'Flying imams' case is settled at our expense
It's all too easy to apply hindsight to a potentially perilous situation.
By KATHERINE KERSTEN, Star Tribune
LINK
Last update: October 25, 2009 - 11:44 AM
The "flying imams" and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are declaring victory in their legal war against law-enforcement personnel and safety procedures at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Their "victory" -- aided and abetted by a judge arrogantly dismissive of law-enforcement realities -- is a major setback for transportation safety.
The case made news three years ago when the six imams were removed from a U.S. Airways jet after passengers and airline employees reported that the six were engaging in suspicious behavior, including changing seats into a so-called 9/11 pattern; cursing the United States and its conflict with Saddam Hussein; chanting "Allah, Allah" when boarding was called, and unnecessarily requesting seat-belt extenders that could be used as weapons.
The imams were questioned and released. Subsequently, they sued U.S. Airways, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), the officers involved and even passengers they suspected of reporting their behavior, until an outraged, bipartisan Congress passed a law giving the passengers immunity.
Last week, a settlement was announced in the case. Details remain confidential, and the judge must approve the agreement. But the parties have said publicly that -- though there is no admission of guilt or fault -- money will change hands. MAC's insurance company exercised its right to take charge of the defense and chose to settle, according to MAC spokesman Patrick Hogan.
No wonder. In a ruling this summer, U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery pinned the law-enforcement officials involved to the wall -- one from the FBI and six from MAC -- second-guessing their conduct with the luxury of a Monday-morning quarterback.
When the officers were summoned to Flight 300 on Nov. 20, 2006, they believed that passengers might be in danger, and they had to make quick decisions based on limited information. Montgomery, in contrast, had the opportunity to review hundreds of pages of briefs, depositions and exhibits before concluding -- in hindsight -- that the officers had erred in detaining the imams. After hearing lawyers' arguments, she deliberated for almost three months before penning a 47-page dissertation on what, in her view, the officers should or shouldn't have done that day.
Most important, she -- unlike the officers -- knew with the benefit of hindsight that passengers had not been in danger.
On July 24, 2009, Montgomery issued her ruling. "No reasonably competent officer," she wrote, could have believed he was acting legally by detaining and questioning the imams in a way that, in her view, amounted to an "arrest." The fact that at least 15 officers involved in the incident -- from the MAC, the Federal Air Marshal Service, the FBI and the Secret Service -- had all apparently believed they were acting appropriately and responsibly did not appear to give her pause. The MAC officers, Montgomery ruled, were actually guilty of a "willful or malicious wrong."
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, worries about the impact of a settlement reached under such circumstances.
"Terrorism operates on fear," says Jasser. "Transportation authorities don't know when, where or how terrorists will strike, so they must be vigilant." After this settlement, he adds, the men and women charged with protecting the public will have to contend with a "competing fear" as they make tough decisions: "They may ask, 'If I detain and question someone who is acting suspiciously, will I cost my employer thousands of dollars, or even lose my job?'"
This chilling effect may lead to risky changes in airport security policies and pilot training, Jasser warns. As a result, officials may miss "vital nuances" in behavior that put the rest of us in danger.
Despite a potential increase in safety risks at the airport, is the flying imams' settlement at least a victory for Muslim civil rights, as CAIR has declared? On the contrary, says Jasser -- a Muslim -- it's a victory for the legal strategy of "victimization," which grievance groups have often employed to "shake down" defendants. CAIR and the imams dismiss national security concerns, he says, in order to portray airport security measures as motivated by ethnic and religious bigotry. In the process, they ignore the central role of suspicious behavior and cast themselves as victims of irrational bias.
This obsession with victimization leads CAIR and the imams to ignore Muslims' real interests, Jasser adds.
"Muslims have responsibility for religious reform, aimed at removing the fuel that powers the growth of radical Islam. We will have succeeded when we no longer see arrests for terrorist-related activities -- as we did recently in Denver, New Jersey and Boston," he says. "The real victory for Muslims will come when the cancer of political Islamist ideology, which feeds terrorism, disappears."
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
The End Game Of The Left
October 23, 2009
The End Game of the Left
By Andrew Thomas
Over the Columbus Day weekend, my wife and I traveled to Brooklyn, N.Y. to visit our daughter and her boyfriend. I was strictly admonished by my wife not to talk politics during the visit, since my daughter's boyfriend is a radical leftist. He, being a well-educated social science buff, and I, being who I am (a well-educated "right-wing nut job"), we had created many spectacular fireworks during past political debate sessions.
Things went well up until Sunday afternoon, when we were both seated on the couch benignly watching a football game on his 60" television screen. During a commercial break, there was a news announcement concerning another New York City tax increase. Before I could catch myself, I blurted out the Ten Years After lyric at the top of this article.
It was as though I had hit his "ON" button. He immediately jumped off the couch and started screaming, "That's RIGHT! That's EXACTLY RIGHT!"
I replied, "But shouldn't the lyric be "Til there are no poor no more'? Isn't that true social justice?"
He stated with utmost certainty (from his standpoint, no rational debate was possible) that the wealthy in this country are wholly responsible for the world's misery and must be utterly destroyed by the most horrible means possible.
"Then you want everyone to live in poverty?" I queried.
"Absolutely," he replied.
Sometimes I think I have heard it all, but this left me stunned. Before we could go on, my wife and daughter swooped in and broke up the mêlée.
But the incident left me with the thought that perhaps his viewpoint is not unique. Is a blind hatred of the "rich" driving much of the left's apparently self-destructive behavior? In a previous AT article, I concluded that the goals of the left are "abortion and eugenic elimination of the ‘undesirables', the euthanasia of the old and infirm, and the genocide of those who disagree." But what was missing from this evaluation is the ultimate motivation for these travesties. Is it all driven by obsessive rage and hate?
I don't think it is quite that simple. There appears to be an abundance of negative emotion in the leftist mind, but that is only part of the equation. Almost everyone, including the leftist, believes that they are basically good and decent human beings. This is true among the religious and atheists, and even thieves and murderers. I believe that in order to emotionally reconcile inherently "evil" feelings of hatred toward others, the leftist embraces "social justice" as a pious compensation.
The original concept of social justice was envisioned as a virtuous governmental function, protecting the downtrodden and disadvantaged from a heartless society. As a form of coerced charity through taxation, the government decides what is just and provides for the "common welfare."
In Friedrich August Hayek's book, Law, Legislation, and Liberty: The Mirage of Social Justice, he states:
As a result of this vagueness of definition, the foundation of hatred within the leftist mind has perverted the original intent of social justice. Babies must be aborted, grandma must be killed, and the infirm must be euthanized, all for the "common welfare." How does this reconcile with the concept of using the wealth of society to champion the poor and helpless? "Justice" is no longer part of the equation. It has devolved into social engineering and tinkering without a heart and soul. Through the twisted filter of hatred, social justice has become a force for evil.
So why do the wealthy and powerful on the left (the "poweratti") embrace this philosophy? Because they believe they will not be touched by it personally, and they can use it to garner additional political and/or social power. Taking the health care issue as an example, those currently in Congress have chosen to follow the refrain, "Government-run health care for thee, but not for me". Other wealthy and politically-connected poweratti obviously believe they will be able to obtain quality health care from other sources, either overseas or in a domestic black market of private physicians and hospitals exclusively for the wealthy.
By enflaming hatred of the wealthy (and by extension, capitalism), the poweratti can brandish social justice as a weapon to seize complete control of government and essentially enslave the populace. How ironic that this hatred should result in extending their power and privilege!
In the leftist utopia of social justice, wealth is no longer created. The capitalist goose that laid the golden eggs is spread like pâté. Income and property are confiscated, housing and employment are assigned, as in Cuba and Venezuela. Scientific advancement and medical breakthroughs are ground to a halt, as in the old Soviet Union where technology was frozen in the 1950s. Entrepreneurship, personal advancement, and wealth creation are violently quashed, as in the Chinese Cultural Revolution under Mao Tse Tung. Hunger, disease, and death become familiar houseguests, as in all repressive regimes.
The end game of the leftist poweratti is to rule the nation and eventually the world by bringing us down to the lowest social common denominator through the manipulation of those who obsessively despise wealth.
The End Game of the Left
By Andrew Thomas
Tax the rich,
Feed the poor,
‘Til there are no
Rich no more.
- "I'd Love to Change the World"
Ten Years After (1971)
Over the Columbus Day weekend, my wife and I traveled to Brooklyn, N.Y. to visit our daughter and her boyfriend. I was strictly admonished by my wife not to talk politics during the visit, since my daughter's boyfriend is a radical leftist. He, being a well-educated social science buff, and I, being who I am (a well-educated "right-wing nut job"), we had created many spectacular fireworks during past political debate sessions.
Things went well up until Sunday afternoon, when we were both seated on the couch benignly watching a football game on his 60" television screen. During a commercial break, there was a news announcement concerning another New York City tax increase. Before I could catch myself, I blurted out the Ten Years After lyric at the top of this article.
It was as though I had hit his "ON" button. He immediately jumped off the couch and started screaming, "That's RIGHT! That's EXACTLY RIGHT!"
I replied, "But shouldn't the lyric be "Til there are no poor no more'? Isn't that true social justice?"
He stated with utmost certainty (from his standpoint, no rational debate was possible) that the wealthy in this country are wholly responsible for the world's misery and must be utterly destroyed by the most horrible means possible.
"Then you want everyone to live in poverty?" I queried.
"Absolutely," he replied.
Sometimes I think I have heard it all, but this left me stunned. Before we could go on, my wife and daughter swooped in and broke up the mêlée.
But the incident left me with the thought that perhaps his viewpoint is not unique. Is a blind hatred of the "rich" driving much of the left's apparently self-destructive behavior? In a previous AT article, I concluded that the goals of the left are "abortion and eugenic elimination of the ‘undesirables', the euthanasia of the old and infirm, and the genocide of those who disagree." But what was missing from this evaluation is the ultimate motivation for these travesties. Is it all driven by obsessive rage and hate?
I don't think it is quite that simple. There appears to be an abundance of negative emotion in the leftist mind, but that is only part of the equation. Almost everyone, including the leftist, believes that they are basically good and decent human beings. This is true among the religious and atheists, and even thieves and murderers. I believe that in order to emotionally reconcile inherently "evil" feelings of hatred toward others, the leftist embraces "social justice" as a pious compensation.
The original concept of social justice was envisioned as a virtuous governmental function, protecting the downtrodden and disadvantaged from a heartless society. As a form of coerced charity through taxation, the government decides what is just and provides for the "common welfare."
In Friedrich August Hayek's book, Law, Legislation, and Liberty: The Mirage of Social Justice, he states:
It is one of the axioms of the tradition of freedom that coercion of individuals is permissible only where it is necessary in the service of the general welfare or the public good. Yet...the vagueness of the different terms which have been employed has made it possible to declare almost any interest a general interest and to make large numbers serve purposes in which they are not in the least interested. The common welfare or the public good has to the present time remained a concept most recalcitrant to any precise definition and therefore capable of being given almost any content suggested by interests of the ruling group.
As a result of this vagueness of definition, the foundation of hatred within the leftist mind has perverted the original intent of social justice. Babies must be aborted, grandma must be killed, and the infirm must be euthanized, all for the "common welfare." How does this reconcile with the concept of using the wealth of society to champion the poor and helpless? "Justice" is no longer part of the equation. It has devolved into social engineering and tinkering without a heart and soul. Through the twisted filter of hatred, social justice has become a force for evil.
So why do the wealthy and powerful on the left (the "poweratti") embrace this philosophy? Because they believe they will not be touched by it personally, and they can use it to garner additional political and/or social power. Taking the health care issue as an example, those currently in Congress have chosen to follow the refrain, "Government-run health care for thee, but not for me". Other wealthy and politically-connected poweratti obviously believe they will be able to obtain quality health care from other sources, either overseas or in a domestic black market of private physicians and hospitals exclusively for the wealthy.
By enflaming hatred of the wealthy (and by extension, capitalism), the poweratti can brandish social justice as a weapon to seize complete control of government and essentially enslave the populace. How ironic that this hatred should result in extending their power and privilege!
In the leftist utopia of social justice, wealth is no longer created. The capitalist goose that laid the golden eggs is spread like pâté. Income and property are confiscated, housing and employment are assigned, as in Cuba and Venezuela. Scientific advancement and medical breakthroughs are ground to a halt, as in the old Soviet Union where technology was frozen in the 1950s. Entrepreneurship, personal advancement, and wealth creation are violently quashed, as in the Chinese Cultural Revolution under Mao Tse Tung. Hunger, disease, and death become familiar houseguests, as in all repressive regimes.
The end game of the leftist poweratti is to rule the nation and eventually the world by bringing us down to the lowest social common denominator through the manipulation of those who obsessively despise wealth.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Sudbury Man Planned Terrorist Attacks
Another Islamic jihadist was arrested this week, his planned terror plot foiled. (See story below). This is the fifth publicized terrorist plot foiled in the last 90 days.
And the common thread of them all? Jihad.
Thus far this year, more than four times as many jihadists have been arrested on American soil than in any previous year since 2001. As the number of terror plots increase, how long will it be before one is successful?
Feds: Sudbury man planned terrorist attacks at shopping malls
By Laura Crimaldi and Laurel J. Sweet
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 -
A 27-year-old man from Sudbury has been arrested on charges he planned terrorism attacks inside and outside the United States, including a plot to use automatic weapons to open fire at shoppers and emergency responders in shopping malls, federal prosecutors said today.
Tarek Mehanna, of 6 Fairhaven Circle, is accused of conspiring with Ahmad Abousamra and others to obtain the automatic weapons needed to carry out a mall ambush in which they planned to open fire at random, said Acting U.S. Attorney Michael K. Loucks. Mehanna was already out on bail from a federal arrest last year, charged with lying during a terrorism probe.
Mehanna was arrested at his home at 6 a.m. this morning and booked at the Sudbury police station before being turned over to federal authorities. Federal agents have searched Mehanna’s home and say he is a U.S. citizen. A bail hearing has been scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in federal court.
Abousamra left the United States for Syria on Dec. 26, 2006, officials said. He said he would be back within a month after visiting his wife, but has never returned, officials said.
“At this time we don’t believe there are any active terrorist cells in this area,” said FBI special-agent-in-charge Warren T. Bamford.
The plot included plans to fire at emergency responders, but was abandoned because the men could not obtain the weapons, authorities said. They declined to name the mall or malls the men were targeting.
“We live in a free country. We don’t live in a police state. We do have places where if someone wants to do a terrorist act they can probably accomplish it,” said Loucks at a press conference. “We do our best. It’s amazing it hasn’t happened yet.”
Prosecutors also allege the men discussed participating in violent Jihad against American interests and their desire to die on the “battlefield.” The crimes are alleged to have taken place between 2001 and 2008.
Mehanna and Abousamra are also accused of traveling to Yemen in 2004 to find a terrorist training camp and learn how to engage in jihad, officials said.
Sudbury police chief Richard Glavin said he expects residents to be surprised by the development. There had been no calls for service to Mehanna’s home, where he lives with his parents, he said.
“I’m sure that people are concerned and alarmed,” said Glavin. “Regardless of where this occurred, in Sudbury or in other communities, this is obviously of concern to everyone.”
Mehanna was charged with lying to FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force investigators last year during a probe into whether Daniel Maldonado was participating in al-Qaeda training in Somalia. He was arrested in November 2008 at Logan International Airport while boarding a plane to Saudi Arabia for that offense. He was out on bail from that arrest when he was apprehended this morning.
In that case, FBI investigators interviewed Mehanna on Dec. 16, 2006, according to a federal complaint. The FBI alleges Mehanna knew Maldonado was training for jihad in Somalia. Further, the complaint states Maldonado was encouraging Mehanna to join him there.
Mehanna told the FBI Maldonado was working for a Web site in Egypt and had infrequent contact with him, the complaint states. The FBI asserted Maldonado had contacted Mehanna three times from Somalia on Dec. 12, 2006.
Maldonado was arrested in February 2007 near the Somalia border by Kenyan authorities on charges he trained at al-Qaeda camps in Somalia, the complaint states.
And the common thread of them all? Jihad.
Thus far this year, more than four times as many jihadists have been arrested on American soil than in any previous year since 2001. As the number of terror plots increase, how long will it be before one is successful?
Feds: Sudbury man planned terrorist attacks at shopping malls
By Laura Crimaldi and Laurel J. Sweet
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 -
A 27-year-old man from Sudbury has been arrested on charges he planned terrorism attacks inside and outside the United States, including a plot to use automatic weapons to open fire at shoppers and emergency responders in shopping malls, federal prosecutors said today.
