Exploiting the 9/11 Tenth Anniversary

by Joseph Klein

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the Islamists and their supporters are busy preparing a disinformation campaign to whitewash Sharia law and Islamic ideology under the banner of an operation they call “Prepare New York.” The intent is to use a front of “interfaith” alliances with progressive groups to marginalize those who are trying to expose the truth about the Islamist agenda and to exploit the 9/11 anniversary for propaganda purposes.

Prepare New York is following the blueprint laid out by the Muslim Brotherhood in its 1982 manifesto entitled Toward a Worldwide Strategy for Islamic Policy, a 12-point strategy to “establish an Islamic Power on the earth.” To do this, the Muslim Brotherhood set out to “channel thought, education and action” to “influence centers of power both local and worldwide to the service of Islam,” and to “work within various influential institutions and use them in the service of Islam.”

In a document entitled the Explanatory Memorandum On the General Strategic Goal for the Group In North America, written in 1987 and published in 1991, authored by the Muslim Brotherhood operative Mohamed Akram, the work of the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates in America was described as “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

The method for “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within” would include developing “a mastery of the art of ‘coalitions,’ the art of ‘absorption’ and the principles of ‘cooperation.’”

One of the first steps for Islamists upon arriving in a non-Muslim country to live is to declare the common bonds between Islam and the more prevalent religions in the host country through bridge-building and interfaith sessions. As they gain more of a foothold, the Islamists become more vocal about the host country’s need to accommodate the special demands of Islamic law, which they couch in human rights terms of free expression of religion, anti-racism and anti-discrimination. They find willing partners among progressive religious groups and opinion leaders to help carry this phony message of tolerance and anti-bigotry.

Prepare New York is a leading example. It describes itself as “a coalition of New York based interfaith organizations who have joined together to help create a city-wide climate that promotes healing and reconciliation in anticipation of the tenth anniversary of 9/11.” Their website mentions such “Steering Committee Partners” as the Interfaith Center of New York, Intersections International, Odyssey Networks, and the Tanenbaum Center.

Prepare New York was formed, its website says, “in part as a response to the national and international headlines surrounding last summer’s proposed Muslim Community Center in lower Manhattan. The purpose of the coalition is to shift the discussion from one of fear and mistrust targeting any belief or group to one that celebrates New York’s extraordinary diversity of religious freedom and expression.”

With such lofty goals and with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and an array of prominent progressive Christian and Jewish groups supporting the mission of Prepare New York, how can anyone criticize it? It all sounds so warm and fuzzy until you look behind the facade and examine common threads amongst at least some of the coalition partners and you discover how they are really all about preparing to “channel thought, education and action” and to “work within various influential institutions and use them in the service of Islam.”

Let’s start with the fact that one of Prepare New York‘s “Action Partners” is the unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist financing case, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Council for American Islamic Relations.

Then there are the connections of various Steering Committee Partners of Prepare New York to the Cordoba Initiative, or the “Ground Zero Mosque,” and to its founder, Imam Feisal Rauf . Rauf was the imam behind the Ground Zero Mosque project and a co-founder of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, an organization receiving funding from a number of leftist organizations and from foreign nations that are members of the Organization of Islamic Conference and whose objective is to promote a positive image of Islam to the American public.

Rauf, who withdrew from direct involvement with the Ground Zero Mosque after a number of his controversial statements came to light, has praised Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, a prominent Muslim scholar and spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who supports the killing of Jews, the death penalty for apostasy and homosexuality, and the right under Sharia law for Muslim husbands to beat their wives, as “a very, very well known Islamic jurist, highly regarded all over the Muslim world.”

Rauf’s book, What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America, was originally published in 2004 in Malaysia, under a different title: A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11. What’s Right with Islam was an edition of the book published for an American audience and was produced after the original, with Feisal’s cooperation, by the unindicted co-conspirator and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Society of North America.

Intersections International, one of Prepare New York’s steering committee partners, lists Rauf as one of its “partners.” Intersections International receives funding from Odyssey Networks, another steering committee member, which is also a direct funder of Prepare New York.

Odyssey Networks includes as one of its members the American Society for Muslim Advancement and lists as one of its “personalities” none other than Feisal Rauf. Odyssey Networks features on its site a video in which “Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf shares his insights on immigrant rights in the USA in the context of Islam and other religions.” It is listed as one of the Cordoba Initiative’s supporting partners. Odyssey Networks’ blog also published scathing criticisms of Congressman Peter King’s congressional hearings into the radicalization of American Muslims.

The Interfaith Center of New York, another Prepare New York Steering Committee member which boasts the word “interfaith” in its title, lists Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as one of its vice chairs and a donor. It too is listed as a supporting partner of the Cordoba Initiative.

One of the key “advisory committee partners” of the Prepare New York coalition is the Abraham Path Initiative. Contributors to the Abraham Path Initiative include the Saudi Arabian Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation. On the board of directors of the Abraham Initiative is Amir Mohammed Mahallati, former UN ambassador from Iran who is said to have been one of the early moving forces behind the idea of another downtown mosque in New York. Mahallati also happened to have served on the board of directors of the Interfaith Center of New York where, as already noted, Rauf is one of the vice chairs.

The United Nations’ Alliance of Civilizations, which had its roots in the Iranian-driven “Dialogue Among Civilizations,” conceived by former Iranian President Hojjatoleslam Seyyed Mohammad Khatami, is a partner in the Abraham Path Initiative. It is also a funder of Intersections International, one of the Prepare New York steering committee partners with ties to Imam Rauf’s Cordoba Initiative. And the UN Alliance of Civilizations has partnered with the Cordoba Initiative on a conference organized by Imam Rauf’s American Society for Muslim Advancement.

So far, we have only looked at the common thread amongst many of the key players behind the Prepare New York initiative being planned around the tenth anniversary of 9/11. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Recall that part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s grand strategy, in its own words, is to “channel thought, education and action” and to “work within various influential institutions and use them in the service of Islam.” This would include working with progressive organizations to the extent they serve the Islamists’ purposes, such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and One Nation, both of which are helping to fund Prepare New York.

One Nation is not only helping to fund Prepare New York. It is putting out a totally whitewashed version of Islamic law on its website regarding such core issues as the treatment of women and religious tolerance.

The One Nation website falsely claims that “the Islamic faith has historically upheld beliefs that respect women and their role in society, although these teachings have often been misrepresented and misinterpreted by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. When Islam first developed on the Arabian Peninsula 14 centuries ago, women and girls faced oppression in many forms. Women were denied basic human rights… With the introduction of Islam, women in the region gained many rights.”

As usual, the propagandists who try to make Sharia law look benign rarely if ever deal with what Sharia law actually says, as embodied in the Koran and the recorded sayings and deeds of Mohammed (the Sunna, consisting of the Hadith and the Sira) on which Sharia law is based. The classic Sharia law text, certified as accurate by the greatest Islamic scholars of today, is the Reliance of the Traveller, which contains the Koran and Sunna passages quoted in this article. Whatever One Nation or other Islamist propagandists claim about Islamic law that is inconsistent with these texts is evidence of their blatant deception.

As to women, the Koran 4:34 says: “Allah has made men superior to women because men spend their wealth to support them. As for women whom you fear will rebel, admonish them first, and then send them to a separate bed, and then beat them.”

