"Clinton: Israel must prove commitment to peace," by Matthew Lee for Associated Press, March 16 (thanks to Mark):
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday said Israel must prove it is committed to the Mideast peace process with actions. But she brushed aside suggestions that relations with the main U.S. ally in the Mideast are in crisis over Israeli plans to build new Jewish housing in east Jerusalem.
Clinton said Israel must back up verbal pledges to talk peace with the Palestinians and improve an atmosphere poisoned by last week's housing announcement if stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are to be relaunched. She stressed that the U.S. remains committed to Israel's security despite current tensions.
Resolving what has become the most serious spat between the two countries in decades has become a top priority for the Obama administration as it strives to restart the moribund peace process with indirect, shuttle diplomacy by special Mideast envoy George Mitchell. Yet Clinton made clear that Israeli steps were needed first.
"We are engaged in very active consultations with the Israelis over steps that we think would demonstrate the requisite commitment to the process," Clinton said....
Do the Palestinians have to abandon jihad? End the genocidal children's shows? Stop teaching Jew-hatred? Nope. None of the above. They don't have to do anything at all.
In "Obama Libels Israel, MSM Continues to Lie, Snooze" at Big Journalism, March 16, Pamela Geller discusses the Obama Administration's double standard on Israel and the Palestinians -- and some noteworthy historical antecedents to current events:
U.S.-Israeli relations have hit a 35-year low over the contentious east Jerusalem building project. Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren said: "Israel's ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975...a crisis of historic proportions." This is because, according to Barack Obama, Jewish homes in the Jewish homeland "hinder peace" with Muslims. According to the Associated Press:
Israel's already strained relationship with the U.S. hit a new low last week when it announced the construction plans during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden. The timing of the announcement deeply embarrassed the Obama administration and put plans for indirect peace talks with the Palestinians in jeopardy.
What about the timing of the Palestinian Authority's "honoring" of a mass-murdering female genocidal bomber, for whom the Palestinians are naming a square in Ramallah? The Jerusalem Post reported: "The ceremony was scheduled to take place on the 32nd anniversary of the attack, the worst terrorist incident in Israel's history, in which terrorists commandeered a bus and murdered 37 people, including 10 children." It too was scheduled to take place during Biden's visit, but was postponed for a week after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu asked Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, to get the Palestinians to cancel it.
"The announcement of the settlements on the very day that the vice president was there was insulting," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Obama adviser David Axelrod also said: "This was an affront, it was an insult, but most importantly, it undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region. For this announcement to come at that time was very, very destructive."
Neither Clinton nor Axelrod mentioned anything about the honoring of the jihad terrorist being insulting. And it will still take place, just a week late. Yet Obama is pressuring Israel, not the Palestinians. Jews living in their holiest city is unacceptable, but senior Palestinian Authority officials joining the Fatah youth movement in a "popular inauguration" ceremony for a square named for a terrorist is just fine. The stalkers of the Jews are no hindrance to peace.
What is insulting is America's abandonment of our most loyal and trusted ally in a region that can only be described as a hot mess, full of backward, oppressive, and brutal hellholes -- save for Israel.
America is profoundly pro-Israel; yet Barack Obama is taking on our best friend and most strategic ally in the Middle East and creating an environment, a free zone, for rampant anti-Semitism.
It is no coincidence that as all this unfolded, Palestinian Arabs were rioting every day in Jerusalem and elsewhere, because of their false charge that Israel is trying to destroy Islamic holy sites. And instead of working to calm the situation, the "moderate" Palestinian Authority is trying to make things worse by fabricating yet another libel against the Jews: now they're saying that Israel tried to burn down Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969.
This is eerily reminiscent of many of the blood libels spread by Muslim leaders against the Jews throughout history, specifically the ones that the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, spread in the Muslim world before he co-conspired with Hitler to exterminate the Jews during the Holocaust.
On April 4, 1920, there was carnage in Jerusalem. Muslims spent four days massacring Jews and burning down buildings in the Jewish quarter. The future Mufti was arrested and charged with incitement to violence. Historian Maurice Pearlman in his 1947 book The Mufti of Jerusalem explains that the riots were touched off by al-Husseini's "inflammatory articles in the newspaper, Suriyahal Janubiyah." Pearlman adds: "In the weeks preceding the attack faked pictures had been disseminated among the Arabs showing the Mosque Omar in ruins. The caption beneath declared that it had been destroyed by Jewish infidels who were now seeking to build on its site the Jewish Temple."...
Calling Obama on his double standard. "Barack Hussein Obama vs Israel," from Sultan Knish, March 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):
The manifold organs of the ObamaMedia are abuzz with outrage over what they are calling Israel's "insult" to the United States. But what was the nature of this awful and outrageous insult? Did Israeli officials pull off V.P. Biden's rug to show off his bald head underneath. Did they ask him why the suit of his pants is so shiny. Did they make him sit at the kiddie table?
More to the point did Israeli TV air calls for a Jihad against America, as Palestinian Arab TV did? Did Israel name a square after the murderer of an American photographer, as the Palestinian Authority did? Did an Israeli Anchorman do a skit in blackface during Obama's visit, as a Turkish anchorman did during Obama's visit to Turkey? Are Israeli religious institutions issuing Fatwahs against America, as Al Azhar University, which Obama visited and spoke at, has done? Are Israeli leaders funding terrorism against America, as the Saudi King, before whom Obama bowed, does?
No, none of those incidents were described as insults. Nothing that Muslim countries did to mock, humiliate and murder Americans were even noticed at all. None of them produced furious condemnations from the White House or two hours of Hillary Clinton screeching on the phone at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. So what did Israel do that was so awful, so horrible and terrible? It built houses. Yes, civilian houses. Not army bases or nuclear missiles or walls. Houses.
Israel approved a construction project to build housing for its own people, in its own capitol city, Jerusalem. Some of the housing will be built in the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood, situated around the grave of Shimon the Righteous, a Jewish religious figure famed for rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. A neighborhood where Jews have lived for over a century. As well as Ramat Shlomo, a thriving neighborhood with thousands of Jewish families living in it.
The Obama Administration's objections to Jews living in Jerusalem are purely racial and religious. If Israel were approving a construction project to build housing for Arab Muslim citizens of Israel, Biden, Hillary and their media troupe wouldn't be screeching about it to the high heavens. It is only because Jews are to live there, that they have a problem with it. Their objections therefore are purely based on race and religion-- and completely racist....
Instead, he should be calling on Gaddafi to apologize for the double standard of his call for Muslims to undertake economic jihad against Switzerland for banning minarets when non-Muslim religious practice is restricted far more severely than cosmetic issues all over the Islamic world.
"US apologises over Gaddafi comments," from the BBC, March 9 (thanks to Pamela):
The US state department has apologised for comments made about Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's call for jihad against Switzerland.
Department spokesman PJ Crowley, who made the dismissive comments, said they did not reflect US policy and were not intended to offend.
Col Gaddafi had criticised a Swiss vote against the building of minarets and urged Muslims to boycott the country.
Mr Crowley described it as "lots of words, not necessarily a lot of sense." [...]
"I regret that my comments have become an obstacle to further progress in our bilateral relationship," Mr Crowley said.
Last week, Libya's National Oil Corporation warned US oil firms of possible "repercussions" over Mr Crowley's reaction.
The Libyan ambassador to the US sought to clarify Col Gaddafi's remarks saying the Libyan leader meant an economic boycott not "an armed attack".
"I should have focused solely on our concern about the term jihad, which has since been clarified by the Libyan government," Mr Crowley added.
As if the clarification, which was that economic jihad should be waged rather than violent jihad, makes Libya's action acceptable.
"I understand my personal comments were perceived as a personal attack on the president," he said.
"These comments do not reflect US policy and were not intended to offend. I apologise if they were taken that way."
Great idea! Why didn't anybody think of it before? "White House reconsiders holding terror trials in civilian court," by Julian E. Barnes and Christi Parsons for the Los Angeles Times, March 5 (thanks to Mackie):
The White House is considering an end to its effort to prosecute the suspected Sept. 11 plotters in a civilian court and may send them instead before military tribunals, in an apparent retreat from President Obama's pledge to overhaul the Bush administration's detention policies.
Last year, the Obama administration announced it would try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others in federal court in New York. That step came after Obama overhauled interrogation policies and ordered the shutdown of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
But safety concerns about the trial have grown, and support for holding the trial in New York has eroded.
"It is politically untenable," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity because a decision had not been made. "No place wants to hold a trial."...
Uh, no kidding. And also, a civilian trial would simply serve as a propaganda platform for the jihadis.
Part of the ongoing attempt to criminalize and stigmatize any resistance to the jihad, even one as partial and wrongheaded as Rumsfeld's was. "US judge won't toss torture suit naming Rumsfeld," by Mike Robinson for The Associated Press, March 5 (thanks to herr Oyal):
(AP) -- CHICAGO - A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a civil lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of responsibility for the alleged torture by U.S. forces of two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm.
U.S. District Judge Wayne R. Andersen's ruling did not say the two contractors had proven their claims, including that they were tortured after reporting alleged illegal activities by their company. But it did say they had alleged enough specific mistreatment to warrant hearing evidence of exactly what happened.
Andersen said his decision "represents a recognition that federal officials may not strip citizens of well settled constitutional protections against mistreatment simply because they are located in a tumultuous foreign setting."...
But this kind of court action, if it proceeds, will lead to deleterious consequences for American democracy in the future. Picture America as a banana republic in which every new President jails his opposition. It isn't all that far off from this.
