…and Islam:

During a March 2009 interview with the Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby, Wilders had earlier rejected the notion he “hates Muslims,” while providing a frank characterization of the totalitarian nature of Islam:

I have nothing against the people. I don’t hate Muslims. But Islam is a totalitarian ideology. It rules every aspect of life — economics, family law, whatever. It has religious symbols, it has a God, it has a book — but it’s not a religion. It can be compared with totalitarian ideologies like Communism or fascism. There is no country where Islam is dominant where you have a real democracy, a real separation between church and state. Islam is totally contrary to our values.

By making this latter claim, Wilders shattered a corrosive modern taboo, enforced rigidly and without forgiveness by cultural relativist politicians and government bureaucrats as well as influential “savants” in media, academia, and religion.

But Wilders’ assessment not only comports with scholarly observations made (primarily) before the advent of the postmodern Western scourge of cultural relativism, it is supported by contemporary hard polling data from 2006 -2007, and a more recent follow-up reported February 25, 2009. At present, overwhelming Muslim majorities — i.e., better than two-thirds (see the weighted average calculated here) of a well-conducted survey of the world’s most significant and populous Arab and non-Arab Muslim countries — want these immoderate outcomes: “strict application” of Shari’a, Islamic law, and a global caliphate.

We keep our head in the sand (or in the case of Joy Behar and Whoopie, up our fundament) at our peril.

…by the Muslim Brotherhood:

…this is the group that many in the West, some in high positions, are urging to be engaged as a negotiating partner because it is supposedly moderate.

What does he say?

–Arab and Muslim regimes are betraying their people by failing to confront the Muslim’s real enemies, not only Israel but also the United States. Waging jihad against both of these infidels is a commandment of Allah that cannot be disregarded. Governments have no right to stop their people from fighting the United States. “They are disregarding Allah’s commandment to wage jihad for His sake with [their] money and [their] lives, so that Allah’s word will reign supreme” over all non-Muslims.

–All Muslims are required by their religion to fight: “They crucially need to understand that the improvement and change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life.” Notice that jihad here is not interpreted as so often happens by liars, apologists, and the merely ignorant in the West as spiritual striving. The clear meaning is one of armed struggle.

–The United States is immoral, doomed to collapse, and “experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading towards its demise.”

–Palestinians should back Hamas in overthrowing the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and unite in waging war on Israel.

To answer his question, no, few others will notice, including the media and the new national security advisor. Because (all together now) Islam is a religion of peace.

One of the stupider questions that the press often asks after a Jihadi attack is whether or not it was Al Qaeda, as though we’re supposed to be relieved to find out that it wasn’t.

[Via Michael Totten]

And a warning in Berlin, that the Europeans have been ignoring for far too long. The biggest problem that liberal societies face in this war is how to properly confront a totalitarian political ideology masquerading as a religion.

[Update a few minutes later]

Geert Wilders on trial. This is a travesty, and a display of the true Islamaphobes are — those who betray western liberal values by shutting down any criticism of the most intolerant religion of all.