Megyn Kelly & Ingraham Discuss Hamas on Campus, Truth Revolt via You Tube, February 4, 2015
Archive for February 4, 2015
Megyn Kelly & Ingraham Discuss Hamas on Campus
February 4, 2015U.S. Seen in Middle East as Ally of Terrorists
February 4, 2015U.S. Seen in Middle East as Ally of Terrorists, The Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, February 5, 2015
Many Egyptians and moderate Arabs and Muslims were shocked to hear that the U.S. State Department recently hosted a Muslim Brotherhood delegation. They were equally shocked when an EU court decided to remove Hamas from the bloc’s list of terror groups.
“Just two days after the controversial visit, the Brotherhood called for a war against their fellow Egyptians.” — Linda S. Heard, Middle East Expert, Gulf News.
“The Muslim Brotherhood is seeking to return to the political arena through the American door and terrorist attacks. The U.S. policy appears to be devious and unreliable.” — Ezzat Ibrahim, columnist, Al Ahram.
“[Ousted Egyptian President] Mohamed Morsi, before his election, described these Jews as descendants of apes and pigs. In English, the Muslim Brotherhood says one thing and in Arabic something completely different.” — Mohamed Salmawi, Egyptian columnist
While the Egyptian government has been waging war on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic radical groups, the U.S. Administration and some Europeans are continuing to hamper efforts to combat terrorism.
Many Egyptians and moderate Arabs and Muslims were shocked to hear that the U.S. State Department recently hosted a Muslim Brotherhood delegation. They were equally shocked when an EU court decided to remove Hamas from the bloc’s list of terror groups.
The State Department’s hosting of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders has outraged Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Sisi, who has been waging a relentless war against the organization over the past year.
One member of the delegation, Muslim Brotherhood judge Waleed Sharaby, posed for a picture while at Foggy Bottom, as he held up the organization’s four-finger “Rabia” sign. (The gesture is named for Cairo’s Rabia Square, where counter-demonstrations backing ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi — who is from the Muslim Brotherhood — took place in August 2013.)
While being hosted by the State Department on a visit to Washington, Muslim Brotherhood judge Waleed Sharaby (left) flashed the organization’s four-finger “Rabia” sign. At right, ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi (from the Muslim Brotherhood) displays the Rabia sign.
“If the White House is out to offend some of its closest Arab allies and is intent on heightening their suspicions, it’s succeeded,” wrote Middle East expert Linda S. Heard. “If there’s a plot, then it’s unfolding,” she added. “Just two days after the controversial visit, the Brotherhood called for a war against their fellow Egyptians.”
A statement issued by the Muslim Brotherhood said, “It is incumbent upon everyone to be aware that we are in a process of a new phase, where we summon what is latent our strength, where we recall the meanings of jihad and prepare ourselves, our wives, our sons, our daughters, and whoever marched on our path to a long, uncompromising fight, and during this stage we ask for martyrdom.”
The Egyptian government condemned the hosting of the Muslim Brotherhood officials by the State Department. Egyptian Foreign Minister Same Shoukry denounced the State Department’s move, saying, “The Muslim Brotherhood is not a political party, but according to the Egyptian law, which must be respected, it is designated as a terrorist organization.”
The timing of the meeting between State Department officials and Muslim Brotherhood leaders could not have been worse for many Egyptians — it took place shortly after Islamist terrorists killed 31 soldiers and wounded 45 others in a series of attacks on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
Although the Islamic State terror group took credit for the attacks, Sisi held the Muslim Brotherhood responsible. “Egypt is waging a war against the strongest clandestine group over the past two decades,” he said. “This organization has secretive arms, secretive thoughts and secretive forums.”
Egyptian columnists and newspaper editors have also attacked the U.S. Administration for its ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.
“The U.S. Administration is continuing to jeopardize its relations with Egypt by appeasing Muslim Brotherhood,” remarked columnist Ezzat Ibrahim. “The Muslim Brotherhood is seeking to return to the political arena through the American door and terrorist attacks. The U.S. policy appears to be devious and unreliable.”