Hadith, Abu Dawud 11:2139-2142 says: “The Prophet ( peace be upon him ) said: ‘A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife.’”

But aren’t these texts so ancient that the respected Muslim scholars of today do not interpret them literally? Since Imam Rauf has claimed that Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, a Muslim scholar and spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, is “a very, very well known Islamic jurist, highly regarded all over the Muslim world,” why don’t we see what he has to say about women’s role under Sharia law?

This Islamic scholar said: “Because of his natural ability and his responsibility for providing for his family, the man is the head of the house and of the family. He is entitled to the obedience and cooperation of his wife, and accordingly it is not permissible for her to rebel against his authority, causing disruption.”

If the wife will not obey after the husband has tried to persuade her to end her rebelliousness, said Qaradawi,”It is permissible for him to beat her lightly with his hands.”

Qaradawi does believe in equal rights for women in one sense – to participate in suicide bombings.

The One Nation website is also deceiving its readers about religious tolerance under Islamic law. It falsely claims that a “central principle of the Islamic faith is respect for all religions, based on the belief that humankind universally worships the same God.”

Again, the actual text of the Koran and the Sunna, which make up Sharia law, contradicts this lie.

For example, the Koran 8:12 says: “Then your Lord spoke to His angels and said, ‘I will be with you. Give strength to the believers. I will send terror into the Kafirs’ [unbelievers] hearts, cut off their heads and even the tips of their fingers.’”

Koran 9:29 says: “Make war on those who have received the Scriptures [Jews and Christians] but do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day.”

Koran 33:60 says: “They [Kafirs] will be cursed, and wherever they are found, they will be seized and murdered.”

According to Sahih Muslim, Book 1, number 31001, Mohammed said: “I have been ordered to wage war against mankind until they accept that there is no god but Allah and they believe I am His prophet and accept all revelations spoken through me.”

Apostasy is punishable by death. From Bukhari 84:57, which like the Koran is part of Sharia law because it reflects the sayings and deeds of Mohammed: “[In the words of] Allah’s Apostle, ‘Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.’”

Again, these are not simply ancient texts that should be taken no more literally than the Old Testament’s requirement that Jews stone disobedient sons to death, an example cited by the Center for American Progress (which, like One Nation, is spinning for the Islamists). There aren’t any mainstream Jewish scholars who are advocating death to disobedient Jewish sons today. However, the eminent Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi has stated his understanding of Islamic law that an apostate is “a traitor to his religion and his people and thus deserves killing.”

Harvard University’s Muslim chaplain agreed with Al-Qaradawi. He advised students asking about the punishment for apostasy in Islam that the “preponderant position in all of the 4 sunni madhahib (and apparently others of the remaining eight according to one contemporary `alim) is that the verdict is capital punishment.” He also told them that “debating about religious matter is impermissible, in general.”

Prepare New York is yet another example of stealth jihad. Its backers, with connections to Imam Rauf and the Cordoba Initiative, are trying to exploit the 9/11 tenth anniversary for their own use “in the service of Islam.” They must be exposed as the hypocrites and deceivers they truly are.

Joseph Klein is the author of a recent book entitled Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations and Radical Islam.

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/14/exploiting-the-911-tenth-anniversary/

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

Jihad in Mumbai Again

by Robert Spencer

Coordinated bombings in Mumbai, India murdered twenty-one people and wounded well over 100 Wednesday; Indian authorities suspect that Islamic jihadists have struck Mumbai once again. “We infer that this was a coordinated attack by terrorists,” said Indian home minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, and other Indian officials reportedly believe that the Indian Mujahideen, which has close ties to the Pakistani jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible.

The Stratfor Global Intelligence service agreed:

This marks the first major attack in India since the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. Though the magnitude of these explosions has yet to be determined, this attack does not appear to be as sophisticated as the 2008 attacks, which involved an assault team consisting of a number of militants that coordinated 10 shooting and bombing attacks across the city. The July 13 attack, by contrast, appears to have not involved suicide attackers but consisted of explosives placed in a taxi, a meter box and locations where they could be remotely detonated. This tactic is much more in line with those used by more amateurish groups, such the Indian Mujahideen, who have targeted crowded urban areas before.

Some speculate that the synchronized explosions were a birthday gift for Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, the only surviving jihad mass-murderer from the November 2008 attack in Mumbai. In any case, there is no doubt that they were planted in busy areas so as to ensure the maximum number of casualties. That in itself may have been Lashkar-e-Taiba’s handiwork: since the Indian Mujahideen’s expert bomb makers are all in prison, authorities are investigating the possibility that the Pakistani jihad group helped construct the bombs used in Wednesday’s attacks. The first explosion went off at 6:54PM at the Jhaveri Bazaar, Mumbai’s famous jewelry market. The second hit at 6:55PM in the Opera House district, Mumbai’s business center, in a building that houses many jewelry firms. Ten minutes later, yet another bomb went off in Dadar, a populous area in central Mumbai.

Mumbai is India’s financial center, which is undoubtedly why it keeps on being the target of jihad attacks. Just as with the attacks on the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001 , jihadists want to strike at the financial might of Infidel states, ultimately weakening them enough that societal upheaval ensues, and Sharia becomes that much easier to impose.

Gujarat’s chief minister Narendra Modi warned that Wednesday’s bombings may prove to be the prelude to another large-scale attack like that of November 2008, and said that “by triggering these blasts, nefarious elements want to prove that the present Central government is not capable of containing them and they have the strength to destroy the country.”

If they do have that strength, it is because of active help from Pakistan. Pakistan’s intelligence service was accused of involvement in the planning of the November 2008 jihad massacres in Mumbai, and so this time around the Pakistani government moved quickly to head off speculation that it may have been involved in these attacks also. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani quickly condemned the attacks Wednesday, offering condolences to the Indian government and people.

Nonetheless, legitimate suspicion remains. How unequivocal can the Pakistani government be in its condemnation of these attacks when it has aided and abetted jihad activity in Afghanistan, funneled American taxpayer money that it was supposed to be using to fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban to those very groups, and has proven to be so unreliable an ally that it was not notified about the mission to kill Osama bin Laden for fear that he would be tipped off?

Islamic apologist Reza Aslan wrote in the Huffington Post Sunday that the U.S. was wrong to hold up aid to Pakistan, and that the “Pakistanis desperately need American support to ensure that their country does not become a haven” for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban – as if it weren’t a haven for them already, as the sheltering of Osama bin Laden abundantly illustrates, as well as for other jihad terror groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Aslan, of course, is a clownish and deceptive pseudo-moderate; unfortunately, however, many analysts of far greater intelligence and influence share this perspective. In reality, the Mumbai bombings Wednesday show that both India and the United States should be regarding Pakistan with the utmost suspicion, and certainly not as an ally. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is at this point in its history a nuclear-armed rogue state that has little, if any, interest in reining in those who hold to the doctrine of violent jihad within its borders. If Zardari and Gilani really deplore and reject jihad terrorism in India, why is the Pakistani government behaving so positively toward it in Pakistan – to the extent that the U.S. authorities warned American personnel several years ago that the Pakistani spy service, the ISI, was untrustworthy and tied to al-Qaeda?

If the involvement of Pakistani jihadists in the Mumbai jihad attacks Wednesday is definitively established, the international community should censure and quarantine Pakistan for having turned a blind eye to the growth and activity of jihad groups within that country for years – and for often even encouraging that activity. But the United Nations, of course, wouldn’t ever dream of doing such a thing: it would take too much time away from the drafting of its latest condemnation of Israel.

