Help Wanted: a National Security President

by Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Until recently, most politicians, pundits and others among the so-called "smart people" insisted that Election 2012 was all about jobs, jobs, jobs. The more broad-minded contended that the related issues of the lousy economy and the imperatives of deficit reduction might also feature. But that was all the mattered, especially in the presidential contest.

Then, GOP candidate Herman Cain - a successful businessman who has risen in the polls in no small measure on the strength of his claim to have actually created jobs - gave an interview in which he seemed unaware that Communist China has the bomb.

Without skipping a beat, the elites denounced him as unfit to serve on the grounds that a man who was not proficient in national security and foreign policy matters could never become president. The jobs-jobs-jobs leitmotif gave way, at least for a time, to a new theme: the White House is no place for on-the-job-training about the nation's defense.

How quickly they forget. What Barack Obama knew about U.S. security policy before he became president amounted to little more than the anti-colonialist sentiments of his father and the virulently anti-American agitation of PLO flak Rashid Khalidi, terrorist William Ayers, revolutionary Saul Alinsky and radical pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Unfortunately, despite the on-the-job foreign and defense policy training Mr. Obama has, in fact, received during his time in office over the past nearly three years, he still seems largely clueless about U.S. security interests - and what it takes to safeguard them. Consider the following sample of his myriad, unforced errors:

President Obama has embraced the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization dedicated to imposing worldwide - including in the United States - the totalitarian Islamic doctrine known as shariah. His policies have helped bring the Brotherhood to power in North Africa and are legitimating its various fronts inside this country and otherwise facilitating their efforts to penetrate the U.S. government and dominate the American Muslim community.

Mr. Obama is effectively surrendering Iraq to Iran by removing all U.S. forces from the former for purely domestic political reasons and without regard for the consequences in the Middle East, and possibly beyond.

The Obama administration appears to be hell-bent on doing the same with respect to Afghanistan. The latest news is that U.S. official have not only begun negotiations with the Taliban. They have begun a dialogue as well with what is, if possible, an even more dangerous, despicable and irreconcilable adversary: the Haqqani network, based in Pakistan.

Mr. Obama's much-touted "reset" of relations with Russia has been shown to be a Potemkin exercise, with the end of the pretense that Washington had a more friendly and reliable partner in President Dmitry Medvedev giving way to the reality that the unremittingly hostile and authoritarian Vladimir Putin has been calling the shots all along - and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Team Obama's massive investment (financial and political) in the United Nations has also proven a bust. Its willingness to diminish the U.S. role to more-or-less that of any other nation, while insisting on continuing to pick up more than a fifth of the organization's tab has reduced America not just to a paper tiger but a patsy, to boot. Meanwhile, the 57-member bloc known as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation is increasingly calling the shots, with help from the Russians and Chinese who can be relied upon to block anything remotely useful to us.

Matters are made vastly worse by President Obama's decisions to hollow out the United States military. As he memorably put it, "the nice thing about the defense budget is that it's so big, it's so huge, that a 1 percent reduction is the equivalent of the education budget." That sort of attitude has resulted in at least $460 billion worth of cuts in defense spending to date.

The associated damage is likely to be compounded by further reductions at the hands of the congressional supercommittee or, failing acceptance of its recommendations by the full Congress, via a meat-ax known as "sequestration." The latter would impose a further roughly $600 billion across-the-board reduction in Pentagon spending. The Obama administration's own civilian and uniformed defense leaders have warned that the effects of such a one-two punch would be catastrophic.

Should expertise on national security and foreign policy be a prerequisite for the presidency? The answer obviously must be a resounding "Yes" - especially in a world as dangerous as ours. Have we had it over the past nearly three years? The answer is equally resoundingly, "No."

We have to insist on a level of competence in the defense and foreign policy portfolio of our elected national leaders. In that connection, it is heartening that twoof the upcoming debates between Republican presidential candidates - one on November 12th at Wofford College in South Carolina and one sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation and CNN in Washington on November 22nd - will focus on national security-related topics.

While the liquidations of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki and a number of other high-profile terrorists on President Obama's watch are welcome, those accomplishments are, regrettably, more than offset by his serious failings like those noted above. The American people deserve, and need, a competent Commander-in-Chief. And they had better insist on getting one.

Frank Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy (www.SecureFreedom.org), a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio.

Source: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18861.xml

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

The Scourge of Clientitis

by Caroline Glick

For many years, observers of the US State Department on both sides of the American political spectrum have agreed that State Department officials suffer from a malady referred to as "clientitis." Clientitis is generally defined as a state of mind in which representatives of an organization confuse their roles.

Rather than advance the cause of their organization to outside organizations, they represent the interests of outside organizations to their own organizations.

In some cases, diplomats are simply corrupted by their host governments. For generations US diplomats to Saudi Arabia have received lucrative post-government service jobs at Saudi-owned or controlled companies, public relations firms and other institutions.

Often, the problem is myopia rather than corruption.

Diplomats who speak to foreign government officials on a daily basis often simply ignore the context in which these foreigners operate. They become friends with their interlocutors and forget that the latter are also agents of their governments tasked with promoting foreign interests in their dealings with US diplomats.

In Israel the situation is similar. Here, too, Foreign Ministry officials have a tendency to give preference to the positions of the governments or institutions to which they are assigned over the interests and positions of the Israeli government that sent them to their posts.

For instance, in September 2008, shortly after the UN allowed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to use his speech at the UN General Assembly to accuse the Jews of controlling the world in a bid to poison and destroy it, then-Israeli ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev gave an interview to Army Radio in which she said her primary duty is "correcting the UN's image in the eyes of the people of Israel."