Tarek Mehanna, of 6 Fairhaven Circle, is accused of conspiring with Ahmad Abousamra and others to obtain the automatic weapons needed to carry out a mall ambush in which they planned to open fire at random, said Acting U.S. Attorney Michael K. Loucks. Mehanna was already out on bail from a federal arrest last year, charged with lying during a terrorism probe.
Mehanna was arrested at his home at 6 a.m. this morning and booked at the Sudbury police station before being turned over to federal authorities. Federal agents have searched Mehanna’s home and say he is a U.S. citizen. A bail hearing has been scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in federal court.
Abousamra left the United States for Syria on Dec. 26, 2006, officials said. He said he would be back within a month after visiting his wife, but has never returned, officials said.
“At this time we don’t believe there are any active terrorist cells in this area,” said FBI special-agent-in-charge Warren T. Bamford.
The plot included plans to fire at emergency responders, but was abandoned because the men could not obtain the weapons, authorities said. They declined to name the mall or malls the men were targeting.
“We live in a free country. We don’t live in a police state. We do have places where if someone wants to do a terrorist act they can probably accomplish it,” said Loucks at a press conference. “We do our best. It’s amazing it hasn’t happened yet.”
Prosecutors also allege the men discussed participating in violent Jihad against American interests and their desire to die on the “battlefield.” The crimes are alleged to have taken place between 2001 and 2008.
Mehanna and Abousamra are also accused of traveling to Yemen in 2004 to find a terrorist training camp and learn how to engage in jihad, officials said.
Sudbury police chief Richard Glavin said he expects residents to be surprised by the development. There had been no calls for service to Mehanna’s home, where he lives with his parents, he said.
“I’m sure that people are concerned and alarmed,” said Glavin. “Regardless of where this occurred, in Sudbury or in other communities, this is obviously of concern to everyone.”
Mehanna was charged with lying to FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force investigators last year during a probe into whether Daniel Maldonado was participating in al-Qaeda training in Somalia. He was arrested in November 2008 at Logan International Airport while boarding a plane to Saudi Arabia for that offense. He was out on bail from that arrest when he was apprehended this morning.
In that case, FBI investigators interviewed Mehanna on Dec. 16, 2006, according to a federal complaint. The FBI alleges Mehanna knew Maldonado was training for jihad in Somalia. Further, the complaint states Maldonado was encouraging Mehanna to join him there.
Mehanna told the FBI Maldonado was working for a Web site in Egypt and had infrequent contact with him, the complaint states. The FBI asserted Maldonado had contacted Mehanna three times from Somalia on Dec. 12, 2006.
Maldonado was arrested in February 2007 near the Somalia border by Kenyan authorities on charges he trained at al-Qaeda camps in Somalia, the complaint states.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Response to CAIR
Rep. Myrick Responds to CAIR Attacks
Rep. Sue Myrick op-ed:
Last week, I held a press conference on Capitol Hill attended by three of my colleagues in the House of Representatives to call for a federal investigation (s) into a non-profit group called the Council on American Islamic Relations (C.A.I.R.)
Here are the facts:
1. CAIR has documented ties to the terrorist organization HAMAS. This is stated fact by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
In an April 28, 2009 letter to US Senator Jon Kyl, the FBI wrote the following:
“As you know, CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in the United States v. Holy Land Foundation et al. (Cr. No. 3:04-240-P (N.D.TX.). During that trial, evidence was introduced that demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders (including its current President Emeritus and its Executive Director) and the Palestinian Committee. Evidence was also introduced that demonstrated a relationship between the Palestinian Committee and HAMAS, which was designated a terrorist organization in 1995. In light of that evidence, the FBI suspended all formal contacts between CAIR and the FBI.”
In case you are not familiar with the Holy Land trial referenced above, it was a Dallas, Texas trial that ended with guilty verdicts on 108 counts of funneling money ($12 million) to HAMAS.
2. The purpose of our press conference was to make public an internal CAIR memo that documented CAIR's stated goal of placing CAIR interns in the offices of members of Congress, especially the members who serve on the Homeland Security, Judiciary and Intelligence Committees. Let me be clear here, CAIR, a group whom the FBI says is affiliated with the terrorist group HAMAS, is trying to place their interns in the offices of those members who serve on the three committees that handle national security related issues. National Security is the first responsibility of the federal government.
3. Following our press conference, CAIR, immediately labeled we four members as bigots and started their public relations campaign to discredit us by claiming that we were against Muslims working on Capitol Hill. We never said that. At no time during our press conference did we even insinuate that we were investigating Muslims being interns on Capitol Hill. Go to http://www.youtube.com/suemyricknc09 and watch the press conference yourself.
Our focus was and is on CAIR and CAIR alone, not Muslims.
Likewise CAIR tried to make this a Republican vs. Democrat thing, because the four members at the press conference happened to be Republican.
How then does CAIR explain Democrat Senator Charles Schumer’s call earlier this year for a government-wide ban on CAIR in the federal government due to their ties to HAMAS? Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer has likewise made public her opinions of CAIR and any Google search will find her remarks.
4. CAIR is spending time, money and energy to position themselves as the spokespeople for the moderate Muslim community. Problem is CAIR is not a moderate Muslim organization. It is a radical front group for HAMAS. So who is CAIR competing with for this designation? The real moderate Muslim groups/individuals in America. Groups and individuals like the following who are committed to countering Islamist extremism:
Dr. Hedieh Mirahmadi – President World Organization for Resource Development and Education (WORDE)
Zeyno Baran – Director for the Center for Eurasian Policy at the Hudson Institute
Farid Ghadry – President of the Reform Party of Syria
Manda Zand Ervin – Founder and director of the Alliance of Iranian Women
Omran Salman – Arab Reformists Project, 'Aafaq (Arabic for “horizons”).
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser – American Islamic Forum for Democracy
Karim Bromund – Director of Inter-Religious Affairs for the Islamic Supreme Council of America
I SUPPORT the Muslim individuals and groups mentioned above. These groups renounce terrorists and their radical ideology. They are trying their hardest to be heard and recognized in America, but are being overshadowed and out-funded by CAIR. Today, when something happens that impacts the Muslim community, the media calls CAIR (an unindicted co-conspirator to terrorism and a HAMAS front group) for comment on behalf of American Muslims. What an insult the media is performing on the Muslim community. Instead they should be calling Muslim groups/individuals like those named above. This is part of the reason we are focusing our attention on CAIR and exposing them for who they are. For one they pose a threat to our national security, and two, they deny the ability of legitimate Muslim groups to gain credibility.
5. In July of this year I held a summit on Capitol Hill where I introduced the leaders of eight moderate Muslim organizations to the heads of several US Agencies, Members of Congress and congressional staff. For example, they met with representatives from the State Department, USAID, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. How can I be against Muslims working on Capitol Hill and hold such an event? Go to this site and read for yourself about this summit.
See through the lies and realize what is really going on here.
We are trying to expose a HAMAS Front Group (CAIR) for who they are, and they are crying we are anti-Muslim hoping that media outlets will ignore the terrorist claim and instead pick it up as a race/religion story. When those claims don’t work, they claim it’s a Republican political thing.
Americans, on this subject we need to stop the Republican vs. Democrat, Conservative vs. Liberal, Christian vs. Muslim division and unite on one simple point…. CAIR is a front group for HAMAS. It was named as an un-indicted co-conspirator in a terrorism case that lead to 108 convictions of funneling $12 million to HAMAS. Because of the evidence produced in that case, the FBI severed all ties with them. This same CAIR, by their own admission, is trying to place people inside the offices of members of Congress who deal with national security issues (judiciary, homeland security and intelligence committees). I serve on one of those committees, Intelligence, am the co-chairwoman of the House Anti-Terrorism Caucus, and have spent the better part of the last four years working every day on terrorism related issues.
If we Americans fail to set aside our political, religious and ideological differences and unite when we encounter the enemy in such stark and plain terms, then God help us.
Rep. Sue Myrick op-ed:
Last week, I held a press conference on Capitol Hill attended by three of my colleagues in the House of Representatives to call for a federal investigation (s) into a non-profit group called the Council on American Islamic Relations (C.A.I.R.)
Here are the facts:
1. CAIR has documented ties to the terrorist organization HAMAS. This is stated fact by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
In an April 28, 2009 letter to US Senator Jon Kyl, the FBI wrote the following:
“As you know, CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in the United States v. Holy Land Foundation et al. (Cr. No. 3:04-240-P (N.D.TX.). During that trial, evidence was introduced that demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders (including its current President Emeritus and its Executive Director) and the Palestinian Committee. Evidence was also introduced that demonstrated a relationship between the Palestinian Committee and HAMAS, which was designated a terrorist organization in 1995. In light of that evidence, the FBI suspended all formal contacts between CAIR and the FBI.”
In case you are not familiar with the Holy Land trial referenced above, it was a Dallas, Texas trial that ended with guilty verdicts on 108 counts of funneling money ($12 million) to HAMAS.
2. The purpose of our press conference was to make public an internal CAIR memo that documented CAIR's stated goal of placing CAIR interns in the offices of members of Congress, especially the members who serve on the Homeland Security, Judiciary and Intelligence Committees. Let me be clear here, CAIR, a group whom the FBI says is affiliated with the terrorist group HAMAS, is trying to place their interns in the offices of those members who serve on the three committees that handle national security related issues. National Security is the first responsibility of the federal government.
3. Following our press conference, CAIR, immediately labeled we four members as bigots and started their public relations campaign to discredit us by claiming that we were against Muslims working on Capitol Hill. We never said that. At no time during our press conference did we even insinuate that we were investigating Muslims being interns on Capitol Hill. Go to http://www.youtube.com/suemyricknc09 and watch the press conference yourself.
Our focus was and is on CAIR and CAIR alone, not Muslims.
Likewise CAIR tried to make this a Republican vs. Democrat thing, because the four members at the press conference happened to be Republican.
How then does CAIR explain Democrat Senator Charles Schumer’s call earlier this year for a government-wide ban on CAIR in the federal government due to their ties to HAMAS? Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer has likewise made public her opinions of CAIR and any Google search will find her remarks.
4. CAIR is spending time, money and energy to position themselves as the spokespeople for the moderate Muslim community. Problem is CAIR is not a moderate Muslim organization. It is a radical front group for HAMAS. So who is CAIR competing with for this designation? The real moderate Muslim groups/individuals in America. Groups and individuals like the following who are committed to countering Islamist extremism:
Dr. Hedieh Mirahmadi – President World Organization for Resource Development and Education (WORDE)
Zeyno Baran – Director for the Center for Eurasian Policy at the Hudson Institute
Farid Ghadry – President of the Reform Party of Syria
Manda Zand Ervin – Founder and director of the Alliance of Iranian Women
Omran Salman – Arab Reformists Project, 'Aafaq (Arabic for “horizons”).
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser – American Islamic Forum for Democracy
Karim Bromund – Director of Inter-Religious Affairs for the Islamic Supreme Council of America
I SUPPORT the Muslim individuals and groups mentioned above. These groups renounce terrorists and their radical ideology. They are trying their hardest to be heard and recognized in America, but are being overshadowed and out-funded by CAIR. Today, when something happens that impacts the Muslim community, the media calls CAIR (an unindicted co-conspirator to terrorism and a HAMAS front group) for comment on behalf of American Muslims. What an insult the media is performing on the Muslim community. Instead they should be calling Muslim groups/individuals like those named above. This is part of the reason we are focusing our attention on CAIR and exposing them for who they are. For one they pose a threat to our national security, and two, they deny the ability of legitimate Muslim groups to gain credibility.
5. In July of this year I held a summit on Capitol Hill where I introduced the leaders of eight moderate Muslim organizations to the heads of several US Agencies, Members of Congress and congressional staff. For example, they met with representatives from the State Department, USAID, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. How can I be against Muslims working on Capitol Hill and hold such an event? Go to this site and read for yourself about this summit.
See through the lies and realize what is really going on here.
We are trying to expose a HAMAS Front Group (CAIR) for who they are, and they are crying we are anti-Muslim hoping that media outlets will ignore the terrorist claim and instead pick it up as a race/religion story. When those claims don’t work, they claim it’s a Republican political thing.
Americans, on this subject we need to stop the Republican vs. Democrat, Conservative vs. Liberal, Christian vs. Muslim division and unite on one simple point…. CAIR is a front group for HAMAS. It was named as an un-indicted co-conspirator in a terrorism case that lead to 108 convictions of funneling $12 million to HAMAS. Because of the evidence produced in that case, the FBI severed all ties with them. This same CAIR, by their own admission, is trying to place people inside the offices of members of Congress who deal with national security issues (judiciary, homeland security and intelligence committees). I serve on one of those committees, Intelligence, am the co-chairwoman of the House Anti-Terrorism Caucus, and have spent the better part of the last four years working every day on terrorism related issues.
If we Americans fail to set aside our political, religious and ideological differences and unite when we encounter the enemy in such stark and plain terms, then God help us.
Obama Preparing To Sign Away Sovereignty
This link sent by a friend
Obama Preparing to Sign Away Us Sovereignty!
Yes, unfortunately this is real. It seems to me to rely heavily on the “FACT” that Global Warming is real. They want to drop the US’s levels extremely and tax us heavily if we don’t adhere to their set goals, and they want to tax us heavily even if we do adhere. Apparently all the industrialized nations have to shell out major contributions to pay for all other countries to be our equals under this treaty. And yes from what I understand about treaties and our constitution, with this treaty we are giving another “government” entity the power to tax, create and enforce legislation upon the U.S. …….which is basically giving away our sovereignty to a foreign entity.
I’ve already called my senators and congressmen ...didn’t get to speak to ANY of them, although their lackeys said they would pass on the message………just like the message they passed on about the unwanted TARP.
The “good” stuff starts on page 24, where they introduce the “facility” i.e. Government, and exactly what powers it has to run, maintain and enforce this treaty.
Obama Preparing to Sign Away Us Sovereignty!
Yes, unfortunately this is real. It seems to me to rely heavily on the “FACT” that Global Warming is real. They want to drop the US’s levels extremely and tax us heavily if we don’t adhere to their set goals, and they want to tax us heavily even if we do adhere. Apparently all the industrialized nations have to shell out major contributions to pay for all other countries to be our equals under this treaty. And yes from what I understand about treaties and our constitution, with this treaty we are giving another “government” entity the power to tax, create and enforce legislation upon the U.S. …….which is basically giving away our sovereignty to a foreign entity.
I’ve already called my senators and congressmen ...didn’t get to speak to ANY of them, although their lackeys said they would pass on the message………just like the message they passed on about the unwanted TARP.
Here it is, read for yourself. LINK
The “good” stuff starts on page 24, where they introduce the “facility” i.e. Government, and exactly what powers it has to run, maintain and enforce this treaty.
Solution: Vote Them Out
Disclaimer: This came to me as an email attachment. It is probably true to some degree but you will notice it appears to be Democrat Bashing, therefore not completely credible. Back track the links for yourself.
Thomas Jefferson said something to the effect that we are a Republic, not a Democracy. The reason being that in a Democracy the elected officials will soon discover they can vote themselves more money and eventually bring down the Democracy.
Evidence of this is that both sides do it by systematically voting themselves more power, an we the people less control over them.
Subject: Government Waste
Somebody spent a lot of time putting this together..... .
Pretty good summary of what is known - how much more is hidden?
$34,000:
The amount of federal taxes that Secretary of the Treasury
Timothy Geithner (D) failed to pay during his employment at
the International Monetary Fund despite receiving extra
compensation and explanatory brochures that described his
tax liabilities.
True: http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2009/01/timothy_geithner_obamas_nomine.html
$75,000:
The amount of money that the head of the powerful
tax-writing committee, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), was
forced to report on his taxes after the discovery that he
had not reported income from a Dominican Republic rental
property. His excuses for the failure started with blaming
his wife, then his accountant and finally the fact that he
didn't speak Spanish.
True http://www.nypost.com/seven/09102008/news/regionalnews/rangels_spanish_excuse_128444.htm
$93,000:
The INCREASE in the amount of petty cash each of our
Congressional representatives voted to give themselves in
January 2009 during the height of an economic meltdown.
That's a $40 + million INCREASE!
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/01/its-recession-congress-gives-lawmakers.html See video here from Fox
$133,900:
The amount Fannie Mae "invested" in Chris Dodd (D-CT), head
of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, presumably to
repel oversight of the GSE prior to its meltdown. Said
meltdown helped touch off the current economic crisis. In
only a few years time, Fannie also "invested" over $105,000
in then-Senator Barack Obama.