Another Egyptian columnist, Mohamed Salmawi, launched a scathing attack on the U.S. Administration; he accused it of deception and double standards. He said that the meeting between U.S. officials and Muslim Brotherhood leaders exposes the U.S. Administration’s deceptive policy toward Islamic terror groups.
“The U.S. Administration says it is combating these groups at home while it is supporting them abroad,” Salmawi wrote. “This meeting has grave indications because it shows that Washington has not abandoned its policy of double standards toward Islamic terrorism.
Salmawi also took issue with the U.S. Administration for turning a blind eye to the hypocrisy and double talk of the Muslim Brotherhood. “One of the leaders of Muslim Brotherhood, for example, told the world that he welcomes the Jews of Israel,” he added. “But this same leader announced in front of the Egyptian people that they should march in the millions to liberate Jerusalem from the occupation of the Jews. [Ousted President] Mohamed Morsi, before his election, described these Jews as descendants of apes and pigs. In English, the Muslim Brotherhood says one thing and in Arabic something completely different.”
Said Lindawi, a prominent Egyptian international affairs expert, said that the meeting of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders with State Department officials means that the Obama Administration has given the organization a green light to carry out terrorist attacks against Egypt.
“The U.S. Administration has refused to recognize the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror group,” hesaid. “The Americans continue to insist that the Muslim Brotherhood is not responsible for the terrorist attacks in Egypt.”
By embracing the Muslim Brotherhood, the U.S. Administration has sent the wrong message to moderate Arabs and Muslims. This is a message that says that Washington believes that there are good terrorists and bad terrorists.
Judging from the angry reactions of Egyptians, it has become obvious that most moderate Arabs and Muslims no longer see the U.S. as an ally in the war against Islamic terror groups. What is even more disturbing is that they view the U.S. as an ally and friend of the terrorists.
Krauthammer: Hating Jews is back in vogue
February 4, 2015Krauthammer: Hating Jews is back in vogue – Richmond.com: Commentary.
( “It took Nazi Germany seven years to kill 6 million Jews. It would take a nuclear Iran one day.” – JW )
Yemeni demonstrators show their support for Houthi Shiite rebels in Sanaa, Yemen, Friday, Jan. 23, 2015. Arabic on the posters reads, “God is great. Death to America. Death to Israel. A curse on the Jews. Victory to Islam.”
Posted: Tuesday, February 3, 2015 10:30 pm
WASHINGTON — Amid the ritual expressions of regret and the pledges of “never again” on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a bitter irony was noted: Anti-Semitism has returned to Europe. With a vengeance.
It has become routine. If the kosher-grocery massacre in Paris hadn’t happened in conjunction with Charlie Hebdo, how much worldwide notice would it have received? As little as did the murder of a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse. As little as did the terror attack that killed four at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.
The rise of European anti-Semitism is in reality just a return to the norm. For a millennium, virulent Jew-hatred — persecution, expulsions, massacres — was the norm in Europe until the shame of the Holocaust created a temporary anomaly wherein anti-Semitism became socially unacceptable.
The hiatus is over. Jew-hatred is back, recapitulating the past with impressive zeal. Italians protesting Gaza handed out leaflets calling for a boycott of Jewish merchants. As in the 1930s. A widely popular French comedian has introduced a variant of the Nazi salute. In Berlin, Gaza brought out a mob chanting, “Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone!” Berlin, mind you.
European anti-Semitism is not a Jewish problem, however. It’s a European problem, a stain, a disease of which Europe is congenitally unable to rid itself.
From the Jewish point of view, European anti-Semitism is a sideshow. The story of European Jewry is over. It died at Auschwitz. Europe’s place as the center and fulcrum of the Jewish world has been inherited by Israel, now the largest Jewish community on earth.
The threat to the Jewish future lies not in Europe but in the Muslim Middle East, today the heart of global anti-Semitism, a veritable factory of anti-Jewish literature, films, blood libels and calls for violence, indeed for another genocide.
The founding charter of Hamas calls not just for the eradication of Israel but for the killing of Jews everywhere. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah welcomes Jewish emigration to Israel — because it makes the killing easier: “If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” And, of course, Iran openly declares as its sacred mission the annihilation of Israel.
