THE STORY OF ADAM

HERE IS THE story of how I got snookered into supporting a group of nincompoops, and what happened with these same nimcompoops at George Washington University a week later…

On the morning of October 8, a group hung more than 100 posters containing the text “Hate Muslims? So do we!!!” The poster also featured a picture of an Arab man, labeling Muslims with “lasers in eyes,” “venom from mouth” and a “suicide vest.”

Two days passed. Finally, seven students admitted the actions to the GWU newspaper, The Hatchet, with Adam Kokesh, a grad student admitting his leadership of the group. Two others signed confessions with the university's police department but chose to protect their identity by not coming forward publicly. Reportedly, the students involved met each other through the Campus Anti-War Network, a student organization.

In their own defense, the group claimed that the poster was meant to mock Islamo-Facism Awareness Week, an event organized by Young America’s Foundation, a conservative organization. Kokesh, a prominent anti-war Iraq veteran, and one of the two members of the IVAW that I had met at a fundraiser eight days prior to the mass posting, admitted that the satirical posters were intended to be overtly racist, therefore rendering them "obviously" satirical.

The political vision of Adam Kokesh insists that those who oppose Islamofascism, and want to educate people to its dangers, are racist, but the problems with that stance are immediate, and would include Muslims who speak out, like Muslims Against Sharia. And the rub is intensified when we include notable ex-Muslims and those "treasured" moderate Muslims who brave retaliation within their own ranks to oppose the radical Islamic fundamentalism.

These twisted arguments against Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week inevitably infected liberal Fox News pundit Alan Colmes (who'd invited Kokesh onto his show, but had to reel him in when Kokesh accused the show itself of racism because it didn't have room for Kokesh's Muslim friend to sit on the panel) with the same loss of judgement a few days later when Colmes was completely flummoxed by terrorist expert Steve Emerson by repeatedly insisting that, “The word Islamofascist smears all Muslims!”

Of course, the Colmes logic (and Bush with his "Religion of Peace" mantra) is strained beyond credibility because it falsely describes the dangerous and ruthless war ideology we’re all up against, and have been for several decades, while others before us have been fighting off these jihad-inspired marauders across the globe for centuries.

What did Mr. Kokesh and his band of merry “satirists” get for their inflammatory smears against a reputable organization, (Young America’s Foundation)? Disciplinary probation and a mere $25 fine each. But for those living here in DC when the firestorm broke out, university officials and DC police were in a fearsome lather in broadcasting their hunt for these "hate speech" criminals. Turns out, it was just satire. Oh, now I see.

Sergio Gor, YAF’s president, indicated that he was unhappy with the outcome of the judicial proceedings, pointing out that the students unfairly attacked his group and should be suspended or expelled. “I think it’s absolutely unacceptable that, once again, we see the double standards that are being applied—because the punishment doesn’t fit the crime,” Gor said.

With all that dirty laundry out of the way, allow me to share a personal observation. As stated above, I met Adam Kokesh in person a mere eight days before this scandal hit the GW campus. I donated thirteen small painting works to the silent auction fundraiser in which he appeared, raising several hundred dollars to benefit the IVAW cause. My position on the war is predicated on fighting the real war, not a war intent on nation-building and spreading democracy to an improbable candidate. Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch admirably articulates this position here, and I tend to agree with his language.

So while I found myself standing on a crowded wooden deck in southern Maryland fumbling with plastic plate and beer cup among a group of hardcore anti-war activists, pseudo-pacifists, and friends of Nader, most of whom I might surely disagree on most political talking points, I felt that I could concede common ground with regards to witnessing for a patriotic intelligence in saving American lives and treasure by withdrawing from Iraq sooner rather than later with the intent of throwing the Camp of Islam into inevitable chaos and allowing it to do unto itself what it wishes to do unto us, thus weakening it, and at the same time, revealing its true ugly nature.

Yes. There I was on the deck. Two former Iraq War veterans, who at some point later in the afternoon would give five minute pep talks to the crowd of devoted activists, included Adam Kokesh. What I found very strange as each of these two former military combatants passed, or I should say, pressed by me in the elbow to elbow strain of the moment on a crowded deck, was this. I was wearing a black t-shirt with the word SECURITY in bold white letters sprawled across the front. Who hasn't seen these shirts, right? I recollect buying my two at a JC Penney Big & Tall Man's shop.

But immediately upon meeting me eye to eye, each of the former soldiers cum activists, as they pushed past me following each other to the opposite end of the crowded deck, staggered backwards a few inches, their heads thrown back in a whiplash movement, after reading the word SECURITY on my shirt. One of them, and I believe it was the other young man, and not Mr. Kokesh, who said to me with a puzzled look, "I guess that shirt gets you into a lot of places, doesn't it?"