True: http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/07/top-senate-recipients-of-fanni.html
$140,000:
The amount of back taxes and interest that Cabinet nominee
Tom Daschle (D) was forced to cough up after the vetting
process revealed significant, unexplained tax liabilities.
True: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123335984751235247.html?mod=googlenews_wsj Wall Street Journal
$356,000:
The approximate amount of income and deductions that
Daschle (D) was forced to report on his amended 2005 and
2007 tax returns after being caught cheating on his taxes.
This includes $255,256 for the use of a car service,
$83,333 in unreported income, and $14,963 in charitable
contributions.
True: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123335984751235247.html?mod=googlenews_wsj Wall Street Journal
$800,000:
The amount of "sweetheart" mortgages Senate Banking
Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) received from Countrywide
Financial, the details for which he has refused to release
details despite months of promises to do so. Countrywide
was once the nation's largest mortgage lender and linked
to Government-Sponsored Entities like Fannie Mae a nd
Freddie Mac. Their meltdown precipitated the current
financial crisis. Just days ago in Pennsylvania ,
Countrywide was forced to pay $150,000,000 in mortgage
assistance following "a state investigation that concluded
that Countrywide relaxed its underwriting standards to
sell risky loans to consumers who did not understand them
and could not afford them."
True: http://rightvoices.com/2008/08/21/more-s weetheart-loan-details-on-senator-chris-dodd-d-ct-chairman-of-the-senate-committee-on-banking-housing-and-urban-affairs/
$1,000,000:
The estimated amount of donations by Denise Rich, wife of
fugitive Marc Rich, to Democrat interests and the William
J. Clinton Foundation in an apparent quid pro quo deal that
resulted in a pardon for Mr. Rich. The pardon was reviewed
and blessed by Obama Attorney General and then Deputy AG
Eric Holder, despite numerous requests by government
officials to turn it down.
True: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/20/nation/na-holder20
$12,000,000:
The amount of TARP money provided to community bank
OneUnited despite the fact that it did not qualify for
funds, and was "under attack from its regulators for
allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay
abuses." It turns out that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), a key
contributor to the Fannie Mae meltdown, just happens to be
married to one of the bank's former directors.
True: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258284337504295.html Wall Street Journal
$23,500,000:
The upper range of net worth Rep. Allan M ollohan (D-WV)
accumulated in four years time according to The Washington
Post through earmarks of "tens of millions of dollars to
groups associated with his own business partners."
True: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/14/AR2006051401032.html Washington Post
$2,000,000,000:
($2 billion) the approximate amount of money that House
Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) is earmarking
related to his son's lobbying efforts. The son, Craig Obey,
is "a top lobbyist for the nonprofit group" that would
receive a roughly $2 billion component of the "Stimulus"
package.
True: http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/a_plan_for_stimulus_money_national_parks/C530/L37/
and this as a list of these related stories: http://search.yahoo.com/404handler?src=news&+++%0A+fr%3D404_news%26ref%3Dhttp://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/01/obama-democrats-by-numbers.html&url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090129/ap_on_go_co/stimulus_national_parks_2
$3,700,000,000:
($3.7 billion) not to be outdone, this is the estimated
value of various defense contracts awarded to a company
controlled by the husband of Rep. Diane Feinstein (D-CA).
Despite an obvious conflict-of-interest as "a member of
the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Sen.
Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions to her
husband's firms."
True: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/22/MN310531.DTL
$4,190,000,000:
($4.19 billion) the amount of money in the so-called
"Stimulus" package devoted to fraudulent voter
registration ACORN< SPAN style="COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt"> group under the auspices of "Community
Stabilization Activities". ACORN is currently the subject
of a RICO suit in Ohio .
True: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/stimulus-economy-percent-2295331-bill-pelosi
$1,646,000,000,000 ($1.646 trillion):
The approximate amount of annual United States exports
endangered by the "Stimulus" package, which provides a "Buy
American" stricture. According to international trade
experts, a "US-EU trade war looms" which could result in
a worldwide economic depression reminiscent of that touched
off by the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Act.
True: http://www.asiaing.com/2008-national-export-strategy-the-new-global-main-street.html
and http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/01/022685.php
Background: Smmot-Hawley Act: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot-Hawley_Tariff_Act
It's becoming a culture of corruption and stupidity.
In addition, these folks appear to be above the law.
All of the aforementioned are still in office, living
like the royalty they think they are.
Remember: This all happened in just the FIRST QUARTER,
folks!
Thomas Jefferson said something to the effect that we are a Republic, not a Democracy. The reason being that in a Democracy the elected officials will soon discover they can vote themselves more money and eventually bring down the Democracy.
Evidence of this is that both sides do it by systematically voting themselves more power, an we the people less control over them.
Subject: Government Waste
Somebody spent a lot of time putting this together..... .
Pretty good summary of what is known - how much more is hidden?
$34,000:
The amount of federal taxes that Secretary of the Treasury
Timothy Geithner (D) failed to pay during his employment at
the International Monetary Fund despite receiving extra
compensation and explanatory brochures that described his
tax liabilities.
True: http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2009/01/timothy_geithner_obamas_nomine.html
$75,000:
The amount of money that the head of the powerful
tax-writing committee, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), was
forced to report on his taxes after the discovery that he
had not reported income from a Dominican Republic rental
property. His excuses for the failure started with blaming
his wife, then his accountant and finally the fact that he
didn't speak Spanish.
True http://www.nypost.com/seven/09102008/news/regionalnews/rangels_spanish_excuse_128444.htm
$93,000:
The INCREASE in the amount of petty cash each of our
Congressional representatives voted to give themselves in
January 2009 during the height of an economic meltdown.
That's a $40 + million INCREASE!
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/01/its-recession-congress-gives-lawmakers.html See video here from Fox
$133,900:
The amount Fannie Mae "invested" in Chris Dodd (D-CT), head
of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, presumably to
repel oversight of the GSE prior to its meltdown. Said
meltdown helped touch off the current economic crisis. In
only a few years time, Fannie also "invested" over $105,000
in then-Senator Barack Obama.
True: http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/07/top-senate-recipients-of-fanni.html
$140,000:
The amount of back taxes and interest that Cabinet nominee
Tom Daschle (D) was forced to cough up after the vetting
process revealed significant, unexplained tax liabilities.
True: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123335984751235247.html?mod=googlenews_wsj Wall Street Journal
$356,000:
The approximate amount of income and deductions that
Daschle (D) was forced to report on his amended 2005 and
2007 tax returns after being caught cheating on his taxes.
This includes $255,256 for the use of a car service,
$83,333 in unreported income, and $14,963 in charitable
contributions.
True: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123335984751235247.html?mod=googlenews_wsj Wall Street Journal
$800,000:
The amount of "sweetheart" mortgages Senate Banking
Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) received from Countrywide
Financial, the details for which he has refused to release
details despite months of promises to do so. Countrywide
was once the nation's largest mortgage lender and linked
to Government-Sponsored Entities like Fannie Mae a nd
Freddie Mac. Their meltdown precipitated the current
financial crisis. Just days ago in Pennsylvania ,
Countrywide was forced to pay $150,000,000 in mortgage
assistance following "a state investigation that concluded
that Countrywide relaxed its underwriting standards to
sell risky loans to consumers who did not understand them
and could not afford them."
True: http://rightvoices.com/2008/08/21/more-s weetheart-loan-details-on-senator-chris-dodd-d-ct-chairman-of-the-senate-committee-on-banking-housing-and-urban-affairs/
$1,000,000:
The estimated amount of donations by Denise Rich, wife of
fugitive Marc Rich, to Democrat interests and the William
J. Clinton Foundation in an apparent quid pro quo deal that
resulted in a pardon for Mr. Rich. The pardon was reviewed
and blessed by Obama Attorney General and then Deputy AG
Eric Holder, despite numerous requests by government
officials to turn it down.
True: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/20/nation/na-holder20
$12,000,000:
The amount of TARP money provided to community bank
OneUnited despite the fact that it did not qualify for
funds, and was "under attack from its regulators for
allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay
abuses." It turns out that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), a key
contributor to the Fannie Mae meltdown, just happens to be
married to one of the bank's former directors.
True: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258284337504295.html Wall Street Journal
$23,500,000:
The upper range of net worth Rep. Allan M ollohan (D-WV)
accumulated in four years time according to The Washington
Post through earmarks of "tens of millions of dollars to
groups associated with his own business partners."
True: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/14/AR2006051401032.html Washington Post
$2,000,000,000:
($2 billion) the approximate amount of money that House
Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) is earmarking
related to his son's lobbying efforts. The son, Craig Obey,
is "a top lobbyist for the nonprofit group" that would
receive a roughly $2 billion component of the "Stimulus"
package.
True: http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/a_plan_for_stimulus_money_national_parks/C530/L37/
and this as a list of these related stories: http://search.yahoo.com/404handler?src=news&+++%0A+fr%3D404_news%26ref%3Dhttp://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/01/obama-democrats-by-numbers.html&url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090129/ap_on_go_co/stimulus_national_parks_2
$3,700,000,000:
($3.7 billion) not to be outdone, this is the estimated
value of various defense contracts awarded to a company
controlled by the husband of Rep. Diane Feinstein (D-CA).
Despite an obvious conflict-of-interest as "a member of
the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Sen.
Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions to her
husband's firms."
True: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/22/MN310531.DTL
$4,190,000,000:
($4.19 billion) the amount of money in the so-called
"Stimulus" package devoted to fraudulent voter
registration ACORN< SPAN style="COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt"> group under the auspices of "Community
Stabilization Activities". ACORN is currently the subject
of a RICO suit in Ohio .
True: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/stimulus-economy-percent-2295331-bill-pelosi
$1,646,000,000,000 ($1.646 trillion):
The approximate amount of annual United States exports
endangered by the "Stimulus" package, which provides a "Buy
American" stricture. According to international trade
experts, a "US-EU trade war looms" which could result in
a worldwide economic depression reminiscent of that touched
off by the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Act.
True: http://www.asiaing.com/2008-national-export-strategy-the-new-global-main-street.html
and http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/01/022685.php
Background: Smmot-Hawley Act: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot-Hawley_Tariff_Act
It's becoming a culture of corruption and stupidity.
In addition, these folks appear to be above the law.
All of the aforementioned are still in office, living
like the royalty they think they are.
Remember: This all happened in just the FIRST QUARTER,
folks!
Monday, October 19, 2009
In Defense Of The Constitution
In Defense Of The Constitution
Anti-CAIR
News & Analysis
October 19, 2009
CAIR And The Muslim Mafia
A group of investigative reporters have opened the proverbial can of worms for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The investigative team, organized by Dave Gaubatz and including his son, Chris, and a small band of researchers infiltrated CAIR’s national headquarters for six months and spirited away over 12,000 documents and 300 hours of video that has been compiled into a book that clearly demonstrates CAIR’s plan to cripple and destroy the constitution of the United States from within.
While CAIR, predictably, has publically accused the Gaubatz team and three congressional representatives who announced the disturbing contents of the book, Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America, of “Islamophobia”, “racism”, and “bigotry” against Muslims; the fact remains that a growing, bi-partisan group of representatives has taken the first serious steps towards confronting CAIR. While CAIR strongly condemns the audacity of members of Congress calling for an investigation of CAIR based on Muslim Mafia's revelations, the simple fact remains that during all of CAIR’s false cries of victimhood, CAIR has not refuted one single charge or accusation made in the book.
Not one.
The reason is simple: CAIR realizes that it cannot defend against the truth. The Gaubatz team caught CAIR red handed and no amount of CAIR’s whining can hide or disguise the fact that CAIR is a terrorist supporting front group created to advance the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Nothing CAIR’s liar-for-hire, “spokesman” Ibrahim Hooper can say will mitigate that fact that CAIR is here to convert our country into an Islamic theocracy; a theocracy that is not only not free, but oppresses every basic human right in the quest for world domination. A domination based on fear, terror, and the subjugation of those not among the “chosen few” who would eventually rule their version of an “Islamic paradise”.
CAIR’s ability to successfully manipulate the news media is testament to CAIR’s ability to utilize “useful idiots” in the media to further its agenda. Damning facts are consistently either avoided or disregarded by CAIR, and irresponsibly ignored by members of the media who lap up CAIR’s whimpers and ignore CAIR’s critics in the false belief that they are giving “voice to the voiceless”; not understanding that their deliberate silence as to the facts about CAIR are no different than giving aid and comfort to our enemies.
Long before "Muslim Mafia" (co-authored by Dave Gaubatz and Paul Sperry) was published, however, several members of Congress had warned of CAIR's disturbing origins. One of the first consistent and fearless critics of CAIR has been Democrat Senator Charles Schumer who said: "We know [CAIR] has ties to terrorism…intimate links with Hamas." Senator Schumer made these statements during a September 2003 Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security where the evidence against CAIR was laid out in detail. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad was invited to testify at this gathering, but chose to avoid the meeting and instead submitted a crude and absurd written statement listing CAIR's "accomplishments" and childishly attacking critics.
Senator Schumer continues to give unapologetic support in efforts to investigate and exclude CAIR from involvement in government programs, including "training" the FBI. In February of 2009, Senator Schumer joined Senators Kyl and Coburn in contacting the FBI to state their support for the FBI severing ties to CAIR saying "We certainly support that action..."
Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer has also called out CAIR. She recalled an award to CAIR's Basim Elkarra when she researched and learned of his involvement with CAIR and CAIR's ties to Hamas. In addition to recalling the award, Senator Boxer also told CAIR to remove her statement endorsing CAIR from their web site. CAIR blasted Senator Boxer saying her actions were rooted in "Islamophobia." Senator Boxer made clear her feelings about CAIR when she said: "To praise [CAIR] because they haven't been indicted is like somebody saying, 'I'm not a crook'"
When Representative Sue Myrick was joined by congressional colleagues and members of the Anti-Terrorism Caucus at a news conference to announce their request for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate efforts by the CAIR to lobby congress illegally and place CAIR interns in sensitive agencies, CAIR thought they had an easy mark with eager media assistance to vilify these Republican representatives as "attacking Muslims" and deflect the attention away from the evidence of CAIR's dubious ties to terrorism. However, Sue Myrick founded the bipartisan Anti-Terrorism Caucus which consists of over 120 congressional members and includes Representatives Bud Cramer (D-AL), Kay Granger (R-TX), and Jane Harman (D-CA) who are the Caucus co-chairs. A Caucus statement demonstrates that CAIR is a problem for all Americans, not just an issue for one political party:
“Terrorists don’t target Democrats or Republicans. They target Americans, and this is why
we must face this issue as Americans. Members of Congress and the American public must
know the threats we face from radical jihadist terrorists. The Anti-Terrorism Caucus
will give Congress the tools and resources it needs to communicate those threats
to the public, as well as help them make more informed decisions when it comes
to terrorist issues.”
CAIR's "attacking Muslims" meme is their classic ploy to misdirect the issue away from CAIR's creation for supporting Hamas. Their documented defensive tactic of attacking the messenger because "the credibility of the message depends on the credibility of the messenger" is now in full operational mode. As soon as Myrick and her colleagues made their announcement, CAIR damage-control went into high gear issuing bleating media reports and having CAIR apologists appear on cue to falsely accuse the authors of "Muslim Mafia" and congressional members of being "anti-Islam" and "Islamophobes."
CAIR has pressed the narrative that author Gaubatz is "anti-Islam" and "anti-Muslim" even though the evidence shows the exact opposite is true. Gaubatz has risked his life helping Muslims, which includes leading a dangerous mission in 2003 to extract members of an Iraqi Muslim family out of Iraq who now affectionately call Gaubatz the "American Angel". Gaubatz has also come to the aid of Muslims under assault by CAIR.
The authors of "Muslim Mafia" make their intentions quite clear:
“This is not a book about Islam or about Muslims in general. It is about the threat known
from Shariah Islam and violent jihad propagated by a criminal class of Muslims
known as the Muslim Brotherhood or the ‘Ikhwan mafia’...”
Representative Myrick could not be more specific on who she is targeting:
“Why would anyone allow a group, who the FBI says is tied to terrorism, to influence
national security policy, or any policy for that matter?”...“If the FBI has cut ties
with CAIR, Congress should wake up and do the same.”
The gauntlet has been thrown and CAIR has, so far, refused to point out any parts of "Muslim Mafia" that are not true. This is further evidence, as if any was needed, that CAIR has once again been exposed as a dangerous organization that supports many who would be happy to kill us if they were given half a chance.
