Assad Building Secret Nuclear Plant - Elad Benari

by Elad Benari

German magazine says Syrian President is building a secret underground plant with the aim of developing nuclear weapons.

Nuclear reactor

Flash 90

 

Intelligence suggests that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is building a secret underground plant with the aim of developing nuclear weapons, Germany's Spiegel news magazine said Friday, according to AFP.

Citing information made available by unidentified intelligence sources, Spiegel said the plant was in an inaccessible mountain region in the west of the war-ravaged country, two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Lebanese border.

It is deep underground, near the town of Qusayr and has access to electricity and water supplies, the magazine said in a pre-released version of the story released ahead of Saturday's publication.

It said it had had access to "exclusive documents", satellite photographs and intercepted conversations thanks to intelligence sources.

Western experts suspect, based on the documents, that a reactor or an enrichment plant could be the aim of the project, whose codename is "Zamzam", Spiegel said.

The Syrian regime has transferred 8,000 fuel rods to the plant that had been planned for a facility at Al-Kibar, it added.

In 2007, a bombing raid on an undeclared Syrian nuclear facility at Al-Kibar was widely understood to have been an Israeli strike, but it was never acknowledged by the Jewish state.

Since then, Western intelligence agencies detected another nuclear plant in Syria, this time in a Damascus suburb.

The second nuclear complex, albeit smaller, was apparently in 2011 following close analysis of satellite photos.

A German newspaper, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, reported at the time that it had received the photos, but did not publish them because inferences can be made as to when they were taken, and thus to who leaked them. 

Spiegel said in North Korean and Iranian experts are thought to be part of the "Zamzam" project.

The Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, which supports Assad's regime in the bloody conflict in Syria, is guarding the secret project, it added.


Elad Benari

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/189739#.VLFL13uzchQ

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

How Terrorism Harms Radical Islam - Daniel Pipes

by Daniel Pipes

As a rule, however, terrorism leads not to intimidation but to anger and hostility. Instead of cowing a population, it raises consciousness and provokes hatred for the Islamist cause among Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Rather than advance the Islamist cause, high profile acts of violence harm it.

An epidemic of recent high-profile attacks by Muslims in the name of Islam – in Canada, Israel, Nigeria, Australia, Pakistan, and France – raises an obvious question: How do the Islamist perpetrators figure that murdering an honor guard, driving cars into pedestrians, slaughtering non-Muslim bus passengers, taking hostage the patrons of a café, or massacring army kids and cartoonists will achieve their goal of applying Islamic law and building a caliphate?

Logically, their violence only helps if it terrorizes their enemies and compels them to bend to the Islamists' wishes; intimidation, after all, is the essence of terrorism. Sometimes, Islamist terrorism does achieve this objective. For example, to stay out of trouble, a sizeable number of artists have censored themselves concerning Islam; and the botched government response to the 2004 Madrid train bombings helped the opposition party win an election, then withdraw Spanish forces from Iraq.

As a rule, however, terrorism leads not to intimidation but to anger and hostility. Instead of cowing a population, it raises consciousness and provokes hatred for the Islamist cause among Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Rather than advance the Islamist cause, high profile acts of violence harm it. Some prominent examples:

• 9/11 removed Islamism from the shadows where it had flourished, stimulating an American-led "war on terror" and a large increase in anti-Islamic sentiment;
• The 2004 massacre of school children in Beslan poisoned Russian attitudes toward Muslims and helped Vladimir Putin consolidate power;
• The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing locked down a large metropolitan area, giving millions a first-hand taste of Islamist oppression.
• Wednesday's killing of twelve in Paris created a national mood of defiance that put Islamists on the defensive as never before. If the first hours anticipate future developments, a significant portion of the French electorate will demand more effective measures against radical Islam.

The cover of "Charlie Hebdo" that most bothered Islamists.

Ironically, obscure acts of terror do not have this counterproductive effect. To take one of many examples, when an Egyptian Muslim beheaded two Coptic Christians in New Jersey in 2013, few took notice and little anger ensued. Because of reluctance among police, politicians, the press, and the professoriate, most jihadi-style attacks of this nature tend not to publicized, thus avoiding an increase in anti-Islamic sentiments. (Sadly, those with a duty to protect too often hide the truth.)

If high-profile violence is counterproductive, why do Islamists persist in this self-defeating behavior? Out of anger andbecause of a violent disposition.

Yusuf Ibrahim beheaded two Egyptian Christians in New Jersey – and hardly anyone noticed.

Anger: Islamists, especially the more extreme ones, exude bitterness, bile, resentment, and envy. They celebrate the medieval period, when Muslims were the richest, most advanced, and most powerful of peoples, and interpret Muslim decline as the result of Western duplicity and betrayal. 