For America, Europe and the moderate Arabs there are powerful reasons having nothing to do with Israel for trying to prevent an apocalyptic, fanatically anti-Western clerical regime in Tehran from getting the bomb: Iranian hegemony, nuclear proliferation (including to terror groups) and elemental national security.
For Israel, however, the threat is of a different order. Direct, immediate and mortal.
The sophisticates cozily assure us not to worry. Deterrence will work. Didn’t it work against the Soviets? Well, just 17 years into the atomic age, we came harrowingly close to deterrence failure and all-out nuclear war. Moreover, godless communists anticipate no reward in heaven. Atheists calculate differently from jihadists with their cult of death. Name one Soviet suicide bomber.
Former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani once characterized tiny Israel as a one-bomb country. He acknowledged Israel’s deterrent capacity but noted the asymmetry: “Application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.” Result? Israel eradicated, Islam vindicated. So much for deterrence.
And even if deterrence worked with Tehran, that’s not where the story ends. Iran’s very acquisition of nukes would set off a nuclear arms race with half a dozen Muslim countries from Turkey to Egypt to the Gulf states — in the most unstable part of the world. A place where, say, a moderate pro-American Yemen can fall to pro-Iranian rebels overnight.
The idea that some kind of six-sided deterrence would work in this roiling cauldron of instability the way it did in the frozen bipolarity of the Cold War is simply ridiculous.
The Iranian bomb is a national security issue, an alliance issue and a regional Middle East issue. But it is also a uniquely Jewish issue because of Israel’s situation as the only state on earth overtly threatened with extinction, facing a potential nuclear power overtly threatening that extinction.
On the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz, mourning dead Jews is easy. And, forgive me, cheap. Want to truly honor the dead? Show solidarity with the living — Israel and its 6 million Jews. Make “never again” more than an empty phrase. It took Nazi Germany seven years to kill 6 million Jews. It would take a nuclear Iran one day.
Charles Krauthammer’s email address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.
© 2015, The Washington Post Writers Group
Netanyahu: Instead of demanding Iran cease it terror, it’s letting it build nukes
February 4, 2015On visit to soldiers in north, Israeli PM says: ‘The deal being reached with Iran is very dangerous, dangerous to Israel, dangerous to the region, and dangerous to the whole world.’
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Likud press conference, January 1, 2014. Photo by Tomer Appelbaum
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited soldiers stationed in Israel’s north on Wednesday, and used the opportunity to speak out against the nuclear deal being set between the international community and Iran over the Islamic Republic’s contentious nuclear program.
“Instead of demanding that Iran cease the terror it operates in the region and around the world, the leading elements in the international community are rushing toward a deal which will allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said. “The deal being reached with Iran is very dangerous, dangerous to Israel, dangerous to the region, and dangerous to the whole world – and we will vehemently oppose it.”
Netanyahu last week accused Iran of standing behind Hezbollah’s deadly attack on northern Israel, in which two Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed while on patrol near the Lebanon border. The Israeli soldiers were killed Wednesday when Hezbollah fired five missiles at a convoy of Israeli military vehicles.
The attack appeared to be in retaliation for a January 18 air strike in southern Syria attributed to Israel that killed several Hezbollah members and an Iranian general.
Netanyahu will address the U.S. Congress next month on the issue of the nuclear talks with Iran. The invitation was extended by House Speaker John Boehner– and accepted by Netanyahu – without coordination with the White House.
Islam and Appeasement
February 4, 2015Islam and Appeasement, American Thinker, G. Murphy Donovan, February 4, 2015
The US State Department is one of the few institutions in America, other than the Nation of Islam, blessed with the gift of prophecy. Logic, reason, and morality have been subverted to serve the cause of appeasement. Pandering to savages has always been the one policy choice that guarantees that things will get worse.
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Europe and America are impaled on the horns of a strategic dilemma. On the one hand, the world is besieged by jihadi religious terror, barbarity, and serial wars with jihadists. Concurrently, most of the civilized world defends the very religious cultures, Sunni and Shia Islam especially, where the problems originate. To be clear at the outset; with Islam today, there seems to be less and less daylight between secular and religious imperatives.
ISIS Islamist with the head of “Rehana,” Peshmerga fighter.