Members of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus have called for hearings. Now is the time for the Caucus to sit as a group and hold some hearings of their own, and once and for all give CAIR’s leadership the spotlight they crave; let CAIR explain away all the evidence compiled against them and just how they really defend “Muslim civil rights” in America.
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR
email: ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/CAIRMuslimMafia.html
Story Links:
http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4734
http://www.amazon.com/Muslim-Mafia-Underwold-Conspiring-Islamize/dp/1935071106
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/63023-republicans-accuse-muslim-advocacy-group-of-trying-to-plant-spies
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/FBItiesCAIRHamas
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/press_029_06
http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=16240
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/awadTestimony2003.html
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/press_024_03
http://www.newsweek.com/id/44338
http://counterterrorismblog.org/20090212_-__Letter_to_Mueller_CAIR_ties_-_Kyl-Schumer-Coburn%5B1%5D.pdf
http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/265.pdf
http://talkradionews.com/2009/10/n-c-congresswoman-calls-for-doj-investigation-into-cair/
http://myrick.house.gov/hot_topics_terrorism.shtml
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQS_hYmqwnTDI-06AoQh4jvHll6tjlEEANzHqhsQYgZdK8bMuPEcrcPDUWIqpMjS3PfN1dmL8VhW8Vho-QVJeHdKTDxwRK7TIzjmXcYy_RZReHUm_H4EjRm8z8Rrthyphenhyphen2gFy8-3ig/s1600-h/Senator+Boxer.jpg
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=113218
http://www.investigativeproject.org/869/cair-lawyer-has-own-legal-history
http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2009/10/15/muslim-mafia-exposed/2/
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/63571-rep-myrick-reiterates-call-to-cut-ties-with-cair
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/press_001_09
ADVISORY:
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All persons are invited to submit tips and leads. Anti-CAIR will acknowledge receipt of all tips/leads, but we will NOT acknowledge the source of ANY tip or lead in our Press Releases or on our web site. Exceptions are made for leading media personalities at the discretion of Anti-CAIR and only on request of the person(s) submitting the tip or lead.
Anti-CAIR
News & Analysis
October 19, 2009
CAIR And The Muslim Mafia
A group of investigative reporters have opened the proverbial can of worms for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The investigative team, organized by Dave Gaubatz and including his son, Chris, and a small band of researchers infiltrated CAIR’s national headquarters for six months and spirited away over 12,000 documents and 300 hours of video that has been compiled into a book that clearly demonstrates CAIR’s plan to cripple and destroy the constitution of the United States from within.
While CAIR, predictably, has publically accused the Gaubatz team and three congressional representatives who announced the disturbing contents of the book, Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America, of “Islamophobia”, “racism”, and “bigotry” against Muslims; the fact remains that a growing, bi-partisan group of representatives has taken the first serious steps towards confronting CAIR. While CAIR strongly condemns the audacity of members of Congress calling for an investigation of CAIR based on Muslim Mafia's revelations, the simple fact remains that during all of CAIR’s false cries of victimhood, CAIR has not refuted one single charge or accusation made in the book.
Not one.
The reason is simple: CAIR realizes that it cannot defend against the truth. The Gaubatz team caught CAIR red handed and no amount of CAIR’s whining can hide or disguise the fact that CAIR is a terrorist supporting front group created to advance the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Nothing CAIR’s liar-for-hire, “spokesman” Ibrahim Hooper can say will mitigate that fact that CAIR is here to convert our country into an Islamic theocracy; a theocracy that is not only not free, but oppresses every basic human right in the quest for world domination. A domination based on fear, terror, and the subjugation of those not among the “chosen few” who would eventually rule their version of an “Islamic paradise”.
CAIR’s ability to successfully manipulate the news media is testament to CAIR’s ability to utilize “useful idiots” in the media to further its agenda. Damning facts are consistently either avoided or disregarded by CAIR, and irresponsibly ignored by members of the media who lap up CAIR’s whimpers and ignore CAIR’s critics in the false belief that they are giving “voice to the voiceless”; not understanding that their deliberate silence as to the facts about CAIR are no different than giving aid and comfort to our enemies.
Long before "Muslim Mafia" (co-authored by Dave Gaubatz and Paul Sperry) was published, however, several members of Congress had warned of CAIR's disturbing origins. One of the first consistent and fearless critics of CAIR has been Democrat Senator Charles Schumer who said: "We know [CAIR] has ties to terrorism…intimate links with Hamas." Senator Schumer made these statements during a September 2003 Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security where the evidence against CAIR was laid out in detail. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad was invited to testify at this gathering, but chose to avoid the meeting and instead submitted a crude and absurd written statement listing CAIR's "accomplishments" and childishly attacking critics.
Senator Schumer continues to give unapologetic support in efforts to investigate and exclude CAIR from involvement in government programs, including "training" the FBI. In February of 2009, Senator Schumer joined Senators Kyl and Coburn in contacting the FBI to state their support for the FBI severing ties to CAIR saying "We certainly support that action..."
Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer has also called out CAIR. She recalled an award to CAIR's Basim Elkarra when she researched and learned of his involvement with CAIR and CAIR's ties to Hamas. In addition to recalling the award, Senator Boxer also told CAIR to remove her statement endorsing CAIR from their web site. CAIR blasted Senator Boxer saying her actions were rooted in "Islamophobia." Senator Boxer made clear her feelings about CAIR when she said: "To praise [CAIR] because they haven't been indicted is like somebody saying, 'I'm not a crook'"
When Representative Sue Myrick was joined by congressional colleagues and members of the Anti-Terrorism Caucus at a news conference to announce their request for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate efforts by the CAIR to lobby congress illegally and place CAIR interns in sensitive agencies, CAIR thought they had an easy mark with eager media assistance to vilify these Republican representatives as "attacking Muslims" and deflect the attention away from the evidence of CAIR's dubious ties to terrorism. However, Sue Myrick founded the bipartisan Anti-Terrorism Caucus which consists of over 120 congressional members and includes Representatives Bud Cramer (D-AL), Kay Granger (R-TX), and Jane Harman (D-CA) who are the Caucus co-chairs. A Caucus statement demonstrates that CAIR is a problem for all Americans, not just an issue for one political party:
“Terrorists don’t target Democrats or Republicans. They target Americans, and this is why
we must face this issue as Americans. Members of Congress and the American public must
know the threats we face from radical jihadist terrorists. The Anti-Terrorism Caucus
will give Congress the tools and resources it needs to communicate those threats
to the public, as well as help them make more informed decisions when it comes
to terrorist issues.”
CAIR's "attacking Muslims" meme is their classic ploy to misdirect the issue away from CAIR's creation for supporting Hamas. Their documented defensive tactic of attacking the messenger because "the credibility of the message depends on the credibility of the messenger" is now in full operational mode. As soon as Myrick and her colleagues made their announcement, CAIR damage-control went into high gear issuing bleating media reports and having CAIR apologists appear on cue to falsely accuse the authors of "Muslim Mafia" and congressional members of being "anti-Islam" and "Islamophobes."
CAIR has pressed the narrative that author Gaubatz is "anti-Islam" and "anti-Muslim" even though the evidence shows the exact opposite is true. Gaubatz has risked his life helping Muslims, which includes leading a dangerous mission in 2003 to extract members of an Iraqi Muslim family out of Iraq who now affectionately call Gaubatz the "American Angel". Gaubatz has also come to the aid of Muslims under assault by CAIR.
The authors of "Muslim Mafia" make their intentions quite clear:
“This is not a book about Islam or about Muslims in general. It is about the threat known
from Shariah Islam and violent jihad propagated by a criminal class of Muslims
known as the Muslim Brotherhood or the ‘Ikhwan mafia’...”
Representative Myrick could not be more specific on who she is targeting:
“Why would anyone allow a group, who the FBI says is tied to terrorism, to influence
national security policy, or any policy for that matter?”...“If the FBI has cut ties
with CAIR, Congress should wake up and do the same.”
The gauntlet has been thrown and CAIR has, so far, refused to point out any parts of "Muslim Mafia" that are not true. This is further evidence, as if any was needed, that CAIR has once again been exposed as a dangerous organization that supports many who would be happy to kill us if they were given half a chance.
Members of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus have called for hearings. Now is the time for the Caucus to sit as a group and hold some hearings of their own, and once and for all give CAIR’s leadership the spotlight they crave; let CAIR explain away all the evidence compiled against them and just how they really defend “Muslim civil rights” in America.
Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR
email: ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/CAIRMuslimMafia.html
Story Links:
http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4734
http://www.amazon.com/Muslim-Mafia-Underwold-Conspiring-Islamize/dp/1935071106
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/63023-republicans-accuse-muslim-advocacy-group-of-trying-to-plant-spies
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/FBItiesCAIRHamas
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/press_029_06
http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=16240
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/awadTestimony2003.html
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/press_024_03
http://www.newsweek.com/id/44338
http://counterterrorismblog.org/20090212_-__Letter_to_Mueller_CAIR_ties_-_Kyl-Schumer-Coburn%5B1%5D.pdf
http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/265.pdf
http://talkradionews.com/2009/10/n-c-congresswoman-calls-for-doj-investigation-into-cair/
http://myrick.house.gov/hot_topics_terrorism.shtml
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQS_hYmqwnTDI-06AoQh4jvHll6tjlEEANzHqhsQYgZdK8bMuPEcrcPDUWIqpMjS3PfN1dmL8VhW8Vho-QVJeHdKTDxwRK7TIzjmXcYy_RZReHUm_H4EjRm8z8Rrthyphenhyphen2gFy8-3ig/s1600-h/Senator+Boxer.jpg
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=113218
http://www.investigativeproject.org/869/cair-lawyer-has-own-legal-history
http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2009/10/15/muslim-mafia-exposed/2/
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/63571-rep-myrick-reiterates-call-to-cut-ties-with-cair
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/press_001_09
ADVISORY:
Please use a non-corporate/non-work e-mail address if you contact CAIR or Anti-CAIR or receive our material. CAIR may attempt to shame your employer into terminating you if they believe you are receiving "objectionable" material. We make every reasonable effort to protect our mailing list, but we cannot guarantee confidentiality. Anti-CAIR does not share, loan, sell, rent or otherwise publicize our mailing list. We respect your privacy!
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All persons are invited to submit tips and leads. Anti-CAIR will acknowledge receipt of all tips/leads, but we will NOT acknowledge the source of ANY tip or lead in our Press Releases or on our web site. Exceptions are made for leading media personalities at the discretion of Anti-CAIR and only on request of the person(s) submitting the tip or lead.
Rick Sanchez: Bigot
Rick, The Reverse Racist
op/ed
I have recently watched as Rick Sanchez, CNN Talking Head, attempted and failed to trip up Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County Arizona.
The only thing more stupid I have seen him do is to attempt to give Ibrihim Hooper, leader of C.A.I.R. enough credibility to refute the stance of the United States Government in regards to C.A.I.R. and it's documented ties to terrorism.
On two shows within the span of a week, Rick has had the good Sheriff appear live on his show while berating him with accusations of 'arresting people (illegal aliens) based on the clothes they were wearing', and 'flaunting a mandate' by the Federal Government to stop arresting illegals.
What an ass. But, I enjoy watching as he twists and skews the words of the federal agent to make his case to Arpaio, then twisting and skewing Arpaio's words to try to rile up the agent. Neither was impressed, neither was fooled. Sanchez was merely fooling himself. How desperate he must be to trot this charade before his dwindling audience in a pathetic plea for more viewers.
You must tune in from Noon to One weekdays as Rick reads selected exerpts from his Twitter loonies (Twits?). They all appear to agree with him, but if you go to his page yourself you will see a far different picture. Hardly anyone there agrees with him.
op/ed
I have recently watched as Rick Sanchez, CNN Talking Head, attempted and failed to trip up Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County Arizona.
The only thing more stupid I have seen him do is to attempt to give Ibrihim Hooper, leader of C.A.I.R. enough credibility to refute the stance of the United States Government in regards to C.A.I.R. and it's documented ties to terrorism.
On two shows within the span of a week, Rick has had the good Sheriff appear live on his show while berating him with accusations of 'arresting people (illegal aliens) based on the clothes they were wearing', and 'flaunting a mandate' by the Federal Government to stop arresting illegals.
What an ass. But, I enjoy watching as he twists and skews the words of the federal agent to make his case to Arpaio, then twisting and skewing Arpaio's words to try to rile up the agent. Neither was impressed, neither was fooled. Sanchez was merely fooling himself. How desperate he must be to trot this charade before his dwindling audience in a pathetic plea for more viewers.
You must tune in from Noon to One weekdays as Rick reads selected exerpts from his Twitter loonies (Twits?). They all appear to agree with him, but if you go to his page yourself you will see a far different picture. Hardly anyone there agrees with him.
"We Control The Media"
White House boasts: We 'control' news media
Communications chief offers shocking confession to foreign government
Posted: October 18, 2009
7:11 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
TEL AVIV - President Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.
"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn.
"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters," said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama's chief campaign manager.
"We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it," Dunn said.
Continued Dunn: "Whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech, a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying as opposed to why the campaign was saying it, what the tactic was. . Making the press cover what we were saying."
Dunn was speaking at a Jan. 12, 2009, event focusing on Obama's media tactics and hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, which seeks to promote collaboration between the U.S. and the Dominican Republic. The event was held in Santo Domingo and was attended by the country's president.
Dunn has been facing some criticism since she led a White House campaign last week against Fox News, slamming the top-rated network as an "arm of the Republican Party" and "opinion journalism masquerading as news."
Fox hit back this past Friday, releasing a video of Dunn speaking to high school students last June in which she lists her two "favorite political philosophers," including Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung, whose draconian policies are blamed for the deaths of tens of millions of people.
Video of Dunn's speech, broadcast during a segment of Glenn Beck's evening show on the Fox News Channel, can be seen below:
With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott
Note: News media wishing to interview Aaron Klein, please contact WND.
Communications chief offers shocking confession to foreign government
Posted: October 18, 2009
7:11 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
TEL AVIV - President Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.
"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn.
"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters," said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama's chief campaign manager.
"We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it," Dunn said.
Continued Dunn: "Whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech, a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying as opposed to why the campaign was saying it, what the tactic was. . Making the press cover what we were saying."
Dunn was speaking at a Jan. 12, 2009, event focusing on Obama's media tactics and hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, which seeks to promote collaboration between the U.S. and the Dominican Republic. The event was held in Santo Domingo and was attended by the country's president.
Dunn has been facing some criticism since she led a White House campaign last week against Fox News, slamming the top-rated network as an "arm of the Republican Party" and "opinion journalism masquerading as news."
Fox hit back this past Friday, releasing a video of Dunn speaking to high school students last June in which she lists her two "favorite political philosophers," including Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung, whose draconian policies are blamed for the deaths of tens of millions of people.
Video of Dunn's speech, broadcast during a segment of Glenn Beck's evening show on the Fox News Channel, can be seen below:
With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott
Note: News media wishing to interview Aaron Klein, please contact WND.
Ready To Revolt
Oct. 18, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
READY TO REVOLT: Oath Keepers pledges to prevent dictatorship in United States
Group asks police and military to lay down arms in response to orders deemed unlawful
By ALAN MAIMON
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Depending on your perspective, the Oath Keepers are either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia.
In the age of town halls, talk radio and tea parties, middle ground of opinion is hard to find.
Launched in March by Las Vegan Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers bills itself as a nonpartisan group of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who vow to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.
More specifically, the group's members, which number in the thousands, pledge to disobey orders they deem unlawful, including directives to disarm the American people and to blockade American cities. By refusing the latter order, the Oath Keepers hope to prevent cities from becoming "giant concentration camps," a scenario the 44-year-old Rhodes says he can envision happening in the coming years.
It's a Cold War-era nightmare vision with a major twist: The occupying forces in this imagined future are American, not Soviet.
"The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer, said in an interview with the Review-Journal. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them.
"We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you."
That type of rhetoric has caught the attention of groups that track extremist activity in the United States.
In a July report titled "Return of the Militias," the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center singled out Oath Keepers as "a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival."
The Patriot movement, so named because its adherents believe the federal government has stepped on the constitutional ideals of the American Revolution, gained traction in the 1990s and has been closely linked to anti-government militia and white supremacist movements.
The movement is blamed for spawning Timothy McVeigh, who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.