Only by striking back righteously at these conniving Crusaders and Zionists can Muslims regain their rightful place of honor and power. Expressing anger becomes an end in itself, leading to myopia, an inability to plan, an absence of strategic thinking, and pulsating grandiosity.

A violent disposition: Exulting in their sense of direct knowledge of God's will, Islamists favor violence. To make the enemy cower in fear, then smite him is the ultimate Islamist dream, a fulfillment of intense ill will, a triumph of Islam's superiority over other religions and those Muslims who lack the fire of their faith. Suicide bombings, beheadings, gangland-style murders, and other acts of grotesque recrimination express a deep desire for vengeance.

In the long term, then, these acts of violence do immense damage to the Islamist cause. Turned around, the victims of that violence – some 10,000 fatalities in 2,800 attacks in 2013 alone – did not die in vain but unwittingly sacrificed their lives in a dreadful war of wills. Targeted assassinations, such as those against the French cartoonists, have an outsized impact on public opinion.

In sum, self-indulgence and strategic ineptitude are the hallmarks the Islamist campaign. The catastrophe of the Islamist program is matched by the ineptitude of its tactics. And so, I conclude, its fate will be the same dust-heap of history where fascism and communism can be found. Like those two other totalitarianisms, it promises terrible destruction and many deaths before ultimately failing. The war will be long and painful but in the end, again, the forces of civilization will vanquish those of barbarism.

The recent drumbeat of terrorism in the name of Islam may appear to help the Islamist cause. In fact, it brings its agenda closer to a deserved collapse.


Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. © 2015 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
 
Source: http://www.danielpipes.org/15347/how-terrorism-harms-radical-islam

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Boys of the Taliban - Jamie Glazov

by Jamie Glazov

President Obama recently announced the end of the war in Afghanistan, thereby officially surrendering what he himself had once called the ‘Good War.’ With thousands of American lives now squandered as the Radical-in-Chief oversees the triumph of the enemy, Frontpage is re-running Jamie Glazov’s article “Boys of the Taliban,” from our Jan 1, 2007 issue, to help crystallize the true nature of the barbaric enemy Obama is now handing Afghanistan to. The article has been updated and edited.

Just recently, the Taliban issued a new set of 30 rules to its fighters.

Many of the instructions were to be expected: rule No. 25 commands the murder of teachers if a warning and a beating does not dissuade them from teaching. No. 26 outlines the exquisite delicacy of burning schools and destroying anything that aid organizations might undertake — such as the building of a new road, school or clinic. The essence of the other rules are easily left to the imagination, basically involving what Islamic Jihad is all about: vile hate, death and destruction.
But there is a curious rule that the Western media has typically ignored. Rule No. 19 instructs that Taliban fighters must not take young boys without facial hair into their private quarters.

Aside from the question of what is permitted if a young boy does happen to have facial hair, this new Taliban commandment brings light to a taboo pathology that underlies the structures of Islam. And it is crucial to deconstruct the meaning of this rule — and the horrid reality that it represents — because it serves as a gateway to understanding the primary causes of Islamic rage and terror.

Rule No. 19 obviously indicates that the sexual abuse of young boys is a prevalent and institutionalized phenomenon among the Taliban and that, for one reason or another, its widespread practice has become a problem.

The fact that Taliban militants’ spare time involves sodomizing young boys should by no means be any kind of surprise or eyebrow raiser. That a mass pathology such as this occurs in a culture which demonizes the female and her sexuality — and puts her out of mind and sight — is only to be expected. To be sure, it is a simple given that the religious male fanatic who flies into a violent rage even at the thought of an exposed woman’s ankle will also most likely be, in some other dysfunctional and dark secret compartment of his fractured life, the person who leads some poor helpless young boy into his private chambers.

The key issue here is that the sickness that underlies Rule No. 19 is by no means exclusive to the Taliban; it is a widespread phenomenon throughout Islamic-Arab culture and it lies, among other factors, at the root of that culture’s addiction to rage and its lust for violence, terror and suicide.

There is a basic and common sense empirical human reality: wherever humans construct and perpetuate an environment in which females and their sexuality are demonized and are pushed into invisibility, homosexual behavior among men and the sexual abuse of young boys by older men increases. Islamic-Arab culture serves as a perfect example of this paradigm, seeing that gender apartheid, fear of female sexuality and a vicious misogyny are the structures on which the whole society functions.