I was stunned by this visual image of him jerking back, and was already busy trying to interpret it in my mind, but I still managed to reply, "Well, I guess it does."

Not exactly the king of the snappy comebacks, but I remain perplexed at the notion that the written word—security—itself was tantamount to intimidation in the minds of these two young former soldiers.

CHRISTIANS PERSECUTED IN IRAQ

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Stephen Crittenden: Welcome to The Religion Report. The plight of Christian minorities in the Islamic Middle East is one of the 20th century tragedies to which we pay least attention. From the Copts in Egypt, to the Maronites, the Melkites in Lebanon, Orthodox and Chaldeans, the Christian population of the Middle East is a fraction of what it was, and more vulnerable than ever. Nowhere is the situation worse at the moment than in Iraq. And few groups are more vulnerable than the ancient Assyrian Christian community. In fact, this week the Italian journalist Sandro Magister, has warned of the end of Christianity in Iraq.

In early May in a heavily Christian suburb of Baghdad, a Sunni extremist group began broadcasting a fatwah over the loudspeakers of the neighbourhood mosque: the Assyrian Christian community had to convert to Islam or leave, or die. Their Muslim neighbours were to seize their property. The men were told they had to pay the gizya—the protection money Jews and Christians traditionally had to pay to their Muslim overlords—and families were told they could only stay if they married one of their daughters to a Muslim.

More than 300 Assyrian families have fled, mostly to the north into the Kurdish region of Iraq where they are not welcome either They are sleeping in cemeteries, they have no food, more than 30 of their churches have been bombed, their children are being kidnapped and murdered.

Rosie Malek-Yonan is an Assyrian-American. She is a successful film and television actor who has appeared in many popular shows including Dynasty, Seinfeld, E.R. and Chicago Hope. Her novel, The Crimson Field, is a fictionalised account of the little-known Assyrian genocide that took place at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War One at the same time that the better-known Armenian genocide was taking place. She recently directed a documentary film on the same subject. And last year she was invited to give testimony before the US Congress about the plight of Assyrian Christians in Iraq. Rosie Malek-Yonan spoke to me from her home in California.

Rosie Malek-Yonan: The Assyrian people are the indigenous people actually of Mesopotamia, before it even was Iraq. All of that area was Mesopotamia and is the original homeland of the Assyrians. They date back to over 6,000 years and were always concentrated in that region.

Stephen Crittenden: And Christianity was accepted by Assyrians, well virtually in apostolic times, right at the very, very beginning?

Rosie Malek-Yonan: Right. Assyrians were actually the first nation to accept Christianity as an entire nation, not just individuals, but the entire nation, and we built the first church of the east.

Stephen Crittenden: And what about language? Aramaic for church, but what language does a typical Assyrian family in Baghdad speak at home?

Rosie Malek-Yonan: Well the language that we typically speak is the modern Assyrian, which comes from the ancient Aramaic, which is the language of Christ. The church liturgy still uses the ancient language, and we grew up learning it, and understanding it and knowing it, but it's not typically used at home. At home we generally will speak the more modern Assyrian dialect.

Stephen Crittenden: Now in early May, a fatwah was issued by a militant Sunni group in Baghdad, calling on the Christians in a particular suburb of Baghdad called Dora, to convert to Islam or die.

Rosie Malek-Yonan: Yes. Actually as we are speaking, I'm getting bombarded with emails, and one of them is a plea to help the Assyrians of Iraq. The women in particular—I'll just read you a little bit of this email—says the Virgin Mary put on a hijab (hijab is the covering) so why not all Christian women dress the same? They are asking all women to dress in that fashion.

Stephen Crittenden: I understand there's a lot of kidnapping and murdering of particularly of young kids?

Rosie Malek-Yonan: Absolutely. Our children are being murdered, they're being kidnapped for ransom, even when the ransom is paid they're still killed. Priests are being beheaded, nuns are being killed, and not just a beheading, they behead them, they cut also arms and legs, they hack them off and they return them in that manner. Little children, their heads are bashed with concrete blocks. This has been going on since the beginning of the Iraq War. This is isn't just an isolated incident here or there, this is an ongoing genocide.

OF VIRGINS, RECALL THE TEN

The Parable of the Ten Virgins is a parable told by Jesus in the the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 25:1-13). In it, the five virgins who are prepared for the bridegroom's arrival are rewarded and the five who are not prepared are excluded. The parable has a clear apocalyptic theme: be prepared for the day of reckoning.