Theology, for the most part, is the a priori premise for Muslim politics and evangelism, Islamism if you will. Culture proceeds from or is conditioned by religious writ or tradition in the Ummah. The adjective “Islamic” before the noun “republic” is not just an historical artifact.
Indeed, since the 1979 Shia religious coup in Persia, the political trend lines throughout dar al Islam are clearly theocratic. You might call the recent Shia coup in Yemen a copycat killing. Secular Islam is in the crosshairs. The trend suffered a setback in Egypt recently, but only at the expense of a military coup.
Theocracy or the generals are the two political default settings in the Muslim world today. Priests and brass hats are never far from the nexus of power. If behavior is a measure of merit in the Ummah, the generals are to be preferred over the ayatollahs, Islamic scholars, mullahs, or imams. Cairo might take a nervous bow here.
A priori or unwarranted assumptions are not limited, however, to the Islamic side of the geo-strategic conundrum. European and American intellectuals, politicians, generals, and academics, are handicapped with the same infirmity.
Terror provides a snapshot of the logic that flows from flawed premises, foregone conclusions that attempt to absolve Islam.
After most atrocities, East or West, the specter of the late Edward Said reappears. Said is the Palestinian apologist, tenured at Columbia University, who coined the theory of “Orientalism,” a grab bag of complaints that cover a host of shibboleths that permit blanket absolution for the Muslim majority today.
Infidels in the West usually begin with ritual handwringing about the horrors of bombs, bullets, and beheadings, followed immediately by a logical hairball where moral poles are reversed — a universe where the Islamist villain morphs into the Muslim victim. Shooters and bombers are rhetorically excommunicated by Western Quislings. Such is the “logic” that allows a black politician from Chicago to declare emphatically that “ISIS is not Islam,” a little like parsing jackals from coyotes.
In contrast, few prominent Muslims condemn or ostracize jihadists. Jihad is as Muslim as Mohammed. Indeed, nearly 50 countries in dar al Islam now send Islamist fighters to ISIS, hirsute recruits that are happy to execute, in the name of Allah, any European, American, or East Asian that falls into their hands. Most recently, two Japanese civilians lost their heads. The executioner of choice at the moment apparently carries a British passport.
Before the blood dries after such barbarism, politicians and media pundits go on defense lest atrocity stain the veil of immunities created for all Muslims. Indeed, when the President of the United States or the Prime Minister of Britain says that ISIS, or any terror group, is not Islamic, they confer blanket amnesty on a sixth of the world’s population, the now celebrated “pacific,” passive-aggressive, Muslim majority.
The anointing of Islam as victim is underwritten by a litany of lesser and equally unsupportable excuses including but not limited to: colonialism, exploitation, poverty, illiteracy, imperialism, racism (sic), and moral equivalence. Of these, moral equivalence is the most absurd.
Few Muslim scholars, ayatollahs, or imams make any claim of moral equivalence. Mohamed, Islam, the Koran, and Hadith are thought to be a unity, the final, singular, and unalterable truth. The Islamist sees all other religions, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu especially, as infidels or apostasies, vessels of ignorance. Ecumenism and multiculturalism is only possible, and only a tactic at that, in polities where Muslims are a minority. Tolerance is nearly absent where Muslim majorities prevail.
Within major religions, moral consistency is now an oxymoron. Discrimination in the West is a still a vice while bigotry in Islam has been ordained a cultural virtue.
Jews and Christians have been removed from most Arab states and are in peril in the Muslim world at large. Jews in Europe are also under siege now by a coalition of traditional anti-Semites on the Left, augmented by irredentist Muslim immigrants on the Right. In contrast, 1.5 million Muslim Arabs still thrive in the tiny state of Israel.
Equality is a claim made by western apologists on behalf of Islam. Few Sunni or Shia clerics or scholars confer equality, civic or religious, on the unbeliever — infidel or apostate. Among Muslims, small minorities like the Kurds, the Zezidi, Ahmadiyya, and the Sufi might legitimately think of themselves as moderates, but they represent only five percent of Islam.