Which means that the U.S. gives Muslim countries more money, which they fritter away on dawah or jihad or perks for the high command, and everything continues as before.
"Obama calls 'entrepreneurship summit' with Muslims," from AFP, March 5 (thanks to Mackie):
The White House on Friday announced a "summit on entrepreneurship" to build economic ties with the Islamic world, part of President Barack Obama's outreach to Muslims.
The White House said it has invited participants from more than 40 countries over five continents for the April 26-27 conference in Washington.
"The summit will highlight the role entrepreneurship can play in addressing common challenges while building partnerships that will lead to greater opportunity abroad and at home," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said....
If I were Anna Eshoo, Mark Steven Kirk, Gary Peters, and Frank Wolf, I wouldn't be holding my breath. "US Lawmakers Send Letter to Obama on Assyrians of Iraq," from AINA, March 6:
March 2, 2010
The Honorable Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
As you know, a number of Assyrians and other Iraqi Christians have been killed recently in the city of Mosul. This tragic pattern of violence and deliberate targeting of this ancient community is responsible for fueling the flight of thousands of Christian Iraqi families in recent years. As reported by the UN High Commission for Refugees, about half of the Christian population of Iraq has fled the country since 2003.
Moreover, if recent killings are any indication, we fear that violence against Christians will further intensify prior to the March 7 elections. As a US Senator, you joined your colleagues in September 2008 in asking the Secretary of State to take action in protecting the Assyrians and other minorities in Iraq. As President, you now have the opportunity to prioritize the protection of these vulnerable minorities. We therefore ask that the Administration undertake all such actions it deems necessary to protect the Iraqi Christian community, including working with the Government of Iraq to significantly increase minority protection in Mosul and bringing the perpetrators of these heinous crimes to justice.
As you know, the FY 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act (p.L. 111-117), which you signed into law on December 16, 2009, requires the Department of State to provide a report to Congress "detailing the unique needs of minority populations in Iraq, including security" within 90 days of passage, or by March 16, 2010.
It is our hope that the content of this report will serve as the foundation of a comprehensive policy to address the needs of Iraq's religious and ethnic minorities and will propose viable solutions to ensure that the already decimated Christian community is not completely driven from its homeland.
Sincerely,
Anna Eshoo
Mark Steven Kirk,
Gary Peters,
Frank Wolf,
The truth hurts, and provokes fury -- a reaction we have seen from Islamic supremacists many times when their full agenda is exposed here. "President Abdullah Gul has warned that 'Turkey will not be responsible for the negative ramifications' of the vote." Yes, that's a threat.
An update on this story. "Turkey urges US to block 'genocide' bill or risk ties," by Sibel Utku Bila for AFP, March 5 (thanks to Block Ness):
ANKARA (AFP) - A furious Turkey warned of damage to its ties with the US and protesters descended on the American embassy on Friday after a Congressional panel labelled the Ottoman-era massacre of Armenians as genocide.
Having recalled its ambassador immediately after the panel's resolution was adopted, Ankara warned Washington risked a showdown with a key Muslim ally if the motion advanced to a full vote at the House of Representatives.
Turkey is "seriously disturbed" that President Barack Obama's administration "did not put enough weight" behind efforts to prevent the resolution from being passed by the Foreign Affairs Committee, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
"We expect the US administration to make more efficient efforts from now on," he said.
"We hope Turkish-US ties will not be put to a new test ... otherwise, the prospect that we will face will not be a positive one," he added, calling the issue a "matter of national honour".
NATO member Turkey is a prominent Muslim partner in US efforts to stabilise Afghanistan and Iraq, and lies on a key route taking oil and natural gas to Western markets....
President Abdullah Gul has warned that "Turkey will not be responsible for the negative ramifications" of the vote.
As Turkish anger swelled, a crowd of around 100 demonstrated outside the US embassy in Ankara, laying a black wreath that read "We did not commit genocide, we defended the motherland."
Protesters chanted anti-US slogans at a similar demonstration in Istanbul....
The non-binding resolution calls on Obama to ensure that US foreign policy reflects an understanding of the "genocide" and to label the mass killings as such in his annual statement on the issue....
Washington has traditionally condemned the killings, but refrained from calling them a "genocide", anxious not to strain relations with Turkey.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had urged the committee not to hold the vote for fear it might harm Armenia-Turkey reconciliation.
During a visit to Turkey in April, Obama said he retained his view that the killings amounted to genocide but stressed that reconciliation between the two neighbours was more important.
Lest the truth irk the Turks, Barack Obama rushed to the aid of the Islamic supremacists who deny the Armenian genocide. "Turkey: Armenians; US Gov't Calls For Blocking Resolution," from ANSAmed, March 4 (thanks to Insubria):
(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, MARCH 4 - A few minutes from the beginning of the debate at the Foreign Commission of the American Congress, over the resolution regarding the genocide of the Armenians during the Ottoman empire, the U.S. administration advised the Commission to block the discussion, reports CNN Turk. (ANSAmed).
In Human Events this morning, I discuss the Obama Administration's Department of Jihad:
At the rate the Obama Administration is going, it may rival the Nixon Administration in its cover-ups and dishonesty. The new revelation that at least nine attorneys in the Justice Department have previously defended accused jihad terrorist follows closely after another incident remarkably similar in broad outline: the Rashad Hussain debacle. Both feature the Obama Administration apparently turning a blind eye to sympathy for jihad terrorists, followed by clumsy attempts to cover up its indifference once the whole thing came to light.
Rashad Hussain is the young man Obama appointed as special envoy to the 56-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, only to discover that several years ago Hussain decried as a "persecution" the prosecution of admitted Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami al-Arian. This was disturbing enough in itself, but less so than the clumsy cover-up that followed, in which Hussain attempted to whitewash the record of his statements about al-Arian by having the magazine in which they appeared alter its online archive. Did the White House know Hussain was doing this? Did it approve of his action? We don't know, because Obama's ever-helpful lapdog, the mainstream media, is not asking.
Now comes the latest indication that the Obama Administration's commitment to doing something effective about the recent increase in jihad terrorist activity in the U.S. is sadly lacking. In the wake of the Fort Hood massacre, the Christmas day underwear bomber, and several other foiled jihad terror attacks on American soil, it has now come to light that at least nine former advocates for accused jihad terrorists are working in the Justice Department to prosecute those same terrorists and their comrades-in-arms.
And contrary -- yet again -- to Obama's campaign promise of transparency, the Holder Justice Department so far has released the names of only three of them. These include Tony West, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, who once defended the Marin County Mujahid, American Taliban John Walker Lindh, a convert to Islam who was captured in Afghanistan in 2002, fighting alongside the Taliban and Al-Qaeda against American troops; and Neal Katyal, Principal Deputy Solicitor General, who defended Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan. If Holder thinks that he can safely reveal that the Justice Department is now the place of employ for the defenders of one of the foremost American jihadists and one of Osama bin Laden's personal lieutenants, what is he concealing?
Even aside from the secrecy, however, the fact that any of these attorneys would be working in the Justice Department is bad enough. Everyone is entitled to legal representation, but no attorney is "entitled" to work in the Justice Department, and few - none of these included - should be entrusted to devise or implement policy regarding terrorist prisoners.
The whole problem smacks of what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) calls the "ACLU mentality" toward terrorists that pervades the Obama administration.
One wonders just how committed these nine legal eagles will be to prosecuting people from the same group as those whom they were so recently defending.
Would the Justice Department under Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1942 have hired lawyers who defended Nazis? Would Holder's Justice Department have hired Lynne Stewart, the lawyer who defended the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, before she was sent to prison for helping the Blind Sheikh pass messages to his fellow jihadists outside the prison walls? Do Obama and Holder really not see that the nine lawyers may be looking out for the defense of their former clients and their jihadist coreligionists, rather than trying to make sure they are adequately prosecuted? Or do they just not care?
In a letter to Holder last Friday, the seven Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee complained that when they inquired about these attorneys, the Justice Department's response was "at best nonresponsive and, at worst, intentionally evasive."
Why the cover-up? Now in both the Rashad Hussain incident and the strange half-admissions about the Justice Department, the Obama Administration has once again reinforced the impression that it is more interested in winning brownie points in the Islamic world by apologizing for jihad terrorism and treating jihadists with kid gloves than it is in protecting the American people from those jihadists. We deserve better.
Obama's open-handed policy of engagement is bearing wonderful fruit now, eh? "Iran, Syria mock U.S. policy; Ahmadinejad speaks of Israel's 'annihilation,'" by Howard Schneider for the Washington Post, February 26 (thanks to Sr. Soph):
JERUSALEM -- The presidents of Iran and Syria on Thursday ridiculed U.S. policy in the region and pledged to create a Middle East "without Zionists," combining a slap at recent U.S. overtures and a threat to Israel with an endorsement of one of the region's defining alliances.
The Obama administration is trying to build an international coalition behind economic sanctions aimed at curbing Iran's uranium-enrichment program, which the United States and others fear is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. The United States also recently announced that it will send an ambassador to Damascus after a five-year absence, part of an effort to weaken Syria's relations with Iran and discourage the country's support for militant groups antagonistic to Israel.
But the message delivered by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a joint news conference was sharp and spoke to a shared sense that Iran is gaining influence in the region despite U.S. efforts. Until the outcome of the broader struggle over Iran's nuclear program becomes clear, analysts here say, it is unlikely Syria will change direction -- or that progress can be made toward an Israel-Syria peace agreement.