Despite all the warnings of the past forty years from a few voices from the wilderness such as Bat Ye'or, Oriana Fallaci and Robert Spencer, the cult of political correctness and its legions of leftist radicals conspiring to gut capitalism as just another fatted calf of the wicked West, modern history itself has a more foreboding tale to tell. During 1894-1923 the Ottoman Empire (Muslims) conducted a policy of Genocide of the Christian population living within its extensive territory. The Sultan, Abdul Hamid, first put forth an official governmental policy of genocide against the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1894.

Systematic massacres took place in 1894-1896 when Abdul savagely killed 300,000 Armenians throughout the provinces. Massacres recurred, and in 1909 government troops killed, in the towns of Adana alone, over 20,000 Christian Armenians.
When WW1 broke out the The Ottoman Empire was ruled by the "Young Turk" dictatorship which allied itself with Germany. Turkish government decided to eliminate the whole of the Christian population of Greeks, Armenians, Syrians and Nestorians. The government slogan, "Turkey for the Turks", served to encourage Turkish Muslim civilians on a policy of ethnic cleansing.

The next step of the Armenian Genocide began on 24 April 1915, with the mass arrest, and ultimate murder, of religious, political and intellectual leaders in Constantinople and elsewhere in the empire.

Then, in every Armenian community, a carefully planned Genocide unfolded: Arrest of clergy and other prominent persons, disarmament of the population and Armenian soldiers serving in the Ottoman army, segregation and public execution of leaders and able-bodied men, and the deportation to the deserts of the remaining Armenian women, children and elderly. Renowned historian Arnold Toynbee wrote that "the crime was concerted very systematically for there is evidence of identical procedure from over fifty places."

The Genocide started from the border districts and seacoasts, and worked inland to the most remote hamlets. Over 1.5 million Armenian Christians, including over 4,000 bishops and priests, were killed in this step of the Genocide. The Greek Christians, particularly in the Black Sea area known as Pontus, who had been suffering from Turkish-Muslim persecutions and murders all the while, saw the Turks turn more fiercely on them as WW1 came to a close.

The Allied Powers, at a peace conference in Paris in 1919, rewarded Greece for her support by inviting Prime Minister Venizelos to occupy the city of Smyrna with its rich hinterlands, and they placed the province under Greek control. This action greatly angered the Turks. The Greek occupation was a peaceful one but drew immediate fire from Turkish forces in the outlying areas. When the Greek army farmed out to protect its people, a full-fledged war broke out between Greece and Turkey (the Greco-Turkish war).

The Treaty of Sevres, signed in 1920 to end WW1 and which provided for an independent Armenia, was never ratified. The treaty's terms changed not long after the ink dried as England, France and Italy each began secretly bargaining with Mustafa Kemel (Ataturk) in order to gain the right to exploit oil fields in the Mozul (now Iraq). Betrayed by the Allied Powers, the Greek military front, after 40 long months of war, collapsed and retreated as the Turks began again to occupy Asia Minor.

September 1922 signaled the end of the Greek and Armenian presence in the city of Smyrna. On 9 September 1922, the Turks entered Smyrna; and after systematically murdering the Armenians in their own homes, the forces of Ataturk turned on the Greeks whose numbers had swelled, with the addition of refugees who had fled their villages in Turkey's interior, to upwards of 400,000 men, women and children.

The conquering Turk- Muslims went from house to house, looting, pillaging, raping and murdering the population. Finally, when the wind had turned so that it was blowing toward the sea so that the small Turkish quarter at the rear of the city was not in danger, Turkish forces, led by their officers, poured kerosene on the buildings and homes of the Greek and Armenian sectors and set them afire. Thus, any remaining live inhabitants of the city were flushed out to be caught between a wall of fire and the sea. The pier of Smyrna became a scene of final desperation as the approaching flames forced many thousands to jump to their death or to be consumed by fire.

The native population of Asia Minor traces its Christian roots to the early days of Christianity. the Armenians, an ancient people, trace their origins back 2500 years. In 301 AD. the Armenian King Dftad declared Christianity as the kingdom's official religion, making Armenia the first Christian political state in the world. The migration of Greek tribes to Asia Minor began just before 2,000 BC and the Greeks built dozens of cities such as Smyrna, Phocaea, Pergamon, Ephesus and Byzantium (Constantinople).