"I'm not accusing Stewart Rhodes or any member of his group of being Timothy McVeigh or a future Timothy McVeigh," law center spokesman Mark Potok said. "But these kinds of conspiracy theories are what drive a small number of people to criminal violence. ... What's troubling about Oath Keepers is the idea that men and women armed and ordered to protect the public in this country are clearly being drawn into a world of false conspiracy theory."
Oath Keepers got some unwanted attention in April when an Oklahoma man loosely connected to the group was arrested for threatening violence at an anti-tax protest in Oklahoma City. Rhodes called the man "a nut" who had no real affiliation with his group.
Nonetheless, Potok's group now monitors Oath Keepers on its Web site blog "Hatewatch."
Oath Keepers is not preaching violence or government overthrow, Rhodes said. On the contrary, it is asking police and the military to lay down their arms in response to unlawful orders.
The group's Web site, www.oathkeepers.org, features videos and testimonials in which supporters compare President Barack Obama's America to Adolf Hitler's Germany. They also liken Obama to England's King George III during the American Revolution.
One member, in a videotaped speech at an event in Washington, D.C., calls Obama "the domestic enemy the Constitution is talking about."
According to the law center, militia groups are re-emerging in this country partly as a result of racial animosity toward Obama.
It's the "cross-pollinating" of extremist groups -- some racist, some not -- that is of concern, Potok said. As evidence that the danger is real, he points to several recent murders committed by men with anti-government or racist views.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reached a similar conclusion in a report earlier this year about the rise of right-wing extremism. The report said the nation's economic downturn and Obama's race are "unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment."
The homeland security report added that "disgruntled military veterans" might be vulnerable to recruitment by right-wing extremist groups.
That warning was enough to make Rhodes feel paranoid.
"They're accusing anybody who opposes Obama of being a racist or a potential terrorist," he said. "What they're saying is, 'We're coming after you.'"
The motto of Oath Keepers: "Not on our watch!"
The message Rhodes hears from the government: We're watching you.
Las Vegas police Lt. Kevin McMahill said his department's homeland security bureau isn't overly concerned with Oath Keepers at this point, even though Rhodes says several active-duty Las Vegas officers are members of the group.
"I wouldn't classify Oath Keepers as no threat at all, but I wouldn't classify them as a threat either," McMahill said. "There's always a chance an individual can step outside the boundaries of what an organization stands for and do something wrong."
Rhodes, a former firearms instructor, said he easily could have started Oath Keepers during the Bush administration, but his focus during those years was first on getting his law degree and then volunteering on the 2008 presidential campaign of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican in whose office Rhodes worked during the 1990s.
What Rhodes terms "the rise of executive privilege" during the post-9/11 years of the Bush presidency will in his opinion only accelerate with Obama in office. What's worse, he said, is that "gun-hating extremists" now control the White House.
Two things have happened since the Homeland Security Department and Southern Poverty Law Center released their reports on extremism: Membership of Oath Keepers has spiked dramatically. And Rhodes has had to do a lot of explaining.
"We're not a militia," he said. "And we're not part and parcel of the white supremacist movement. I loathe white supremacists."
Oath Keepers doesn't offer paramilitary training; nor does it have a military command structure. It instead has board members, which include directors in seven states and outreach coordinators to currently serving local and federal law enforcement and military personnel. The group's state director in Montana, who goes by the name Elias Alias, has said Montana and other states should consider seceding from the United States in protest of the federal government's conduct.
Leaders of the group will come together in Las Vegas starting Oct. 24 for the inaugural national conference of Oath Keepers.
Among the group's other leaders is Dave Freeman, an Army veteran and former Las Vegas police sergeant who spent more than 30 years with the Metropolitan Police Department.
For Freeman, Oath Keepers has become something of a family affair. He recruited his niece, a former police chief, to serve as state director for Oath Keepers in Massachusetts.
"When you believe in something, you have to do more than just pay it lip service," said Freeman, the group's Southern Nevada director and national peace officer liaison. "This is a crusade I believe in."
Another prominent Oath Keeper is former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack, who has long been an outspoken government critic.
The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Mack a "longtime militia hero" who helped weaken gun control laws.
An incident earlier this year in rural Iowa, not inside the Washington Beltway, motivated Rhodes to start Oath Keepers.
He questioned why the Iowa National Guard planned to use residents of a small town to participate in training on door-to-door searches for weapons.
The Guard said the training was to help soldiers who might be asked to carry out similar searches in Iraq or Afghanistan.
But for Rhodes, it looked like preparation for a future declaration of martial law. It reminded him of the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when police officers reportedly confiscated legally owned firearms. What the government called emergency response after the levees broke, Rhodes saw as the imposition of martial law.
If it hadn't been for April 19 of this year, Oath Keepers might not have gained the notoriety it now has.
On the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington Green, the Massachusetts battle that started the American Revolution in 1775, a group of Oath Keepers went to the battle site and reaffirmed their pledge to the Constitution.
The gathering was mentioned in the Southern Poverty Law Center report because April 19 is also the anniversary of the deadly end to the federal siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993; and of the retaliatory bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.
Rhodes and Potok have never talked, but if they did, they might find themselves speaking a different language.
"Let them say what they want to say, but April 19 has very much become a day for the extreme radical right," Potok said.
Rhodes couldn't disagree more.
"There are thousands of Americans who go to Lexington to watch re-enactments of people shooting at troops," Rhodes said. "But if you're a group of military and police there, they somehow find this offensive."
Rhodes said he hopes Oath Keepers members think about the lawfulness of day-to-day orders they receive.
For example, if a police officer feels he is being asked to do an illegal search of a home or vehicle, he should stand down.
Rhodes eventually wants to create a legal defense fund for Oath Keepers who are disciplined by their employers for defying orders they deem unlawful or immoral.
"The message to law enforcement is not to become a tool of oppression," he said.
Rhodes, a husband and father of five home-schooled children, said he gets hundreds of e-mails a day, mostly from people interested in knowing more about his group.
He also gets a lot of questions from "birthers" wanting to know if he thinks Obama is really an American citizen and from "truthers" asking whether he believes the attacks of 9/11 were an inside job. The group doesn't have an official position on either issue, he said.
Some of his responses to questions have turned would-be allies against him.
"I've been accused of being a traitor or a CIA operative because I'm not coming out and declaring that the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine is a biological weapon," he said.
Contact reporter Alan Maimon at amaimon @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0404.
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
READY TO REVOLT: Oath Keepers pledges to prevent dictatorship in United States
Group asks police and military to lay down arms in response to orders deemed unlawful
By ALAN MAIMON
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Depending on your perspective, the Oath Keepers are either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia.
In the age of town halls, talk radio and tea parties, middle ground of opinion is hard to find.
Launched in March by Las Vegan Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers bills itself as a nonpartisan group of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who vow to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.
More specifically, the group's members, which number in the thousands, pledge to disobey orders they deem unlawful, including directives to disarm the American people and to blockade American cities. By refusing the latter order, the Oath Keepers hope to prevent cities from becoming "giant concentration camps," a scenario the 44-year-old Rhodes says he can envision happening in the coming years.
It's a Cold War-era nightmare vision with a major twist: The occupying forces in this imagined future are American, not Soviet.
"The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer, said in an interview with the Review-Journal. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them.
"We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you."
That type of rhetoric has caught the attention of groups that track extremist activity in the United States.
In a July report titled "Return of the Militias," the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center singled out Oath Keepers as "a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival."
The Patriot movement, so named because its adherents believe the federal government has stepped on the constitutional ideals of the American Revolution, gained traction in the 1990s and has been closely linked to anti-government militia and white supremacist movements.
The movement is blamed for spawning Timothy McVeigh, who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.
"I'm not accusing Stewart Rhodes or any member of his group of being Timothy McVeigh or a future Timothy McVeigh," law center spokesman Mark Potok said. "But these kinds of conspiracy theories are what drive a small number of people to criminal violence. ... What's troubling about Oath Keepers is the idea that men and women armed and ordered to protect the public in this country are clearly being drawn into a world of false conspiracy theory."
Oath Keepers got some unwanted attention in April when an Oklahoma man loosely connected to the group was arrested for threatening violence at an anti-tax protest in Oklahoma City. Rhodes called the man "a nut" who had no real affiliation with his group.
Nonetheless, Potok's group now monitors Oath Keepers on its Web site blog "Hatewatch."
Oath Keepers is not preaching violence or government overthrow, Rhodes said. On the contrary, it is asking police and the military to lay down their arms in response to unlawful orders.
The group's Web site, www.oathkeepers.org, features videos and testimonials in which supporters compare President Barack Obama's America to Adolf Hitler's Germany. They also liken Obama to England's King George III during the American Revolution.
One member, in a videotaped speech at an event in Washington, D.C., calls Obama "the domestic enemy the Constitution is talking about."
According to the law center, militia groups are re-emerging in this country partly as a result of racial animosity toward Obama.
It's the "cross-pollinating" of extremist groups -- some racist, some not -- that is of concern, Potok said. As evidence that the danger is real, he points to several recent murders committed by men with anti-government or racist views.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reached a similar conclusion in a report earlier this year about the rise of right-wing extremism. The report said the nation's economic downturn and Obama's race are "unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment."
The homeland security report added that "disgruntled military veterans" might be vulnerable to recruitment by right-wing extremist groups.
That warning was enough to make Rhodes feel paranoid.
"They're accusing anybody who opposes Obama of being a racist or a potential terrorist," he said. "What they're saying is, 'We're coming after you.'"
The motto of Oath Keepers: "Not on our watch!"
The message Rhodes hears from the government: We're watching you.
Las Vegas police Lt. Kevin McMahill said his department's homeland security bureau isn't overly concerned with Oath Keepers at this point, even though Rhodes says several active-duty Las Vegas officers are members of the group.
"I wouldn't classify Oath Keepers as no threat at all, but I wouldn't classify them as a threat either," McMahill said. "There's always a chance an individual can step outside the boundaries of what an organization stands for and do something wrong."
Rhodes, a former firearms instructor, said he easily could have started Oath Keepers during the Bush administration, but his focus during those years was first on getting his law degree and then volunteering on the 2008 presidential campaign of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican in whose office Rhodes worked during the 1990s.
What Rhodes terms "the rise of executive privilege" during the post-9/11 years of the Bush presidency will in his opinion only accelerate with Obama in office. What's worse, he said, is that "gun-hating extremists" now control the White House.
Two things have happened since the Homeland Security Department and Southern Poverty Law Center released their reports on extremism: Membership of Oath Keepers has spiked dramatically. And Rhodes has had to do a lot of explaining.
"We're not a militia," he said. "And we're not part and parcel of the white supremacist movement. I loathe white supremacists."
Oath Keepers doesn't offer paramilitary training; nor does it have a military command structure. It instead has board members, which include directors in seven states and outreach coordinators to currently serving local and federal law enforcement and military personnel. The group's state director in Montana, who goes by the name Elias Alias, has said Montana and other states should consider seceding from the United States in protest of the federal government's conduct.
Leaders of the group will come together in Las Vegas starting Oct. 24 for the inaugural national conference of Oath Keepers.
Among the group's other leaders is Dave Freeman, an Army veteran and former Las Vegas police sergeant who spent more than 30 years with the Metropolitan Police Department.
For Freeman, Oath Keepers has become something of a family affair. He recruited his niece, a former police chief, to serve as state director for Oath Keepers in Massachusetts.
"When you believe in something, you have to do more than just pay it lip service," said Freeman, the group's Southern Nevada director and national peace officer liaison. "This is a crusade I believe in."
Another prominent Oath Keeper is former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack, who has long been an outspoken government critic.
The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Mack a "longtime militia hero" who helped weaken gun control laws.
An incident earlier this year in rural Iowa, not inside the Washington Beltway, motivated Rhodes to start Oath Keepers.
He questioned why the Iowa National Guard planned to use residents of a small town to participate in training on door-to-door searches for weapons.
The Guard said the training was to help soldiers who might be asked to carry out similar searches in Iraq or Afghanistan.
But for Rhodes, it looked like preparation for a future declaration of martial law. It reminded him of the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when police officers reportedly confiscated legally owned firearms. What the government called emergency response after the levees broke, Rhodes saw as the imposition of martial law.
If it hadn't been for April 19 of this year, Oath Keepers might not have gained the notoriety it now has.
On the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington Green, the Massachusetts battle that started the American Revolution in 1775, a group of Oath Keepers went to the battle site and reaffirmed their pledge to the Constitution.
The gathering was mentioned in the Southern Poverty Law Center report because April 19 is also the anniversary of the deadly end to the federal siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993; and of the retaliatory bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.
Rhodes and Potok have never talked, but if they did, they might find themselves speaking a different language.
"Let them say what they want to say, but April 19 has very much become a day for the extreme radical right," Potok said.
Rhodes couldn't disagree more.
"There are thousands of Americans who go to Lexington to watch re-enactments of people shooting at troops," Rhodes said. "But if you're a group of military and police there, they somehow find this offensive."
Rhodes said he hopes Oath Keepers members think about the lawfulness of day-to-day orders they receive.
For example, if a police officer feels he is being asked to do an illegal search of a home or vehicle, he should stand down.
Rhodes eventually wants to create a legal defense fund for Oath Keepers who are disciplined by their employers for defying orders they deem unlawful or immoral.
"The message to law enforcement is not to become a tool of oppression," he said.
Rhodes, a husband and father of five home-schooled children, said he gets hundreds of e-mails a day, mostly from people interested in knowing more about his group.
He also gets a lot of questions from "birthers" wanting to know if he thinks Obama is really an American citizen and from "truthers" asking whether he believes the attacks of 9/11 were an inside job. The group doesn't have an official position on either issue, he said.
Some of his responses to questions have turned would-be allies against him.
"I've been accused of being a traitor or a CIA operative because I'm not coming out and declaring that the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine is a biological weapon," he said.
Contact reporter Alan Maimon at amaimon @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0404.
Free Speech Under Assault
Free Speech Under Foreign Assault – by Robert Spencer
by Robert Spencer on Oct 9th, 2009
[Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of eight books, eleven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book, The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran, is available now from Regnery Publishing.]
Does the United States Constitution protect the freedom of speech of American citizens, or does it not? In this era of globalization, the answer is becoming increasingly muddled. Thursday, an American citizen, Paul Williams, went on trial in Canada. He is charged with violating Canadian libel laws in charges he made in his book The Dunces of Doomsday about a jihad terror cell at McMaster University in Ontario. Likewise in Brazil, an American business writer, Joseph Sharkey, is on trial for what he wrote about Brazilian air-traffic controllers after he survived an airplane crash in Brazil.
Williams and Sharkey both live in the United States, which guarantees that its citizens’ freedom of speech not be infringed. Should Canadian and Brazilian libel laws apply to them? Williams has already had to pay enormous amounts of money for his defense, and Sharkey is likely to be found guilty and given a $500,000 fine. McMaster University wants a cool two million dollars from Williams.
Shouldn’t the United States government protect American citizens from such bullying by foreign powers?
If nothing is done, the problem is certain to get worse — for Williams and Sharkey are not the first American victims of the tactic that has come to be known as “libel tourism.” The late Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim bin Mahfouz sued Rachel Ehrenfeld, founder and director of the American Center for Democracy, several years ago. Bin Mahfouz was upset about Ehrenfeld’s book, Funding Evil, in which she wrote that he was involved in funding Hamas and al Qaeda – a charge for which there was abundant evidence from Western intelligence agencies. Nevertheless, taking advantage of British libel laws that place the burden of proof on the defendant, rather than the plaintiff, bin Mahfouz sued not in the United States, where Ehrenfeld lives and published her book, but in Britain, where neither he nor Ehrenfeld lived and where his entire case depended upon a handful of copies sold in that country mostly through special orders from Amazon.com, and the appearance of one chapter of the book on the Internet, where could have been read by British readers. A British court awarded bin Mahfouz $250,000, and Ehrenfeld had to devote the bulk of her time for years to fighting this judgment.
Now Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) has introduced the Free Speech Protection Act of 2009, which would shelter American writers from libel judgments by courts in countries that do not value the freedom of speech the way America does. But this bill faces an uphill battle – it seems unlikely that Barack Obama will give it his support after he just last week had the United States co-sponsor an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”
“Hatred” and “incitement” are, of course, in the eye of the beholder — or more precisely, in the eye of those who make such determinations. The powerful can decide to silence the powerless by classifying their views as “hate speech.” The ability to dissent, publicly and without fear of imprisonment or other reprisal, is a cornerstone of any genuinely free society. Yet no less distinguished a personage than the President of the United States has now given his imprimatur to the quashing of such dissent.