The United States wants "to dominate the region, but they feel Iran and Syria are preventing that," Ahmadinejad said. "We tell them that instead of interfering in the region's affairs, to pack their things and leave."
Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier, spoke of Israel's eventual "demise and annihilation" and said the countries of the region could create a future "without Zionists and without colonialists."...
In March 2007 I wrote about the question of whether or not Barack Obama was, according to Islamic law, an apostate from Islam who thus merited the death sentence Islamic law mandates for apostates.
This article was frequently pointed to as the source of the "Obama is a Muslim" rumors during the 2008 campaign, and therefore also frequently dismissed out of hand. But now three years later, an Arab newspaper, the Gaza-based Watan Voice, is discussing a question that will get you ridicule and scorn in the American mainstream media simply for asking: was Barack Obama ever a Muslim? The author considers the evidence and then draws his conclusion from Islamic jurisprudence.
Incidentally, in the course of his article he includes this, which bears out the truth of what I wrote in March 2007: "Islamic law does not oblige those who have not reached puberty to practice Islam.." That is, it doesn't command their deaths if they don't practice Islam. I had written this:
So is Obama under a death sentence? Probably not - particularly if he left Islam while still a child. This is a crucial point, for according to Islamic law an apostate male is not to be put to death if he has not reached puberty (cf. 'Umdat al-Salik o8.2; Hidayah vol. II p. 246). Some, however, hold that he should be imprisoned until he is of age and then "invited" to accept Islam, but officially the death penalty for youthful apostates is ruled out.
For a full consideration of Obama's curious and shifting attitude toward the Muslim elements of his life story, pre-order my forthcoming book with Pamela Geller, The Post-American Presidency, coming in July from Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster.
"Is President Obama a Muslim or an Apostate?," by Mu'ammar Ahmad 'Abd-al-Latif Rajeh for the Watan Voice (in Arabic), January 30 (translated by al-Mutarajjam at Translating Jihad):
[...] Within this introduction, certain aspects of President Obama's introduction to his autobiography beg the following question: What is the position of Islamic law concerning this biography?
Islamic law stipulates that if a child is born with either one or both of his parents being Muslim, then the child's religion will also be Muslim. This applies if the father is Muslim and the mother is non-Muslim, such as in President Obama's case. Al-Hassan, Shurayh, Ibrahim, and Qatada said: "If one of (the parents) has submitted (to Islam), then the child is with the Muslim," for Islam dominates, but is not (itself) dominated (comment: This is a famous phrase from either the Qur'an or the hadith, but I'm not sure exactly how it's worded in English; it basically means Islam is superior to everything, and submits to nothing). And also according to the word of the prophet of God (PBUH): "No child is born except on nature (i.e. Islam), and then his parents make him Jewish, Christian, or Magian (Zoroastrian), as an animal produces a perfect young animal: do you see any part of its body amputated?" (Sahih al-Bukhari, V 2, Bk 23, No 441). Although Islamic law does not oblige those who have not reached puberty to practice Islam, the father of such a child is required to pay zakat and pray the funeral prayer if the child dies before reaching puberty. This shows that the child is Muslim from birth. Through these Islamic judgments, in comparison with the autobiography of President Barack Hussein Obama, we find that this president is either a Muslim or an apostate from Islam according to the strongest viewpoints of Islamic jurisprudence.
It's all right that he defended a jihad terror leader and then tried to cover up that fact, because he wrote about how the Qur'an doesn't justify terrorism. Got that?
If anyone can direct me to Hussain's writings about the Qur'an, please write me at director [at] jihadwatch.org.
"W.H. affirms confidence in Islam envoy," by Josh Gerstein at Politico, February 22:
The White House is expressing its confidence in a White House counsel's office attorney President Barack Obama recently named as U.S. envoy to the Islamic Conference, Rashad Hussain, despite his concession last week that he made ill-considered statements in 2004 about Bush-era terrorism prosecutions.
"Were you misled? Do you maintain confidence in this man the president wants to be his delegate to the Islamic Conference?" Fox News's Wendell Goler asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs at the daily briefing Monday afternoon.
"We continue to have confidence," Gibbs said. "This is an individual that has written extensively on why some have used religious devices like the Qur'an to justify this [terrorism] and why that is absolutely wrong. And has garnered support from both the left and the right so we obviously have confidence."
Hussain initially said he had no recollection of comments he was reported to have made in 2004 portraying the Bush Administration's treatment of alleged Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian and the handling other terrorism cases as "politically-motivated persecutions."
However, after POLITICO obtained an audio recording of the event, Hussain acknowledged that he made the comments and that he had earlier approached a magazine about removing them, which it did....
The American people still have a right to know who is responsible for the coverup. The White House propagated false statements regarding who actually made the defense of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami al-Arian. Did White House officials know these statements were false when they made them?
"Obama Envoy Admits 'Ill Conceived' Remarks Defending Terror Suspect," from FOXNews.com, February 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):
Rashad Hussain, named by Obama as an envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference, said Friday his comments at the time were "ill conceived or not well formulated."
President Obama's new Muslim envoy Rashad Hussain admitted Friday to once defending a man who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a terrorist group -- an admission that contradicts earlier claims from the White House that the quotes had been mistakenly attributed to Hussain.
Hussain, named by Obama as an envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference, said Friday his comments at the time were "ill conceived or not well formulated."
In 2004, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs quoted Hussain saying at a seminar on Muslim issues that Sami al-Arian was the victim of "politically motivated persecutions" after al-Arian, a university professor, was charged in 2003 with heading U.S. operations of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to aid the group -- designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist group since 1997 -- and was sentenced to more than four years in prison.
The Web version of the 2004 article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs was later edited to delete all of Hussain's comments. Editor Delinda Hanley told Fox News last week she believed the change was made in February 2009.
Hanley didn't recall who requested the edit, but Hussain said Friday that he had contacted the publication to "raise concerns" about comments that he said were "without context, leaving a misimpression."
"Eventually, on their own accord, they modified the article," said Hussain, who was a Yale Law student and an editor of the Yale Law Journal at the time of the panel discussion.
The White House initially responded to the controversy by saying this week that the remarks about al-Arian were made by his daughter, Laila al-Arian. But on Friday, Hussain affirmed that the comments were his....
"Unindicted terrorist co-conspirator promotes radical agenda at U.S. mosques," by Aaron Klein at WorldNetDaily, February 19:
A radical Muslim group that was an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas facilitated the controversial meeting last week between Muslim law students and John Brennan, President Obama's top adviser on counter-terrorism.
The Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, boasted in its website that it facilitated the meeting at New York University with Brennan. ISNA, whose members asked Brennan scores of questions during the event, stated the meeting was intended to initiate a "dialogue between government officials and Muslim American leaders to explore issues of national security."
The Justice Department named ISNA an unindicted co-conspirator in its case against the Holy Land Foundation in Texas, which was found guilty of raising money for the Hamas terrorist organization. Last year, Holy Land founders were given life sentences for "funneling $12 million to Hamas."
ISNA is known for its enforcement of Saudi-style Islam in mosques through the U.S.
Discover the Networks notes ISNA, through its affiliate, the North American Islamic Trust - a Saudi government-backed organization - reportedly holds the mortgages on 50 to 80 percent of all mosques in the U.S. and Canada.
"Thus the organization can freely exercise ultimate authority over these houses of worship and their teachings," states DTN.
ISNA was founded in 1981 by the Saudi-funded Muslim Students' Association. The two groups are still partners. WND previously attended an MSA event at which violence against the U.S. was urged by speakers.
"We are not Americans," shouted one speaker, Muhammad Faheed, at an MSA event attended by WND at Queensborough Community College in 2003.
"We are Muslims. [The U.S.] is going to deport and attack us! It is us versus them! Truth against falsehood! The colonizers and masters against the oppressed, and we will burn down the master's house!"...
In "Pandering To The Islamic Conference" in Forbes, February 18 (thanks to Twostellas), Claudia Rosett identifies more of what's wrong with the Rashad Hussain appointment:
Controversy is swirling around President Barack Obama's choice of a young American Muslim lawyer, Rashad Hussain, to serve as his special envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Behind this fracas looms the even larger question of whether the U.S. should be sending the OIC any special envoy at all.
[...] Founded at an Islamic summit in Morocco in 1969, the OIC describes itself on its Web site as "the collective voice of the Muslim world"--though in reality many of its members are rulers of states in which the people themselves have no free voice, such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya and Iran. The OIC began with 30 members and today boasts 57 member "states." (Though that's inaccurate, because one of those 57 members listed by the OIC is Palestine, which is not a state.) But the OIC, dedicated to spreading its own vision of a new world order, enjoys a propaganda coup every time someone carelessly refers to its 57 "member states," instead of its 56 states plus the Palestinian Authority.
The OIC is headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It is dedicated in its documents to spreading Islamic law, or sharia. Its Web site says it has "the singular honor to galvanize the Ummah into a unified body"--and it defines the Ummah as all Muslims of the world.
This campaign has been reflected at the United Nations, where the OIC's 56 members plus the Palestinian observer form one of the biggest and most influential lobbying blocs in the UN's 192-member General Assembly. The OIC itself holds an observer seat as well, which gives it a prime spot for getting involved in UN debates and resolutions.
This amounts to a bonanza for the OIC, which on the financial front hitches a ride effectively subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. While the U.S. alone pays 22% of the UN's $2.3 billion annual core budget and gets one vote on how the money is used, all the 57 OIC members put together pay less than 5% and get 56 votes. On top of that the U.S. contributes many billions more for such UN ventures as peacekeeping, food aid, refugee relief and so forth. The OIC doesn't come close.