Since the scourge of clientitis among diplomats is widely recognized, governments are often able to consider its impact on diplomats when they weigh the credibility or wisdom of recommendations presented by their professional diplomats.

LESS WELL recognized and therefore largely unconsidered is how clientitis has negatively impacted the positions of military commanders.

Clientitis first became prevalent in the US Armed Forces and the IDF in the 1990s. In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the Clinton administration began transforming in earnest the US armed forces' role from war fighting to nation building. In Israel, with the onset of the peace process with the PLO in 1993, the IDF was ordered to change its operating guidelines. From then on, peacemaking was to take priority over war fighting and defeating terrorists.

Since September 11, 2011, the US military has vastly expanded its nation building roles around the world. US military commanders are promoted more for prowess in acting as diplomats-in-uniform than for their capacity to train and employ soldiers to kill and defeat the enemy. Commanders deployed to train the al-Qaida-infested Yemeni or Afghan militaries; liaise with the Hizbullah-dominated Lebanese Armed Forces; or train the Iranian-penetrated Iraqi military have little personal incentive to warn against these missions.

So, too, in working with their local counterparts on a daily basis, like their State Department colleagues, these US military officers have a marked tendency to ignore the broader context in which their local colleagues operate. And so, like their civilian colleagues at the US embassies in these countries, military commanders have a tendency to become the representatives of their foreign counterparts to the Pentagon and to Congress.

In the case of the IDF, in 1993 the entire General Staff was encouraged to embrace clientitis. Then prime minister and defense minister Yitzhak Rabin's decision in 1993 to appoint IDF commanders to lead negotiations with the PLO politicized the IDF to an unprecedented degree. Only generals who completely supported the peace process and forced their underlings to completely support it could expect promotion.

This political corruption of the IDF survived the destruction of the peace process in 2000. Due to successive governments' decisions to continue negotiating with the Palestinian Authority despite its refusal to make peace with Israel and its sponsorship of terrorism, the IDF has continued to participate in negotiations with the PA and lead liaison efforts with the Palestinian security forces.

As a consequence, whether due to the political views of officers on the ground, to institutional corrosion, or to officers' inability to view the statements of their Palestinian counterparts in the broader context of Palestinian and regional power politics, these IDF "peacemakers" act as the PA security services chief lobbyists to both the Israeli and US governments.

IN RECENT conversations with senior sources on Capitol Hill, it became apparent that American military trainers who work with the Lebanese Armed Forces were highly influential in convincing Congress to end its opposition to renewed US military assistance to the LAF.

Congress put a temporary hold on US military assistance to Lebanon in August 2010 after a Lebanese army sniper murdered IDF Lt.-Col. Dov Harari and critically wounded Capt. Ezra Lakia. Both officers were stationed on the Israeli side of the border.

In April, when Hizbullah gained control over the new Lebanese government, the Obama administration again temporarily froze military assistance to the LAF.

In September Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Hizbullah-controlled Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati that the US would renew its assistance. In October, the Pentagon hosted Lebanese Army Commander General Jean Kahwagi on an official visit.

According to Congressional sources, Congress has permitted continued military assistance to Lebanon, despite Hizbullah's control over both the government and the armed forces, because of the outspoken support of the US military for the military assistance program.

So too, according to Congressional sources. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros- Lehtinen's decision to end her committee's block on US military assistance to the PA's security forces owed to IDF pressure to renew the assistance. That assistance was cut off in September following the PA's bid to achieve statehood at the UN.

Following the aid cut-off Palestinian commanders warned that if the US did not renew its financial support for the US trained Palestinian security services, its soldiers would seek funding from elsewhere - including from terror sponsoring governments like Iran and Syria, and from Hamas, and Hizbullah.

Obviously these warnings were nothing more than acts of extortion. And despite outcries from the Obama administration, Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen held firm.

However, according to senior Congressional sources, Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen was unable to brush off entreaties by IDF commanders asking that the US renew its funding of these forces. Two weeks ago - just as the PA renewed its unity talks with Hamas - she lifted her committee's block on military assistance to the PA.

THE IDEA that governments gain leverage over other governments by assisting them is not a new one. And it is certainly true. However, in all cases, the leverage gained by assisting foreign governments owes entirely to the other governments' understanding that such assistance can and will be ended if they fail to meet certain benchmarks of behavior that are dictated from the outset.

Once a government's threat of aid cut-off to another government is removed or is no longer credible, then the leverage the provision of aid afforded that government is lost. So long as the Palestinians believe that Israel will never cut off its support for Fatah and the PA security services, they will continue to sponsor terror and collaborate with Hamas and other terror groups without fear.

So long as LAF officers and soldiers believe that Hizbullah's threat to attack the LAF is more credible than the US's stated willingness to end its support for the Lebanese military, the LAF will continue to openly support war against Israel and collaborate with Hizbullah.

Proof that a state's ability to leverage its foreign aid owes entirely to the credibility of a threat to cut off that aid came earlier this month in the aftermath of UNESCO's decision to grant full state membership to "Palestine." Due to US law, the Obama administration had no choice but to cut off all US funding to UNESCO in response to the move. As a consequence, the PLO's bid to gain full membership in other UN institutions has floundered.

Not wishing to suffer UNESCO's fate, no other UN institutions are willing to repeat UNESCO's action. And so the Palestinians' great victory at UNESCO has become a Pyrrhic one.

The Obama administration never sought this outcome. As his representatives have made abundantly clear, if US President Barack Obama had the power to maintain US budgetary support for UNESCO despite its conferral of membership on "Palestine," he would have done so.

But because the law is not subject to interpretation, US leverage over the UN actually increased in the aftermath of the UNESCO vote. Recognizing that actions have consequences, other UN agencies have buried plans of granting membership to "Palestine."