But we still have the First Amendment, right? Legal expert Eugene Volokh explains that it isn’t that easy: “If the U.S. backs a resolution that urges the suppression of some speech, presumably we are taking the view that all countries — including the U.S. — should adhere to this resolution. If we are constitutionally barred from adhering to it by our domestic constitution, then we’re implicitly criticizing that constitution, and committing ourselves to do what we can to change it.”
Is that the change that Americans were hoping for when they voted for Barack Obama in such large numbers in 2008? Specter and the other Democrats who have introduced and support the Free Speech Protection Act should recognize how inconsistent it is with their own party leader’s actions as President of the United States, and call upon him to end all support for any legal measure anywhere that restricts free speech.
Our survival as a free people could depend upon it.
by Robert Spencer on Oct 9th, 2009
[Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of eight books, eleven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book, The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran, is available now from Regnery Publishing.]
Does the United States Constitution protect the freedom of speech of American citizens, or does it not? In this era of globalization, the answer is becoming increasingly muddled. Thursday, an American citizen, Paul Williams, went on trial in Canada. He is charged with violating Canadian libel laws in charges he made in his book The Dunces of Doomsday about a jihad terror cell at McMaster University in Ontario. Likewise in Brazil, an American business writer, Joseph Sharkey, is on trial for what he wrote about Brazilian air-traffic controllers after he survived an airplane crash in Brazil.
Williams and Sharkey both live in the United States, which guarantees that its citizens’ freedom of speech not be infringed. Should Canadian and Brazilian libel laws apply to them? Williams has already had to pay enormous amounts of money for his defense, and Sharkey is likely to be found guilty and given a $500,000 fine. McMaster University wants a cool two million dollars from Williams.
Shouldn’t the United States government protect American citizens from such bullying by foreign powers?
If nothing is done, the problem is certain to get worse — for Williams and Sharkey are not the first American victims of the tactic that has come to be known as “libel tourism.” The late Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim bin Mahfouz sued Rachel Ehrenfeld, founder and director of the American Center for Democracy, several years ago. Bin Mahfouz was upset about Ehrenfeld’s book, Funding Evil, in which she wrote that he was involved in funding Hamas and al Qaeda – a charge for which there was abundant evidence from Western intelligence agencies. Nevertheless, taking advantage of British libel laws that place the burden of proof on the defendant, rather than the plaintiff, bin Mahfouz sued not in the United States, where Ehrenfeld lives and published her book, but in Britain, where neither he nor Ehrenfeld lived and where his entire case depended upon a handful of copies sold in that country mostly through special orders from Amazon.com, and the appearance of one chapter of the book on the Internet, where could have been read by British readers. A British court awarded bin Mahfouz $250,000, and Ehrenfeld had to devote the bulk of her time for years to fighting this judgment.
Now Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) has introduced the Free Speech Protection Act of 2009, which would shelter American writers from libel judgments by courts in countries that do not value the freedom of speech the way America does. But this bill faces an uphill battle – it seems unlikely that Barack Obama will give it his support after he just last week had the United States co-sponsor an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”
“Hatred” and “incitement” are, of course, in the eye of the beholder — or more precisely, in the eye of those who make such determinations. The powerful can decide to silence the powerless by classifying their views as “hate speech.” The ability to dissent, publicly and without fear of imprisonment or other reprisal, is a cornerstone of any genuinely free society. Yet no less distinguished a personage than the President of the United States has now given his imprimatur to the quashing of such dissent.
But we still have the First Amendment, right? Legal expert Eugene Volokh explains that it isn’t that easy: “If the U.S. backs a resolution that urges the suppression of some speech, presumably we are taking the view that all countries — including the U.S. — should adhere to this resolution. If we are constitutionally barred from adhering to it by our domestic constitution, then we’re implicitly criticizing that constitution, and committing ourselves to do what we can to change it.”
Is that the change that Americans were hoping for when they voted for Barack Obama in such large numbers in 2008? Specter and the other Democrats who have introduced and support the Free Speech Protection Act should recognize how inconsistent it is with their own party leader’s actions as President of the United States, and call upon him to end all support for any legal measure anywhere that restricts free speech.
Our survival as a free people could depend upon it.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Muslim World Population
Study of Muslim population full of revelations
By Eric Gorski - Associated Press
The global Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly one in four people in the world practice Islam, according to a report last week that was billed as the most comprehensive of its kind.
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report provides a precise number for a population whose size has long has been subject to guesswork, with estimates ranging from 1 billion to 1.8 billion.
The project, three years in the making, also presents a portrait of the Muslim world that might surprise some people. For instance, Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon, China has more Muslims than Syria, Russia has more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined, and Ethiopia has nearly as many Muslims as Afghanistan.
Highlights from the report:
Online
Read the report: www.pewforum.org.
"This whole idea that Muslims are Arabs and Arabs are Muslims is really just obliterated by this report," said Amaney Jamal, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University who reviewed an advance copy.
Pew officials call the report the most thorough on the size and distribution of adherents of the world's second-largest religion behind Christianity, which has an estimated 2.1 billion to 2.2 billion followers.
Christianity is still the dominant faith in the United States. According to Pew's 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 79.5 percent of U.S. citizens claim some form of Christian faith, from mainline Protestant to Jehovah's Witnesses. Evangelical Protestants account for 26 percent of that group.
Only 1 percent of the United States population is Muslim, according to the 2008 survey, and in Kentucky, only 0.5 percent of the state's 4.3 million residents are Muslim.
The arduous task of determining the Muslim populations in 232 countries and territories involved analyzing census reports, demographic studies and general population surveys, the report says. In cases in which the data was a few years old, researchers projected 2009 numbers.
The report also sought to pinpoint the world's Sunni-Shiite breakdown, but difficulties arose because so few countries track sectarian affiliation, said Brian Grim, the project's senior researcher.
As a result, the Shiite numbers are not as precise; the report estimates that Shiites represent between 10 and 13 percent of the Muslim population, in line with or slightly lower than other studies. As much as 80 percent of the world's Shiite population lives in four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.
The report provides further evidence that although the heart of Islam might beat in the Middle East, its greatest numbers lie in Asia: More than 60 percent of the world's Muslims live in Asia.
About 20 percent live in the Middle East and North Africa, 15 percent live in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2.4 percent are in Europe and 0.3 percent are in the Americas. The Middle East and North Africa have fewer Muslims overall than Asia, but the region easily claims the most Muslim-majority countries.
Those population trends are well established, but the large numbers of Muslims who live as minorities in countries aren't scrutinized as closely. The report identified about 317 million Muslims — one-fifth of the world's Muslim population — living in countries where Islam is not the majority religion.
About three-quarters of Muslims living as minorities are concentrated in five countries: India (161 million), Ethiopia (28 million), China (22 million), Russia (16 million) and Tanzania (13 million).
In several of these countries — including India, Nigeria, China and France — divisions featuring a volatile mix of religion, class and politics have contributed to tension and bloodshed among groups.
Herald-Leader staff writer Rich Copley contributed to this report.
By Eric Gorski - Associated Press
The global Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly one in four people in the world practice Islam, according to a report last week that was billed as the most comprehensive of its kind.
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report provides a precise number for a population whose size has long has been subject to guesswork, with estimates ranging from 1 billion to 1.8 billion.
The project, three years in the making, also presents a portrait of the Muslim world that might surprise some people. For instance, Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon, China has more Muslims than Syria, Russia has more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined, and Ethiopia has nearly as many Muslims as Afghanistan.
Highlights from the report:
■ Two-thirds of all Muslims live in 10 countries. Six of those countries are in Asia (Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey), three are in North Africa (Egypt, Algeria and Morocco) and one is in sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria).
■ Indonesia, which has a tradition of a more tolerant Islam, has the world's largest Muslim population (203 million, or 13 percent of the world's total). Religious extremists have been involved in several high-profile bombings there in recent years.
■ In China, the highest concentrations of Muslims were in western provinces. The country experienced its worst outbreak of ethnic violence in decades when rioting broke out this summer between minority Muslim Uighurs and majority Han Chinese.
■ Europe is home to about 38 million Muslims, or about 5 percent of its population. Germany appears to have more than 4 million Muslims — almost as many as North America and South America combined. In France, where tensions have run high over an influx of Muslim immigrant laborers, the overall numbers were lower, but a larger percentage of the population is Muslim.
■ Of roughly 4.6 million Muslims in the Americas, more than half live in the United States, although they make up only 0.8 percent of the population there. About 700,000 people in Canada are Muslim. That's about 2 percent of the total population.
Online
Read the report: www.pewforum.org.
"This whole idea that Muslims are Arabs and Arabs are Muslims is really just obliterated by this report," said Amaney Jamal, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University who reviewed an advance copy.
Pew officials call the report the most thorough on the size and distribution of adherents of the world's second-largest religion behind Christianity, which has an estimated 2.1 billion to 2.2 billion followers.
Christianity is still the dominant faith in the United States. According to Pew's 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 79.5 percent of U.S. citizens claim some form of Christian faith, from mainline Protestant to Jehovah's Witnesses. Evangelical Protestants account for 26 percent of that group.
Only 1 percent of the United States population is Muslim, according to the 2008 survey, and in Kentucky, only 0.5 percent of the state's 4.3 million residents are Muslim.
The arduous task of determining the Muslim populations in 232 countries and territories involved analyzing census reports, demographic studies and general population surveys, the report says. In cases in which the data was a few years old, researchers projected 2009 numbers.
The report also sought to pinpoint the world's Sunni-Shiite breakdown, but difficulties arose because so few countries track sectarian affiliation, said Brian Grim, the project's senior researcher.
As a result, the Shiite numbers are not as precise; the report estimates that Shiites represent between 10 and 13 percent of the Muslim population, in line with or slightly lower than other studies. As much as 80 percent of the world's Shiite population lives in four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.
The report provides further evidence that although the heart of Islam might beat in the Middle East, its greatest numbers lie in Asia: More than 60 percent of the world's Muslims live in Asia.
About 20 percent live in the Middle East and North Africa, 15 percent live in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2.4 percent are in Europe and 0.3 percent are in the Americas. The Middle East and North Africa have fewer Muslims overall than Asia, but the region easily claims the most Muslim-majority countries.
Those population trends are well established, but the large numbers of Muslims who live as minorities in countries aren't scrutinized as closely. The report identified about 317 million Muslims — one-fifth of the world's Muslim population — living in countries where Islam is not the majority religion.
About three-quarters of Muslims living as minorities are concentrated in five countries: India (161 million), Ethiopia (28 million), China (22 million), Russia (16 million) and Tanzania (13 million).
In several of these countries — including India, Nigeria, China and France — divisions featuring a volatile mix of religion, class and politics have contributed to tension and bloodshed among groups.
Herald-Leader staff writer Rich Copley contributed to this report.
Obama To Cede US Sovereignty?
On October 14 2009, Lord Christopher Monckton, a noted climate change skeptic, gave a presentation at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN. In this 4 minute excerpt from his speech, he issues a dire warning ...
Friday, October 16, 2009
Self Defense Is Not A Crime ...
Friday, October 16, 2009
UN: Self defense is not a crime of war unless you are Jewish
Colonel Richard Kemp is right. Self defense is not a crime of war unless you are Jewish and the accusers are Islamic (or in the case of the UN, the OIC -- the 56 state (plus Gaza) bloc of Muslim nations).
Kudos to Kemp.
Self-Defense is not a Crime of War
UN Watch Oral Statement
Delivered by Colonel Richard Kemp, 16 October 2009
UN Human Rights Council: 12th Special Session
Thank you, Mr. President.
I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.
Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.
Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.
The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.
The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.
Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.
More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.
Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.
And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Posted by Pamela Geller on Friday, October 16, 2009
UN: Self defense is not a crime of war unless you are Jewish
Colonel Richard Kemp is right. Self defense is not a crime of war unless you are Jewish and the accusers are Islamic (or in the case of the UN, the OIC -- the 56 state (plus Gaza) bloc of Muslim nations).
Kudos to Kemp.
Self-Defense is not a Crime of War
UN Watch Oral Statement
Delivered by Colonel Richard Kemp, 16 October 2009
UN Human Rights Council: 12th Special Session
Thank you, Mr. President.
I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.
Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.
Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.
The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.
The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.
Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.
More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.
Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.
And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Posted by Pamela Geller on Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Jihadis Infiltrating D.C.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOMELAND INSECURITY
'Now we have proof' jihadis infiltrating D.C.
Congress seizes on explosive new book based on daring undercover CAIR probe
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: October 14, 2009
9:00 am Eastern
By Art Moore
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
In the wake of the sensational ACORN video sting operation by two young investigators, an even more daring and devastating undercover investigation – this one infiltrating the nation's most aggressive Muslim "civil rights" organization for six months – has produced stunning revelations about the supposedly "moderate" group, backed up by 12,000 pages of documents obtained during the secret op.
As revealed in a new book detailing the operation and its findings, the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, is not the beneficent Muslim civil-rights group it claims to be. Indisputable evidence now shows CAIR and other "mainstream" Islamic groups are acting as fronts for a well-funded conspiracy of the Muslim Brotherhood – the parent of al-Qaida and Hamas – to infiltrate and destroy the American system.
Until now, CAIR has remained a powerful force in the nation's capital and across the country, from demanding the Obama administration stop FBI counter-terrorism tactics to compelling a school district to apologize to Muslims.
That influence, many believe, may be coming to an end, as a result of the undercover investigation – which included the son of a veteran counter-terrorism investigator, who grew a beard and converted to Islam, as well as two veiled female interns.
"Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America," a WND Books publication by counter-terrorism investigator P. David Gaubatz and "Infiltration" author Paul Sperry, documents CAIR's ultimate purpose to transform the United States into an Islamic nation under the authority of the Quran.
The book already has prompted action on Capitol Hill.
With evidence from "Muslim Mafia" in hand, U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., co-founder of the Congressional Anti-Terror Caucus, and other members of Congress – including Reps. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., and Paul Broun, R-Ga. – plan to hold a press conference today in Washington calling for an investigation and an end to political lobbying by front groups such as CAIR.
"Now we have proof – from the secret documents that this investigative team has uncovered, coupled with the ones recently declassified by the FBI – that [radical Islamists] agents living among us have a plan in place, and they are successfully carrying out that subversive plan," Myrick writes in the foreword to "Muslim Mafia."
Noting that CAIR has tried to hide its strategy, finances, membership, internal disputes and much more from public view since its founding in 1994, Islam expert Daniel Pipes lauded "Muslim Mafia" for definitively exposing the "tawdry and possibly illegal inner workings of radical Islam's most aggressive organization in North America."
"The revelations in this book should both put CAIR out of business and permanently discredit the Islamist cause," Pipes said.
Undercover
The book begins as a real-life, heart-pounding thriller, with Chris Gaubatz, the son of co-author David Gaubatz, preparing to go underground as an intern for CAIR at its Herndon, Va., office.
Astoundingly, the younger Gaubatz, posing as a bearded Muslim convert, ends up with a position at CAIR's national office in Washington, just three blocks from the U.S. Capitol building, working alongside top leaders Ibrahim Hooper, Nihad Awad and Corey Saylor.
Along with declassified government documents, the book unveils thousands of e-mails, faxes and internal memos that were never meant for public viewing.
The new evidence shows that CAIR – already designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-financing case in U.S. history – is part of an organized crime network in America made up of more than 100 other Muslim front groups that collectively comprise the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.
"Muslim Mafia" also exposes the inner workings of the mob-like Brotherhood and explains its broader conspiracy of infiltrating the American government and "destroying Western civilization from within."
"The evidence found in the investigation is incontrovertible," said co-author Sperry, noting that the book has more than 40 pages of footnotes and an appendix with more than 50 pages of exclusive confidential documents.
The Brotherhood is known within Islamist circles as the "Ikhwan mafia" because of its highly organized structure, centralized control and covert operations. CAIR, reveals "Muslim Mafia," is one part of the network of front groups, cut-outs and shell companies that shield the Brotherhood's criminal activities from authorities.
"These guys talk about jihad and murdering Jews like the mob talked about killing – totally casual, like they were ordering pizza," said one FBI official in Washington quoted in the book.
Some key smoking-gun revelations detailed in "Muslim Mafia" include:
The book also shows radical Muslims in the U.S. are working to support Palestinian terrorists, destroy Israel, gut U.S. anti-terrorism laws, loosen U.S. Muslim immigration policies and convert Americans to Islam.
The authors explain they targeted CAIR because it helps control the "religious crime syndicate from its power base in Washington, the capitol of the same government it wishes to overthrow."