But the OIC does have its passions. The OIC has been a big backer of a campaign at the UN for "anti-blasphemy" rules that would effectively gag free speech and muffle any real debate about the nature and direction of Islam. The OIC is also one of the big reasons the UN has not been able to come up with a viable definition of terrorism. The point of disagreement is that the OIC, while condemning terrorism, has a record of then qualifying that by redefining terrorism to exclude "the exercise of legitimate right of peoples to resist foreign occupation."...
From Umdat al-Salik, Englished as Reliance of the Traveller, which carries the endorsement of Al-Azhar University in Cairo as conforming "to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community":
Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada signifying warfare to establish the religion. And it is the lesser jihad. As for the greater jihad, it is spiritual warfare against the lower self (nafs), which is why the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said as he was returning from jihad.
``We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad.''
The scriptural basis for jihad, prior to scholarly consensus (def: b7) is such Koranic verses as:
-1- ``Fighting is prescribed for you'' (Koran 2:216);
-2- ``Slay them wherever you find them'' (Koran 4:89);
-3- ``Fight the idolators utterly'' (Koran 9:36);
and such hadiths as the one related by Bukhari and Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:
``I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And their final reckoning is with Allah'';
and the hadith reported by Muslim,
``To go forth in the morning or evening to fight in the path of Allah is better than the whole world and everything in it.''Details concerning jihad are found in the accounts of the military expeditions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), including his own martial forays and those on which he dispatched others. The former consist of the ones he personally attended, some twenty-seven (others say twenty-nine) of them. He fought in eight of them, and killed only one person with his noble hand, Ubayy ibn Khalaf, at the battle of Uhud. On the latter expeditions he sent others to fight, himself remaining at Medina, and these were forty-seven in number.) [...]
The caliph (o25) makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians (N: provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya, def: o11.4) -which is the significance of their paying it, not the money itself-while remaining in their ancestral religions) (O: and the war continues) until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax (O: in accordance with the word of Allah Most High,
"Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden-who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book-until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled" (Koran 9.29)
"Brennan, unruffled, talks terror at NYU," by Josh Gerstein at Politico, February 14 (thanks to Pamela):
President Barack Obama's embattled counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, delivered an emphatic defense Saturday of the Obama administration's rhetorical approach to terrorism -- and also slipped in a few criticisms of Bush administration policies he suggested alienated Muslims at home and abroad.
In a speech at New York University's law school, Brennan gave no nod to the calls for his resignation last week from the top Republicans on the House and Senate Intelligence committees. [Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) also joined that bandwagon Sunday.]
Brennan seemed at ease speaking to the largely Muslim audience, which included Islamic law students. In fact, he broke out his Arabic at some length, drawing a warm reaction from the crowd. (Scroll to 5:43 in the first video below for that chunk. I think I hear the words youth and student in there.) [...]
While figures like former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani have accused Obama of being soft on terrorism because he avoids terms like "war on terror" and "jihadist," Brennan strongly endorsed the president's approach.
"They are not jihadists, for jihad is a holy struggle, an effort to purify for a legitimate purpose, and there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- holy or pure or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children," Brennan said. "We are not waging a war against terrorism because terrorism is but a tactic that will never be defeated, any more than a tactics of war will. Rather, such thinking is a recipe for endless conflict. ... We are at war with Al Qaeda and its extremist allies, and any comment to the contrary is just inaccurate. We will destroy that organization."
Brennan also charged that some actions by the U.S. government, presumably the Bush administration, underscored perceptions that the U.S. was in conflict with Islam. He cited as examples of overreach: "Violations of the Patriot Act. Surveillance that has been excessive. Policies perceived as profiling. Overinclusive no-fly lists subjecting law-abiding individuals to unnecessary searches and inconvenience. Creating an unhelpful atmosphere around many Muslim charities that made many Muslims hesitant to fulfill their sacred obligation of Zakat."
Brennan's statement that some individuals, presumably Muslims, were subjected to "excessive" surveillance is one I have not heard before from government officials and one that will hearten civil liberties advocates who have claimed that mosques were subjected to unwarranted scrutiny.
Brennan, who mentioned that he is Catholic, blamed religious leaders for spreading myths about Islam's being a religion of violence. "Those who purport to be religious are frequently the most egregious purveyors of ignorance, prejudice and discrimination -- and it must stop," he said. He did not single out any particular denominations or faith leaders.
Brennan disappointed some in the audience by saying that Obama has no plans to back away from support for Israel. "It's tough, but we're not going to separate ourselves from Israel," Brennan said, according to Fox News.
At times, Brennan suggested that the entirety of the American Muslim community has always stood 100 percent behind U.S. anti-terrorism efforts. "America has rarely noticed that American Muslims, such as yourself, have always denounced violent extremism," Brennan said, citing the head of the NYU center.
That blanket statement may overstate the case somewhat, since some prominent Muslims have been unwilling to endorse U.S. designations of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorists....
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is right. "Obama names first US ambassador to Syria in five years," by Stephen Collinson for AFP, February 16 (thanks to Chad):
WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Barack Obama nominated career diplomat Robert Ford as the first US ambassador to Syria in five years, seeking to engage a US foe and energize his thwarted Middle East peace push.
Ford will be the first US ambassador to Damascus since Washington recalled its envoy after Lebanon's former prime minister Rafiq Hariri was killed in February 2005 in a bombing blamed on Syria.
"Ambassador Ford is a highly accomplished diplomat with many years of experience in the Middle East," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
"His appointment represents President Obama's commitment to use engagement to advance US interests by improving communication with the Syrian government and people.
"If confirmed by the Senate, Ambassador Ford will engage the Syrian government on how we can enhance relations, while addressing areas of ongoing concern."
But the nomination ignited a festering row with Republicans over Obama's signature policy of seeking to engage US foes.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee blasted the move as "reckless engagement" and a reward for a US enemy.
"With this nomination, our foreign policy again risks sending the message that it is better to be an intractable enemy than a cooperative, loyal US ally," she said in a statement.
"Despite the Administration's outreach, Syria continues to sponsor violent extremist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, to undermine Lebanon's sovereignty, and to pursue unconventional weapons and missile capabilities."...
In FrontPage this morning is the second of my two articles today about the Rashad Hussain coverup:
Someone is covering up for Rashad Hussain. But who?
And what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?
Rashad Hussain is the Obama administration's newly appointed special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the thuggish international organization that is engaged in a full-scale campaign to intimidate Western governments into adopting hate speech codes that will effectively quash criticism of Islam - including jihad violence perpetrated in its name. Rashad Hussain is an apposite choice for this position, since several years ago he defended a notorious U.S.-based leader of a jihad terrorist group.
But someone doesn't want you to know that, and made a clumsy attempt to cover it up.
In 2004, Rashad Hussain, then a Yale law student, declared that the investigation and prosecution of University of South Florida professor Sami al-Arian, who ultimately pled guilty to charges involving his activities as a leader of the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was a "politically motivated persecution" designed "to squash dissent."
Journalist Patrick Goodenough of Cybercast News Service reports that Hussain's remarks in support of Al-Arian were published in the jihad-enabling Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in November 2004. But now all that has gone down the memory hole. The Washington Report's archived version of this November 2004 article lacks two paragraphs that were included in the original version: the ones quoting Rashad Hussain. Otherwise the article is unchanged.
The Washington Report editors, caught red-handed, decided to brazen it out, and blame their accusers - a tried-and-true tactic that is also frequently employed by jihadists in the West. They insist that there was no cover-up, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a venomous Islamophobe: according to Goodenough, "WRMEA news editor and executive director Delinda Hanley denied there was a 'cover-up,' and implied that anti-Muslim discrimination was behind the fact this was now being raised."
Sure. It's just "anti-Muslim discrimination" to be concerned about Rashad Hussain's support for Al-Arian, a vicious suicide-bombing supporter who chanted "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," and clearly meant it. When two Islamic Jihad suicide bombers killed eighteen people in Israel in 1995, Al-Arian called them "two mujahidin martyred for the sake of God."
But there was no cover-up! It was all a mistake, you see: according to the Washington Report now, Sami Al-Arian's daughter, Laila Al-Arian, actually said the words that were attributed to Rashad Hussain.
But this explanation doesn't make sense, since the article was altered just to remove the quotes, not to change the name of the person quoted. Also, the author of the original story, Shereen Kandil, contradicts the Washington Report's explanation, telling Goodenough:
"When I worked as a reporter at WRMEA, I understood how important it was to quote the right person, and accurately. I have never mixed my sources and wouldn't have quoted Rashad Hussain if it came from Laila al-Arian. If the editors from WRMEA felt they wanted to remove Rashad Hussain from the article, my assumption is that they did it for reasons other than what you're saying. They never once contacted me about an 'error' they claim I made.'"
Was the Washington Report covering for Rashad Hussain at its own discretion, or at the behest of someone else? Did Barack Obama himself know about this cover-up? Did someone in the White House or the State Department find out about Hussain's defense of Al-Arian, and act to cover for the bright young special envoy before this defense was discovered and he became known as a terror apologist?