Premature absolution of Islam is now the knee jerk response to all atrocity. Never mind that most terror groups are Muslim and proudly array themselves with all the predictable kit: incantations, black surah flags, the Koran, the Hadith, beards, and burkas — all in the name of Mohammed. Somehow we are supposed to believe that none of this has anything to do with true Islam. The Ummah plays the victim with the passive approvals of believers and the active collaboration of infidels. “Great religion” indeed!
A standard mantra claims that the majority of Islamist victims are Muslims, another absurd tautology. The summary execution of milquetoast Muslims by righteous Muslims is a kind of cultural masochism. Jihadists who kill, or are themselves killed, are celebrated from Gaza to Kabul as heroes or martyrs.
There is no organized, universal opposition to the bomb, bullet, or the knife in the Arab League or the 56 nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Indeed, the surah, the sword and the gun are the staples of modern Muslim iconography. Flags and banners alone put the lie to the “moderate” meme.
Islam in London
When the goal is submission, the modalities for victory are clear, indeed, endorsed by scripture. No Muslim cleric argues that any surah, Koranic admonition, needs amendment or reform. Individual or isolated voices might be raised against violence, but there is no reform movement.
The reform vacuum has its own logic. The reformer would be an apostate and a target in any case. The penalty for apostasy is death! Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Salman Rushdie are examples. What is there to alter if you believe that you have the immutable word of God as guidance? And why change anything if you are winning?
The imperial Islamic 5th column in the West now punctuates evangelism with periodic massacres like Charlie Hebdo in Paris just to remind infidels which side has the upper hand. Global terror may not be orchestrated by any one Muslim group or Islamic state. Alas, centrifugal terror is a tactical conundrum for the West and a strategic asset for the Islamist. Nothing succeeds like viral success.
Strategy in Brussels and Washington has deteriorated to what amounts to “whack-a-mole,” a carnival game where the hammer falls only where the rodent raises its head. ISIS is the rodent du jour. The tunnels of Gaza are the literal incarnation of such Muslim tactics, the strategic significance of which is designed to bleed Israel, in particular, and the West, in general, into submission.
Appeasement in the West and serial terror in the East makes for a calculus where new terror groups or Islamic states are likely to proliferate. ISIS, Boko Haram, and Hisb ut Tahrir provide some of the more recent evidence.
ISIS is the new and now more candid face of Islamo-fascism, savage and uncompromising, with a flair for public relations. Brute force is the attribute that merits the fascist label. Preliminary evidence suggests that ISIS tactics, on a global scale, are better proselytizers and recruiters than any al Qaeda atrocities. Al Baghdadi is not just another Sunni Osama bin Laden. Baghdadi is worse — and more effective at the same time.
When American soldiers like Chris Kyle used words like “savages” to describe Islamists, he was only giving voice to the least offensive description of those who kill in God’s, Mohamed’s, or Islam’s name.
Boko Haram is another metastasizing menace. With the assistance of the US State Department, these Islamic slave traders flew under the terror radar for decades. The ninnies at Foggy Bottom can’t bring themselves to put the words “black Muslim slave trading terrorists” in the same sentence. Political correctness in Washington is a kind of Yankeefatwa nowadays, a death warrant, especially for African schoolgirls.
Political correctness is now the official Achilles heel of social democracies.
Hizb ut Tahrir is another caliphate proselytizer flying under the media radar with an assist from the US State Department and the Intelligence Community. HT activities seldom see the light of day although this mutation of Sunni Islamism now operates openly, like al Ikhwan (aka, the Muslim Brotherhood), without a US terrorist designation and associated scrutiny. If the activists of HT, al Ikhwan, and affiliates were audited, the totals would number in the hundreds of millions.
Moderation among Muslims is not a function of kinetics so much as it is a function of cultural affiliations and sympathies. The Pew Research Center and World Health Organization surveys provide ample testimony to toxic Islamic attitudes and social abuses like capital apostasy, polygamy, and consanguinity.
At the moment we live in an era where the Muslim Brotherhood, and affiliates (see CAIR), are welcomed at the Oval Office, but the Prime Minister of Israel is snubbed and reviled. The reasons for such folly are clear: fear for the economy, fear for energy sources, fear of global Muslim numbers, and ultimately the fear that terrorism might get worse.