It is no surprise that John Racy, a psychiatrist with much experience in Arab societies, has noted that homosexuality is “extremely common” in many parts of the Arab world. [1] Indeed, even though homosexuality is officially despised in this culture and strictly prohibited and punishable by imprisonment, incarceration and/or death, having sex with boys or effeminate men is actually a social norm. Males serve as available substitutes for unavailable women.

The key is this: the male who does the penetrating is not considered to be homosexual or emasculated any more than if he were to have sex with his wife, while the male who is penetrated is emasculated. The boy, however, is not considered to be emasculated since he is not yet considered to be a man. A man who has sex with boys is simply doing what many men (especially unmarried ones) do. [2] And this reality is connected to the fact that, as scholar Bruce Dunne has demonstrated, sex in Islamic-Arab societies is not about mutuality between partners, but about the adult male’s achievement of pleasure through violent domination. [3]

While secrecy and taboo surround this phenomenon, some courageous Arabs have dared to discuss and expose it. Walid Shoebat, for instance, a former Palestinian terrorist, has openly related the abuse of young boys in Palestinian Muslim society. He himself witnessed a line of shepherd boys waiting for their turn to sodomize a five-year-old boy. [4] Amnesty International has also reported that Afghan warlords routinely sexually victimize young boys and film the orgies. [5] (The sexual abuse of young girls in this environment is also obviously widespread). [6]

While she was in Afghanistan in 1961, author and scholar Phyllis Chesler saw homosexuals roaming the streets, holding hands in broad daylight and gazing into each other’s eyes. “One of the pair,” she writes, “might sport a flower behind his ear; another might be wearing lipstick or have rouged cheeks.” At the same time, Chesler observed that everyone, including her Arab husband, was in denial about this common social reality, refusing to admit that this widespread behavior was, in fact, homosexuality. [7]

In the morbid paradigms of this culture, the idea of love is, obviously, completely absent from men’s understanding of sexuality. Like the essence of Arab masculinity, it is reduced to a form of prison sex: hurting others with violence. A gigantic rupture inevitably develops between men and women, where no harmony, affection or equality is allowed to exist. [8]

The sexual confusion, humiliation, and repression that develop in the mindset of many Muslim males in this culture are excruciating. And it is no surprise that many of them find the only avenue for personal gratification in the act of sexually abusing young boys and, of course, in humiliating the foreign “enemy,” whose masculinity must be violated at all costs — just as theirs once was.

Islamist terror, therefore, is, in part, very much a release of the terrorists’ bottled-up sexual rage in connection to sexual frustration and desperation — and to the humiliation connected to feelings of emasculation, which culminates in the act of striking out against “the enemy” and violating his masculinity. The inner workings of this mindset explain why Islamic terrorists consistently engage in sexual mutilation of their victims. Psychiatrist David Gutmann notes this phenomenon in the context of Arab Jew-hatred:

The Israelis perform in this Arab psychodrama of gender as a potent, destabilizing threat: to begin with, as a people they broke out of the deprecated but tolerated status of Dhimmi – a kind of submissive “woman” – to the “masculine” status of pioneer, rebel, warrior and nation builder. In retaliation, in their wars and Intifadas the Arabs strive to castrate the uppity masculinizing Jew — and this project is carried out quite literally on the battlefield, where the bodies of fallen Jews have been mutilated in the most obscene ways. [9]

This lust for violence against “the enemy” and the accompanying yearning to die in the process are fueled by the morbid earthly existence that is engendered by Islam. Indeed, there exists very few reasons for males to value their time on earth; their freedom of action and ability to experience joy and pleasure are extremely limited in terms of what is allowed. To be sure, most young Muslim men who abide by Sharia have absolutely no experience in love, sex, affection or friendship with females, and they have no outlet for their libido, which, to further pathologize the mindset, they regard as evil temptation. Killing and dying, therefore, become the only areas where free will can be exercised.

This lust for death is further compounded by the theological underpinnings of Islam itself, which promises the Muslim male sexual treats in the afterlife which are forbidden to him on earth. Indeed, if a Muslim male dies in the cause of jihad, he will enjoy a blissful union with virgins in paradise (Suras 78:31, 37:40-48, 44:51-55). And for those Muslim warriors for whom women are not of interest, there will be young pre-pubescent boys at their service — and they will be like “scattered pearls” of “perpetual freshness” (Suras 52:24, 56:17, 76:19).

Thus, for the Taliban fighters who are frustrated with the new obstacles posed by Rule No. 19, there no doubt exists an even greater incentive to get to paradise a little faster.

In essence, suicide through jihad represents a form of perverted liberty through which a Muslim can express himself. In so doing, he strikes out at what tempts him, avenges his own emasculation and, through the act of suicide, cleanses himself of his own temptation by ridding himself of his earthly existence.