While the FBI has cut formal ties to CAIR in the wake of its designation as an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to fund the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the group has virtually unfettered access to Capitol Hill and continues to wield influence in the White House.
CAIR, the book reveals, regularly reserves meeting rooms and prays Fridays alongside Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and a growing number of Muslim staffers.
The first Muslim elected to Congress and a de facto CAIR board member, Ellison predicted in one CAIR power breakfast he soon would be flanked by 15 other Muslim congressmen, "Muslim Mafia" notes.
Chris Gaubatz, in fact, once found himself praying elbow-to-elbow with Ellison during a Friday prayer gathering attended by CAIR inside the U.S. Capitol.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the book says, is totally in the dark about the threat, and so is the White House.
In fact, reveals "Muslim Mafia," in the White House President Obama is hiring Muslims – including an adviser who advocates compliance with Shariah law – based on resumes solicited from Muslim Brotherhood fronts.
Meanwhile, the FBI is in conflict internally about how to deal with the Brotherhood, with some top officials in favor of maintaining outreach, while counter-terror case agents in the field strongly object, pointing to evidence the network is a factory for homegrown terror and is secretly carrying out activities hostile to the U.S.
"They've achieved outrageous penetration at senior levels of our government," veteran FBI special agent John Guandolo warns in the book.
Until recently, the FBI engaged in outreach activities with CAIR, including forcing rookie agents to take cultural field trips to area mosques.
The "Muslim Mafia" authors obtained notes revealing the FBI even has offered to sponsor Muslim youth camps with the Boys Clubs of America.
A shortage of Arab linguists and dozens of discrimination suits by Arab and Muslim employees has prompted the FBI to recruit from Brotherhood-related groups, such as the Islamic Society of North America
A Muslim agent who drew national attention when he refused to tape-record a fellow Muslim during a terrorism investigation was promoted and now recruits other Muslims to become agents and linguists.
'Hit sheets'
The book also presents evidence CAIR has prepared "hit sheets" on its critics in the news media in an effort to intimidate them into silence.
Internal memos show, for example, top officials privately met with CNN executives in Atlanta to press them to cancel Glenn Beck's program on its Headline News network. Beck now has a highly rated afternoon show on the Fox News Channel.
CAIR's campaign to boycott leading nationally syndicated radio talk-show host Michael Savage's advertisers cost more than $160,000, the book reveals. The authors recount how CAIR ran out of money before it could crack Savage's most loyal sponsors.
The book also includes new revelations about CAIR's role in the "flying imams" case in 2006 in which six Muslim leaders were removed from an airline flight in Minneapolis after passengers and crew members reported what they believed to be suspicious behavior.
"Muslim Mafia" also exposes CAIR's secret agenda to criminalize anti-terror profiling by police and private entities.
Gaubatz is a veteran federal investigator and counter-terrorism specialist who served for more than a decade as a special agent in the U.S. Air Force's elite Office of Special Investigations. He held the U.S. government's highest security clearances, including Top Secret/SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information), and was briefed in many so-called black projects.
Gaubatz also is a State Department-trained Arabic linguist with more than two decades of experience in the Middle East, including tours in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq. In 2003, he led a 15-man team to rescue the family members of the Iraqi lawyer credited with saving Army Private First Class Jessica Lynch.
Sperry, a media fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, is former Washington bureau chief for Investor's Business Daily and former Washington bureau chief of WorldNetDaily.com.
His bestseller "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington" is being used by the U.S. military and top law enforcement departments nationwide. Many of the numerous stories he has broken on national security and counter-terrorism have been cited by the Washington Post, USA Today, UPI and the Associated Press, among others. His columns have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Houston Chronicle, American Spectator and Reason.
One FBI official quoted in "Muslim Mafia" says CAIR and the other Muslim Brotherhood front groups differ from al-Qaida in that, while all share the same goals, they use different methods to achieve them.
"The only difference between the guys in the suits and the guys with the AK-47s is timing and tactics," the official explained.
If you're a member of the media and would like to interview Paul Sperry, Dave Gaubatz or Chris Gaubatz, email WND's marketing department or call Anita Jenkins at (703) 398-1137.
HOMELAND INSECURITY
'Now we have proof' jihadis infiltrating D.C.
Congress seizes on explosive new book based on daring undercover CAIR probe
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: October 14, 2009
9:00 am Eastern
By Art Moore
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
In the wake of the sensational ACORN video sting operation by two young investigators, an even more daring and devastating undercover investigation – this one infiltrating the nation's most aggressive Muslim "civil rights" organization for six months – has produced stunning revelations about the supposedly "moderate" group, backed up by 12,000 pages of documents obtained during the secret op.
As revealed in a new book detailing the operation and its findings, the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, is not the beneficent Muslim civil-rights group it claims to be. Indisputable evidence now shows CAIR and other "mainstream" Islamic groups are acting as fronts for a well-funded conspiracy of the Muslim Brotherhood – the parent of al-Qaida and Hamas – to infiltrate and destroy the American system.
Until now, CAIR has remained a powerful force in the nation's capital and across the country, from demanding the Obama administration stop FBI counter-terrorism tactics to compelling a school district to apologize to Muslims.
That influence, many believe, may be coming to an end, as a result of the undercover investigation – which included the son of a veteran counter-terrorism investigator, who grew a beard and converted to Islam, as well as two veiled female interns.
"Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America," a WND Books publication by counter-terrorism investigator P. David Gaubatz and "Infiltration" author Paul Sperry, documents CAIR's ultimate purpose to transform the United States into an Islamic nation under the authority of the Quran.
The book already has prompted action on Capitol Hill.
With evidence from "Muslim Mafia" in hand, U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., co-founder of the Congressional Anti-Terror Caucus, and other members of Congress – including Reps. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., and Paul Broun, R-Ga. – plan to hold a press conference today in Washington calling for an investigation and an end to political lobbying by front groups such as CAIR.
"Now we have proof – from the secret documents that this investigative team has uncovered, coupled with the ones recently declassified by the FBI – that [radical Islamists] agents living among us have a plan in place, and they are successfully carrying out that subversive plan," Myrick writes in the foreword to "Muslim Mafia."
Noting that CAIR has tried to hide its strategy, finances, membership, internal disputes and much more from public view since its founding in 1994, Islam expert Daniel Pipes lauded "Muslim Mafia" for definitively exposing the "tawdry and possibly illegal inner workings of radical Islam's most aggressive organization in North America."
"The revelations in this book should both put CAIR out of business and permanently discredit the Islamist cause," Pipes said.
Undercover
The book begins as a real-life, heart-pounding thriller, with Chris Gaubatz, the son of co-author David Gaubatz, preparing to go underground as an intern for CAIR at its Herndon, Va., office.
Astoundingly, the younger Gaubatz, posing as a bearded Muslim convert, ends up with a position at CAIR's national office in Washington, just three blocks from the U.S. Capitol building, working alongside top leaders Ibrahim Hooper, Nihad Awad and Corey Saylor.
Along with declassified government documents, the book unveils thousands of e-mails, faxes and internal memos that were never meant for public viewing.
The new evidence shows that CAIR – already designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-financing case in U.S. history – is part of an organized crime network in America made up of more than 100 other Muslim front groups that collectively comprise the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.
"Muslim Mafia" also exposes the inner workings of the mob-like Brotherhood and explains its broader conspiracy of infiltrating the American government and "destroying Western civilization from within."
"The evidence found in the investigation is incontrovertible," said co-author Sperry, noting that the book has more than 40 pages of footnotes and an appendix with more than 50 pages of exclusive confidential documents.
The Brotherhood is known within Islamist circles as the "Ikhwan mafia" because of its highly organized structure, centralized control and covert operations. CAIR, reveals "Muslim Mafia," is one part of the network of front groups, cut-outs and shell companies that shield the Brotherhood's criminal activities from authorities.
"These guys talk about jihad and murdering Jews like the mob talked about killing – totally casual, like they were ordering pizza," said one FBI official in Washington quoted in the book.
Some key smoking-gun revelations detailed in "Muslim Mafia" include:
- New evidence that CAIR was launched to support the Hamas terrorist group, and has transferred tens of thousands of dollars to a group recently convicted as Hamas' top fundraising arm in the U.S. – money that ended up aiding terrorist attacks on Israelis and Americans;
- Internal documents showing CAIR, despite claims of cooperating with law enforcement, actively works behind the scenes to mislead and deceive the FBI on behalf of terrorism suspects – and has even cultivated Muslim moles inside law enforcement who have tipped off FBI terror targets;
- CAIR is more closely tied to al-Qaida than previously reported;
- CAIR claims to represent all Muslim Americans, however, it has victimized some 100 indigent Muslims in a massive fraud and threatened them when they tried to go to the media; and internally, personnel complaints reveal CAIR discriminates against Shiite Muslims and Muslim women within its own headquarters;
- CAIR and its sister fronts are funded by foreign Muslim Brotherhood sources;
- CAIR leaders share the Muslim Brotherhood's ultimate goal to replace the U.S. Constitution with Shariah law:
- The Muslim Brotherhood investment in corporate America will be used to pressure U.S. companies into compliance with Islamic principles.
The book also shows radical Muslims in the U.S. are working to support Palestinian terrorists, destroy Israel, gut U.S. anti-terrorism laws, loosen U.S. Muslim immigration policies and convert Americans to Islam.
The authors explain they targeted CAIR because it helps control the "religious crime syndicate from its power base in Washington, the capitol of the same government it wishes to overthrow."
While the FBI has cut formal ties to CAIR in the wake of its designation as an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to fund the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the group has virtually unfettered access to Capitol Hill and continues to wield influence in the White House.
CAIR, the book reveals, regularly reserves meeting rooms and prays Fridays alongside Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and a growing number of Muslim staffers.
The first Muslim elected to Congress and a de facto CAIR board member, Ellison predicted in one CAIR power breakfast he soon would be flanked by 15 other Muslim congressmen, "Muslim Mafia" notes.
Chris Gaubatz, in fact, once found himself praying elbow-to-elbow with Ellison during a Friday prayer gathering attended by CAIR inside the U.S. Capitol.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the book says, is totally in the dark about the threat, and so is the White House.
In fact, reveals "Muslim Mafia," in the White House President Obama is hiring Muslims – including an adviser who advocates compliance with Shariah law – based on resumes solicited from Muslim Brotherhood fronts.
Meanwhile, the FBI is in conflict internally about how to deal with the Brotherhood, with some top officials in favor of maintaining outreach, while counter-terror case agents in the field strongly object, pointing to evidence the network is a factory for homegrown terror and is secretly carrying out activities hostile to the U.S.
"They've achieved outrageous penetration at senior levels of our government," veteran FBI special agent John Guandolo warns in the book.
Until recently, the FBI engaged in outreach activities with CAIR, including forcing rookie agents to take cultural field trips to area mosques.
The "Muslim Mafia" authors obtained notes revealing the FBI even has offered to sponsor Muslim youth camps with the Boys Clubs of America.
A shortage of Arab linguists and dozens of discrimination suits by Arab and Muslim employees has prompted the FBI to recruit from Brotherhood-related groups, such as the Islamic Society of North America
A Muslim agent who drew national attention when he refused to tape-record a fellow Muslim during a terrorism investigation was promoted and now recruits other Muslims to become agents and linguists.
'Hit sheets'
The book also presents evidence CAIR has prepared "hit sheets" on its critics in the news media in an effort to intimidate them into silence.
Internal memos show, for example, top officials privately met with CNN executives in Atlanta to press them to cancel Glenn Beck's program on its Headline News network. Beck now has a highly rated afternoon show on the Fox News Channel.
CAIR's campaign to boycott leading nationally syndicated radio talk-show host Michael Savage's advertisers cost more than $160,000, the book reveals. The authors recount how CAIR ran out of money before it could crack Savage's most loyal sponsors.
The book also includes new revelations about CAIR's role in the "flying imams" case in 2006 in which six Muslim leaders were removed from an airline flight in Minneapolis after passengers and crew members reported what they believed to be suspicious behavior.
"Muslim Mafia" also exposes CAIR's secret agenda to criminalize anti-terror profiling by police and private entities.
Gaubatz is a veteran federal investigator and counter-terrorism specialist who served for more than a decade as a special agent in the U.S. Air Force's elite Office of Special Investigations. He held the U.S. government's highest security clearances, including Top Secret/SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information), and was briefed in many so-called black projects.
Gaubatz also is a State Department-trained Arabic linguist with more than two decades of experience in the Middle East, including tours in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq. In 2003, he led a 15-man team to rescue the family members of the Iraqi lawyer credited with saving Army Private First Class Jessica Lynch.
Sperry, a media fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, is former Washington bureau chief for Investor's Business Daily and former Washington bureau chief of WorldNetDaily.com.
His bestseller "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington" is being used by the U.S. military and top law enforcement departments nationwide. Many of the numerous stories he has broken on national security and counter-terrorism have been cited by the Washington Post, USA Today, UPI and the Associated Press, among others. His columns have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Houston Chronicle, American Spectator and Reason.
One FBI official quoted in "Muslim Mafia" says CAIR and the other Muslim Brotherhood front groups differ from al-Qaida in that, while all share the same goals, they use different methods to achieve them.
"The only difference between the guys in the suits and the guys with the AK-47s is timing and tactics," the official explained.
If you're a member of the media and would like to interview Paul Sperry, Dave Gaubatz or Chris Gaubatz, email WND's marketing department or call Anita Jenkins at (703) 398-1137.
Monday, October 12, 2009
NYC Bomb Plot
DHS slashes funds for NYC counterterror funding
After all, the war on terror is over, right? Najibullah Zazi? Pah! "Stunning: Despite Plot, NYC's Terror Funds Slashed," by Marcia Kramer for CBS, October 10
NEW YORK (CBS) ? After facing one of the most serious terror threats since the 9-11 attacks, Department of Homeland Security officials are slashing a big chunk of anti-terror funding to New York City.
Local lawmakers say the cut could put American lives at risk.
Just weeks after Najibullah Zazi was nabbed in an al-Qaida terror plot to explode dirty bombs here, the feds have inexplicably slashed Big Apple terror funding designed to build a network of sensors to uncover nuclear or radioactive devices in a 50 miles radius of the city.
"To me this is beyond comprehension that less than a month after al-Qaida attempted an attack against New York City that you would have the Congress cutting the money that New York City needs to defend itself from a dirty bomb attack. It's absolutely mind-boggling," Rep. Peter King, R-Long Island, told CBS 2 HD on Thursday afternoon.
The city wanted $40 million to build the network at bridges, tunnels and other locations in the metropolitan area. Congress only earmarked $20 million for the program and then slipped NYC a doubly whammy -- the money is in a pot that other city's can apply for, so we may not even get the $20 million.
"This $20 million can be spread around like political pork the way other homeland security funds have been spread around the country," King said.
"This is a bad day for New York."...
After all, the war on terror is over, right? Najibullah Zazi? Pah! "Stunning: Despite Plot, NYC's Terror Funds Slashed," by Marcia Kramer for CBS, October 10
NEW YORK (CBS) ? After facing one of the most serious terror threats since the 9-11 attacks, Department of Homeland Security officials are slashing a big chunk of anti-terror funding to New York City.
Local lawmakers say the cut could put American lives at risk.
Just weeks after Najibullah Zazi was nabbed in an al-Qaida terror plot to explode dirty bombs here, the feds have inexplicably slashed Big Apple terror funding designed to build a network of sensors to uncover nuclear or radioactive devices in a 50 miles radius of the city.
"To me this is beyond comprehension that less than a month after al-Qaida attempted an attack against New York City that you would have the Congress cutting the money that New York City needs to defend itself from a dirty bomb attack. It's absolutely mind-boggling," Rep. Peter King, R-Long Island, told CBS 2 HD on Thursday afternoon.
The city wanted $40 million to build the network at bridges, tunnels and other locations in the metropolitan area. Congress only earmarked $20 million for the program and then slipped NYC a doubly whammy -- the money is in a pot that other city's can apply for, so we may not even get the $20 million.
"This $20 million can be spread around like political pork the way other homeland security funds have been spread around the country," King said.
"This is a bad day for New York."...
Barack Advisor Says Sharia Misunderstood ...
Barack Obama adviser says Sharia Law is misunderstood
By Andrew Gilligan and Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 8:00PM BST 08 Oct 2009
Link
President Barack Obama's adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist group to talk about Sharia Law.
Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was "oversimplified" and the majority of women around the world associate it with "gender justice".
The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.
The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.
Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir's national women's officer, Nazreen Nawaz.