The US State Department is one of the few institutions in America, other than the Nation of Islam, blessed with the gift of prophecy. Logic, reason, and morality have been subverted to serve the cause of appeasement. Pandering to savages has always been the one policy choice that guarantees that things will get worse.
Islamic State’s next target: Jordan
February 4, 2015Boaz Bismuth
Just as an annual hearing was being held on Capitol Hill on Wednesday on the threats and challenges facing the U.S., the barbaric Islamic State terrorist organization took things to a new level (as if this was possible).
Islamic State decided to burn to death the unfortunate Jordanian pilot whose plane went down in Syria in December. This was a shocking, outrageous and sickening act, and it was done, as usual, in front of a camera.
Islamic State’s message to Jordan was clear: The Hashemite kingdom, Israel’s friend to the east, is the next target of the scum of humanity. This is not just a problem for Jordan. It is a problem for each and every one of us.
Unlike in the past, no one can say, “We didn’t know.” These days, we not only know of all horrors taking place, we also see them online and on television. We have seen them behead American, British and Japanese hostages. And on Tuesday, we saw them burn a young Jordanian man, with a bright future ahead of him, to death in a cage. Yet the world continues on with its daily business. A coalition of 62 countries has not been able to neutralize the Islamic State cancer. This is astonishing.
Every resident of today’s world — Muslim, Christian and Jew — must say, “Enough!” Yet this is not the reality, and almost every minute someone new becomes infected with the virus called jihad.
And all this is happening during a time in which U.S. President Barack Obama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, still refuses to utter the words “Islamic terrorism.” I’m sorry, Mr. President, but “Islamic terrorism,” yes, I said it, “Islamic terrorism,” continues to spread and wreak violent havoc across the world. And most of the victims of this slaughter are Muslims who do not follow the jihadist path.
I watched the video that was published on Wednesday, and, believe me, you do not want to see it. After opening with images of King Abdullah II and airstrikes, it gets to the main point: the pilot talking to the camera. He is in a studio. His right eye is black. He speaks Arabic and is wearing the orange jumpsuit that every child in the world is already familiar with. He describes his combat sortie. Then eight Arab war flags appear, followed by an image of a crying baby. Finally, the most horrible part comes: The pilot walks into a place that looks like hell, where he is surrounded by armed Islamic State beasts.
These beasts have no hearts. Inside the cage, the pilot looks stunned, beaten and broken. A flammable liquid is doused on him. And then a masked Islamic State operative ignites the cage. Dramatic Arabic music blares. If this were a Hollywood horror film, it would be banned for crossing the line of what humans can endure to watch. The poor pilot catches on fire, holds his face and then collapses. I pray that his parents did not see the video.
Islamic terrorism killed this poor pilot, Mr. President. These terrorist beasts must be wiped out from the world, as that is exactly what they are trying to do to us and our values. They want to destroy us.
For those who have not noticed, Islamic State is in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and is now threatening Jordan, right next to Israel. So maybe it is time to understand where we live and what has sprouted around us here in the Middle East. How are there those who still wonder why there is no peace?
The Middle East has gone nuts. Countries are falling apart and rulers (such as Syrian President Bashar Assad) are slaughtering their people, yet holding onto power. Western military forces are returning home as if the threat is over and the Taliban is being defined in Washington as an underground movement, rather than as a terrorist organization. And while in Israel we are focused on bottle recycling, Islamic terrorism only provides new horror stories.
Iran president cheers nuclear talks, says deal is getting closer
February 4, 2015Iran president cheers nuclear talks, says deal is getting closer, Hot Air, Ed Morrossey, February 4, 2015
This deal is a surrender, not just in Iran but throughout the entire region. The only thing missing is the little piece of paper and the declaration of peace in our time.
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Hassan Rouhani has plenty of reasons to feel cheerful, as the US attempts to deal its way out of a four-decade standoff with Iran. Secretary of State John Kerry has loosened up billions of dollars to rescue the Iranian economy in exchange for nothing but talk, for one thing. Now, though, it appears that Kerry will cut a deal that not only allows Iran to keep all of its centrifuges, but also grants them de facto hegemony over the Middle East and Afghanistan to boot — and does so behind the backs of our European Union allies.