Governments must give due consideration to the positions of their professional diplomats and military commanders as well as to those of allied countries when they weigh various policy options. But while doing so, legislators and policymakers must also take into account the built-in biases influencing the judgment of these professionals. Clientitis is a serious impediment to good judgment. And it is found wherever professionals are charged with building relationships, rather than achieving concrete goals.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Caroline Glick

Source: http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/11/the-scourge-of-clientitis.php

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

Sequestered cuts will decimate the Department of Defense

by Rick Moran

The automatic spending cuts triggered by the failure of the Supercommittee could "tear a seam" in defense, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Monday.

Reuters:

The so-called super committee's failure on Monday to agree on $1.2 trillion in deficit-cutting measures triggers up to $600 billion in additional defense cuts over 10 years beginning in 2013.

"If Congress fails to act over the next year, the Department of Defense will face devastating, automatic, across-the-board cuts that will tear a seam in the nation's defense," Panetta said in a statement.

"The half-trillion in additional cuts demanded by sequester would lead to a hollow force incapable of sustaining the missions it is assigned."

Republicans have vowed to prevent automatic cuts from hitting the military. Republican Representative Buck McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, announced on Monday he would introduce legislation to prevent the military cuts from taking effect.

President Barack Obama, accusing Republicans of scuttling the committee's efforts by refusing to consider tax increases on the wealthy, said he would veto any effort to bypass the automatic trigger.

Panetta said he backed Obama's "call for Congress to avoid an easy way out of this crisis. Congress cannot simply turn off the sequester mechanism, but instead must pass deficit reduction at least equal to the $1.2 trillion it was charged to pass."

That $600 billion is in addition to the $450 billion already cut from defense when Robert Gates was secretary. This isn't just a question of eliminating new weapons systems or wasteful spending. The money will come from core Pentagon programs dealing with readiness, and benefits for current and retired military.

It is shocking to think that the president and Democrats in congress would allow these cuts to go forward. But unless a sizable number of Democrats step forward and defy Obama's veto by overriding it in congress, the cuts will become real - and so will our vulnerability.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/11/sequestered_cuts_will_decimate_the_department_of_defense.html

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

Egypt in Turmoil

by Roni Drukan

As Egypt approaches its first post-revolution elections on November 28^th, Tahrir Square is on fire again.

Violent clashes erupted as protesters demand the Military Council step down and hand over authority to a civilian body. Feeling the revolution has gone sour, protestors want to see some change.

Arab Spring revolutions have already granted power to Islamists across the Middle East. It made the Muslim Brotherhood​ the main political force in Tunisia, Egypt, and now in Syria. After years of focusing on charity and social work, the Muslim Brotherhood senses that it is the right time to go into politics and is acting accordingly.

Years of experience give the radical Muslim Brotherhood an edge. Access to devoted religious crowds is yet another advantage. But as these are the first free elections in Egypt, no one knows how the Egyptians will behave.

The people’s frustration from the slow pace of change in Egypt is the burning fuel, and the Brotherhood only had to light one match to blow everything up. The Brotherhood has been busy overseeing one last effort to convince people to go out and vote. The campaign includes evening prayers, a ready crowd, religious fanatics’ chants and marches.

With the military council controlling Egypt, little reform was achieved after the removal of Mubarak. The evident rift between the Military Council and the people of Tahrir Square cannot be ignored. Religious tensions and clashes add to the feeling that the revolution has gone off track.

As protesters clash with the army representing the Military Council, Tahrir Square returns to revolutionary chaos again. In an effort to restore calm before the elections, the cabinet offered its resignation on Monday to Egypt’s transitional military rulers.

Realizing the riots endanger the elections, the Muslim Brotherhood has pulled out of planned demonstrations, saying in a statement that it did not want to be involved in a protest that might delay the elections and thus the transition to democracy. But this may be too little and too late.

The US policy towards the Muslim Brotherhood is highly forgiving. It has recently changed its attitude toward the Islamic group and is also expecting a victory for the Muslim Brotherhood in the upcoming elections. The United States gives $2 billion annually to Egypt in military and economic aid in exchange for its peace treaty with Israel. Will this peace treaty hold once the Muslim Brotherhood is in control?

Free elections require stability and calm. Free elections cannot be held with millions protesting and clashing with military forces.

Egypt needs to rebuild, and to do that it needs a strong secular governing body. Involving religious and political inspirations will only drive Egypt towards Sharia law and chaos.

Sadly, in the first battle between the Military Council and the Islamists, it seems that the army has lost. Egyptians may have free democratic elections. But if they choose the Muslim Brotherhood they will not live in a free democratic state afterward.

Roni Drukan

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/11/23/egypt-in-turmoil/

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

Israel and the Existential Threat

by Herbert I. London

For a variety of reasons, including a misguided infatuation with soft power, neither the United States nor Israel has exercised the legitimate right of anticipatory, or pre-emptive, self defense against Iran. As a result, Iran's entry into the nuclear club is almost a given. In Israel, a nation already targeted for annihilation; self defense is limited to contingency plans, active defense and deterrence. However, neither is perfect.

Contingency plans make sense when preemption is an option. Should there be an attack on Israel, retaliation is the only option. Active defense is useful since it can confuse the planning of the enemy, but it is impossible to know how many missiles will penetrate defenses in the chaos of war. Further, deterrence is workable only if Iran is unwilling to risk the loss of life. If a theological scenario enters the nuclear equation, the prospective loss of innocent life may not serve as an effective deterrent. It may well be, however, that Iranian commentary about a nuclear conflagration as a prelude for the return of the Mahdi has rhetorical, not practical, application.The problem is: no one knows.

