- Washington Post via Jihad Watch
Syria's role in sustaining and organizing the insurgency has shifted over time. In the first days of the war, fighters swarmed into Iraq aboard buses that Syrian border guards waved through open gates, witnesses recalled. But late in 2004, after intense pressure on Damascus from the Bush administration, Syrian domestic intelligence services swept up scores of insurgent facilitators. Many, including Abu Ibrahim, were quietly released a few days later.

In the months since, the smugglers have worked in the shadows. In a series of interviews carried out in alleyways, a courtyard, a public square and a mosque, Abu Ibrahim was being visibly followed by plainclothes agents of the security service, Amn Dawla. In December, the service confiscated his passport and national identity card. His new ID was a bit of cardboard he presented each month to his minders; the entries for April and May were checked....

At a private Saudi production company that specialized in radical Islamic propaganda, he said, he learned video editing and digital photography. The work channeled the rage of young Arab men incensed by the situation in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, angered by U.S. foreign policy and chafing under the repression of secular Arab rulers.

Their goal, he said, is restoration of the Islamic caliphate, the system that governed Muslims before the rise of nation states. Abu Ibrahim said he regarded Afghanistan during the Taliban rule as one of the few true Islamic governments since the time of Muhammad.

"The Koran is a constitution, a law to govern the world," he said...

Jihad was being allowed into the open. Abu Ibrahim said Syrian security officials and presidential advisers attended festivals, one of which was called "The People of Sham Will Now Defeat the Jews and Kill Them All." Money poured in from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

"We even had a Web site," Abu Ibrahim said.

The young men around the cleric found themselves wielding a surprising amount of power. They were allowed to enforce their strict vision of sharia , or Islamic law, entering houses in the middle of the night to confront people accused of bad behavior.

In a dictatorship infamous for its intolerance of political Islam, such freedom made some of the cleric's lieutenants suspicious.

"We asked the sheik why we weren't being arrested," said Abu Ibrahim. "He would tell us it was because we weren't saying anything against the government, that we were focusing on the common enemy, America and Israel, that beards and epaulets were in one trench together."

So Syria has sustained and organized the insurgency, nothing everyone that hasn't lived in a cave during that past several years hasn't heard before. But the one thing that jumps of the page here is the Islamic agenda, be it Iraq, Afghanistan, Spain, England, France, Germany, Australia, the U.S., or anywhere else. The goal, Islamic rule.

So how does that non-revelation fit  with what we read from Daniel Pipes in my previous post?

Let's look at his comments in a different light, one in which we see the Islamic near-term agenda spelled out for us:

(...) Islamists must prepare the United States for their own brand of ideology.
This means doing everything possible toward creating an Islamist environment and applying Islamic law. Activities under this heading fall into various categories.

(...)  Promoting Islamic rituals and customs in the public square.
Islamists want secular authorities to permit students in public institutions, for example, to recite the basmallah (the formula "In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate") in classroom exercises. They also want the right to broadcast over outdoor loudspeakers the five daily Islamic calls-to-prayer. Similarly, they have agitated for publicly maintained prayer facilities in such institutions as schools and airports.

(...) Privileges for Islam.
Islamists seek public financial support for Islamic schools, mosques, and other institutions. They also lobby for special quotas for Muslim immigrants, try to compel corporations to make special allowances for Muslim employees, and demand the formal inclusion of Muslims in affirmative-action plans.

(...) Restricting or disallowing what others may do.
Islamists want law-enforcement agencies to criminalize activities like drinking and gambling that are offensive to Islam. While seeking wide latitude for themselves, for instance when it comes to expressing disrespect for American national symbols, they would penalize expressions of disrespect for religious figures whom Islam deems holy, especially the prophet Muhammad; punish criticism of Islam, Islamism, or Islamists; and close down critical analysis of Islam.

(...) Some of these aims have already been achieved.

(...) Others may seem relatively minor in and of themselves,
implying no drastic alterations in existing American arrangements but rather only slight adjustments in our already expansive accommodation of social "diversity."

