Copyright 1980-2008 Daniel Pipes Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:46:47 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Columns by Daniel Pipes on Militant Islam, the Middle East, and U.S. foreign policy. http://www.danielpipes.org MeqMef@aol.com (Daniel Pipes) webmaster@danielpipes.org en-us Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5834 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EST [Bulletin title: "Examples Of How The West's Islamist Infiltrators Proceed"] Aafia Siddiqui, 36, is a Pakistani mother of three, an alumna of MIT, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Brandeis University. She is also accused of working for Al-Qaeda and was charged last week in New York City with attempting to kill American soldiers. Aafia Siddiqui is accused of working for Al-Qaeda. Her arrest serves to remind how invisibly most Islamist infiltration proceeds. In particular, an estimated forty Al- Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5801 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST May I, an American citizen living in the United States, comment publicly on Israeli decision making? Yoram Schweitzer wants me not to judge decisions made by the Israeli government. I recently criticized the Israeli government for its exchange with Hizbullah in "Samir Kuntar and the Last Laugh" (The Jerusalem Post, July 21); to this, the eminent counterterrorism expert at Tel Aviv University, Yoram Schweitzer challenged the appropriateness of my offering views on this subject. In " Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5780 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST Israel has lived the past sixty years more intensively than any other country. Its highs – the resurrection of a two-thousand year old state in 1948, history's most lopsided military victory in 1967, and the astonishing Entebbe hostage rescue in 1976 – have been triumphs of will and spirit that inspire the civilized world. Its lows have been self-imposed humiliations: Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5761 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST As the United Nations mandate that legitimizes the presence of U.S forces in Iraq expires on December 31, 2008, a humanitarian and strategic disaster is coming into view. The fate of about 3,500 anti-regime Iranians will be decided in the course of status-of-forces negotiations between Washington and Baghdad. MEK members display their flag as they pass through a U.S. checkpoint in Iraq in 2003 (AFP). They are members of the Mujahedeen- Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5743 Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST As one of the few pro-U.S. and pro-Israel voices in the field of Middle East studies, I find my views get frequently mangled by others in the field – thus I have had to post a 5,000-word document titled "Department of Corrections (of Others' Factual Mistakes about Me)" on my website. Usually, the precise evolution of such mistakes escapes me. Recently, however, I discovered just how one developed in three steps and confronted the two academics who made the errors. Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5720 Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST [This version includes some materials cut from the published National Review version.] "Here are two brother countries, united like a single fist," said socialist Hugo Chávez during a visit to Tehran last November, celebrating his alliance with Islamist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Che Guevara's son Camilo, who also visited Tehran last year, declared that his father would have "supported the country in its current struggle against the United States." Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5723 Thu, 3 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST "Since 9/11, there have been over 2,300 arrests connected to Islamist terrorism in Europe in contrast to about 60 in the United States." Thus writes Marc Sageman in his influential new book, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (University of Pennsylvania Press). This one statistical comparison inspires Sageman, in a chapter he calls "The Atlantic Divide," to draw sweeping conclusions about the superior circumstances of American Muslims. " Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5629 Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:00:00 EST If you cannot name your enemy, how can you defeat it? Just as a physician must identify a disease before curing a patient, so a strategist must identify the foe before winning a war. Yet Westerners have proven reluctant to identify the opponent in the conflict the U.S. government variously (and euphemistically) calls the "global war on terror," the "long war," the "global struggle against violent extremism," or even the "global struggle for security and progress." Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5585 Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:00:00 EST In a declassified National Intelligence Estimate, Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities, the U.S. intelligence agencies announced last December, "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." This highly controversial conclusion encouraged the Iranian leadership to dismiss the possibility of an American attack, permitting Tehran to stake out an increasingly bellicose position and rendering further negotiations predictably futile. Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5567 Thu, 5 Jun 2008 09:00:00 EST With the Democratic Party primaries over, American voters can focus on issues of political substance. For instance: How do the two leading candidates for U.S. president differ in their approach to Israel and related topics? Parallel interviews with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, who spoke in early May with Democrat Barack Obama and in late May with Republican John McCain, offer some important insights. John McCain and Barack Obama, in close discussion. Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5554 Thu, 22 May 2008 09:00:00 EST Accounts from Turkey suggest that the government is attempting a bold re-interpretation of Islam. Its unusually named ministry of religion, the "Presidency of Religious Affairs and the Religious Charitable Foundation," has undertaken a three-year "Hadith Project" systematically to review 162,000 hadith reports and winnow them down to some 10,000, with the goal of separating original Islam from the accretions of fourteen centuries. Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5552 Tue, 6 May 2008 09:00:00 EST Two religiously-identified new states emerged from the shards of the British empire in the aftermath of World War II. Israel, of course, was one; the other was Pakistan. They make an interesting, if infrequently-compared pair. Pakistan's experience with widespread poverty, near-constant internal turmoil, and external tensions, culminating in its current status as near-rogue state, suggests the perils that Israel avoided, with its stable, liberal political culture, dynamic economy, cutting- Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5544 Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:00:00 EST As Barack Obama's candidacy comes under increasing scrutiny, his account of his religious upbringing deserves careful attention for what it tells us about the candidate's integrity. Obama asserted in December, "I've always been a Christian," and he has adamantly denied ever having been a Muslim. "The only connection I've had to Islam is that my grandfather on my father's side came from that country [Kenya]. But I've never practiced Islam." In February, he claimed: "I have never been a Muslim. … Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5517 Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:00:00 EST There's an impression that Muslims suffer disproportionately from the rule of dictators, tyrants, unelected presidents, kings, emirs, and various other strongmen – and it's accurate. A careful analysis by Frederic L. Pryor of Swarthmore College in the Middle East Quarterly ("Are Muslim Countries Less Democratic?") concludes that "In all but the poorest countries, Islam is associated with fewer political rights." The fact that majority- Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5516 Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:00:00 EST The future of Europe is in play. Will it turn into "Eurabia," a part of the Muslim world? Will it remain the distinct cultural unit it has been over the last millennium? Or might there be some creative synthesis of the two civilizations? The answer has vast importance. Europe may constitute a mere 7 percent of the world's landmass but for five hundred years, 1450-1950, for good and ill, it was the global engine of change.