In its latest report, 2011, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "remains concerned about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military-related organizations." Survival, then, would be largely dependent on missile defense from Arrow and Aegis destroyers. These if Israel thinks these systems might not be sufficient

Certainly Israel would like to avoid these contingencies and rely instead on US intelligence, or if that fails, to destroy Iran's nuclear sites. At the moment, the U.S. seems resigned to an Iran with nuclear weapons. The Obama administration either believes Iran is not a serious threat or that a policy of "containment" might work, or that sanctions will, at some point, so damage the Iranian economy that deployment would be rendered impossible.. With Germany, Switzerland, China and Russia all violating the sanctions regimen with no adverse consequences whatever,, this hardly seems a viable course of action.

A nuclear Iran may be unthinkable, as every leader from Obama to Sarkozy, has noted. But action does not necessarily follow a promise. President Bush argued that his presidency would be deemed a failure if he left office and Iran had nuclear weapons.

A nuclearized Iran would be a threat to European capitals and a long term threat to the U.S. but it is a clear and present threat now not only to Israel but also to the oil-rich countries in the region. It is the shadow that blocks Saudi, Kuwaiti, Iraqi, Emirati and Israeli sunlight.

In Israel, there are other issues, including the Palestinian question; yet there is only one existential issue: the Iranian nuclear threat -- whether it is six months, one year or several years away from completion.

Israeli batteries at the Iron Dome and Arrow facilities remain confident. They have every reason to feel this way. The troops are strong and their devotion to the security of the Israeli people is unshakable. Still there are always the unknowns: penetration ratios, effectiveness in battle, unpredictable conditions. Every commander, however, during a recent trip to Israel, expressed the belief that the nation will do whatever is necessary to protect the State of Israel. There it always feels as if God is nearby Despite the destruction of the First Temple and the attempt by the Romans to destroy the Second Temple, the Jewish people managed to prevail. As one Israeli officer said to the comment Iran could have the means to destroy Israel: "Never again! Need I say more?"

Herbert I. London is president emeritus of Hudson Institute, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of the book Decline and Revival in Higher Education (Transaction Books).

Source: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2603/israel-existential-threat

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

The Islamist-Environmentalist Alliance

by Daniel Greenfield

Saudi Arabia has no better friend than the Sierra Club, and the Emirates have no better salesmen than the environmentalists who keep the country hooked on conflict oil. The administration’s sabotage of the Keystone XL project through delays aimed at killing the pipeline is a cynical act of cowardice, and it’s a shot in the arm to the very regimes that it claims to oppose.

The Islamist Spring has mainly hit Arab governments without a huge oil industry, leaving them dependent on patronage, whether from the United States in the case of Egypt, or Iran in the case of Syria. The economic downturn tightened belts and drove mobs into the streets where Islamists and socialists funneled them into anti-government rallies for their own benefit.

Qatar has been smugly stirring up trouble for the rest of the region through Al-Jazeera and laughing at its enemies from behind a shield of oil barrels and Western public relations firms. Libya, the one oil power to fall to the Islamists, would have still been ruled by its cross-dressing madman if NATO aircraft and special forces had not come to the rescue of the Al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

Saudi Arabia has an even bigger stack of oil barrels, and on top of that black pyramid is a degenerate royal family wearing crowns of terrorism and tyranny. Iran has its own pyramid with hanging women dangling off it and the corpses of murdered student protesters floating in the crude. And if the environmentalists really cared about any of that, at least to the extent of wanting to end the wars, then they would be laying a pipeline that would funnel money out of the House of Saud​ and the Mullahs back to the United States of America.

Instead billions have been poured into the People’s Republic of China, which lends us the money to pay for the solar and wind power components that we buy from them, and after the handful of watts from green power have been exhausted to spread joy and peace across parts of Vermont and Oregon, the country goes back with hat in hand to the grinning petroleum plutocracies.

No activist group in America has promoted the growth of tyranny around the world the way that the environmentalist movement has. Every time drilling equipment stands idle because it might endanger the home of the spotted purple mock warbler or the congealed nanny state lizard, the cash registers and card readers in the malls of Dubai ring in another payday.

What matters more, the lives of the thousands and tens of thousands of people being ground under by Islamic regimes fueled by oil money, or theoretical harm to the sub-species of a sub-species that no one had ever heard of until it became a convenient way to stop a project that might actually make driving a car a little more affordable?

The myth of the Arab Spring has made the left a little too smug about its opposition to the war, but the only oil nation on the list that fell only did so through American military intervention. If they want reform in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf outposts where a degenerate native population lives off oil revenues and slave labor, then it will take a much larger war.

Choosing between the tyrants and the Islamists is like flipping a coin between the Ebola virus and the Black Plague; whichever way the coin falls it won’t be pretty. But if there wasn’t quite so much oil money at stake, the Islamists wouldn’t be as interested, and the petroleum daddies who finance their projects would be kept busy selling trinkets to tourists by the side of the road.

The tyrants would still be around, but with one hand out for money they wouldn’t be all that much of a threat. It’s no coincidence that the craziest and most vicious tyrants in the Middle East are found squatting on the dirty thrones of oil regimes. Compare Saddam, the Ayatollahs, Gaddafi and the House of Saud to Mubarak or the Jordanian monarchy. Even Assad’s violent tantrums are brought to you by the oil wells of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Environmentalists agree with most of this, knowingly nod their heads and go back to singing the praises of green jobs. Their solution is to cut the flow of money by forcing Americans to cut back and investing in high cost and low efficiency alternative energy programs. Even if their approach were moral and legal, which it is not, it would still be a hopeless failure. Even expensive oil will beat even more expensive green power, and fighting political tyranny abroad by implementing it at home is no solution.