Theodore Dalrymple offers a profound analysis of this phenomenon in the context of the Muslim fundamentalist’s agonizing hate and self-hate inside a Western society. Analyzing the motivations of the Pakistani suicide bombers who struck in London in June 2005, he demonstrates that they saw no way out of their confrontation with freedom and modernity except death:

What more convincing evidence of faith could there be than to die for its sake? How can a person be really attached or attracted to rap music and cricket and Mercedes cars if he is prepared to blow himself up as a means of destroying the society that produces them? Death will be the end of the illicit attachment that he cannot entirely eliminate from his heart. The two forms of jihad, the inner and the outer, the greater and the lesser, thus coalesce in one apocalyptic action. By means of suicide bombing, the bombers overcome moral impurities and religious doubts within themselves and, supposedly, strike an external blow for the propagation of the faith. [10]

All of these inter-related phenomena serve as windows of understanding for us, through which we become able to grasp the psychopathic psychology that creates the need for a rule such as the Taliban’s No. 19. It is a rule that exposes a fanatic mindset that holds the sight and reality of an unveiled woman to be a horrific nightmare and the greatest sin, yet simultaneously considers the forced rape of a young prepubescent boy to be in the normal swing of things.

It is on this eerie plateau that we come to see the factors that spawn the yearning for death and suicide inside Islam. Circumscribed in the most vicious and sadistic of ways, the men imprisoned in these cages long to regain a masculinity and humanity that was violently robbed from them as children. In a setting where healing through contact with feminine affection is denied and considered evil, self-extinction through hurting the “enemy” — and the tempter – becomes the only way out.

Notes:
[1] David Pryce-Jones, The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs (Chicago: Irvin R. Dee, 2002), p.131.
[2] Bruce Dunne, “Power and Sexuality in the Middle East,” Middle East Report, Spring 1998. For a further discussion on the widespread homosexuality among men in Muslim societies in North Africa and South Asia, and how married men having sex with boys and other men is considered a social norm, and not “homosexual,” see Arno Schmitt and Jehoeda Sofer (eds.), Sexuality and Eroticism Among Males in Muslim Societies (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1992).
[3] Dunne.
[4] Chesler, The Death of Feminism, (Macmillan: New York , 2005), p.144.
[5] Chesler, p.144.
[6] Author Nawal El Saadawi gives an account of the horrifying and widespread sexual abuse of young girls in the Muslim-Arab world, a crime for which the perpetrators are exonerated. See Sadawwi, The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World, pp.12-24. While it is obvious that this abuse, as with the abuse of young boys, is connected to the unavailability of women for men in the culture at large, Chesler notes that the widespread sexual abuse of female children in the Muslim world “is one of the main ways of traumatizing and shaming girls into obedience and rendering them less capable of rebellion or resistance when they grow up.” (Chesler, p.145)
[7] Chesler, p.88 and p.144.
[8] Dunne.
[9] David Gutmann, “Symposium: Purifying Allah’s Soil,” FrontPageMagazine.com, January 27, 2006.
[10] Theodore Dalrymple, “The Suicide Bombers Among Us,” City Journal, Autumn 2005.

Jamie Glazov

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/jamie-glazov/boys-of-the-taliban/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Problem is Within Islam Itself - Peter Heck

by Peter Heck

Every time Islamic jihadists strike, our society frantically searches for some reason to explain what provoked them: American foreign policy, the invasion of Iraq, a preacher in Florida who threatened to burn a Quran, the establishment of Israel after World War II, the events at Abu Ghraib, offensive cartoons, and on and on and on.

But lost in this silly sideshow is the truth that Islam has been imitating their warrior prophet and fighting the world since the 7th century.

In the editorial offices of a French magazine this week, murderous Muslim butchers put an emphatic and bloody exclamation point on President Barack Obama’s 2012 declaration before the United Nations that, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

And even before the broken bodies of the dead French cartoonists had been removed from the scene of their slaughter, Muslim apologists of the American political left were taking to cameras and keyboards to make sure the apparent greater crime of political incorrectness was not perpetrated.

CNN pundit Sally Kohn sent out a barrage of PC tweets that repackaged the foolish charge made years ago by fellow left-winger Rosie O’Donnell that, “radical Christianity is just as dangerous as radical Islam.” You can be forgiven if you’re struggling to remember the last time monks with suicide belts stormed a mall food court or a group of knife-wielding nuns beheaded an infidel before mass. Both scenarios elicit laughter because such behavior is totally out of the ordinary for followers of Jesus. 