With time for negotiations running short, the U.S and Iran are discussing a compromise that would let Iran keep much of its uranium-enriching technology but reduce its potential to make nuclear weapons, two diplomats tell The Associated Press.
Such a compromise could break the decade-long deadlock on attempts to limit Iranian activities that could be used to make such arms: Tehran refuses to meet U.S.-led demands for deep cuts in the number of centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium, a process that can create material for anything from chemotherapy to the core of an atomic bomb.
So what’s the solution that Kerry’s offering? A pledge from Iran to, er, not spin the centrifuges really fast. No, that’s actually what this compromise is:
The possible compromise under consideration, according to the AP, would see most of the 10,000 centrifuges in operation left in place but reconfigured so that they would be less productive. One way of doing that would be to spin the centrifuges more slowly. Other measures would be agreed upon to reassure the west that Iran could not make a warhead quickly, such as reducing its stockpile of uranium hexafluoride gas – the form in which uranium can be enriched by centrifuge.
Both the Guardian and the AP note that any change in either centrifuge speed or stocking of uranium hexafluoride gas would be immediately reported by the IAEA to the rest of the world. That, however, ignores the fact that Iran kept its nuclear-weapons program hidden successfully from the IAEA for most of a decade. Pardon us for not exactly considering that a fail-safe.
It also assumes that such a violation would return us to the status quo ante. It wouldn’t, on two levels. First, such a violation would occur when Iran builds its bomb, so by the time word got out, the bomb would almost certainly exists. Second, the current coalition would be very unlikely to reform to oppose Iran’s nuclear-weapons ambitions. It’s fraying at the edges already, or was until oil prices collapsed, and pressures in Ukraine have all but severed Russia from any interest in assisting the West. Cutting a bad deal now would end the effective opposition to Iranian nukes, and Iran knows it.
And what does Iran get for this fig leaf of a concession? Regional domination (via Jeff Dunetz):
According to EU officials, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, have discussed increasing the number of centrifuges which Iran would be permitted to keep. In exchange, the Iranians would undertake an obligation to bring their influence to bear in order to ensure quiet in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.
European diplomats are quoted by Israeli officials as saying that the US in recent weeks has made significant concessions in its talks with Iran, so much so that it is willing to permit Tehran to operate 6,500 centrifuges while lifting sanctions that have hurt its economy this past decade.
The Europeans have told the Israelis that these concessions were offered in exchange for Iranian promises to maintain regional stability. According to Army Radio, the EU is opposed to the proposed linkage between the nuclear issue and other geopolitical matters. In fact, the Europeans suspect that Washington is operating behind Brussels’ back and that Kerry has not bothered to keep them in the loop in his talks with Zarif.
In other words, the US is about to rubber-stamp Tehran’s domination in Syria, less than two years after Barack Obama wanted to bomb their ally Bashar al-Assad for fighting against the Sunni uprising there. While we’re trying to woo Sunni tribes away from ISIS in Iraq — and working with a coalition of Sunni Arab states to fight them, instead of going there ourselves — Kerry wants to hand off Iraq to Iranian domination. And suddenly we’re ceding our authority in Afghanistan to the mullahs in Tehran, to boot.
Jeff pulls out the Chamberlain umbrella to explain the inexplicable:
A nuclear Iran is not only a threat to Israel but thanks to a missile deal with Russia, a threat to Europe and the US mainland. Beyond the threat from Iran directly, as one of the largest supporter of terrorism in the world Iran may very well share a nuclear weapon with Hezbollah, ISIS, its on -again buddy Hamas, or one of the other terrorist groups it supports.
President Obama is willing to sacrifice our safety and the safety of much of the world to give him a legacy of being a peacemaker, but it is more likely that like Neville Chamberlain before him, this President’s legacy will be as an appeaser who created many more deaths than he tried to save.
This deal is a surrender, not just in Iran but throughout the entire region. The only thing missing is the little piece of paper and the declaration of peace in our time.
