Between the Lines, She's Jumping for Joy...

I read this guest columnist essay in today's Washington Post with some interest - A More Islamic Islam - to try to discover if author Geneive Abdo was praising a more radical Muslim agenda, or warning us against it:

A small group of self-proclaimed secular Muslims from North America and elsewhere gathered in St. Petersburg recently for what they billed as a new global movement to correct the assumed wrongs of Islam and call for an Islamic Reformation.

Well, any time the media calls a group "small" and "self-proclaimed", you know it is only because they diagree with their agenda. No one ever calls CAIR a "self-proclaimed" advocacy group...Nevertheless, here is what I perceived as what might be Miss Abdo waving a red flag at us:

...the political future of the Arab world is likely to consist of Islamic parties that are far less tolerant of what has historically been the U.S. foreign policy agenda in the region and that domestically are far more committed to implementing sharia law in varying degrees.

In Europe and the United States, where Muslims have maximum exposure to Western culture, they are increasingly embracing Islamic values. In Britain, a growing number of Muslims advocate creating a court system based upon Islamic principles.

What all this means is that Western hopes for full integration by Muslims in the West are unlikely to be realized and that the future of the Islamic world will be much more Islamic than Western.
Instead of championing the loud voices of the secular minority who are capturing media attention with their conferences, manifestos and memoirs, the United States would be wise instead to pay more attention to the far less loquacious majority.

But is she warning us, or cheerleading for the Islamists? Being that the Washington Post is the terrorist homepage; I knew I could assume nothing, and thus did my research. Well, a quick web search shows that while Miss Abdo tries to hide her sympathies towards Muslim domination with scholarly worldplay and think-tank jargon, she certainly has a horse in this race. From a debate between her and the esteemed Michael Ledeen back in 2003, we have the luxury of judging her words in context three years later:

Through an official U.S.-Iran dialogue, Iran might agree to open its nuclear facilities to routine International Atomic Energy Agency inspections if the United States offered incentives in return, such as the release of Iranian assets frozen since the 1979 revolution and an end to trade sanctions....

....As Iraq crumbles and anarchy erupts, Dr. Ledeen and his pals in the White House are plotting their next disaster— Iran.

A disaster, Miss Abdo, only if you are rooting for Islamist victory....and we can note with the benefit of elapsed years that your prescription for compromise, adopted by the US and UN, have resulted in Iran moving even closer to obtaining nuclear weapons. Or did you know that may be the result when you hawked this irrational policy?

And here's praise for Miss Abdo from the Islamic Bookstore, for her book "No God but God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam":

Challenging Western stereotypes, she finds that this growing number of Islamists do not seek the violent overthrow of the government or a return to a medieval age. Instead, they believe their religious values are compatible with the demands of the modern world. They are working within and beyond the secular framework of the nation to gradually create a new society based on Islamic principles. Both fascinating and unsettling, Abdo's findings identify a grassroots model for transforming a secular nation-state to an Islamic social order that will likely inspire other Muslim nations.

I believe this "growing number" is smaller than the amount of "secular Muslims" that Abdo derides in her column. And the fact that Abdo praises Muslim Egypt - a country rich in natural treasure and history yet lies broken, poor, and corrupt under a brutal dictatorship says it all about the type of "victory" that she hopes the Islamists will achieve region (and world) wide...

And here's a short, but telling, bio of Miss Abdo:

Geneive Abdo is the Liaison for the Alliance of Civilizations at the United Nations. A recognized authority on Islamic political movements and the author of well-received books on Islam in Egypt and Iran, she is also a respected journalist. During nearly a decade as a correspondent in the Islamic world, her work was featured in such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, The Economist , and The International Herald Tribune. She has been a commentator on numerous news programs, including the BBC, NPR, CNN and PBS.

"Recognized authority" ? How about a "self-proclaimed" authority, to use her own words. Or is it the de facto endorsement of an alliance of far-left media outlets and anti-American organizations that creates this misnomer regarding her credentials?

Nevertheless, I have discovered the answer to the question I had while reading Abdo's column in the WaPost: She is in favor of Muslim seperatism in the United States, and supports Islamic authoritative domination in the Arab world (insanely using Egypt as a "model of success").

The blame lays with me; I should have know to expect nothing else from the webmasters of the terrorist homepage...

UPDATE: Little Green Footballs posts on Miss Abdo's column - Washington Post Writer Praises Extremist Islam -with a few more links as well....

Roger Simon accuses Genieve Abdo of "a whopper" of a Big Lie...

And Doug Ross has even harsher words for our lovely little sharia girl:

...the undercurrent of Abdo's theme is a seeming desire for the destruction of America and the stripping away of all individual freedoms. Abdo doesn't point to a model Arab government that embraces both freedom of speech and freedom to practice other religions (yes, even Christianity and Judaism).

In failing to do so, Abdo markets her own version of religious extremism; a totalitarianism that rejects all other religions....

....She rejects the concepts of individual freedoms and instead praises the scope and direction of sharia law, which acknowledges none of the freedoms that Americans would recognize.

That The Washington Post provides a forum to Abdo for her anti-American drivel is stunning -- but, truth be told, not out of character.

Not stunning, good sir, if you have been reading this blog...