Can you find nutjobs claiming to be Christian who have committed violent acts? Of course. But in every example you cite, you must also admit without exception that the offender didn’t justify his actions by referencing Christian Scripture, was not acting in accordance with the teaching of any mainstream Christian denomination, nor do there exist large groups of Christians dedicated to implementing such a strategy.

Former elected chairman of the Democratic Party Howard Dean appeared on MSNBC actually attempting to say the same about Islam.  “I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists,” he proclaimed -- as though Howard Dean or anyone on the left has ever used that phrase with regularity. “I think ISIS is a cult. Not an Islamic cult. I think it’s a cult,” he stammered.

This is precisely the same nonsense we’ve been hearing from American liberals for years. Simply recall that after the horrific attack at Fort Hood, where Muslim terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan jumped onto a table, shouted “Allahu Akbar” and massacred Americans in cold blood, the Obama administration labeled the event “workplace violence.” Or go online and watch Attorney General Eric Holder refuse to even act like he understands the phrase “radical Islam.” When you do, it should become apparent why events like this continue to happen. We are paralyzed with fear at the thought of honestly acknowledging the problem we face is within Islam itself.

Every time Islamic jihadists strike, our society frantically searches for some reason to explain what provoked them: American foreign policy, the invasion of Iraq, a preacher in Florida who threatened to burn a Quran, the establishment of Israel after World War II, the events at Abu Ghraib, offensive cartoons, and on and on and on.

But lost in this silly sideshow is the truth that Islam has been imitating their warrior prophet and fighting the world since the 7th century. 

Yes, thankfully there are a large number of Muslims today who choose to interpret their holy book in a manner that allows them to live at peace with others. But we can’t deny the reality that Islam is the only religion in the world where there is an open discussion within the faith about whether it’s acceptable to saw off journalists’ heads, burn children alive who don’t renounce their faith in Christ, massacre thousands by using jetliners as missiles, or slaughter cartoonists at a satirical magazine. And again, those acts of terror aren’t the product of some modern movement of Islamists who misunderstand and pervert their scriptures. It has been this way since Muhammad was perpetrating the violence himself.

The stark difference between Kohn and O’Donnell’s “radical Christian” violence and Islamic terror is the difference between despicable acts and despicable teachings. There’s a reason that Alexis de Tocqueville wrote over a century ago, “I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad.” 

Multiculturalist blather and politically correct garbage prevent us from acknowledging that simple reality. Pretending there is some moral and ethical equivalency between all faiths is cultural suicide. Muhammad proclaimed, “I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” Three Muslims in France merely followed that example this last week. That’s the real problem we continue to ignore.

Pete Heck is a speaker, author and teacher who hosts a weekly radio broadcast on WIBC. Follow him @peterheck or email peter@peterheck.com.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/01/the_problem_is_within_islam_itself.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Flashback: Bush’s Speech to Congress after 9/11 - FrontPageMag.com

by FrontPageMag.com

FrontPage Editor’s note: In light of Wednesday’s heinous jihadist attack against the staff of the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which left 12 French citizens dead, FrontPage Magazine has elected to reprint the transcript of President George W. Bush’s address to the Sept. 20, 2001 Joint Session of Congress. The speech, given just 9 days after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack in New York, delivers a powerful message on the moral resolve necessary to defeat the jihadist enemy, which is desperately lacking under the leadership of the Obama administration.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President Pro Tempore, members of Congress, and fellow Americans:

In the normal course of events, Presidents come to this chamber to report on the state of the Union. Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered by the American people.

We have seen it in the courage of passengers, who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground — passengers like an exceptional man named Todd Beamer. And would you please help me to welcome his wife, Lisa Beamer, here tonight. (Applause.)

We have seen the state of our Union in the endurance of rescuers, working past exhaustion. We have seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers — in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. We have seen the decency of a loving and giving people who have made the grief of strangers their own.

My fellow citizens, for the last nine days, the entire world has seen for itself the state of our Union — and it is strong. (Applause.)

Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done. (Applause.)

I thank the Congress for its leadership at such an important time. All of America was touched on the evening of the tragedy to see Republicans and Democrats joined together on the steps of this Capitol, singing “God Bless America.” And you did more than sing; you acted, by delivering $40 billion to rebuild our communities and meet the needs of our military.

Speaker Hastert, Minority Leader Gephardt, Majority Leader Daschle and Senator Lott, I thank you for your friendship, for your leadership and for your service to our country. (Applause.)

And on behalf of the American people, I thank the world for its outpouring of support. America will never forget the sounds of our National Anthem playing at Buckingham Palace, on the streets of Paris, and at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.