Every time environmentalists kill a project in America, they revive it overseas with less oversight, more pollution and without the human rights. The death of Keystone XL means more pollution in China and war in the Middle East. Crusading environmentalists helped kill America’s industries and kept the regime in Beijing alive. The tanks that rolled over the democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square were as green as their environmentalist backers. Both of them painted in the resplendent color of American money.

Islam’s second act was funded by the same policies that gave the People’s Republic an opportunity to transform its population into our non-EPA, non-union and no minimum wage workforce. And the petrodollars still keep pumping out of the United States and into the regimes funding the growing Islamic sphere of influence. A sphere that is moving to enclose us.

The ANWAR drilling that never happened was money that went into arming and training a new generation of Al-Qaeda recruits, into firing Hamas rockets at Israeli schools and filling the pockets of the Revolutionary Guards​ commanders in Iran. Every time another resource development project dies, another Mullah gets his suicide squad wings.

Environmentalists claim that they are safeguarding our natural resources, but who are they safeguarding them for? Do they imagine that the Environmental States of America will be a thousand year entity that will go on fighting for the red misaligned hoopoe even as the sphere of Islamist influence spreads across the world?

Someone will drill in ANWAR and South Dakota and run pipelines down out of Canada. It might be us, but it doesn’t have to be. If we keep turning dollars into petrodollars, then the Saudi-funded mosques will go on flowing like an oil spill across the continent until the Koran replaces the Constitution. The new Islamic States of America will have strict policies on unaccompanied women, unsigned cartoons and unmarked infidels, but it will have no objection to drilling anywhere the black gold on which it built its influence can be found.

We don’t have to build platforms in the Gulf or Frak for shale oil. All we have to do is wait around for those who will. And those dark bubbles will be the final wages of the environmentalist-Islamist alliance.

Daniel Greenfield

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/11/23/the-islamist-environmentalist-alliance/

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

Bill Seeks Terror Designation for Flotilla Groups

by IPT News

A bill introduced in Congress would ask Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to submit a report determining whether organizations that participated in a failed flotilla to Gaza in July should be designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

The bill, offered last month by Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., and co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of 12 others, notes that a United Nations investigation into a previous flotilla effort says that Israel's maritime blockade of Gaza is legal. "Israel's blockade [on Gaza] is acknowledged by the United States as necessary and legal given Hamas' control of Gaza, intention to secure greater weaponry for aggressive purposes and open desire to destroy Israel," the bill says.

Greece prohibited the departure of Freedom Flotilla II to the Gaza Strip this summer. The bill also asks that the State Department report "express support and gratitude" to Greece for thwarting the flotilla.

"Recent past history has suggested that the sole intent of the flotillas is to provoke an Israeli military response in the international waters of the eastern Mediterranean Sea," the bill says. The first flotilla in May 2010 was organized by a coalition of international organizations including the Islamist Turkish organization IHH and the Free Gaza Movement. Nine passengers died after leaders of the IHH-owned Mavi Marmara ship launched a premeditated attack on Israeli commandos who tried to enforce the blockade on Gaza. Commandos boarded the ship following repeated warnings, and were immediately attacked by knives, axes, hammers and other weapons.

The CIA and U.S. Treasury Department have determined IHH and the Free Gaza Movement "have known terrorist ties," the bill says.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism has documented IHH's extensive terrorist ties. In July 2010, a spokesman said State is considering designating IHH as a terrorist organization.

Organizers of the summer flotilla admitted that their efforts were not simply humanitarian but "about freedom for Palestinians in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories." In November, two boats that were part of the flotilla departed Turkey in another failed attempt to reach the Gaza Strip. Huwaida Arraf, the board chair of the Free Gaza Movement said last month that "we will keep coming, wave after wave, by air, sea, and land, to challenge Israel's illegal policies towards Gaza and all of Palestine. Our movement will not stop or be stopped until Palestine is free."

IPT News

Source: http://www.investigativeproject.org/3301/bill-seeks-terror-designation-for-flotilla-groups

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

CAIR’s Campaign Against the Truth

by Joseph Klein

The Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Council on American-Islamic Relations (“CAIR”) is continuing its relentless pressure on federal and local elected officials to suppress the truth about the radical Islamist agenda and the dangers posed by homegrown jihadists.

The latest example is CAIR’s campaign, announced on November 15th, 2011, in which fifteen of its chapters nationwide have filed 87 separate public records requests regarding alleged “Islamophobic” training of local, state and national law enforcement personnel. CAIR said it was seeking information about state-level programs that may have used federal taxpayer dollars to fund what it called “anti-Muslim trainers.”

CAIR as usual is turning the truth on its head. It accuses its opponents of the very hate speech that is CAIR’s own normal lingo.

CAIR’s Los Angeles California branch issued a press release regarding the alleged Islamophobic training that it is seeking to de-fund. The Communications Manager of CAIR’s Los Angeles, California branch is Munira Syeda, whose name appears on the press release. She evidently believes in freedom of speech for her organization’s point of view, but not for contrary points of view.

For example, Syeda defended the actions of a group apparently belonging to the radical Muslim Student Union, who were found guilty of disrupting a speech given by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. Ambassador Oren was speaking about U.S.-Israel relations in February 2010 at the University of California, Irvine when the instigators stood up in succession, shouting epithets such as “killers” and asking, “How many Palestinians did you kill?” They persisted in their loud heckling, despite calls to behave from campus officials. This was not about exercising the right of free speech. The Muslim students would have had an opportunity to ask pointed questions or make their statements during the Q&A session that was scheduled to follow the speech. It was about disruptive conduct aimed at censoring others’ right to freely speak, listen and exchange ideas, in violation of California law.

The CAIR Communications Manager supported this “heckler’s veto” when used to shout down attempts by representatives and supporters of Israel to communicate. But she has no problem trying to quash peaceful, non-disruptive protests against Islamist events where violent jihadist sympathizers are speaking.