(...) Cumulatively, however, by whittling away at the existing order,
they would change the country's whole way of life--making Islam a major public presence, ensuring that both the workplace and the educational system accommodate its dictates and strictures, adapting family customs to its code of conduct, winning it a privileged position in American life, and finally imposing its system of law.

Think about what you just read and place it in context with the news events over the past year. Nothing is missing from the list that hasn't already occured in one form or another. Yep, we're right back at the begining of this post:

The Islamists have a determined agenda to destroy American and European freedoms as we now know them, and to make you Muslims or submit to the Islamic authority. Today's California and New York cases are just the tip of the iceberg, as are the problems we've already seen in Europe. While we sleep, sleeper cells aren't (even) yawning. From hospital-based terror plots to school lunches , an office building, an airport, or a shopping center, it's all fodder for jihadis. And for a flavor of Islamists agenda for America, you need go no further than the Islamist's favorite group, CAIR, whose board member, Imam Siraj Wahaj calls for replacing the American government with a caliphate, and warns that America will crumble unless it "accepts the Islamic agenda."

This is why you have to look at Syria, what's happened in Spain, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the California and New York events, as examples of the Islamic agenda and as warnings.

On the New York event, Rob at Say Anything comments on the irony of it all:

"You know what I find amazing? The fact that the protesters are shouting about injustices done to Islamic people by the Americans, yet one of them about halfway through the video gets on the microphone and talks about how Islam is going to take over the world."

Look at the images at Jawa Report here.

Here's the WND article (via Jawa Report) that describes the video and the rally(of the NY event).

In the video, released by the New York-based Islamic Thinkers Society, one of the Muslims is shown placing a sign on the flag that says, "Oh Muslims! Do you know your enemy? Isn't it obvious?"

The five-minute piece begins with a man speaking in clear English: "Just to show where our loyalty belongs to -- you see this flag here? It's going to go on the floor [sic]. And to us, our loyalty does not belong to this flag, our loyalty belongs to Allah ... ." ...

Another speaker refers to the mandate for "Islam to dominate over all other religions, to dominate the world, even though the non-Muslims may hate it." ...

At one Al-Muhajiroun event at Queensborough Community College sponsored by the MSA and attended by WND, a Muhajiroun speaker working with Yousuf said, "We reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order. Don't lobby Congress or protest because we don't recognize Congress! The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it!"

The speaker continued, "The so-called terrorists are the only people who truly fear Allah. ... They are the only worthy causes, and the mighty superpower only fears them."

In a private interview with WND, a Queens based Al-Muhajiroun leader said he would be "absolutely honored" to give up his life in a "martyr operation" against American civilians. The leader warned that "a jihad is coming to America because of the moves of the Bush administration."

Last year, Al-Muhajiroun planned a convention in London titled, "The Choice is in Your Hands: Either You're with the Muslims or with the Infidels," to mark the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In 2003, the group had planned a similar anniversary event called "The Magnificent 19 [Suicide Attackers]," but canceled it at the last minute.

What do Islamists say that Muslims in Britain and other non-Muslim countries can do to re-establish the Khilafah?

- If we are teachers we must convey it to our students.

- If we are writers or journalists we must write to the Muslim media and explain how the solution to the problems facing the Muslims is the re-establishment of the Khilafah which will return the implementation of Islam to the globe.

- If we are Ulema and Imam's of the Masaajid then we should speak the Haqq on the minbar and not detach Islam from politics as the Kuffar want us to.

- If we are mothers we must groom the Islamic vision and mentality within our children and families.

- No matter who we are, we all have a part to play in this noble work to rid the world from the shackles of kufr and to implement Islam.

Just in case you haven't yet got the point of what Islamists have in mind for you, read "What is the Islamic State (Khilafah)?"

This is not a reality game we are living, it's a life and death struggle of civilizations and culture, and we had all better wake up and realize what we are experiencing, and STOP IT, NOW!

Are you listening yet?