Or is the Obama Administration wholly uninvolved - and unaware of the fact that the President has chosen as an envoy to the world's leading organization of Islamic states a man who has openly declared his support for an admitted leader of a jihad terror group? Alternatively, is Hussain's disdain for the war on terror and support for Al-Arian precisely what Obama thought might make him appealing to the OIC? In 2007 Hussain declared that federal law should prohibit "the targeting of non-citizens solely on the basis of their racial, religious, or ethnic backgrounds." In other words, airport security officials should keep on pretending that eighty-year-old Iowa grandmothers present just as much of a terror risk as do young Muslim males. It's an outrage to common sense and a waste of resources, but it pleases Barack Obama, Rashad Hussain, and the Islamic countries to which the Administration is so desperately and fruitlessly reaching out.
Whoever is covering up for Rashad Hussain should come clean. And in the process, Obama should reevaluate the wisdom of sending a man like Hussain, with the views that he holds, to an organization such as the OIC - as should question whether he should really be sending an envoy to the OIC in the first place.
Check out the latest Jihad Watch news from modern, moderate Indonesia here.
And why is it incumbent upon the U.S. to help Muslim countries with space technology? Will this end the jihad? Does Obama think it will? Or will it end up giving technological aid to the jihadists?
"NASA plans more outreach to Muslim countries," by Mark Matthews in the Orlando Sentinel, February 16 (thanks to Creeping Sharia):
WASHINGTON -- NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said Tuesday that President Barack Obama has asked him to "find ways to reach out to dominantly Muslim countries" as the White House pushes the space agency to become a tool of international diplomacy.
"In addition to the nations that most of you usually hear about when you think about the International Space Station, we now have expanded our efforts to reach out to non-traditional partners," said Bolden, speaking to a lecture hall of young engineering students.
Specifically, he talked about connecting with countries that do not have an established space program and helping them conduct science missions. He mentioned new opportunities with Indonesia, including an educational program that examines global climate change.
"We really like Indonesia because the State Department, the Department of Education [and] other agencies in the U.S. are reaching out to Indonesia as the largest Muslim nation in the world. We would love to establish partners there," Bolden said....
In Human Events this morning, the first of two articles I have up today on Samigate: "Washington Rashad Hussain Coverup?"
Who is covering for Rashad Hussain? Last Saturday, in a video message to the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Qatar, Barack Obama appointed Rashad Hussain to be his administration's special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Rashad Hussain several years ago defended a leader of a jihad terrorist group -- and now the record of his doing so has been deep-sixed.
Journalist Patrick Goodenough of CNS News has discovered that in 2004 Hussain denounced the prosecution of University of South Florida professor Sami al-Arian as a "politically motivated persecution" designed "to squash dissent."
To be sure, this was a widespread view among liberals at the time. Al-Arian himself pushed all the right Leftist buttons: "I'm a minority. I'm an Arab, I'm Palestinian. I'm a Muslim. That's not a popular thing to be these days. Do I have rights, or don't I have rights?" The American Association of University Professors defended Al-Arian, as did The Chronicle of Higher Education, which published a cover story called "Blaming the Victim?" and featuring a photo of Al-Arian.
In March 2002 Nicholas Kristof went to bat for the professor in the New York Times: "The point is not whether one agrees with Professor Al-Arian, a rumpled academic with a salt-and-pepper beard who is harshly critical of Israel (and also of repressive Arab countries) -- but who also denounces terrorism, promotes inter-faith services with Jews and Christians, and led students at his Islamic school to a memorial service after 9/11 where they all sang 'God Bless America.' No, the larger point is that a university, even a country, becomes sterile when people are too intimidated to say things out of the mainstream."
Phil Donahue fawned over Al-Arian on his show. "So, one more time, sir," he said to the professor, "and I know that you're probably getting tired of these same questions --'death to Israel' did not mean you wanted to kill Jews, do I understand your position?" After Al-Arian assured him of his pacifistic intentions, Phil went on to allege that "the law of innocent until proven guilty doesn't seem to exist for Professor Sami Al-Arian."
All of Al-Arian's defenders had egg on their faces when Al-Arian pled guilty to charges involving his acting as a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a deadly terrorist group that has employed suicide bombings and other terror tactics to murder over one hundred Israelis.
And among the egged faces was Rashad Hussain, apparently. Goodenough reports that Hussain's remarks defending Al-Arian appeared in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in 2004. But now the Washington Report's website carries a version of this article from the passage referring to Rashad Hussain has been removed. Nothing else in the article has been changed.
Was this bowdlerization done by someone at the Washington Report acting on his own discretion, or is the Obama camp involved? Is someone in the Administration aware of the political fallout that could result from the news that Obama is sending a man who spoke up on behalf of a convicted jihad terrorist as his envoy to the leading Muslim organization in the world? Did they perform or ask to be performed a bit of Orwellian image enhancement on Rashad Hussain?
Even aside from this there was enough disquieting about the appointment. In a 2007 article Hussain criticized focusing on Muslims in anti-terror efforts: "Federal law should adopt a standard that protects national security while forbidding the targeting of non-citizens solely on the basis of their racial, religious, or ethnic backgrounds." When the overwhelming majority of terror attacks are committed by young Muslim males acting in the name of Islamic teachings, this is just a call for the waste of resources.
And then there is the idea of sending an envoy to the OIC in the first place. This 57-government Islamic bloc, the largest voting bloc in the UN today, is waging an international campaign against the freedom of speech, trying to pressure the West into passing laws criminalizing criticism of Islam - including counterterror investigations of the motives and goals of jihad terrorists. Is this really an organization to which Obama is well-advised to reach out?
Rashad Hussain defended jihad terror leader Sami Al-Arian in the jihad-enabling Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. But when Hussain was appointed Obama's special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, suddenly the evidence of his defense of Al-Arian went down the memory hole. But there was no cover-up! It was all a mistake, you see: according to the Washington Report now, Laila Al-Arian actually said the words that were attributed to Rashad Hussain.
But this doesn't make sense, since the article was altered just to remove the quotes, not to change the name of the person quoted. Also, the author of the original story contradicts the Washington Report's explanation.
Did Obama know about this cover-up?
An update on this story. "Publication Denies Cover-Up on OIC Envoy, Implies Anti-Muslim Bias Lies Behind Story," by Patrick Goodenough for CNS News, February 16:
(CNSNews.com) - A Washington-based publication said Tuesday that it incorrectly quoted President Obama's newly-appointed envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference as saying in 2004 that an American who aided a Palestinian terrorist group was the victim of "politically motivated persecutions."
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) was responding to queries about why an archived story quoting Rashad Hussain as making the controversial comments was altered years later.
WRMEA news editor and executive director Delinda Hanley denied there was a "cover-up," and implied that anti-Muslim discrimination was behind the fact this was now being raised.
Yeah, it's just "anti-Muslim discrimination" to be concerned about Rashad Hussain's support for Al-Arian, a vicious suicide-bombing supporter who chanted "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" and was a leader of the bloody terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
At the time of the quoted remarks Hussain was a Yale law student. Last year he was appointed White House deputy associate counsel and Obama at the weekend named him as special envoy to the OIC, the 57-member bloc of Islamic states.
Cybercast News Service reported earlier that Hussain was quoted in a November 2004 WRMEA article as telling a Muslim students' event in Chicago that the situation facing Sami al-Arian - a university professor then in custody and later convicted and jailed for conspiring to aid a Palestinian terrorist group - was "politically motivated" and a means "to squash dissent."
It was also reported that the WRMEA article was amended - at least three years later, according to an Internet archive site - with the paragraphs quoting Hussain removed. (see the original and revised pages).
Responding to queries first sent on Sunday, Hanley said Tuesday that the comments attributed to Hussain were actually made by another person attending the event in Chicago, Sami al-Arian's daughter, Laila al-Arian.
Hanley said an "intern" who attended the event and wrote the story had made an "error." When this was discovered the quotes were deleted, she said.
But the writer, contacted by email on Tuesday, denied this.
"When I worked as a reporter at WRMEA, I understood how important it was to quote the right person, and accurately," Shereen Kandil said. "I have never mixed my sources and wouldn't have quoted Rashad Hussain if it came from Laila al-Arian."
"If the editors from WRMEA felt they wanted to remove Rashad Hussain from the article, my assumption is that they did it for reasons other than what you're saying," she said. "They never once contacted me about an 'error' they claim I made."...
After looking further into the matter, Hanley said several hours later that the WRMEA web master thought the archived story had been altered on February 5, 2009, although it was also possible that the change had been made "when our Web site began an ongoing redesign."...
Clearly they've been caught, and they're scrambling.
This article's headline actually refers to a new "tough stance" by the US. This means...tougher talk.
"US seeks to shore up support for tough Iran stance," by Robert Burns for AP, February 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):
DOHA, Qatar - U.S. officials sought to shore up support Sunday for a tougher stand against Iran's nuclear program by saying Tehran had left the world little choice and expressing renewed confidence that holdout China would come around to harsher U.N. penalties.
Even as the Obama administration intensifies its diplomacy, Iran is showing little sign of bending to the will of its critics. Past U.N. sanctions have had little effect. Some outside experts have detected what they believe are new slowdowns in Iran's nuclear advances, but the Islamic republic is believed headed toward having nuclear weapons capability in perhaps a few years -- estimates vary as to when.
President Barack Obama's senior military adviser called for more time for diplomatic pressure to work and said from Israel, which has hinted that it might attack if negotiations to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions failed, that such action could have "unintended consequences" throughout the Middle East. Israel views Iran's nuclear program as a threat to its very existence.