We will not forget South Korean children gathering to pray outside our embassy in Seoul, or the prayers of sympathy offered at a mosque in Cairo. We will not forget moments of silence and days of mourning in Australia and Africa and Latin America.

Nor will we forget the citizens of 80 other nations who died with our own: dozens of Pakistanis; more than 130 Israelis; more than 250 citizens of India; men and women from El Salvador, Iran, Mexico and Japan; and hundreds of British citizens. America has no truer friend than Great Britain. (Applause.) Once again, we are joined together in a great cause — so honored the British Prime Minister has crossed an ocean to show his unity of purpose with America. Thank you for coming, friend. (Applause.)

On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars — but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war — but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks — but never before on thousands of civilians. All of this was brought upon us in a single day — and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.

Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking: Who attacked our country? The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. They are the same murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and responsible for bombing the USS Cole.

Al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world — and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.

The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics — a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. The terrorists’ directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and make no distinction among military and civilians, including women and children.

This group and its leader — a person named Osama bin Laden — are linked to many other organizations in different countries, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. There are thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries. They are recruited from their own nations and neighborhoods and brought to camps in places like Afghanistan, where they are trained in the tactics of terror. They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction.

The leadership of al Qaeda has great influence in Afghanistan and supports the Taliban regime in controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan, we see al Qaeda’s vision for the world.

Afghanistan’s people have been brutalized — many are starving and many have fled. Women are not allowed to attend school. You can be jailed for owning a television. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough.

The United States respects the people of Afghanistan — after all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid — but we condemn the Taliban regime. (Applause.) It is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists. By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder.

And tonight, the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban: Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land. (Applause.) Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens, you have unjustly imprisoned. Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country. Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, and hand over every terrorist, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate authorities. (Applause.) Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.

These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. (Applause.) The Taliban must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate.

I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It’s practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. (Applause.) The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them. (Applause.)

Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. (Applause.)

Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber — a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.

They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa.

These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us, because we stand in their way.

We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions — by abandoning every value except the will to power — they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies. (Applause.)

Americans are asking: How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command — every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war — to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.

This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.

Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

Our nation has been put on notice: We are not immune from attack. We will take defensive measures against terrorism to protect Americans. Today, dozens of federal departments and agencies, as well as state and local governments, have responsibilities affecting homeland security. These efforts must be coordinated at the highest level. So tonight I announce the creation of a Cabinet-level position reporting directly to me — the Office of Homeland Security.

And tonight I also announce a distinguished American to lead this effort, to strengthen American security: a military veteran, an effective governor, a true patriot, a trusted friend — Pennsylvania’s Tom Ridge. (Applause.) He will lead, oversee and coordinate a comprehensive national strategy to safeguard our country against terrorism, and respond to any attacks that may come.

These measures are essential. But the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows. (Applause.)

Many will be involved in this effort, from FBI agents to intelligence operatives to the reservists we have called to active duty. All deserve our thanks, and all have our prayers. And tonight, a few miles from the damaged Pentagon, I have a message for our military: Be ready. I’ve called the Armed Forces to alert, and there is a reason. The hour is coming when America will act, and you will make us proud. (Applause.)

This is not, however, just America’s fight. And what is at stake is not just America’s freedom. This is the world’s fight. This is civilization’s fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.

We ask every nation to join us. We will ask, and we will need, the help of police forces, intelligence services, and banking systems around the world. The United States is grateful that many nations and many international organizations have already responded — with sympathy and with support. Nations from Latin America, to Asia, to Africa, to Europe, to the Islamic world. Perhaps the NATO Charter reflects best the attitude of the world: An attack on one is an attack on all.

The civilized world is rallying to America’s side. They understand that if this terror goes unpunished, their own cities, their own citizens may be next. Terror, unanswered, can not only bring down buildings, it can threaten the stability of legitimate governments. And you know what — we’re not going to allow it. (Applause.)

Americans are asking: What is expected of us? I ask you to live your lives, and hug your children. I know many citizens have fears tonight, and I ask you to be calm and resolute, even in the face of a continuing threat.

I ask you to uphold the values of America, and remember why so many have come here. We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith. (Applause.)

I ask you to continue to support the victims of this tragedy with your contributions. Those who want to give can go to a central source of information, libertyunites.org, to find the names of groups providing direct help in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

The thousands of FBI agents who are now at work in this investigation may need your cooperation, and I ask you to give it.

I ask for your patience, with the delays and inconveniences that may accompany tighter security; and for your patience in what will be a long struggle.

I ask your continued participation and confidence in the American economy. Terrorists attacked a symbol of American prosperity. They did not touch its source. America is successful because of the hard work, and creativity, and enterprise of our people. These were the true strengths of our economy before September 11th, and they are our strengths today. (Applause.)