Robert Spencer

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/14/jihad-in-mumbai-again/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bc3bb69381-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN

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Obama's Foreign Policy: Dithering or Stealth Postnationalist?

by Richard Butrick

Does President Obama have a foreign policy vision? According to Charles Krauthammer, writing for WaPo (4/11), there are "no discernible [ideas] that make sense of Obama foreign policy."

To be precise, leading from behind is a style, not a doctrine. Doctrines involve ideas, but since there are no discernible ones that make sense of Obama foreign policy - Lizza's painstaking two-year chronicle shows it to be as ad hoc, erratic and confused as it appears - this will have to do.

And it surely is an accurate description, from President Obama's shocking passivity during Iran's 2009 Green Revolution to his dithering on Libya, acting at the very last moment, then handing off to a bickering coalition, yielding the current bloody stalemate. It's been a foreign policy of hesitation, delay and indecision, marked by plaintive appeals to the (fictional) "international community" to do what only America can.

But that is not the way Stanley Kurtz , the political analyst for National Review, sees it. He argues (5/11) that what seems to be vacillating indecisiveness is actually totally consonant with the precepts of what he calls "redistributive transnational governance."

Writing on the same theme in a lead article for Commentary (7/11), Douglas Feith and Joseph Cropsey call Obama's foreign policy, "selfconstrainment." Both versions are a form of Postnationalism and draw heavily on the writings of Obama's inner circle of foreign policy advisors. The common gist runs somewhat as follows:

The bullying, go-it-alone policy followed by previous administrations has only served to injure the US and the countries it has presumed to help. The US has become reviled throughout the world. The first step to initiating the new foreign policy is for the US to apologize big time. Further, the US must subordinate its naïve concept of self-interest to the interests of international institutions. In fact such enlightened self-interest will redress US reputation abroad and effect the desirable consequence of expanding democracy and stability worldwide and actually enhance US power. The US can, somewhat paradoxically, achieve its goals of democracy and stability precisely by giving up its naïve concept self-interest and adopting a policy of intelligent self-interest which must involve, to a certain degree, subordinating itself to world and regional institutions from the UN to UNSC to NATO to the Arab League.

It is not the purpose here, however, to asses or get into the details of the Obama postnationalist agenda but, for reference, these matters are deftly explained and summarized in a recent AT article by Marcia Sielaff.

What is of interest here is the point that if Obama is following some sort of a postnationalist agenda, he is not being upfront about it. This is pointed out especially in the Kurtz article:

Both Obama and Power are skilled at placing their ultimate ideological goals just out of sight, behind a screen of practical problem-solving. [snip]

Yet without fully articulating it (and that reticence is intentional), Obama and Power are attempting to accustom us to a whole new way of thinking about war, and about America's place in the world.

It seems we have two rather damning interpretations of Obama's foreign policy or lack thereof. Either Obama is vacillating and clueless or a stealth follower of some form of postnationalism. If the latter is the case then our president is a sneak. The mindset that justifies following a stealth foreign policy is the typical Progressive mindset that the public is too witless to understand the enlightened and morally superior policies of progressives. Such policies must then be instituted by stealth, subterfuge, and Orwellian language. The condescension is palpable.

Obama: dithering, clueless, and vacillating or a condescending sneak with a superiority complex? Nice choice. But wait! There is a third choice. Writing for WaPo, Fareed Zakaria ("Stop Searching for an Obama Doctrine," 7/6/11) asserts that the time for grand doctrines is over:

In all these cases, what marks administration policy is a careful calculation of costs and benefits. The great temptation of modern American foreign policy, from Versailles to Vietnam to Iraq, has been to make grand declarations - enunciate doctrines - that then produce huge commitments and costs. We are coming off a decade of such rhetoric and interventions and are still paying the price: more than $2 trillion, not to mention the massive cost in human lives. In that context, a foreign policy that emphasizes strategic restraint is appropriate and wise.

Notice that Zakaria, while eschewing "grand declarations" or doctrines, is still maintaining that Obama has a foreign policy of "strategic restraint." Does this sound familiar? The "selfconstrainment" of Feith and Cropsey? The "redistributive transnational governance" of Kurtz? As Michael Green points out, writing for Foreign Policy:

There is a difference between doctrine and strategy. Doctrines articulate aspirations for strategy and are therefore arguably expendable. Strategy is not. Small powers can go without grand strategies. Great powers cannot. Either the United States seeks to shape the direction of key regions like the Middle East and Asia, or it perpetually reacts to the initiative of revisionist powers and forces within those regions until friends and allies lose confidence and American preeminence is undermined. If there is a doctrine we don't need right now, it is the faux realism and abdication of international leadership represented in "strategic restraint."

It seems we are back to two alternatives.

Richard Butrick

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/obamas_foreign_policy_dithering_or_stealth_postnationalist.html

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

Muslim Fundamentalist Group Challenges Nigerian Government

by Amiel Ungar

Nigeria has pretensions to be the leading state in Africa and if the continent gets a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, Nigeria will be competing with South Africa for that honor.

However, three months after an election that presumably gave a mandate to President Goodluck Jonathan, the country is facing security problems from a fundamentalist Islamic group popularly known as Boko Haram. The group traces its descent to Muslim opposition to British colonial rule at the turn of the 20th century and a yearning to restore authentic Muslim rule.

The group is best known for its opposition to secular education and any affinity with Western social behavior even extending sometimes to the wearing of shirts and trousers and of course the ultimate sin - a secular education. Its main goal is to restore rule in the country to the true believers, ruling out Christians and even the moderate Moslems who have intermittently ruled Nigeria.

In July, the group staged bombings of churches and government facilities. In Maduguri, the security situation has deteriorated to the point that the university was closed. This is a university with 25,000 students and which contains, inter alia, a college of medicine. The city has over 1,200,000 inhabitants and is a trading hub of Northeast Nigeria. It can in no way be regarded as a hick town.

It has known communal violence before, but the current outbreak is the most menacing. Residents have packed up their belongings to flee the violence. The security forces banned all motorbikes so as to prevent Boko Haram gunmen from assassinating security officers and politicians via drive-by shootings. Many innocent people rely on motorbikes for their transportation so that this is a real hardship.

This is classic guerrilla strategy: get the security forces to overreact and thus win over public opinion.

The Army has already been charged with firing indiscriminately and killing civilians. Boko Haram attempted to portray itself as a fighting organization that knows how to make distinctions and challenged the Army to remove wives and children and retire to its barracks. If they did so, the guerrilla organization said it would fight the Army exclusively and very soon:

"We want to tell the Chief of Army Staff General Ihejerika that cowards don't engage a military in a duel as we did in your barracks and on the streets of Maiduguri. But cowards are those who attack women, children in their sleep and who burn the innocent's property".

Nigerians as well as foreign observers have been exasperated by the seeming nonchalance of the Nigerian central government, still in the process of forming a bloated cabinet of 40 ministers.

Good luck Jonathan is making frequent trips abroad rather than tackling the security crisis. While Jonathan was sending Nigerian peacekeepers to Somalia at the behest of President Barack Obama, perhaps they were needed closer to home.