While diplomatic patience has its limits, "we're not there yet," U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Tel Aviv.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a quick visit to Persian Gulf allies Qatar and Saudi Arabia, told a forum on U.S.-Muslim relations that Iran has not lived up to its nuclear obligations and has rebuffed U.S. and international efforts to engage in serious talks. She said Iran has a right to nuclear power, but only if shown unequivocally it is to be used just for peaceful purposes.
While Iran insists it has no desire to get the bomb, Clinton said it appears otherwise.
"The evidence is accumulating that that is exactly what they are trying to do," she said during a question-and-answer session with her audience at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum, attended by officials and scholars from around the world. She also used pointed language in stressing that after months of failed efforts aimed at direct talks with Iran, tougher action is now required.
"It's time for Iran to be held to account for its activities," she said, alluding to penalties designed to squeeze Iran's economy.
In her speech, Clinton said the U.S. and others were working on "new measures" to try to persuade Iran to change its course.
She added: "I would like to figure out a way to handle it in as peaceful an approach as possible, and I certainly welcome any meaningful engagement, but we don't want to be engaging while they are building their bomb."
Obama has said that work to broaden economic sanctions in the U.N. Security Council is moving along quickly, but he hasn't given a specific timeline. China, one of five permanent members of the Security Council, has close economic ties to Iran and can block a resolution by itself....
The Muslim Brotherhood "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.
"BREAKING NEWS: New Obama Envoy Has History Of Engagement With U.S. Muslim Brotherhood; Called Al-Arian Case 'Politically Motivated Persecution,'" from the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, February 15 (thanks to Sr. Soph):
Rashad Hussein, White House official and President Obama's newly appointed Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference, has a history of participation in events connected with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood as well as support for Brotherhood causes....[...]
However, in October 2000 Mr. Hussain spoke at a conference sponsored by the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS) and the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University (CMCU). The conference was titled "Islam, Pluralism, and Demoracy and featured many leaders of the global Muslim Brotherhood including former German diplomat Murad Hoffman, and International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) leaders Louay Safi, Jamal Barzinji, Hisham Al-Talib, and AbdulHamid Abusylayman. The AMSS was founded in 1972 as an outgrowth of the Muslim Student Association and has long been associated with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.
In June 2002, Mr. Hussain was listed as part of a Congressional Staffers panel at the American Muslim Council's (AMC) 11th annual convention. The AMC was headed at that time headed by Abdurahman Alamoudi, a leader in the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and currently imprisoned as part of a plot to assassinate the Saudi head of state, Crown Prince Abdullah. Other important leaders of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood such as Jamal Barzinji were also part of the AMC.
While at Yale Law School, Mr. Hussain was listed as part of the organizing committee for an April 2004 conference organized by a student organization known as the Critical Islamic Reflections (CIR) group. Among the CIR sponsors listed on the their web site was IIIT and the Fairfax Institute, the IIIT educational arm. IIIT is an important component of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and three of the key IIIT/Fairfax leaders Jamal Barzinji, Hisham Al-Talib, and Yaqub Mirza; were also associated with what has been called the SAAR network (Safa Group), a network of Islamic organizations located in Northern Virginia that was raided by the Federal government in March 2002 and which, until at least mid 2007, had been the subject of an ongoing investigation. Also listed as a CIR sponsor was ALIM, most likely referring to the American Learning Institute for Muslims and whose list of instructors includes some of the most important leaders of the U.S./global Muslim Brotherhood including Tariq Ramadan, Jamal Badawi, and Taha Al-Alwani.
In September 2004, while still a Yale law student, Mr. Hussain participated in a session at the annual conference of the Muslim Student's Association (MSA) of the U.S. and Canada. The MSA has long been associated with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and at the session, Mr. Hussain appeared along side the daughter of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian and labeled Al-Arian's prosecution "politically motivated persecution." According to an archived notice in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs:
A session on civil rights called "Get up, Stand up; Stand up for your Rights: The State of Contemporary Civil Liberties" was held Sept. 5 at the annual conference for the Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada, held alongside the Islamic Society of North America's 41st annual convention in Chicago. Laila Al-Arian, daughter of civil and political rights activist and Muslim leader Sami Al-Arian, opened the session with her father's story. She gave a heart-wrenching, emotional account of an innocent man targeted for free-speech activities, whose rights were stripped thanks in part to the PATRIOT Act. Al-Arian, who has not yet been to trial, has been held in a federal penitentiary for over a year and a half. Al-Arian's situation is one of many "politically motivated persecutions," claimed Rashad Hussain, a Yale law student. Such persecution, he stated, must be fought through hope, faith, and the Muslim vote.
(It should be noted that in the latest version of the above report, the two sentences pertaining to Mr. Hussain have been removed, sometime after October 2007 according to the Internet Archive.)
In 2006, Al-Arian was sentenced to 57 months in prison for conspiring to violate a federal law that prohibits making or receiving contributions of funds, goods or services to, or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Defense of Al-Arian and accusations of politically-motivated prosecution has been a long-time U.S. Muslim Brotherhood cause....
Sami al-Arian is the former Florida professor who turned out to be a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and who waged an immensely successful propaganda campaign charging that his prosecution was a manifestation of "Islamophobia" -- until he pled guilty, that is. And Rashad Hussain was part of that campaign, although someone has tried to cover up that fact. "Obama's New OIC Envoy Defended Activist Who Aided Terrorist Group," by Patrick Goodenough for CNS News, February 15:
(CNSNews.com) - President Obama's newly appointed envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference was quoted in 2004 as saying an American who aided a Palestinian terrorist group was the victim of "politically motivated persecutions" who was being used "to squash dissent."
Rashad Hussain was quoted as telling a Muslim students' event in Chicago that if U.S. Muslims did not speak out against the injustices taking place in America, then everyone's rights would be in jeopardy.
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) cited Hussain as making the remarks in connection with Sami al-Arian, a university professor and activist sentenced in 2006 to more than four years in prison (including time already spent in custody) after he had pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
The U.S. government designated the PIJ as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, and in 2003, then Attorney-General John Ashcroft described it as "one of the most violent terrorist organizations in the world."
Palestinian Islamic Jihad has killed more than 100 Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks. Its victims include American citizens Alisa Flatow, a 20-year-old New Jersey college student killed in a 1995 suicide bombing in Gaza, and 16-year-old Shoshana Ben-Ishai, shot dead in a bus in Jerusalem in 2001.
In sentencing al-Arian, Judge James Moody of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida described him as a "leader of the PIJ" and a "master manipulator."
Al-Arian remains under home detention in Virginia pending contempt of court charges relating to his refusal to testify in an unrelated case involving an Islamic think tank. Sympathizers view him as a victim of post-9/11 law enforcement zeal and anti-Muslim prejudice. (The WRMEA article described him as "an innocent man targeted for free-speech activities, whose rights were stripped thanks in part to the PATRIOT Act.")
Among those sympathizers, evidently, was Rashad Hussain, who at the time of the cited remarks was a Yale Law School student and an editor, from 2003-2005, of the Yale Law Journal. He went on to serve as a Department of Justice trial attorney and in January 2009 was appointed White House deputy associate counsel.
On Saturday, Obama named the Texas-born, 31-year-old Indian-American as his envoy to the OIC, the 57-member bloc of Islamic states. The appointment is in line with the president's goal, expressed in his speech in Cairo last June, to reach out to the Islamic world.
Obama made the announcement in a video address at a U.S.-Islamic World Forum meeting in Qatar, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Hussain attended over the weekend.
"Rashad has played a key role in developing the partnerships I called for in Cairo," Obama told the gathering in the video message. "And as a hafiz of the Koran, he is a respected member of the American Muslim community, and I thank him for carrying forward this important work." (A hafiz is someone who has memorized the Islamic text.)
And someone is whitewashing the record:
Article edited
Around three years after the WRMEA article quoting Hussain first appeared, it was edited to remove all references to him.
A copy of the original 2004 article, retrieved via the Nexis news database, includes the following sentences:
Al-Arian's situation is one of many "politically motivated persecutions," claimed Rashad Hussain, a Yale law student. Such persecution, he stated, must be fought through hope, faith, and the Muslim vote (...) Along with many others, said Yale's Hussain, Dr. Sami Al-Arian has been "used politically to squash dissent." The Muslim community must speak out against the injustices taking place in America, he emphasized. Otherwise, everyone's rights will be in jeopardy.
But in the version of the same story currently available on the WRMEA Web site those sentences - and only those sentences - have disappeared. An Internet archive search indicates that the edits were made sometime after October 2007.
Contacted by email on Sunday, the writer of the original article expressed surprise but said she no longer worked at WRMEA and could not explain the edit. Queries sent to WRMEA editors brought no response. They were asked whether either Hussain, or anyone else, had asked for the archived story to be altered...
Both Obama and Rashad Hussein refer to "thousands" of townhalls and meetings held around the world, where the US apparently "listened" to Muslims. Can we get a list of these? How much did they cost? Who did the talking? What was the agenda?
Is there any other religion they've had "thousands" of townhalls and meetings with, or are they only listening to Muslims? How about the Coptic and Iraqi Christians being slaughtered -- any listening going on with the authorities there?
Maybe in addition to willful blindness, this government has added willful deafness -- selective listening only to the Muslim authorities and selective deafness to the cries of Christians being persecuted by those Muslim authorities.
And of course they're listening to Muslims at these "thousands" of townhall meetings because Muslims cultivate an air of aggrieved righteousness. It never seems to occur to the governing establishment types that righteous anger may not actually indicate a just cause at all, but may merely be a cleverly deployed instrument of manipulation.