For instance, Syeda condemned a rally protesting an Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) fundraiser held at the Yorba Linda City Council Community Center in Orange County, California last February. One of the speakers at the ICNA fundraiser was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, Siraj Wahhaj​, who was once quoted as saying to an audience of Muslims in New Jersey, “[T]ake my word, if 6-8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us.” He has also reportedly talked in the past about violent jihad, complete with references to arming black ex-cons in the inner cities with Uzis. Another speaker, Malik Ali, had been captured at one point on video inciting Muslim university students with these words: “They [Jews] know this is a new day. … What do we do? Might be another 9/11.”

There was good reason for some members of the Orange County community to be upset by the prospect of such hatemongers speaking in their city council community center. But they did nothing to interfere with the speeches. According to The Orange County Register, many in the crowd of protesters waved U.S. flags and carried signs saying, “God Bless America” and “No Sharia Law.” A small number of protesters stood about fifty yards from the community center entrance. They booed, yelled “go home” and chanted “no Sharia law” as attendees entered the building. Among their signs were ones that said “ICNA supports Hamas and Hezbollah.” Nobody was reported to have actually entered the community center and disrupt any of the speeches, as the Muslim students had done during Israeli Ambassador Oren’s speech.

One of the most vociferous of the protesters was Councilwoman and Republican Party Vice Chair Deborah Pauly, who was particularly upset with the two violent jihadist sympathizers on the ICNA guest speaker list. She told protesters rallying outside of the Islamic Circle of North America fundraiser: “Let me tell you what’s going on over there right now – make no bones about it – that is pure, unadulterated evil. … I know quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in paradise.”

Strong, even offensive, words – yes. But they were delivered outside the event being protested and involved no heckling of ICNA speakers inside the hall.

Nevertheless, CAIR-LA and other Islamist groups sought to have the councilwoman officially censored by the city council for simply expressing her opinion. Other than conceding that some of the speakers at the ICNA fundraiser were “controversial,” the CAIR-LA Communications Manager Munira Syeda reserved her criticism for the protesters.

CAIR wants a veto against politicians and their supporters who dare to strongly, but peacefully, protest a radical Islamist event outside of the event venue. At the same time, CAIR defends the anti-Israel Muslim Student Union hecklers’ veto, exercised inside the event venue by interfering with the Israeli ambassador’s right to deliver his speech to an audience that wanted to hear what he had to say without rude interruptions.

This same double standard underlies CAIR’s campaign to block federal and local elected officials from incorporating into their law enforcement training programs the truth about the radical Islamist agenda and the dangers posed by homegrown jihadists. CAIR is looking for a veto over who should be allowed to train law enforcement personnel and what should be taught. It wants no expert critics of Islamists and their anti-American agenda to participate in training programs that are supposed to educate law enforcement personnel about the ideological source of some of the real security dangers they are facing. CAIR is particularly afraid of someone like Nonie Darwish​, who grew up in a strict Muslim home in Egypt and lived the first thirty years of her life under the yoke of sharia law.

The Obama administration and local enforcement agencies are succumbing to the Islamists’ pressure. Indeed, instead of learning the truth, law enforcement personnel are beginning to be spoon-fed the Islamists’ propaganda. For example, in Tulsa, Oklahoma recently, a police officer was punished for refusing to attend a mandatory Muslim prayer session that was supposed to help him understand Islam!

Here is a better suggestion for helping law enforcement personnel to learn about Islamic ideology, which goes beyond exposing them to Muslim religious prayers and other faith rituals. How about, as a start, requiring law enforcement personnel to familiarize themselves with the member handbook of the Islamic Circle of North America – the Islamist group which had invited violent jihadist sympathizers to speak at its California fundraiser?

The handbook proves the critics’ case, but perhaps its illustration of the Islamists’ supremacist caliphate message would be far more believable if communicated directly to the law enforcement personnel by the communications manager of CAIR’s Los Angeles, California branch herself, Munira Syeda. CAIR would have a much more difficult time dismissing, with its usual kill-the-messenger accusations of Islamophobia, what its own communications manager reads directly from the handbook.

Here are a few excerpts from the ICNA handbook to help her get started:

“The Islamic Circle of North America is…an organization struggling towards Iqamat-ad-Deen in this land… a national Islamic movement”

“‘Islamic movement’ is the term used for that organized and collective effort waged to establish Al-Islam in its complete form in all aspects of life. (Emphasis added)

“The following are some characteristics of the Islamic movement as we learn about it from the model of the Prophet Mohammad​.

1) This movement is based on the ideology of Islam. It considers humanity as one family based upon our common parents and common Creator. Therefore, it addresses all human beings, regardless of their race, color, national origin, language, culture, ethnicity or economic status. It wants everyone to succeed before Allah. Its message is, ‘Oh Mankind, submit to your Lord who created you’ (2:21). (Emphasis added)

2) It considers disobedience to Allah as the root cause of all human problems. Moreover, it believes that obedience to Allah is the only solution for all human ills. Until the human being submits to Allah’s Guidance, there can be no true peace in our lives. (Emphasis added)

3) It believes that human beings are overburdened under the obedience of other human beings and their oppressive systems. It is only the obedience of Allah that will set everyone free…“ (Emphasis added

Wherever the Islamic movement succeeds to establish true Islamic society, they will form coalition and alliances. This will lead to the unity of the Ummah and towards the establishment of the Khilafah [the Caliphate].” (Emphasis added)

In addition to a reading from the Islamic Circle of North America handbook, the law enforcement training programs could include an expert in Islamic law such as Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, a CAIR and ICNA favorite who also was invited to the White House by President George W. Bush in the days following 9/11.