The most bizarre reaction came from the governor of the state of Nassarawa who actually blamed the Americans and called for an investigation of links between Boko Haram and the United States. The United States, he said, was seeking Nigeria's disintegration and was using the guerrilla movement to advance these purposes.

Amiel Ungar

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/145684

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Syrian Thuggery vs. US Lecturing

by Adam Daifallah

On July 3, a young Syrian finished work and was on his way home. Two days later, he was found dead, his throat slit in his bed. Brahim Kashush, who was active in anti-Assad protests, became popular in gatherings by singing loudly in a megaphone that the dictator at Damascus needed to "take off" and "get lost". He was a normal citizen using civil disobedience as a means towards achieving reform in the country he loved – and he died for it.

Syrian protestors have quickly elevated Kashush to martyr status as the latest symbol of the backlash against Assad. Although the perpetrator will likely never be brought to justice, it is widely assumed was killed by security forces loyal to the regime.

This new incident is but a tiny drop of the blood that dirties Bashar Assad's hands. Indeed, it seems each time Assad offers a new concession to reformers, it is coupled with some sort of new crackdown resulting in innocent people being killed by pro-government thugs.

America's response to the Syrian people's clamouring for changing has so far been rather mute. With countries like Eygpt, Tunisia and especially Libya top of mind, the American approach has been to gently admonish the Assad regime while being careful not to offend it too much. In fact, that's been the U.S. strategy for years, long before the so-called "Arab Spring" got underway.

It's a strategy that has failed for years, yet no one is pushing for alternatives to the status quo. Bashar Assad and his late father have ruled Syria unchallenged for more than 40 years. Their Baath Party is constitutionally designed as "the leading party of society and state," meaning no other party can hold power. Assad's regime is, along with Iran, the funder and enabler of Hamas and the prime supporter of Hezbollah in Lebanon, a country it occupied until 2006.

Some sort of outside intervention by America and its allies is now looking more likely, but the future of the Syrian freedom movement now rests almost entirely on the situation in Libya. The Syrian situation is now starting to look like a repeat performance of the Libyan one. If the Libyan mission fails to oust Gaddafi, Syrians will be left to their own devices. But if NATO succeeds, the political will might be there to help liberate the Syrian people as well.

On Monday, it was reported that hundreds of Assad supporters attacked the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, smashing windows and spray-painting walls with obscenities and graffiti that called the American ambassador a "dog." The French embassy was also attacked, leading Secretary of State Clinton to claim Assad had "lost legitimacy."

That's it? Now is the time for bolder action and more concrete support for dissidents. America now has excuse to do so given the attack on the embassy. The situation is worsening all the time; nowhere is safe. Even the Internet, the main communication device of Syrian protestors, is being attacked by the Syrian Electronic Army, a special government unit which posts pro-Assad comments on websites, works with Syrian diplomats to blackmail Syrian-born foreigners, hacks into email accounts and tattle-tales on the activities of dissenters.

It is estimated that security forces have killed more than 1,300 civilians and arrested at least 12,000 since protests began in mid-March.

NATO must succeed in Libya. If they do, the Syrian people will call for external assistance like the Libyans did, thus making any potential outside intervention much easier.

The next few weeks will be critical in showing that the Libyan operation is working – particularly for the Syrian people. The National Transitional Council must continue to gain legitimacy worldwide to boost confidence in the operation. If it does, the prospects for more assertive action in Syria will increase.

Assad will never change. He will continue his hypocritical game of appearing open to change in public while swiftly and violently silencing any opponents that get in his way. How many more Brahim Kashush's must die before we act?

Adam Daifallah

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2266/syrian-thuggery

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

Turkey: Erdogan's New "Ottoman Region"

by Harold Rhode

Erdogan's recent electoral victory speech puts his true intentions regarding Turkey's foreign policy goals in perspective. He said that this victory is as important in Ankara as it is in the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sarajevo, under Ottoman times, an important Ottoman city; that his party's victory was as important in a large Turkish city, Izmir, on the Western Anatolian coast, as it is in Damascus, and as important in Istanbul as it is in Jerusalem.

What does all this mean? At the very least, this victory speech signals a wish for Ottoman cultural colonialism and imperialism. The places Erdogan names were all part of by the Ottoman Empire; the territory of the modern Turkish Republic is what remained after World War I and Turkey's War of Independence from the occupying Allied forces. Turkey forms only the central part, and relatively small fraction, of what had been the Ottoman Empire, which at its height extended deep into southern Europe, and included most of today's Arab world and even beyond.

In saying that this victory is as important in all of these former Ottoman cities, Erdogan apparently sees himself as trying to reclaim Turkey's full Ottoman past. In religious terms, the entire reason for being of the Ottoman Empire was to spread the Sunni form of Islam prevalent there. Sunnis, who make up about 85% of the Muslim world, believe that when Mohammed died, the leadership of Islam was passed down through what amounted to the Meccan artistocracy, and not through Mohammed's family -- which is what the Shi'ites believe. The cities Erdogan mentioned are almost all Sunni, with a few non-Sunni ones thrown in.

The Ottomans had two major rivals: the non-Muslim Europeans to the northwest, and the Shi'ite Persian Empire to the east. Although the Ottomans saw each enemy as presenting a different set of problems, they saw their own role in traditional Sunni Muslim terms: Continuing the Jihad, namely the conquest of the non-Muslim world. This requires expanding Sunni rule wherever possible; it also requires forcing non-Muslims to surrender to Sunni Islamic rule. In adopting this policy, the Ottomans were merely following the instructions of virtually every classical Muslim jurist: unending political and military conflict until the entire world submits to Islamic rule.

Shi'ites, as opposed to non-Muslims, have always been seen by Sunnis as an existential threat to Sunnism. Shi'ites, who make up about 12-15% of the Muslim world, believe that the only true rulers of Islam are Mohammed's direct descendants, not merely local "aristocracy," as the Sunnis believe; these rulers they call Imams. For Sunnis, "Imam" is often used just to mean "a preacher at a mosque."

Most Shiites believe that the definitive ruler of Islam was a direct descendant of Mohammed; is known as "The Twelfth Imam," or "The Mahdi" who disappeared in 873 A.D. -- a Messianic figure, whom they believe will return one day to rule the Muslims, just as many Christians believe in the Second Coming of Jesus.

When the Ayatollah Khomeini began ruling Iran in 1979, many Iranians began calling him "Imam' – denoting both "Ruler of the Muslims," and also that they thought he was possibly "The Twelfth Imam," re-emerged, for whom they had been waiting.

Shi'ites are engaged in an unending battle -- very often violent -- to convert others to the "true form of Islam" – theirs. The rulers of the Persian Empire in the 1500s consequently converted to Shi'ism, becoming the mortal Islamic enemy of the Sunni Ottomans; their basic reason for existing was to convert others to the "true form of Islam" – theirs.

While choosing to become Shiites, the rulers of the Persian Empire knew that they had a natural ally within the Ottoman Empire: a group called Alevis, who then lived in Eastern Anatolia in what is now Turkey . The Alevi religion consists of a mixture of Central Asian and Turkish pre-Islamic customs; but most importantly to revere the First Imam of the Shiites, Ali, a central figure in Shiite Islam. The Alevis in Eastern Anatolia therefore came to be seen as a natural ally of the mortal enemies of the Ottomans, the Shiites; and as a "fifth column" in the Sunni Ottoman Empire. From that time on, until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the Ottomans had to worry about the security of their eastern border area.