The native inhabitants of Asia Minor, among the first to accept the message of Christianity, were later to be persecuted and uprooted from their lands because of that same faith. Turkish-Muslim tribes plagued the region. Later another tribe, the Oyuz Turks who embraced Islam and ultimately produced the Ottoman Turks, conquered Persia, the Caliphate of Baghdad, and then the whole area presently occupied by Syria, Iraq and Palestine.

Under the Ottoman Empire the Christians suffered a steady decline. Forced conversions to Islam, the abduction of children to serve in the fanatical Janissary corps, persecutions and oppression reduced the Christian population. Oppression intensified, leading to Genocide. Christian clergy were a constant target of Turkish persecution, particularly once the 1894 policy of Armenian genocide had been declared by sultan Abdul Hamid.

Victims of horrible torture, many Orthodox clergy were martyred for their faith. Among the first was Metropolitan Chrysostomos who was martyred, not just to kill a man but, to insult a sacred religion and an ancient and honorable people. Chrysostomos was enthroned as Metropolitan of Smyrna on 10 May 1910. Metropolitan Chrysostomos courageously opposed the anti-Christian rage of the Turks and sought to raise international pressure against the persecution of Turkish Christians. He wrote many letters to European leaders and to the western press in an effort to expose the genocide policies of the Turks. In 1922, in unprotected Smyrna, Chrysostomos said to those begging him to flee: "It is the tradition of the Greek Church and the duty of the priest to stay with his congregation."

On 9 September crowds were rushing into the cathedral for shelter when Chrysostomos, pale from fasting and lack of sleep, led his last prayer. The Divine Liturgy ended as Turkish police came to the church and led Chrysostomos away. The Turkish General Nouredin Pasha, known as the "butcher of Ionia", first spat on the Metropolitan and informed him that a tribunal in Angora (now Ankara) had already condemned him to death. A mob fell upon Chrysostomos and tore out his eyes.

Bleeding profusely, he was dragged through the streets by his beard. He was beaten and kicked and parts of his body were cut off. All the while Chrysostomos, his face covered with blood, prayed: "Holy Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Every now and then, when he had the strength, he would raise his hand and bless his persecutors; a Turk, realizing what the Metropolitan was doing, cut off his hand with a sword. Metropolitan Chrysostomos was then hacked to pieced by the angry mob.

Among the hundreds of Armenian clergy who were persecuted and murdered were Bishop Khosrov Behrigian and Very Reverend Father Mgrdich' Chghladian Bishop Behrigian (1869-1915) was born in Zara and became the primate for the Diocese of Caesarea/Kayseri in 1915. He was arrested by Turkish police upon his return from Etchmiadzin where he had just been consecrated bishop. Informed of his fate, the bishop asked for a bullet to the head. Deliberately ignoring his request, the police tied him to a "yataghan" where sheep were butchered an then proceeded to hack his body apart while he was still alive.

Father Chghladian was born in Tatvan. In May 1915, as part of the campaign of mass arrests, deportations and murders, the priest was tortured and displayed in a procession, led by sheiks and dervishes while accompanied by drums, through the streets of Dikranagerd. Once the procession returned to the mosque, in the presence of government officials, the sheiks poured oil over the priest and burned him alive.

Four of the martyred bishops who were murdered between 1921-1922 are today elevated to sainthood in the Greek Orthodox Church: They are, in addition to Metropolitan Chrysostomos, Bishops Efthimios, Gregorios and Ambrosios. Bishop Efthimios of Amasia was captured by the Turkish police and tortured daily for 41 days. In the last days of his life he chanted his own funeral memorial until finally dying in his cell on 29 May 1921. Three days later a written order for his execution arrived from Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk).

Metropolitan Gregorios of Kydonion remained with his church until the end, helping 20,000 of his 35,000 parishioners escape to Mytilene and other free parts of Greece. On 3 October 1922, the remaining 15,000 Orthodox Christians were executed; the Metropolitan was saved in order to be buried alive.

Metropolitan Ambrosios of Moshonesion, along with 12 priests and 6,000 Christians, were sent by the Turks on a forced deportation march to Central Asia Minor. All of them perished on the road, some slain by Turkish irregulars and civilians, the remainder left to die of starvation. Bishop Ambrosios died on 15 September 1922, when Turkish police nailed horseshoes to his feet and then cut his body into pieces.

And then, to sum up what is the arrogance of all despots:

"I have given orders to my Death Units to exterminate without mercy or pity, men, women, and children belonging to the Polish speaking race. It is only in this manner we can acquire the vital territory which we need. After all, who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?"

- Adolf Hitler, 22 August 1939

Religion of Peace? Or as some on the left say, poor oppressed Muslims?

Wake up world!