DOHA, Feb 13 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Saturday he was naming a special envoy to a top Islamic body to further Washington's cooperation with the Muslim world.
Obama told a U.S.-Islamic World Forum in the Qatari capital Doha in a recorded video message that he was naming White House official Rashad Hussain as special envoy to the 56-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
"As an accomplished lawyer and a close and trusted member of my White House staff, Rashad has played a key role in developing the partnerships I called for in Cairo," Obama said....
"Since then, my administration has made a sustained effort to listen. We've held thousands of events and town halls ...in the United States and around the world ... And I look forward to continuing the dialogue during my visit to Indonesia next month," Obama said.
Obama told Muslims in his June 4 speech in Cairo that violent extremists had exploited tensions between Muslims and the West and that Islam was not part of the problem.
His speech was welcomed by many Muslims, though some said they wanted him to spell out specific actions to resolve long-running problems like the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
"And as a hafiz of the Koran, (Hussain) is a respected member of the American Muslim community, and I thank him for carrying forward this important work," Obama said in his message to the Doha meeting, using the term for someone who has mastered and memorised the Muslim holy book....
This is not just a question of which side is he on. This is a question of which planet is he on. "Obama's National Defence Review ignores Iran and Islam in favour of... climate change!," by James Corum in the Telegraph, February 11 (thanks to Pamela):
Under American law, every four years the US Defence Department must present to Congress a comprehensive review of the security threats and challenges to America. The security picture presented in the review provides the justification for planning and creating the appropriate military forces and capabilities. The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is supposed to be a non-partisan and objective strategic document - free of partisan politics. After all, the duty to protect the nation and its citizens is supposed to take a higher priority than subsidies to labour unions, or hand-outs to party loyalists.
Last week the Defence Department released the 2010 QDR. It is a remarkable document. As guidance for American strategy it might even take a historical place alongside some of the great assessments of the Bush administration--such as the 2003 Congressional testimony by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz that a war in Iraq could be waged at little cost.
The 128-page Defence Review says some important things. It outlines the problems with maintaining the US military's technological lead over potential adversaries. It discusses the need to counter terrorism. The threat to Western cyber systems is noted. The proliferation of Russian high-tech anti-aircraft missiles around the world is noted as a problem.
However, it's not what is in the document that surprises the reader - it's what was left out. There presence of two elephants in their living room apparently escaped the notice of American's top civilian and military leaders. Islamic radicalism does not receive any mention whatsoever in the American Defence Review and the threat posed by a nuclear Iran is mentioned in only one general sentence at the end of a document (page 101). To put this lack of discussion in proportion, contrast this non-discussion with other security issues mentioned in the document. For example, the security effects of climate change are highlighted and discussed in depth in eight pages of the document.
I would not have thought it possible that one could publish a book-length assessment of America's security challenges and responses and NOT address the problem of Islamic radicalism or the Iranian bomb - but that's just what Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mullen have done. From this one can draw one of two possible conclusions: these men are really, really stupid (not very likely), or they have deliberately minimised the current security threats to please the Obama administration and support the President's desire to cut defence spending. The smart money is on the latter explanation....
DHS has only so much in the way of resources. The same thing goes for the whole military and intelligence establishment. And while authorities couldn't be bothered doing anything about Nidal Hasan, the mass-murdering Fort Hood jihadist, or other jihadis in the ranks, for two years after being apprised of their presence, they had time to develop a "threat assessment" on people who constituted no terror threat at all. (And before you start flooding the comments field and my email box with messages about the murders of abortion doctors, note that eight people have been killed in such violence since 1993, while there have been nearly 15,000 Islamic jihad attacks since 9/11.)
"Obama Administration Admits It Wrongly Tracked Abortion Groups in Wisconsin," by Steven Ertelt for LifeNews.com, February 8 (thanks to Pamela):
Madison, WI (LifeNews.com) -- The Department of Homeland Security admitted today that it improperly conducted a threat assessment on pro-life and pro-abortion groups in Wisconsin. The assessment came before an expected rally last year in response to the University of Wisconsin Hospital board decided to allow abortions. [...]
"This move by DHS illustrates the Obama administration's goal of silencing pro-lifers. It is disturbing that a local police department has apparently tapped into the security apparatus of the federal government to potentially obstruct free speech," Hamill concluded.
"Last year, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano unjustly included pro-lifers in a report on domestic terrorism, and here we see her words in action," she said.
Brennan is responding to criticism of the mirandizing of Abdulmutallab, which dammed up what was looking to be a useful source of information. They're doing a good job, he insists, and critics are just playing into the hands of the jihadists. But the increase in jihad activity in the U.S. belies his words.
"Opposing view: 'We need no lectures,'" by John Brennan, the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, in USA Today, February 9:
Politics should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.
Immediately after the failed Christmas Day attack, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was thoroughly interrogated and provided important information. Senior counterterrorism officials from the White House, the intelligence community and the military were all actively discussing this case before he was Mirandized and supported the decision to charge him in criminal court.
The most important breakthrough occurred after Abdulmutallab was read his rights, a long-standing FBI policy that was reaffirmed under Michael Mukasey, President Bush's attorney general. The critics who want the FBI to ignore this long-established practice also ignore the lessons we have learned in waging this war: Terrorists such as Jose Padilla and Saleh al-Mari did not cooperate when transferred to military custody, which can harden one's determination to resist cooperation.
It's naive to think that transferring Abdulmutallab to military custody would have caused an outpouring of information. There is little difference between military and civilian custody, other than an interrogator with a uniform. The suspect gets access to a lawyer, and interrogation rules are nearly identical. [...]
This administration's efforts have disrupted dozens of terrorist plots against the homeland and been responsible for killing and capturing hundreds of hard-core terrorists, including senior leaders in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond -- far more than in 2008. We need no lectures about the fact that this nation is at war.
Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. They will, however, be dismantled and destroyed, by our military, our intelligence services and our law enforcement community. And the notion that America's counterterrorism professionals and America's system of justice are unable to handle these murderous miscreants is absurd.
Sure. They can't name them, they can't call them what they are, they don't dare to discuss what they believe, they won't try to learn anything about what their motives or goals might be, but they can handle them. Sure. Trust Brennan. After all, his record is so sterling.
"Gates Says U.S., Iran Aren't Close to Nuclear Accord," by Viola Gienger and Steve Bryant for Bloomberg, February 6:
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he doesn't regard Iran as close to an accord with international powers on the handling of uranium.
"I don't have the sense that we are close to an agreement," Gates said today in Turkey's capital Ankara. He discussed Iran with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in Munich yesterday that Iran is "approaching a final agreement" on having nuclear fuel produced outside the Islamic Republic. The country is "serious," he said. Mottaki also today said he had talks on a possible deal with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano at the Munich Security Conference.
The U.S., the other four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany are working to persuade Iran to give up enrichment of uranium, which could be used to produce fuel or make a bomb. The group, which also includes China, France, Russia, and the U.K., offered a proposal that would allow Iran to swap uranium in return for enriched fuel for a medical reactor.
Iran's response has been "quite disappointing," Gates said. The country continues to resist the IAEA and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, he said.
Nothing Done
"They have done nothing to reassure the international community that they are prepared to comply with the NPT or stop their progress toward a nuclear weapon," Gates said. "I think that various nations need to think about whether the time has come for a different tack."...
No kidding, really? It is for this incisive analysis that Gates has earned his prominent position.
The utterly wrongheaded policy that has American troops in Afghanistan devoting the bulk of their time to hearts-and-minds initiatives and to behaving like social workers is...killing American troops. When America pretends to have no enemies, its enemies do not fall into line and behave accordingly. And yet Americans are not allowed to fight back.
Yet another Which-Side-Is-Obama-On Alert: "US casualties in Afghanistan provoke rage and frustration," by Jason Gutierrez in the Telegraph, February 1 (thanks to herr Oyal):
A hunger for revenge is palpable among US Marines as casualties grow on the frontline of the battle against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. 'My men want revenge - that is only natural,' says First Lieutenant Aaron MacLean.
On a base near Marjah, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, Marines are grieving the deaths of a sergeant and corporal killed by the remote-controlled bombs that have become the scourge of the long-running conflict.
Commanders try to keep the men's rage in check, aware that winning over an Afghan public wary of the foreign military presence and furious about civilian casualties is as important as battlefield success.
And yet the only reason that they think it is even possible to win over a wary Afghan public is because they are ignorant of the nature and power of the doctrines of Islam regarding unbelievers.
"It causes a lot of frustration. My men want revenge - that is only natural," says First Lieutenant Aaron MacLean, 2nd Platoon commander of the 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment Charlie company.
"But I keep telling them that the rules are the rules for a reason. If we simply go crazy and start shooting at everything, in the long run we will lose this war because we will lose the support of the population."
First Lieutenant MacLean has learned his lessons well, but I wonder if he ever stops and asks himself why, after all these years in Afghanistan and all these hearts-and-minds initiatives, Americans still don't have the support of the population.
He too is frustrated, accusing the Taliban of manipulating the rules of engagement by using women and children as shields and shooting from hidden positions before dropping their weapons and standing out in the open.
"They know we can't shoot them if they don't carry guns or without positive identification. They are fighting us at another level now," MacLean said. [...]
Of course, Lieutenant. They are jihadis. They don't care about civilian casualties, but they know you do, and they know how to play the propaganda game, and they know that the mainstream media will aid and abet them as they play that game.