When the Persians converted to Shi'ism, the Ottomans evidently felt they had no alternative other than to send their military out to the east to fight them and address what they saw as a mortal threat to the existence of the Ottoman Empire, which was Sunni to its core.

The scars of this early 1500s battle between the Sunni Ottomans and the Persian Shiites has influenced the Turkish Sunni psyche so deeply that today's Turkish Sunnis -- and most importantly among them, Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan -- still recite age-old pejorative Turkish proverbs about both the Shiites and the Alevis. These proverbs include references to the Alevis and Shiites as untrustworthy brigands who also engage in indecent acts.

In spite of the historical animosity between Turkish Sunnis and the non-Sunni rulers of the neighboring countries –- such as the Shiites in Iran and Iraq, and the Alawis ruling Syria -- Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria tried to forge a loose political and economic alliance, which lasted until the beginning of what the Arabs called the "Arab Facebook Revolution," and which we in the West call "The Arab Spring." But Erdogan's Sunni inclinations seem to have overcome his political ambitions with his neighbors as the Sunni-non-Sunni basic differences re-emerged, as well as for political and economic reasons.

At the moment Erdogan is threatened by other problems that Iran is bringing to his doorstep. These include Iran's attempt to make itself the major energy transport country in the area, bypassing Turkey. Turkey's major geographic significance now is that it is a transporter of energy, bringing gas and oil from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and oil from northern Iraq to the world market. If Iran takes Turkey's place in the energy market, especially in transporting energy to India, China, and the region, Turkey will suffer an immense economic and strategic loss.

Further, Erdogan must be terrified of what he sees happening in Syria. Assad and his ruling clique are not Sunnis. They are Alawis -- not exactly the same as Turkey's Alevis, but similar in that they also revere Ali as a deity, much as the Christians revere Jesus. As a result of the continuing upheaval in Syria, the ruling party of Turkey might see itself as surrounded by various active religious threats from the east and from Syria, along Turkey's southern border.

Syria's tyrant, Bashar Assad, and his late father, Hafiz Assad, both Alawis, had come to an understanding with Syria's Sunni business elite, enabling these entrepreneurs to make money in exchange for acquiescing to Assad's Alawi rule. As long as these tacit agreements were in place, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan could feel comfortable dealing with Assad. Erdogan's and Assad's families even vacationed together, and Erdogan publicly called Assad his close friend -- an alliance all the more curious as the Syrian Sunnis view the Alawis with utter disdain, stemming from the Alawi worship of Ali as a deity, rather than as just the Twelfth Imam.

When the Syrian Sunnis started abandoning their ruler, Bashar Assad a few weeks ago, Erdogan took his cue from them and allowed Syrian Sunnis to host several Syrian opposition conferences in Turkey -- including one conference paid for by a wealthy Syrian Sunni businessman who until recently had been a supporter of Assad; and another conference, in Istanbul, of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Although both conferences had slightly different approaches to solving Syria's political problems, what united them was that at both, Syria's Sunnis -- Erdogan's natural allies -- were the dominant actors.

Erdogan may well now feel himself under threat from both Syria and Iran, until recently two of his allies. The policy of of "Zero problems with all neighbors" of Erdogan's Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has proven to be an abject failure.

Despite Erdogan's attempts to paper over some of his differences with the other countries in his region, Erdogan -- a devote Sunni Muslim –- could not make more than a temporary alliance with the Iranian Shiites, the Sunnis' tradition enemy. To be sure, he could have entered into a temporary alliance with them, as he could with Israel or the United States, but only in order to accomplish other, temporary, expedient goals.

Erdogan undoubtedly sees that he now has an opportunity to advance his Ottoman-centric Sunni policy in Syria and beyond. If Assad's Alawi regime falls, and is replaced by a Sunni-dominated one, Syria -- approximately 70% Sunni -- would be a natural ally for Turkey. Syria's Sunni business- and upper classes have had centuries-old connections with their counterparts in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey. Many marriages have taken place between upper class Syrian Sunnis and Turkish Sunnis. Moreover, Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, close to the Turkish border, has had a strong Ottoman character, and could again become the major trading city it was until the Turkish-Syrian border was drawn after World War I.

In all, Erdogan's bottom line appears to be advancing a reconstitution of the Ottoman Empire, which he and his fellow Turkish Sunni fundamentalists now call " The Ottoman Region." In the long run, all non-Sunnis -- such as Iran, Israel, Syria (if it remains under Alawi rule after things eventually quiet down in Syria), and a Shiite-ruled Iraq -- remain outsiders. Erdogan might make temporary alliances with any of them, but, psychologically, that will be all he is prepared to do.

Turkey's attempted apparent rapprochement with Israel -- at least for the time being -- reflects his tactical thinking: Turkey does not want more trouble in its area right now. Erdogan is likely alarmed by the consequences of what might happen in Syria if Assad continues killing Syrians: those being killed are largely Sunni. Turkey's alliances with Iran, Iraq and Syria have all failed. It is hard to imagine why Turkey thought such alliances could succeed, based as they were on too many tenuous connections -- a Shi'ite Iran, an Alawi-ruled Syria and a Shiite-dominated Iraq. Not one of these is a natural ally for the Sunni Turks.

As for Erdogan and Davutoglu, in the depths of their souls, they are fundamentalist Sunni Muslims and see themselves as such. The Turkish-Iranian-Iraqi-Syrian alliance, which Erdogan worked so hard to build, has failed. Erdogan's and Davutoglu's long-term, Sunni goals, and those of the non-Sunnis in the area, have been, and will always be, vastly different. Turkey might conclude temporary alliances with non-Sunnis as needed, to address immediate concerns, but we cannot expect much more than this. Given Iran's regional bid to replace Turkey as "energy-central," and the apparent attempt of the Shi'ite Iranian-Syrian-Alawi alliance to try to put down the Sunni-dominated Syrian insurrection, Turkey needs to make sure it does not have additional problems.

It is in this context that we should understand Turkey's renewed interest in the U.S. and Israel. As such, both the U.S. and Israel should be extremely wary of Erdogan and his associates. Erdogan's Turkey does not see long-term interests with either. Given economic developments in Iran, Alawite oppression in Syria, and Shiite-dominance in Iraq, Erdogan understands that he must take a temporary hiatus from his goal of reasserting what appears to be his real goal -- the Turkish Sunni domination of the entire Middle East.

Harold Rhode

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2259/turkey-erdogan-ottoman-region

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

UN-Believable

by Alan W. Dowd

Perhaps the most amazing attribute of the United Nations is its boundless capacity to discredit itself. Whether through inaction or action, it never ceases to show the world what a farce looks like. The latest example is North Korea’s accession to the presidency of the UN Conference on Disarmament. This is the same North Korea that has been caught shipping illicit weaponry overseas, testing long-range missilery and detonating nukes—all in violation of UN resolutions. As The Wall Street Journal reports, “The jokes are flying all around the world over this”—and rightly so. The UN is a joke. Here are some of the more recent punch lines.

Given that the disarmament panel focuses on “cessation of the nuclear arms race…nuclear disarmament…and prevention of an arms race in outer space,” it’s ironic but typical of the UN that joining North Korea on the disarmament panel are China, Pakistan and Iran.