And, finally, please continue praying for the victims of terror and their families, for those in uniform, and for our great country. Prayer has comforted us in sorrow, and will help strengthen us for the journey ahead.

Tonight I thank my fellow Americans for what you have already done and for what you will do. And ladies and gentlemen of the Congress, I thank you, their representatives, for what you have already done and for what we will do together.

Tonight, we face new and sudden national challenges. We will come together to improve air safety, to dramatically expand the number of air marshals on domestic flights, and take new measures to prevent hijacking. We will come together to promote stability and keep our airlines flying, with direct assistance during this emergency. (Applause.)

We will come together to give law enforcement the additional tools it needs to track down terror here at home. (Applause.) We will come together to strengthen our intelligence capabilities to know the plans of terrorists before they act, and find them before they strike. (Applause.)

We will come together to take active steps that strengthen America’s economy, and put our people back to work.

Tonight we welcome two leaders who embody the extraordinary spirit of all New Yorkers: Governor George Pataki, and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. (Applause.) As a symbol of America’s resolve, my administration will work with Congress, and these two leaders, to show the world that we will rebuild New York City. (Applause.)

After all that has just passed — all the lives taken, and all the possibilities and hopes that died with them — it is natural to wonder if America’s future is one of fear. Some speak of an age of terror. I know there are struggles ahead, and dangers to face. But this country will define our times, not be defined by them. As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the world. (Applause.)

Great harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment. Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom — the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time — now depends on us. Our nation — this generation — will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail. (Applause.)

It is my hope that in the months and years ahead, life will return almost to normal. We’ll go back to our lives and routines, and that is good. Even grief recedes with time and grace. But our resolve must not pass. Each of us will remember what happened that day, and to whom it happened. We’ll remember the moment the news came — where we were and what we were doing. Some will remember an image of a fire, or a story of rescue. Some will carry memories of a face and a voice gone forever.

And I will carry this: It is the police shield of a man named George Howard, who died at the World Trade Center trying to save others. It was given to me by his mom, Arlene, as a proud memorial to her son. This is my reminder of lives that ended, and a task that does not end. (Applause.)

I will not forget this wound to our country or those who inflicted it. I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people.

The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them. (Applause.)

Fellow citizens, we’ll meet violence with patient justice — assured of the rightness of our cause, and confident of the victories to come. In all that lies before us, may God grant us wisdom, and may He watch over the United States of America.

Thank you. (Applause.)

FrontPageMag.com

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/frontpagemag-com/flashback-bushs-speech-to-congress-after-911/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Four Jewish Victims of Paris Terrorist Attack Named - Arutz Sheva

by Arutz Sheva

The victims are Yoav Hattab, 21, Philippe Braham, in his 40s, Yohan Cohen, 22, and Francois-Michel Saada, in his 60s.

Yoav Hattab (L) and Yohan Cohen (R) were among
four Jews murdered in Friday's brutal attack
Screenshot/Facebook

The four people killed in the terrorist attack at a kosher supermarket in Paris on Friday were all Jews, the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities said.

CRIF identified the victims of the attack Friday as Yoav Hattab, 21, Philippe Braham, in his 40s, Yohan Cohen, 22, and Francois-Michel Saada, in his 60s.

France deployed hundreds of troops around Paris Saturday, beefing up security on the eve of a march expected to draw more than a million in tribute to 17 victims of a three-day Islamist killing spree – four of them shoppers at a Jewish supermarket.

Fears remained acute and security levels were kept at France's highest level as the girlfriend of one of three gunmen killed in a fiery climax to twin hostage dramas on Friday was still on the loose.

But refusing to be cowed, more than 200,000 poured onto the streets in cities across France in poignantly silent marches paying tribute to those killed in the nation's bloodiest week in more than half a century.

The marches across the country were a taste of what was to come in Paris Sunday, where a major rally will be held for national unity, to be attended by President Francois Hollande and a host of world leaders.

The defense ministry said it was sending another 500 soldiers into the greater Paris area, bringing current numbers to some 1,350 troops.

After Friday's dramatic events, Hollande warned grimly that the threats facing France "weren't over", comments followed by a chilling new threat from a Yemen-based Al Qaeda group.

Security forces were focused on hunting down 26-year-old Hayat Boumeddiene, the "armed and dangerous" partner of Amedy Coulibaly who took terrified shoppers hostage in a Jewish supermarket on Friday, killing four of them.

People laid flowers at the shop as a tribute and one woman attached signs to a police barrier reading: "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie"), "I am police", "I am mourning", "I am Jewish."