There follows a long account of a Taliban attack, and then:
"We were attacked treacherously. We came under fire from everywhere, but the rules of engagement prevent me from doing my job," said Lance Corporal Mark Duzick, who was in the unit that was ambushed.
Outside a tent housing the Marines' unit responsible for firing mortars stands an improvised cross bearing the inscription: "Here lies the 81st, death by stand down."...
While most are caused by the Taliban, the insurgents exploit civilian casualties to spread distrust among the public for foreign and Afghan troops.
As the nature of the fight has changed, with the Taliban increasingly using suicide attacks and IEDs, there had been no traditional winter hiatus and General Zahir Azimi, a defence ministry spokesman, said that spring is likely to be ferocious....
There should be a full-scale investigation of this in Washington. But there won't be, because most pols on both sides of the aisle still assume that it would be terrible to stop trying to be buddies to the Afghans and to fight a traditional war. They think we can actually win, i.e., create a stable and secure Afghanistan, by not fighting. Their naivete is probably incurable.
The adolescent terminology is embarrassing, and even worse, it stems from a determination not to use the word "enemy." Enlightened post-modern Westerners don't have enemies, no matter how determined their actual enemies are to destroy them.
Worst of all, Clinton offers no way, and has no way, to distinguish the "really bad guys" from the chimerical "moderate Taliban." So this will only lead to the enabling and empowering of...the really bad guys.
"Clinton says no talking to 'really bad guys' in Taliban," from AFP, January 29 (thanks to Kris):
WASHINGTON -- US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has ruled out talking to the "really bad guys" in Afghanistan, promising that a new drive to woo moderate Taliban would not set back women's rights.
Clinton doubted that Afghan leaders or the international community would reach out to hardliners like Mullah Omar, who headed the Taliban regime which imposed an austere brand of Islam from 1996 to 2001.
"We're not going to talk to the really bad guys because the really bad guys are not ever going to renounce Al-Qaeda and renounce violence and agree to re-enter society," Clinton said in an interview with National Public Radio broadcast on Friday.
"That is not going to happen with people like Mullah Omar and the like."
Clinton was speaking from London, where a global conference threw its backing behind a multimillion-dollar fund to support Afghan President Hamid Karzai's plan to integrate militants who lay down their arms.
The chief US diplomat, a longtime advocate of women's rights, acknowledged that some Afghan women were concerned about dealing with the Taliban -- whose regime forbade women from going to school, working or traveling on their own.
However, she added: "I don't think there is cause for alarm that the current government or any foreseeable government would turn the clock back like that."
This is a really fantastic statement, given the Taliban's record of bombing girl's schools. Why would a government that included the Taliban suddenly become welcoming toward the education of girls?
She said it was crucial for women's rights that "there is enough power in the state and through the new Afghan security forces to make sure that there's never a resurgence of the Taliban that would come close to taking over large parts of the country.
In other words: Israel, please don't pressure Iran about its nuclear program. "Obama aide: Iran may lash out at Israel over pressure on nuclear program," from the Associated Press, January 30 (thanks to Alexandre):
President Barack Obama's national security adviser cited on Friday a heightened risk that Iran will respond to growing pressure over its nuclear program by stroking violence against Israel.
The adviser, retired Marine Gen. James Jones, said history shows that when regimes are feeling pressure they can lash out through surrogates.
He said that in Iran's case that would mean facilitating attacks on Israel through Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Iran helps arm Hezbollah and Hamas....
Also in September, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to keep supporting the Palestinian militant group Hamas until the "collapse of Israel."
The Iranian news agency Khabar quoted Ahmadinejad as telling Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh that Iran views the support of the Palestinian people as part of its religious and national duty and that Iran will stand behind the Palestinian nation "until the big victory feast which is the collapse of the Zionist regime."
Under pressure from the Mayor of New York, not because of some newly discovered concern for the American people and a desire not to give a propaganda platform to America's enemies. "Trial for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed won't happen in New York City, says official," by Kenneth R. Bazinet, Wil Cruz and Samuel Goldsmith for the New York Daily News, January 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):
The White House has abandoned its plan to hold the 9/11 terror trial in lower Manhattan after a wave of protests from New York to Washington, it was reported Friday night.
The decision to scrap the downtown terror trial capped weeks of escalating criticism from business and community leaders and came two days afer [sic] Mayor Bloomberg reversed course and came out against the plan.
"New York is out," an administration official told the Washington Post Friday night. "We're considering other options."
Bloomberg first backed the idea of trying alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in downtown's federal courthouse when the decision was announced by Attorney General Eric Holder last month.
Bloomberg bowed to complaints from opponents who feared the security burdens and cost would damage local business for years to come and expose the city to a possible retaliatory terror attack.
The mayor called Holder on Thursday to ask the Justice Department reconsider holding the trial in the city. Hours later, the White House directed the department to explore other venues.
Before Friday night's decision was apparent, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly credited Bloomberg with derailing the plan.
"Political leaders were concerned about it, but it wasn't until the mayor made that statement that the White House reacted," Kelly said. "It's the right decision for the city."...
But with Obama working so assiduously to give him what he wants here, his rhetoric rings a bit hollow this time. "Bin Laden Blames U.S. for Global Warming in New Tape," from AP, January 29 (thanks to Twostellas):
CAIRO -- Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming, according to a new audiotape released Friday.
In the tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt.
He blamed Western industrialized nations for hunger, desertification and floods across the globe, and called for "drastic solutions" to global warming, and "not solutions that partially reduce the effect of climate change."...
"We should stop dealings with the dollar and get rid of it as soon as possible," he said. "I know that this has great consequences and grave ramifications, but it is the only means to liberate humanity from slavery and dependence on America."...
Newsweek, which happily decided we were all socialists now after Barack Obama was elected President, and which thinks we should surrender to the global jihad, takes a surprising new tack in "Enough Is Enough" by Richard N. Haass, January 22 (thanks to John):
I've changed my mind. The nuclear talks are going nowhere. The Iranians appear intent on developing the means to produce a nuclear weapon; there is no other explanation for the secret uranium-enrichment facility discovered near the holy city of Qum. Fortunately, their nuclear program appears to have hit some technical snags, which puts off the need to decide whether to launch a preventive strike. Instead we should be focusing on another fact: Iran may be closer to profound political change than at any time since the revolution that ousted the shah 30 years ago.
But Barack Obama, of course, has done nothing to aid those who might have toppled the Islamic regime, or at least installed a somewhat more humane and less anti-Western, anti-Israel regime.
Obama should be asked about the fact that Abdulmutallab was talking, and revealing a great deal, until he was treated as an ordinary criminal suspect and told that he had a right to remain silent.
"AP Exclusive: Feds detail Christmas Day attack," by Devlin Barrett for the Associated Press, January 24 (thanks to Choi):
WASHINGTON - For hours after allegedly trying to use a bomb hidden in his underwear to blow up a Christmas Day flight to Detroit, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab talked and talked -- to Customs officers, medical personnel, and FBI agents.
He spoke openly about what he'd done and why, and provided valuable intelligence, U.S. officials told The Associated Press in a series of interviews that spell out for the first time the details of Abdulmutallab's arrest and questioning on Dec. 25. [...]
The bomb had severely burned Abdulmutallab but he was still conscious. As he was taken from the scene, federal agents repeatedly interviewed him or heard him speak to others. But when they read him his legal rights nearly 10 hours after the incident, he went silent. [...]
The suspect spoke openly, said one official, talking in detail about what he'd done and the planning that went into the attack. Other counterterrorism officials speaking on condition of anonymity said it was during this questioning that he admitted he had been trained and instructed in the plot by al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. [...]
While the Miranda warning -- based on a 1966 Supreme Court ruling -- is a bedrock principle of the U.S. justice system and a staple of television cop shows, there is a major exception which could apply in Abdulmutallab's case.
Investigators are allowed to question a suspect without providing a Miranda warning if they are trying to end a threat to public safety. [...]
“My comrade-in-arms, my pal, my buddy.” — Oriana Fallaci
“Robert Spencer incarnates intellectual courage when, all over the world, governments, intellectuals, churches, universities and media crawl under a hegemonic Universal Caliphate’s New Order. His achievement in the battle for the survival of free speech and dignity of man will remain as a fundamental monument to the love of, and the self-sacrifice for, liberty.”
— Bat Ye’or
“Robert Spencer is indefatigable. He is keeping up the good fight long after many have already given up. I do not know what we would do without him. I appreciate all the intelligence and courage it takes to keep going despite the appeasement of the West.”
— Ibn Warraq
“America's most informed, fearless, and compelling voice on modern jihadism.” — Andrew C. McCarthy, Senior Fellow at National Review Institute
“Over the years, we have become friends, and I have received his assistance on several pieces of legislation I proposed.” — Former Congressman Tom Tancredo
“Few people are capable of applying scholarship, analytical reasoning, and objectivity to their topic -- while simultaneously being readable and witty -- as can Robert Spencer.” — Raymond Ibrahim
“I am indeed honored to call him my friend.” — Brad Thor, novelist
“Robert Spencer is the leading voice of scholarship and reason in a world gone mad. If the West is to be saved, we will owe Robert Spencer an incalculable debt.” — Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs
“Thank God there’s at least one man with balls left in the West.” — Kathy Shaidle, Five Feet of Fury
“I read people like [Mark Steyn] and Bob Spencer and the rest of them, and I say, ‘Boortz, you’re pretending you’re an author. These people really are. They really write some entertaining, some standup stuff.’” — Neal Boortz