China, it pays to recall, has singlehandedly restarted the arms race in space. Its unannounced test of anti-satellite weapons in 2007 and 2010 set other space-faring nations on edge and obliged the United States to refocus on the U.S. military’s role in space. Pakistan helped both North Korea and Iran with their outlaw nuclear programs. North Korea has tested nukes during the Bush and Obama administrations, and is intent on deploying long-range rockets. And Iran is enriching uranium, building underground missile silos and racing to join the nuclear-weapons club.

“It gets even better,” as French president Nicolas Sarkozy sarcastically observed during a blistering critique of the UN’s record in North Korea and Iran.

For example, the UN Human Rights Council, charged with “promoting universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all,” includes China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The People’s Republic of China simply does not believe its subjects have any human rights. What else could be said of a place where religious activity is dictated by government bureaus, the state determines how many children a family can have, freedom of speech and assembly are nonexistent, and people are sentenced to slave labor for their political or religious views?

Likewise, in Cuba, there is no freedom of speech. The state imprisons individuals for their political views. And there is no economic freedom.

The Russian government silences dissent and smothers the press with intimidation, ginned-up mobs and “random” gangland-style killings. It targets non-Russian ethnic groups with harassment campaigns and worse.

As for Saudi Arabia, it allows virtually no freedom to half its citizens—women. Religious freedom does not exist. And freedom of the press and freedom of speech are severely circumscribed.

Yet these regimes sit on a body that sits in judgment of the human-rights records of every country on earth.

This is the bizzaro world of the UN, where those pursuing the noble if naive goal of disarmament sit alongside the world’s most notorious weapons proliferators, where the worst abusers of human rights are chosen to protect and promote human rights, where North Korea’s deadly attack on a South Korean ship is condemned but the attacker is not, where it takes eight weeks to agree on a resolution requiring Iraq to comply with existing resolutions, where those who vote for such resolutions refuse to enforce them, where Srebrenica can be called a “safe haven,” where Rwanda and Bosnia turn for help and receive only Pilate-like excuses.

This is not an argument for the U.S. to withdraw from the UN, though it’s difficult to see what harm it would do. After all, Taiwan and Kosovo aren’t members, and they seem to be getting by. The U.S. and Israel, on the other hand, are members, and as a reward they are routinely kicked in the teeth and double-crossed. But it is an argument for ending the charade that President Obama and too many other policymakers play. The UN does not, to use Obama’s words, have the “capability to keep the peace, resolve disputes, monitor disarmament and support good governance around the world.” And it never will.

At its best, the UN is a place where the U.S. and its closest allies can go to get international cover for genuine efforts to keep the peace—not approval or legitimacy, but cover. At its worst, it’s a joke, “a sham…a frothing of words,” to borrow a phrase from Churchill, who feared in 1946 that the UN would become what it is today.

Alan W. Dowd writes on defense and security issues.

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/13/un-believable/

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

Hezbollah Sets Up Shop in Mexico

by Ryan Mauro

A Tucson Police Department memo from September 2010 has been leaked onto the Internet by hackers, and it warns that Hezbollah has set up shop in Mexico. The terrorist group has linked up with the Mexican drug lords, and is even said to have a large arms stockpile in the country. Terrorist groups are looking at the raging drug war in Mexico as an opportunity to further their deadly ambitions.

The memo recalls that a member of Hezbollah was arrested in Tijuana in July 2010 who was tasked with setting up a network for the terrorist group. It also mentions the April 2010 arrest of Jamal Yousef in New York City, who told the authorities that he worked with his cousin to steal weapons from Iraq for Hezbollah. According to Yousef, a stockpile of 100 M-16 assault rifles, 100 AR-15 rifles, 2500 hand grenades, C4 explosives and anti-tank weapons is presently in Mexico.

The police document says there is a “strong suspicion” that car bombs set off by the drug lords last summer were created with the help of Hezbollah. On June 23 of last year, Rep. Sue Myrick said that a senior Mexican military officer informed her that Hezbollah was giving explosives training to members of the drug cartels. “This might lead to Israel-like car bombings of Mexican/USA border personnel or National Guard units in the border regions,” her letter to the Department of Homeland Security cautioned. Myrick’s warning was prescient. In the first week of July 2010, a car bomb killed four people in Ciudad Juarez that had “Hezbollah-like sophistication.” Car bombs have become part of the drug war since then.

There have been warnings for years that Hezbollah had partnered with the drug cartels. Michael Braun, a former Drug Enforcement Agency chief of operations, said in 2009 that the group utilizes “the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels.” During his July 7 testimony to Congress, Roger Noriega , former assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, predicted that Iran and Hezbollah will carry out an attack on the U.S. using their networks in Latin America.

“If our government and responsible partners in Latin America fail to act, I believe there will be an attack on U.S. personnel, installations or interests in the Americas as soon as Hezbollah operatives believe that they are capable of such an operation without implicating their Iranian sponsors in the crime,” Noriega said.

Hezbollah isn’t the only terrorist organization salivating at the instability in Mexico. In February 2010, Anthony Joseph Tracy was arrested in Virginia for his links to al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia. He is thought to have smuggled at least 270 Somalis into the U.S. through Mexico, few of which have been located or even identified. It is very likely that a number of these Somalis are al-Shabaab operatives, given Tracy’s involvement with the terrorist group. Mexico has arrested and released members of al-Shabaab on their way to the U.S. before.

Another member of a Somali terrorist network was arrested in San Antonio. He admitted that he is a member of the al-Ittihad al-Islami terrorist group and also works with al-Barakat. From June 2006 to March 2008, he made at least $3,000 for each person he snuck into the U.S., earning up to $75,000 in a single day. He confirmed smuggling members of al-Ittihad al-Islami, and was recorded saying that “he believed they would fight against the U.S. if the jihad moved from overseas locations to the U.S. mainland.”

The South American terrorist group called the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (often referred to as the FARC) has also gotten in on the action. The FARC’s former leader, Raul Reyes , wrote a letter excitedly discussing his collaboration with the Mexican drug gangs, projecting a doubling of profits from it. It has been estimated that the FARC makes $1 billion every year through its partnership with the Mexican traffickers. The FARC is also doing business with al-Qaeda to ship cocaine in West Africa.

It can be argued that the Mexican drug cartels have themselves become terrorists. Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the Homeland Security Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, has introduced legislation to designate six of the cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. His office’s press release says the cartels “operate in the same manner as al Qaeda, the Taliban or Hezbollah, each sharing a desire and using similar tactics to gain political and economic influence.”

Over 35,000 people have died in Mexico’s drug war since 2006, yet it is rarely mentioned in the news. What will it take happen to force the U.S. to pay attention to the crisis on its border? Entertaining answers to this question terrifies the imagination.

Ryan Mauro

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/13/hezbollah-sets-up-shop-in-mexico/

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

Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam Has Replaced Communism as Top U.S. Enemy

by IPT News

A radical Islamist group which claims a presence in nearly 50 countries is so confident it can help establish a global Muslim government – or caliphate – that it distributed a draft constitution during a recent conference outside of Chicago.

It calls for the death penalty for apostates and for creating a government department dedicated to jihad.

The latest Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) gathering drew more than 300 people to a DoubleTree Hotel ballroom June 26.