Before Coulibaly was killed by elite police in a massive assault on the store, he told journalists he was a member of the Islamic State jihadist group.

Coulibaly and Boumeddiene are the prime suspects in the murder of a policewoman on Thursday just outside the French capital.

That attack further spooked a nation still reeling from the Wednesday assault at the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly in Paris that saw two gunmen mow down 12 people including some of the country's best-known cartoonists.

In a sombre address after Friday's sieges, Hollande said: "I call on all the French people to rise up this Sunday, together, to defend the values of democracy, freedom and pluralism to which we are attached."

But as leaders urged the country to pull together in grief and determination, questions were also mounting over how the three men – brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, and Coulibaly – had slipped through the security net after it emerged that all three were known to the intelligence agencies.

And despite calls for political unity, far-right leader Marine Le Pen urged her supporters to attend rallies outside Paris, but not in the capital.

France's darkest week in decades came to an explosive end on Friday after the three gunmen seized hostages in two locations some 30 kilometers (18 miles) apart.

The massive manhunt for the two Kouachi brothers developed into a car chase and then a tense standoff as they took one person hostage in a printing firm. Meanwhile AQAP top sharia official Harith al-Nadhari warned France to "stop your aggression against the Muslims" or face further attacks, in comments released by the SITE monitoring group.

The gunman killed by police on Friday after taking hostages at a Jewish supermarket in Paris told the French BFMTV station he had "coordinated" with the suspected Charlie Hebdo attackers and belonged to the Islamic State (ISIS) group, AFP reported Friday evening.

The French channel managed to speak to Amedy Coulibaly, as well as to one of the two Kouachi brothers suspected behind Wednesday's magazine massacre, before all three were killed in police raids ending two hostage dramas.

Cherif Kouachi, the younger sibling, said that a trip he made to Yemen in 2011 was financed by American-Yemeni radical Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in Yemen by an American drone strike in September that year.

While holed up with a hostage at a print works in the tiny town of Dammartin-en-Goele northeast of Paris, Kouachi told BFMTV that they were on a mission from the Yemeni branch of Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Shortly after the Wednesday killing at Charlie Hebdo that left 12 dead, the brothers hijacked a car telling the driver, "Say we are from Al-Qaeda in Yemen."


Arutz Sheva

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/189742#.VLFXJHuzchQ

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Jewish Victim Fought Attacker before Being Gunned Down - Ari Soffer

by Ari Soffer

Yohan Cohen attempted to grab terrorist Amedy Coulibaly's gun, in heroic attempt to save fellow shoppers.

Woman hangs sign reading "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie"), 

"I am police", "I am mourning", "I am Jewish

Reuters

 

Details are emerging of the bloody attack on a kosher supermarket Friday in which four shoppers were murdered, as France struggles to come to terms with the string of attacks of recent days.

Yoav Hattab, Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen and Francois-Michel Saada were all killed by Muslim extremist Amedy Coulibaly, who took terrified shoppers hostage in a Jewish supermarket as many of them were carrying out last-minute Shabbat preparations.

According to reports, one of the hostages - apparently Yohan Cohen - attempted to disarm Coulibaly as he burst into the store, in an incredible act of heroism. But after a brief struggle in which he failed to snatch the terrorist's gun, he was shot in the head, becoming Coulibaly's first victim.

Plans are underway for all four of Friday's victims to be buried in a state ceremony in Israel.

Police are still searching for Coulibaly's 26-year-old partner Hayat Boumeddiene, who they are describing as "armed and dangerous." Coulibaly himself was killed when French commandos stormed the shop and caught him off-guard as he bent down to pray.

Boumeddiene is suspected of being involved in a shooting attack Thursday in Paris, in which a policewoman was killed and another person seriously injured.

That attack came just a day after the deadly assault by two other Islamist terrorists on the central Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which left 12 dead and 11 more wounded.

French authorities have dramatically ramped-up security, with the defense ministry announcing the deployment of an additional 500 troops to the greater Paris area, adding to the 850 soldiers already deployed after previous attacks left France on high alert.

Meanwhile, more than 200,000 people have poured onto the streets in cities across France in poignantly silent marches paying tribute to those killed in the nation's bloodiest week in more than half a century.

In Paris, mourners lay flowers at the scene of Friday's killings as a tribute, and one woman attached signs to a police barrier reading: "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie"), "I am police", "I am mourning", "I am Jewish."

It is just a taste of what was to come in Paris Sunday, where a major rally will be held for national unity, to be attended by President Francois Hollande and a host of world leaders.

Ari Soffer

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/189744#.VLFdE3uzchQ

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.