Dr. Siddiqi is the former president of the Islamic Society of North America, the Saudi-funded organization that is used by the Muslim World League to finance and exercise control over most of the mosques in the United States. Dr. Siddiqi is currently the chairman of the executive council of the Fiqh Council of North America, an association of Muslims who interpret Islamic law on the North American continent.

What better expert is there to speak about sharia law and the Islamist ideology than Dr. Siddiqi? Apparently, the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department thinks so, since he is planning a law enforcement “education” program at the Islamic Center with Siddiqi.

But this can only work if Dr. Siddiqi goes beyond the feel good rhetoric of inter-faith harmony that he likes to use when addressing Western audiences. He has to explain how the nice-sounding resolution passed this September by his Fiqh Council claiming that there is “no inherent conflict between the normative values of Islam and the US Constitution and Bill of Rights” (at least “so long as there is no conflict with Muslims’ obligation for obedience” to Allah) squares with some of his teachings about the rule of Allah over all aspects of our lives, Islamist notions of tolerance and supremacism, and the need to implement sharia law everywhere.

All this learned Islamic scholar has to do is elaborate on past statements attributed to him, such as the following:

• “We must not forget that Allah’s rules have to be established in all lands, and all our efforts should lead to that direction.”
• “Our work, school, athletics activity, family life, economics, politics everything must be according to Allah’s Rules.”
• “It is true that Islam stands for the sovereignty of Allah the Almighty and Allah’s rules are not limited to the acts of worship, they also include social, economic and political matters.”
• “Tolerance according to Islam does not mean that we believe that all religions are the same. It does not mean that we do not believe in the supremacy of Islam over other faiths and ideologies.”
• “Once more people accept Islam, insha’allah, this will lead to the implementation of Sharia in all areas.”

Of course, the last thing CAIR would want to do is persuade Dr. Siddiqi to own up to his own real beliefs as part of educating law enforcement personnel about Islamist ideology, or to recommend the inclusion of documents such as the ICNA handbook as part of the training curriculum. Instead, it cries Islamophobia in its relentless campaign to suppress the truth.

It is time that the spotlight is focused on CAIR itself and other Islamist groups which are pulling out all stops to impede effective law enforcement training and replace it with false, self-serving propaganda.

Joseph Klein

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/11/21/cairs-campaign-against-the-truth/

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

Egypt’s Pre-Election Chaos

by Ryan Mauro

At least 11 Egyptians died over the weekend in violence ahead of the scheduled November 28 election. The country is shaking as protesters demand that the ruling military council set a date to hand over power to a civilian government shortly after the voting is finished in March. At the same time, the contests between the political parties is heating up as secularists are accused of violating Islam and the Salafists turn on the Muslim Brotherhood​. Despite the instability, the council says that elections will still be held.

Demonstrators of a mostly Islamist orientation began protesting on Friday against the ruling military council’s moves to hold onto power. They are demanding that the council announce a firm date for when power will be transferred to an elected interim government. The council doesn’t want an official handover until the presidential elections take place, which it has loosely scheduled for late 2012 or early 2013. The Egyptian political parties and the presidential candidates, both secularist and Islamist, are not so patient.

Clashes took place in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and elsewhere. By Sunday, the crowd in Tahrir Square reached 5,000. The Egyptian military and police decided to put an end to it, forcibly dispersing the demonstrators with rubber bullets, batons and tear gas. At least a dozen protest tents, along with banners and blankets, were set ablaze. A doctor said that the security forces aimed for the heads of their targets instead of the legs. Eleven died and 192 were injured in Tahrir Square. The government says at least 1,114 were wounded across the country over the weekend.

The Interior Ministry​ confirms that 55 have been arrested and 85 police officers injured. The government claims that some protesters fired guns, wielded knives and threw firebombs. Hundreds of protests have returned to Tahrir Square since the crackdown and demonstrators and security personnel are throwing rocks at each other.

The protests are fueled by a concern that the Supreme Armed Forces Council will undermine democratic reforms so it can hold onto power. The council has made it clear it will not allow “another Khomeini” to rise, but it is also taking action against its secular opponents. The country went into an uproar recently when the council proposed that it be given veto power over any future constitution and that it pick 80 of the 100 members of the constitutional committee. The council backed down.

The Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population, are still being persecuted. On November 17, about 400 marched in honor of the 27 people who lost their lives in sectarian crisis, most of whom were Christians. They were attacked, with rocks and broken glass falling on them from the upper part of a building while the police did nothing. Ten Christians were injured. The victims said the attackers were supporters of a Salafist candidate running in the parliamentary elections named Gamal Saber.

There are now multiple struggles underway as the first round of elections on November 28 draw near. The secularists and the Islamists both oppose the military council. The secularists and the Islamists oppose each other and within the Islamist camp, the Muslim Brotherhood​ and the Salafists have locked horns.

The Islamists are building support by selling essential goods to the poor at a steep discount. This includes food, clothing and medicine. The Muslim Brotherhood even sponsored a game of soccer. The organizational advantages of the Islamists over the secularists are plain for all to see. It is not just the Muslim Brotherhood that has a well-oiled operation and campaign infrastructure. The Salafist Al-Nour party says it has 100,000 members and 150 offices around the country.

The Salafists were originally part of the Brotherhood-lead Democratic Alliance bloc. The Al-Nour, Al-Asalah, Al-Fadilah and Al-Islah Salafist parties decided to leave and form their own coalition. The two have since clashed, with the Brotherhood saying that the Salafists’ volcanic rhetoric is hurting the Islamist movement as a whole. It is unclear at this point if the Salafists and the Brotherhood will coordinate their campaigns so that they don’t split the Islamist vote in individual districts.