(HT) is an international movement to establish a global Islamic state, or caliphate (Khilafah). Although it is officially committed to nonviolence, HT preaches a virulent brand of hatred for the United States, and for Western democracy in general. Its alumni include such violent Islamists as Khaiid Sheikh Mohammad, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and the late Iraqi jihadist Abu Musab Zarqawi. Hizb ut-Tahrir has been described as a "conveyor belt" of terror.

At the conference, activists portrayed Islam as the only real force in the world standing up to the United States and the West. With Soviet communism gone, the West is now confronted with the threat posed by Islam, said a speaker identified as Reza Imam. He has served as a spokesman for the organization.

"And they see the return of Islam," he warned. "And this, brothers and sisters, is the shaking [of] the thrones." Islam's foes "see the coming revival of Islam, and they know what that means and they know what it means for their policies," Imam said.

At the conference, HT activists distributed a brochure detailing how the Muslim state would be governed. The document is "to be studied by Muslims while they are working to establish the Islamic State that will carry the Islamic da'wah (proselytizing) to the world," it says. The document would govern "the Islamic State in the Islamic world" and does not target individual countries.

The pamphlet, entitled "Khilafah State Structure: Introduction to the Constitution," contains charts illustrating how a caliphate government would function along with a draft constitution.

"Those that are guilty of apostasy (murtad) from Islam are to be executed according to the rule of apostasy, provided they have themselves renounced Islam," says Article 7. Moreover, "if they are born as non-Muslims, i. e., if they are the sons of apostates, then they are treated as non-Muslims according to their status as being either polytheists (mushriks) or People of the Book."

The caliphate government would establish an "Internal Affairs Department" which would include a division of "Apostasy."

Waging jihad would be a top priority for the government. The caliphate cabinet includes a senior-level "Private Secretary" for jihad. The "Military Department" – which appears to be a cabinet-level agency –would be headed by a "Field Marshall," who appoints a "Director of Jihad," his second in command. Included within the Treasury department would be something called a "Department of Jihad."

The Treasury would be divided into two divisions: one handling revenue, which includes a "War booties Agency," and the other covering expenditures, which includes both a "Dept. of Jihad" and a "Director of Jihad Office" on its organizational chart.

Articles 51 through 55 of the draft constitution would establish an "Amir (military leader) of Jihad" who would supervise holy war-related activities in government agencies.

The group believes that this year's revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Syria and other states offer Muslims an opportunity to throw off the shackles of Western colonialism.

"No longer are the Muslims afraid of these regimes who have oppressed the masses," reads a flyer for the conference that appears on the HT website. "Will the Muslim world rid itself of Western colonial interference? Will these events lead to the application of Islam and the re-establishment of the Khilafah (caliphate) State?"

Arab rulers are pretending to be legitimate leaders just as Soviet Communist Party leaders used to do, Imam told the conference.

For the West, the "front line" in the struggle against Islam is ensuring that the "tyrants" in the Muslim world remain in power, Imam said. Speakers cited Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Pakistan Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani as examples of Muslim leaders who must be replaced.

The Pakistani Army announced last month that it arrested Brigadier Ali Khan and four majors in an investigation of Hizb ut-Tahrir's infiltration of the military there. Khan, assigned to Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, is the most senior Pakistani military officer known to have been arrested for alleged involvement with radical groups since 9/11.

While Hizb ut-Tahrir has struggled to win followers in the United States, its name has come up in connection with several recent terror-related arrests.

Farooque Ahmed, 34, was arrested last October and charged with plotting to blow up Washington, D.C. metro stops and a D.C. hotel frequented by members of the military. Authorities found Hizb ut-Tahrir literature when they searched Ahmed's suburban Virginia home. In April, he pled guilty to terror-related charges and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Antonio Martinez, a 21-year-old Muslim convert who also goes by the name of Muhammad Hussain, was arrested in December and charged with plotting to blow up an Army recruiting center near Baltimore. He reportedly followed the teachings of Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Muslim Brotherhood member who founded HT in England.

At Hizb ut-Tahrir America's June 26 conference, speakers attacked President Obama as an enemy of Muslims. "Obama visits the Middle East and our [Muslim] public rulers rush to shake his bloody hands. They send up their armies to dance for him," one speaker said. "They roll out red carpets to welcome the butcher of Iraq."

Under the caliphate, Muslims would not be forced to live "under what 'Sheikh Obama' or Assad or Erdogan believed" but under the rule of Islam, a speaker identified as Abu Atallah declared.

Middle Eastern leaders "and their masters in the West" have been "shaken to the core," said Reza Imam, who pointed to statements by former President George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld warning of the dangers posed by the establishment of a caliphate.

"They see their hard work being undone," he said. "It's like a dreaded, fearful occurrence for them – that Muslims want to unite and live under Islam."

"It's criminal to them," Imam continued. "And this is why their thrones are shaken. They're terrorized by this – simply that Muslims want to obey Allah."

HT seeks to re-establish the caliphate that had existed during the Ottoman Empire, abolished by Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk in 1924. Once it is in place, "our problems would disappear and the forces of Satan would be pushed back," Abu Atallah said. Once the caliphate is established, the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem "would be taken back from the Crusaders (Israel)," Atallah said. Asked whether Sunni/Shiite animosity would be an obstacle to establishing a caliphate, another speaker dismissed the intra-Muslim rivalry dating back more than 13 centuries as "something the West has instilled in us."

Audience members responded enthusiastically to the attacks on the United States and quoted writings from columnist Patrick Buchanan portraying Islam as ascendant and the West in decline, interrupting speakers time and again with shouts of "Takbir" and "Allahu Akbar." The speakers responded by joining the chants themselves.

Because of today's revolutions in the Arab world, the West "is trembling with fear – as it should be," one speaker said. "Bullets were no match for the ummah's (Muslim nation's) power."

IPT News (The Investigative Project on Terrorism)

Source: http://www.investigativeproject.org/3031/hizb-ut-tahrir-islam-has-replaced-communism-as

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

The Path to the Next Lebanon War

by Caroline B. Glick

The three lessons of the Second Lebanon War taught us to be wary of appeasers both here and in the US.

This truth is exposed in all its ugliness by the political and military realities five years on. Today, Hezbollah is not simply in charge of Israel’s former security zone in South Lebanon.

Five years ago this week, Iran’s Lebanese proxy opened war with Israel. The war lasted 34 days, during which Hezbollah launched more than 4,000 missiles against Israel. Now five years later, under US President Barack Obama, America is pushing a policy that drastically escalates the chance that a new war between Israel and Iran’s Lebanese army will break out again in the near future.

Back in 2006, Israel’s response to Hezbollah’s aggression was swift but incompetent. While Israel scored some blows against the Iranian proxy force, the war ended with Hezbollah still shooting. Israel failed to defeat the terror army. And because Hezbollah survived, it won the war.

It is in charge of all of Lebanon. The Hezbollah-controlled government controls all aspects of the Lebanese state that it wishes. These include the military, the telecommunications networks, and the international borders, airports and sea ports, among other things.

Today, Hezbollah has not merely refilled its depleted missile arsenals. It has tripled the size of its missile arsenals. In 2006, IAF strikes in the first 24 hours of the war knocked out all of Hezbollah’s long-range missiles. Today, not only have those stocks been replenished, Hezbollah’s arsenal includes missiles with ranges covering all of Israel, with larger payloads and many with guidance systems.

The lessons of the war are easy to see. And the Israeli public, which learned them five years ago, still hasn’t forgotten them.

