our soldiers are dying to create in Iraq and the outcome will probably be exactly the same.

You DO believe in democracy, don't you?

It amazes me that the same people who want to teach creationism and have prayer in schools in the USA object when political parties in other countries want not similar things, but much less. So far, all the AK Party has wanted are the same rights to practice religion anyone in the US has. For example, it's not illegal for a woman to wear a headscarf here if she's Muslim, Orthodox Jew, or Amish. Why is that a problem? Also, Turkey is still in NATO and sending troops to help train the Iraqi Army.

I don't know if the term "stealth" is very accurate here........maybe, maybe not. But one thing is for sure about Turkey, she is definitely leaning EAST more so than at any other time POST-kemal attaturk. The AKP party would love nothing better than to turn Turkey into another Iran or similar. The only thing that prevents this is the Kemalist constitution, which of course is also part of the problem which keeps turkey from becoming a true democracy. Turkey is clearly at a major cross-roads in her history at this point in time.

I don't think leaning East is a problem in and of itself. I do think the repression that Turkey uses to keep it from leaning East, against the values and customs of its people, is a problem. If we help Turkey find itself, the world will be much better off. But if we attempt to mold Turkey in our image, another Iran is even more likely.

quote:

I do think the repression that Turkey uses to keep it from leaning East, against the values and customs of its people, is a problem.<

Of course it's a problem. But this is what the Kemalist constitution demands.


> If we help Turkey find itself, the world will be much better off. But if we attempt to mold Turkey in our image, another Iran is even more likely.

<

Turkey doesn't need to find herself. She knows very well what she is. She is basically a nation with a over 98% moslem population and the majority of the people DO NOT anymore care for the Kemalist constitution. If they had, Erdogan (and DEMIREL, before him) would have NEVER made it to leading their country. Mind you, Demirel was removed in a bloodless coup 10 years ago and his party was OUTLAWED. This isn't democracy. It isn't democratic practice for a nation to HAVE TO live under the constant threat of JUNTA just because the military may not like policies. Talk of another junta has been going on in Turkey for the past year or 2 once more btw and the turkish people view the U.S. as a large reason for it since Junta-controlled nations are much easier for the U.S. to deal with ...........and control.

I'd say that Turkey's identity will always be in flux, being both and neither European and/nor Asian. It doesn't help that so many conflate Islam with an Arab ethnicity, as Turkey has a long Islamic history that has nothing to do with being Arab. It also doesn't help that so many have a hard time conflating a European identity with secularism, and Islam with misogyny, as Turkey has more in common with its Eastern European neighbors than the Gulf, and a history of women's participation in society that shocked contemporary Arabs and would have shocked contemporary Western Europe, if Ibn Battuta's accounts hold any water. Turkey owes as much to Rome as France does, as much to Mecca as Morocco does, and is caught between forces that have positioned themselves in opposition to each other.

quote:

Turkey owes as much to Rome as France does, as much to Mecca as Morocco does, and is caught between forces that have positioned themselves in opposition to each other.