There is not much time left before the voting begins and the Islamists’ hopes are high. The Al-Nour party predicts that the Islamists will control over one-third of parliament. Middle East expert Dr. Barry Rubin revised his projection in the wake of the Islamist Ennahda Party’s success in the Tunisian elections (winning 41% of the vote). He now believes the Islamists will get nearly half of the seats in parliament, partly because of non-Islamists dividing the vote.

The first round of elections for the lower house of parliament will take place on November 28. Nine provinces will vote in each round and there will be a run-off election in districts where the victor does not win a majority of the vote. The second and third rounds for the lower house will take place on December 14 and January 3, respectively. The three rounds for the upper house will take place on January 29, February 14 and March 4.

The elected interim government will draft the next constitution and decide the role of Sharia. The stakes for Egypt and the region could not be much higher.

Ryan Mauro

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/11/21/instability-in-egypt-in-run-up-to-election/

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

The Islamic Feminism of All-American Muslim

by Daniel Greenfield

Once upon a time there used to be billboards for Virginia Slims cigarettes with the slogans, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” The billboards are gone now, but in their place are billboards for All-American Muslim which substitute the hijab for the cigarette. The same left which was outraged at a company marketing cigarettes as a form of female empowerment is completely supportive of marketing 7th century Islamic misogyny as female empowerment.

“The Fast and the Furious,” the second episode of TLC’s All-American Muslim, plays out like a hijab commercial, along with a pitch for the Ramadan fast. But what is missing is any acknowledgement of the violent means by which the hijab is imposed on Muslim and non-Muslim women around the world. For many women, even in North America, the consequences of not wearing the hijab can be fatal.

Sixteen-year-old Aqsa Parvaz was strangled to death by her father because she refused to wear a hijab… not somewhere in Pakistan, but in Ontario. In that same city, Mohammad Shafia killed his three daughters, ranging in age from 13 to 19, over their refusal to wear hijabs. There is no way to know if Virginia Slims or the hijab killed more women, but we do know that today it is unacceptable to show women smoking, but it is acceptable to promote treating them as chattel.

All-American Muslim had set out to show that Muslims weren’t terrorists, that they are just the neighbors next door. What a pity then that the second episode features a terrorist supporting cleric providing hijab counseling to one of the show’s stars.

Imam Abdul Latif Berry spoke at a 2009 commemoration ceremony for the Ayatollah Khomeini​ which took place at his own Islamic Institute of Knowledge. And he’s also quite a feminist. His website features an opinion that a husband can deny his wife a divorce if she does not return the dowry and in another appears to justify marital rape.

So, the wife must obey her husband by giving him his physical rights which he asks from her; she has to make herself available to him when he wants her; she has no right to abstain unless she has her period, a medical condition, or a difficulty that keeps her from responding favorably to him. If he demands his right and obliges her, this would not be rape in the Islamic Law, but something basic in the concept of marriage contract. Otherwise, what would marriage be without mating?

What about beating your wife? Imam Abdul Latif Berry has the answer for how to deal with a wife who won’t perform her “marital duties.”

When all peaceful methods have been exhausted and attempts to fix the problem have failed, and if this is the only means for reform, practice disciplinary confrontation with the rebellious wife. Again, Islam poses extreme conditions on this last step. The confrontation must not lead to injury or leave bruises. It must not be done in revenge or be based on hatred which trespasses the set limits, but instead be prescribed like the bitter medicine with calculated dosages to speed reform while still protect from harming the self and others.

What about marrying thirteen year olds?

The girl’s menstrual period is a natural sign that her body qualifies her for fertility, pregnancy, or reproduction. Islam does not contradict the natural aspect of life. Therefore, it does not oppose marriage at a younger age when the girl is naturally ready. However, American civil laws prohibit such marriage but could allow it in some states with parental consent and with the approval of a civil judge after verifying that the girl is qualified to wed.

This is the Islamic feminism that lurks behind the scenes of the placid life of All-American Muslim’s Dearborn, Michigan. When the cameras stop rolling, this is the religious authority that governs the lives of the “All-American Muslims” on the show. A man who praises the Butcher of Tehran​ and treats marital rape and wife beating as legitimate forms of behavior.

How does TLC feel about promoting a man who preaches such ugly doctrines? We’ll never know until they are actually challenged on it and until the show’s sponsors, which include Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Clinique are actually called upon to explain their relationship with the program.

The presence of Imam Abdul Latif Berry peels back the veil to reveal what is really underneath the smiling faces in their hijabs — a misogynistic religious authority that uses the Koran to demean and subjugate women. And Berry’s presence is a shadow on more than just the episode; it is a shadow on the entire premise of All-American Muslim.

All-American Muslim pretends that we can best learn about Islam, not by looking at a Koran, but at the ordinary lives of Muslims. But devout Muslims are not in charge of their own lives. It is men like Imam Berry who control their lives by controlling their religion.

Americans have grown used to taking decentralized religious authority for granted, but in Islam that is not the case; religious authority is not decentralized. Everything from deciding whether to beat your wife or to divorce her depends on the will and whim of men like Imam Berry.

We cannot understand what Islam in America means without also understanding the role played by Islamic religious authorities who are transforming their mosques into the nucleus of a theocracy. And so by the words of the Koran women are beaten, young girls are married off to older men and Sharia courts reduce women to the status of second-class citizens. All of this happens under the red, white and blue, and all of it is ignored or brushed aside in the name of tolerance.

There are two Islams in America. The ideal Islam and the real Islam. The ideal Islam is the religion of peace that so many Americans wish it could be. But the real Islam is the one that defines rules for beating your wife. And to look away from that Islam is to look away from the honor-killings and the subjugation of women.

Daniel Greenfield

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/11/22/the-islamic-feminism-of-all-american-muslim/

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