GENERALLY SPEAKING, the war taught us three lessons. The first lesson is that you can’t convince terrorists to lay down their arms simply by walking away. Israel withdrew from its security zone in southern Lebanon in 2000. The withdrawal was a precursor to its withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. In 2006, Israel was attacked from both territories.

In the lead-up to both withdrawals, Israel’s national leadership told the public that the only reason terrorists from these territories were attacking us was that we were there. If we went away, they would stop hating us and we would be safe. We were the problem, not them, so we could solve the problem by giving them what they wanted.

Although then-prime minister Ehud Olmert and then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni continued to push appeasement through their insistence that Israel surrender Judea and Samaria, the war of 2006 showed the public the folly of their plans. And at first opportunity, the public elected the Likud and other right-wing parties – which oppose appeasement – to form the current government.

The second lesson the public learned is that when a nation goes to war against an enemy that seeks its destruction, it must fight to win. You cannot fight a half-war against an implacable foe. And if you fail to win, you lose.

This is not how Israel fought the war of 2006. Partially due to pressure from then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and partially due to his own strategic incomprehension, Olmert believed it was possible to fight to a draw without losing.

In the event, there was only one way for Israel to defeat Hezbollah – by regaining control over southern Lebanon.

Any other conclusion to the war would leave Hezbollah standing. And simply by surviving intact, as Lebanese Druse leader Walid Jumblatt warned at the time, the road would be paved for Hezbollah to take over Lebanon.

But Olmert – and Livni – wouldn’t even consider retaking control of South Lebanon. The option was discarded contemptuously as a delusional recipe for forcing Israel back into the “Lebanese quagmire.” The fact that the “Lebanese quagmire” came to Israel after we left Lebanon, and that it will only end when Israel defeats Hezbollah, was completely ignored.

Olmert’s and Livni’s reason for rejecting the one strategy that would have brought Israel victory is explained by the third lesson of the war. That lesson is that once a leader is ideologically committed to a policy of appeasement, he is unable to allow rational considerations to permeate his thinking.

THE OLMERT government was elected in 2006 on the basis of its plan to repeat the Lebanon and Gaza withdrawals in Judea and Samaria. During the war, Olmert told his supporters that victory in Lebanon would enable him to carry out his planned withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. And this was true. But because of the circular logic of appeasement, there was no way that Olmert could fight to win.

If Israel had retaken control of southern Lebanon, Olmert would have had a chance of convincing the public that unilateral withdrawal was a viable strategy. He would have been able to argue that just as the IDF retook control of southern Lebanon, so it would retake control of Judea and Samaria if the Palestinians used the vacated lands to attack the rest of the country.

But because he was committed to appeasement, Olmert could not fight to win in Lebanon. The appeasement agenda is predicated on the disavowal of the notion of military victory and the embrace of the mantra, “There is no military solution.”

If victory is an option, then surrender along the lines that Olmert preached in Judea and Samaria is also an option.

That is, surrender is an option, not an imperative, as he claimed. And if victory is an option, then clearly it has much more to recommend it than defeat.

But with their appeasement agenda reigning supreme – as appeasement agendas always do – instead of fighting to win, Olmert and Livni sued for a cease-fire. That is, they sought a diplomatic solution to a military problem. And since by not losing, Hezbollah won the military contest, it also came out the victor in UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which set the conditions of the cease-fire.

Resolution 1701 was a massive victory for Hezbollah. The resolution placed the international terror group run by Iran on equal footing with Israel, a sovereign state. The security arrangements in the resolution were an invitation for Hezbollah to rearm. It was pure fantasy to believe that the Hezbollah-dominated Lebanese government would block Hezbollah’s rearmament. And it was utter madness to think that European military forces would lift a finger to prevent Hezbollah from reasserting full control over the border with Israel.

But again, if you accept the circular logic of appeasement – that always puts the burden of proof on the non-aggressor – then you will never learn these, or any other lessons. And as a consequence, appeasers will always and forever foment wars in the name of peace.

THE ISRAELI public learned these lessons and elected a government that understands them. Perhaps if the American people had elected Senator John McCain to succeed George W. Bush in 2008, the US government would have learned these lessons as well. And then maybe together the Israeli and the US governments might have set about fixing at least some of the damage the war caused them both.

But in their wisdom, the American people elected Barack Obama to succeed Bush in the White House. And Obama has learned none of the lessons of the last war. Consequently Obama’s current policies are increasing the likelihood of another war between Israel and Iran’s Lebanese proxy in the near future.

Far from recognizing the nature of Hezbollah, the Obama administration has tried to wish away its implacability. Last May, Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan spoke of the administration’s plan to cultivate “moderate elements” in the Iranian-run jihadist organization.

The Obama administration’s notion that the US can adopt a nuanced approach to the terror group is put paid by Hezbollah’s takeover of the Lebanese government, its growing capabilities in the Western hemisphere, its continued devotion to the cause of Israel’s destruction, its participation in the killing of Syrian anti-regime protesters, and Iran’s clear control over all aspects of the organization’s operations. And yet, by all accounts, the administration refuses to acknowledge that there can be no nuance toward Hezbollah.

The dangers of Obama’s rejection of these basic truths were exposed this week. Sunday the government approved the demarcation of Israel’s territorial waters along the border with Lebanon. The borders will be submitted to the UN.

Israel’s move was forced on it by the Obama administration.

The dispute over the sea border arose after Israel discovered massive quantities of natural gas in its territorial waters in 2009. Acting on orders from Hezbollah and Iran, the Lebanese government immediately claimed erroneously that the waters belonged to Lebanon. Last August, Lebanon submitted its claim to the UN.

Israel negotiated its maritime borders with Cyprus in 2007. The same year, Cyprus also negotiated its maritime borders with Lebanon. At the time, Lebanon did not claim the areas in which Israel has discovered natural gas deposits or the areas abutting those areas, which are suspected of similarly containing large natural gas deposits. Lebanon’s current claim includes Israel’s territorial waters abutting the gas fields it discovered in 2009.

In staking this false claim, as it did with the Shaba Farms on Mount Dov in the Golan Heights in 2000, Lebanon is setting up a casus belli against Israel.

Under the circumstances, the only rational policy that the US can possibly adopt is to loudly and strenuously back Israel’s claim and reject all Lebanese contentions to the contrary.

Only by completely rejecting Lebanon’s claim can the US deny Hezbollah and Iran the ability to use Israel’s gas finds in its territorial waters as a justification for war.

Rather than do this, guided by its appeasement ideology, the Obama administration has refused to take sides. It urged Israel to submit its counter-claim to the UN – where it can bully Israel into accepting arbitration of the dispute by the inherently anti-Israel UN.

More generally, by refusing to take sides, the US is in fact siding with its enemy Iran and Iran’s proxy Hezbollah against its ally Israel.

According to media reports, the Obama administration claims that by acting in this manner, it is seeking to prevent a flare-up of hostilities. That is, the administration believes that if it shows Hezbollah its good will by treating Israel’s honest claim as equal to Lebanon/Hezbollah/Iran’s false claim, it will appease the latter into not waging a war of aggression against the former.

But again, what the last war taught us is that this sort of behavior is what emboldens aggressors to attack. Obama’s even-handedness in the face of a US enemy’s aggression against a US ally is placing Israel and Lebanon on a straight path to a new war.

Caroline B. Glick

Source: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=228892

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