During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular "man-made law" and the West's "lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism".
They called for Sharia Law to be "the source of legislation" and said that women should not be "permitted to hold a position of leadership in government".
Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that "promiscuity" and the "breakdown of traditional values" were what Muslims admired least about the West.
She said: "I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media.
"The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance.
"The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases."
Sharia in its broadest sense is a religious code for living, which decrees such matters as fasting and dressing modestly. However, it has also been interpreted as requiring the separation of men and women.
It also includes the controversial "Hadd offences", crimes with specific penalties set by the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Mohammed. These include death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality and the removal of a hand for theft.
Miss Mogahed admitted that even many Muslims associated Sharia with "maximum criminal punishments" and "laws that... to many people seem unequal to women," but added: "Part of the reason that there is this perception of Sharia is because Sharia is not well understood and Islam as a faith is not well understood."
The video of the broadcast has now been prominently posted on the front page of Hizb ut Tahrir's website.
Miss Mogahed, who was born in Egypt and moved to America at the age of five, is the first veiled Muslim woman to serve in the White House. Her appointment was seen as a sign of the Obama administration's determination to reach out to the Muslim world.
She is also the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, a project which aims to scientifically sample public opinion in the Muslim world.
During this week's broadcast, she described her White House role as "to convey... to the President and other public officials what it is Muslims want."
Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, said Miss Mogahed was “downplaying” Sharia Law.
“There is a reason sharia has got a bad name and it is how it has been exercised. Regrettably in the US there have been acts of injustice perpetrated against women that are driven by the Sharia-type mindset that women are objects not human beings,” she said.
She cited the example of Muzzammil Hassan, a Buffalo man who ran a cable channel aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes and was charged earlier this year with beheading his wife after she filed for divorce.
“Americans understand by example, it’s not as if we are an ignorant mass of people. Just as we don’t broad brush all Muslims, so should Dalia not downplay the serious nature of sharia law.”
By Andrew Gilligan and Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 8:00PM BST 08 Oct 2009
Link
President Barack Obama's adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist group to talk about Sharia Law.
Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was "oversimplified" and the majority of women around the world associate it with "gender justice".
The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.
The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.
Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir's national women's officer, Nazreen Nawaz.
During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular "man-made law" and the West's "lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism".
They called for Sharia Law to be "the source of legislation" and said that women should not be "permitted to hold a position of leadership in government".
Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that "promiscuity" and the "breakdown of traditional values" were what Muslims admired least about the West.
She said: "I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media.
"The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance.
"The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases."
Sharia in its broadest sense is a religious code for living, which decrees such matters as fasting and dressing modestly. However, it has also been interpreted as requiring the separation of men and women.
It also includes the controversial "Hadd offences", crimes with specific penalties set by the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Mohammed. These include death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality and the removal of a hand for theft.
Miss Mogahed admitted that even many Muslims associated Sharia with "maximum criminal punishments" and "laws that... to many people seem unequal to women," but added: "Part of the reason that there is this perception of Sharia is because Sharia is not well understood and Islam as a faith is not well understood."
The video of the broadcast has now been prominently posted on the front page of Hizb ut Tahrir's website.
Miss Mogahed, who was born in Egypt and moved to America at the age of five, is the first veiled Muslim woman to serve in the White House. Her appointment was seen as a sign of the Obama administration's determination to reach out to the Muslim world.
She is also the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, a project which aims to scientifically sample public opinion in the Muslim world.
During this week's broadcast, she described her White House role as "to convey... to the President and other public officials what it is Muslims want."
Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, said Miss Mogahed was “downplaying” Sharia Law.
“There is a reason sharia has got a bad name and it is how it has been exercised. Regrettably in the US there have been acts of injustice perpetrated against women that are driven by the Sharia-type mindset that women are objects not human beings,” she said.
She cited the example of Muzzammil Hassan, a Buffalo man who ran a cable channel aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes and was charged earlier this year with beheading his wife after she filed for divorce.
“Americans understand by example, it’s not as if we are an ignorant mass of people. Just as we don’t broad brush all Muslims, so should Dalia not downplay the serious nature of sharia law.”
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Barred From The Base
This is an excerpt from an excellent account which points out a common abuse by authority where private gains overshadow justice, ethics, and morals. Please click the link at bottom and read the whole story.
I have tried for over two years to tell my side of the story but it seems that nobody wants to listen. I have been maliciously prosecuted, harassed, threatened and fired from my job after I caught a civilian smuggling a pistol aboard three military bases and a military aircraft. Even now, as an honorably discharged retired Navy officer, I am barred from entering my local Navy base because of a few gutless cowards who would rather do what is easy than to do what is right. It is time to disinfect all of them by exposing this story to the light of truth. Here it is.
Most normal people will find this story to be completely unbelievable so I am going to write a narrative that is as short as possible without omitting critical details and let the original documents tell the story. These documents have come into my possession as a result of what has happened to me since August 3, 2006. As you read through this, you will undoubtably think that there must be another side to this story; it doesn't make sense. There isn't. If you don't believe it, submit a Freedom of Information Act Request for the complete transcript of the Mize investigation to Commanding Officer, Naval Base Ventura County. I have nothing to hide and the documents don't lie.
I was the Officer-In-Charge (OIC) of Naval Outlying Landing Field, San Nicolas Island from February 2005 until June 19, 2007, when I was fired from my job by my commanding officer, Captain Brad Conners of Naval Base Ventura County.
On August 1, 2006, I held my regular Island staff meeting with the senior leadership of the Island. One of the topics brought to my attention was that somebody reported hearing gunshots early in the morning on the north side of the Island. I directed my security department Chief to investigate and step up the early morning patrols. This meeting was attended by a representative of the Environmental Department.
Two days later on August 3, two civilian men entered the San Nicolas Island air terminal with a Ruger .22 magnum pistol and a case of ammo. They asked the terminal watch officer how they could have them flown off the Island. My airport security personnel overheard this conversation and immediately took the weapon and ammo into custody and called the Island CDO (Command Duty Officer) and myself to make a report. I then called my Chief Staff Officer, Captain Kiwus (next in my chain of command) and made a voice report of the incident and followed it up with an email to him and Captain Conners.
The San Nicolas Island Air Operations Chief’s statement was attached to that email and explains how the pistol got on the Island in the first place. Embedded in the Chief's statement is a statement from the Channel Islands Air National Guard aircraft commander regarding how an Environmental Department employee named Grace Smith smuggled her pistol and ammo aboard his aircraft. Grace Smith is the Island biologist and a government employee of the NAVAIR Environmental Department.
An investigation by my Air Operations Officer, Chief Air Traffic Controller Christian Pettie, revealed that the two men with the pistol were contract cat trappers who were hired by the Environmental Department to trap feral cats on the Island. Here is an email from Grace Smith, (MS Word document) requesting to bring one of the trappers to the Island, since he was not a US citizen.
Read More HERE.
I have tried for over two years to tell my side of the story but it seems that nobody wants to listen. I have been maliciously prosecuted, harassed, threatened and fired from my job after I caught a civilian smuggling a pistol aboard three military bases and a military aircraft. Even now, as an honorably discharged retired Navy officer, I am barred from entering my local Navy base because of a few gutless cowards who would rather do what is easy than to do what is right. It is time to disinfect all of them by exposing this story to the light of truth. Here it is.
Most normal people will find this story to be completely unbelievable so I am going to write a narrative that is as short as possible without omitting critical details and let the original documents tell the story. These documents have come into my possession as a result of what has happened to me since August 3, 2006. As you read through this, you will undoubtably think that there must be another side to this story; it doesn't make sense. There isn't. If you don't believe it, submit a Freedom of Information Act Request for the complete transcript of the Mize investigation to Commanding Officer, Naval Base Ventura County. I have nothing to hide and the documents don't lie.
I was the Officer-In-Charge (OIC) of Naval Outlying Landing Field, San Nicolas Island from February 2005 until June 19, 2007, when I was fired from my job by my commanding officer, Captain Brad Conners of Naval Base Ventura County.
On August 1, 2006, I held my regular Island staff meeting with the senior leadership of the Island. One of the topics brought to my attention was that somebody reported hearing gunshots early in the morning on the north side of the Island. I directed my security department Chief to investigate and step up the early morning patrols. This meeting was attended by a representative of the Environmental Department.
Two days later on August 3, two civilian men entered the San Nicolas Island air terminal with a Ruger .22 magnum pistol and a case of ammo. They asked the terminal watch officer how they could have them flown off the Island. My airport security personnel overheard this conversation and immediately took the weapon and ammo into custody and called the Island CDO (Command Duty Officer) and myself to make a report. I then called my Chief Staff Officer, Captain Kiwus (next in my chain of command) and made a voice report of the incident and followed it up with an email to him and Captain Conners.
The San Nicolas Island Air Operations Chief’s statement was attached to that email and explains how the pistol got on the Island in the first place. Embedded in the Chief's statement is a statement from the Channel Islands Air National Guard aircraft commander regarding how an Environmental Department employee named Grace Smith smuggled her pistol and ammo aboard his aircraft. Grace Smith is the Island biologist and a government employee of the NAVAIR Environmental Department.
An investigation by my Air Operations Officer, Chief Air Traffic Controller Christian Pettie, revealed that the two men with the pistol were contract cat trappers who were hired by the Environmental Department to trap feral cats on the Island. Here is an email from Grace Smith, (MS Word document) requesting to bring one of the trappers to the Island, since he was not a US citizen.
Read More HERE.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Monday, October 05, 2009
Putin's Iran Plan
The New York Post
Updated: Thu., Oct. 1, 2009, 3:34 AM
Putin's Iran plan
By RALPH PETERS
Iran's traditional emblem has been the Persian lion. Russia's should be a vulture: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin intends to feed on the carcass left by any confrontation with Iran.
For Moscow, this crisis isn't about Tehran's acquisition of nukes. It's about Russia's acquisition of a stranglehold on global energy markets.
Putin's playing with fire -- but he's sure we'll be the ones burned.
As for the Obama administration's desperate (and stunningly naive) hope that economic sanctions can deter President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and his fellow thugs-for-Allah from pursuing nuclear weapons, forget it.
Even were Putin to permit his front-man, President Dmitri Medvedev, to agree to half-baked sanctions, Moscow would violate them before Obama could step out of Air Force One with a piece of paper in his hand guaranteeing peace in our time.
The current crisis is a win-win-win for Putin. But before laying out his plan, let's run the numbers:
The Persian Gulf's littoral states hold over 60 percent of the world's proven oil reserves and 40 percent of the natural gas. Russia has "just" 10 percent of the oil reserves and 35 percent of the world's natural gas.
Do the math: Iran and its neighbors, along with Russia, own two-thirds of the world's oil reserves and 70 percent of the natural gas. And the global economy still runs on oil and gas, folks.
Despite the State Department's compartmentalization mentality, Russia and Iran don't exist in separate worlds. It's less than a day's drive from Russia's southern border through Azerbaijan to Iran's northwestern border. I've driven it.
This is one macro-region for energy, the zone of ultimate control. Putin gets it, even if we don't. Here's Czar Vladimir's strategic trifecta:
* For now, Russia profits wonderfully from its trade, both legal and illicit, with Iran, while the West talks itself to death. Life is good.
* But life could get even better: If Iran's nuclear quest isn't blocked, a nuclear arsenal will give Iran de facto control of all Persian Gulf oil. Putin envisions a Moscow-Tehran axis, an energy cartel that dramatically increases the value of his oil and gas -- the only economic props keeping the corpse of Russia upright.
* If Israel's driven to a forlorn-hope attack on Iran's nuke program, Iran will respond by striking Gulf Arab oil fields and facilities, while closing the Strait of Hormuz. The US military will be in it, like it or not. Oil and gas prices will soar unimaginably -- and the bear will have its paws on the golden tap.
So the worst outcome for Putin -- more of the same -- is still good. A bad outcome for everybody else is even better in Putin's strategy to renew Russia's superpower status.
Why on earth would this guy help us stop Iran? When he hates us, anyway? (It isn't you, Barack. It's just business.)
For all his viciousness, Putin's a serious strategist. We don't have any high-level strategists. Not one. On either side of the Potomac.
In his first decade on the throne, Czar Vladimir focused on addicting Europe to Russian gas, while moving successfully to exert control over as many pipelines as possible. That was the constructive decade.
The second decade in the reign of Vladimir I is the energy-cartel-building phase. This will be the confrontational phase.
Energy's the only real power Putin has, so he's maximizing it.
It's no accident that a strategic triangle has emerged between Moscow, Tehran and Caracas -- home of the great Latin mischief-lover, Hugo Chavez, who thrives on his own nation's petro-wealth.
For us, the Iran crisis is about peace. For Putin, it's about power. Yet the self-deluding Obama administration really believes that Moscow's going to support us. After our president gave away our only serious bargaining chip, the missile-defense system promised to our European allies.
Putin thinks in 10-year-plans. We can't think past the next congressional roll-call vote.
The Obama administration's primary legacy to the world is going to be a nuclear-armed Iran.
Updated: Thu., Oct. 1, 2009, 3:34 AM
Putin's Iran plan
By RALPH PETERS
Iran's traditional emblem has been the Persian lion. Russia's should be a vulture: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin intends to feed on the carcass left by any confrontation with Iran.
For Moscow, this crisis isn't about Tehran's acquisition of nukes. It's about Russia's acquisition of a stranglehold on global energy markets.
Putin's playing with fire -- but he's sure we'll be the ones burned.
As for the Obama administration's desperate (and stunningly naive) hope that economic sanctions can deter President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and his fellow thugs-for-Allah from pursuing nuclear weapons, forget it.
Even were Putin to permit his front-man, President Dmitri Medvedev, to agree to half-baked sanctions, Moscow would violate them before Obama could step out of Air Force One with a piece of paper in his hand guaranteeing peace in our time.
The current crisis is a win-win-win for Putin. But before laying out his plan, let's run the numbers:
The Persian Gulf's littoral states hold over 60 percent of the world's proven oil reserves and 40 percent of the natural gas. Russia has "just" 10 percent of the oil reserves and 35 percent of the world's natural gas.
Do the math: Iran and its neighbors, along with Russia, own two-thirds of the world's oil reserves and 70 percent of the natural gas. And the global economy still runs on oil and gas, folks.
Despite the State Department's compartmentalization mentality, Russia and Iran don't exist in separate worlds. It's less than a day's drive from Russia's southern border through Azerbaijan to Iran's northwestern border. I've driven it.
This is one macro-region for energy, the zone of ultimate control. Putin gets it, even if we don't. Here's Czar Vladimir's strategic trifecta:
* For now, Russia profits wonderfully from its trade, both legal and illicit, with Iran, while the West talks itself to death. Life is good.
* But life could get even better: If Iran's nuclear quest isn't blocked, a nuclear arsenal will give Iran de facto control of all Persian Gulf oil. Putin envisions a Moscow-Tehran axis, an energy cartel that dramatically increases the value of his oil and gas -- the only economic props keeping the corpse of Russia upright.
* If Israel's driven to a forlorn-hope attack on Iran's nuke program, Iran will respond by striking Gulf Arab oil fields and facilities, while closing the Strait of Hormuz. The US military will be in it, like it or not. Oil and gas prices will soar unimaginably -- and the bear will have its paws on the golden tap.
So the worst outcome for Putin -- more of the same -- is still good. A bad outcome for everybody else is even better in Putin's strategy to renew Russia's superpower status.
Why on earth would this guy help us stop Iran? When he hates us, anyway? (It isn't you, Barack. It's just business.)
For all his viciousness, Putin's a serious strategist. We don't have any high-level strategists. Not one. On either side of the Potomac.
In his first decade on the throne, Czar Vladimir focused on addicting Europe to Russian gas, while moving successfully to exert control over as many pipelines as possible. That was the constructive decade.
The second decade in the reign of Vladimir I is the energy-cartel-building phase. This will be the confrontational phase.
Energy's the only real power Putin has, so he's maximizing it.
It's no accident that a strategic triangle has emerged between Moscow, Tehran and Caracas -- home of the great Latin mischief-lover, Hugo Chavez, who thrives on his own nation's petro-wealth.
For us, the Iran crisis is about peace. For Putin, it's about power. Yet the self-deluding Obama administration really believes that Moscow's going to support us. After our president gave away our only serious bargaining chip, the missile-defense system promised to our European allies.
Putin thinks in 10-year-plans. We can't think past the next congressional roll-call vote.
The Obama administration's primary legacy to the world is going to be a nuclear-armed Iran.
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