ISIS Purifies Islam Through Fire
February 4, 2015ISIS Purifies Islam Through Fire, Front Page Magazine,
(The “non-Islamic” Islamic State is not the only Islamic entity that “purifies” by fire. That’s how many “honor killings” are done. When The Islamic Republic of Iran uses nukes against its enemies, it will “purify” them wholesale.– DM)
Fire is symbolic of the destruction of evil. Symbolically people who are burned alive are human sacrifices that are expiating evil from the community. Tainted victims are purified through fire.
Filming and disseminating the ritual killing strikes fear into the hearts of enemies and attracts new recruits. Similar to an arsonist that is fascinated with fire, disaffected young people will be attracted to this ritual burning. Like moths to a flame.
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On Tuesday February 3, 2015 the Islamic State released a video showing Jordanian pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, 26 being burned alive while locked in a metal cage. The 22 minute video includes footage of Jordan’s King Abdullah II declaring his support for the anti-ISIS coalition. It shows Lt. Al-Kaseasbeh, who was captured by the Islamic State in December after his aircraft crashed over Syria, being interrogated, paraded in front of heavily armed men, walking towards the cage, and then standing inside the cage wearing an orange jumpsuit that is doused in flammable liquid. The executioner uses a torch to light a trail of gasoline that leads to his feet. Lt. Al-Kasasbeh is engulfed in flames and remains alive for over 1 minute and half and collapses to the floor. Militants pour broken masonry and other debris over the cage which is then flattened with a bulldozer with the body still inside. Despite the surprise and shock of seeing a young man burned alive, this is not a new tactic. In fact it is a common method of ritual murder in Iraq and other countries particularly in honor killings and the murder of Christians. The significant difference is that the Islamic State media films the execution using sophisticated editing and highly choreographed techniques turning the killing into a scripted reality show.
Hundreds of women in the Muslim world have been murdered by fire in honor killings. The murders were often disguised as suicides or accidents. In the first six months of 2007, in Iraqi Kurdistan, 255 women were killed, three-quarters of them by burning. An earlier report cited 366 cases of women who were the victims of so called fire accidents in Dohuk in 2006, up from 289 the year before. In Irbil, there were 576 burn cases since 2003, resulting in 358 deaths. In 2006 in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq there were 400 cases of women burned. In Tunisia in May 2014 a father burned his 13 year old daughter to death for walking home with a boy. In October 2013 a 15 year old Yemeni girl was burned to death by her father for communicating with her fiancé. In March 2009, a sixteen year old Muslim girl suspected of having a relationship with a boy was burned to death by four male neighbors in her village in Ghaziabad, North India. They came to the girl’s house and demanded to know why the young man frequently visited her, and then the men beat her, doused her with kerosene and set her on fire. There are numerous more examples of women burned alive. This form of punishment is not just reserved for women. In April 2011 three men were set on fire in Iraq for being gay. A video of that incident is easily accessible online. In June 2008, the Taliban burned three truck drivers of the Turi tribe alive for supplying the Pakistan Armed Forces. There have been numerous reports of Christians burned alive by Islamist jihadists. In November 2014 a Christian couple in Pakistan Sajjad Maseeh, 27, and his wife Shama Bibi, 24, were burned alive in a brick furnace after it was rumored that they had burned verses from the Quran.”Bibi, a mother of four who was four months pregnant, was wearing an outfit that initially didn’t burn…… The mob removed her from over the kiln and wrapped her up in cotton to make sure the garments would be set alight.” These incidents are rarely reported by the mainstream media and were difficult for most people to comprehend as real until ISIS started filming documentaries of their ritual murders.
Fire is symbolic of the destruction of evil. Symbolically people who are burned alive are human sacrifices that are expiating evil from the community. Tainted victims are purified through fire. Fire is considered a powerful transformer of the negative to the positive. Because of such properties, fire is commonly found in purification rites throughout the world. In other cultures polluted persons may be required to walk around, jump over, or jump through fire. Historically, burning a person to death was reserved for the most threating evil, such as heresy or witchcraft and considered an extreme form of purification. In the context of honor killing the use of fire is not only symbolic but practical. Practical in Iraq because most of the homes do not have electricity so every house has a large supply of oil which makes it easier to conceal honor killings under the guise of suicide or kitchen accidents. In the context of the murder of Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh fire is an Islamic purification ritual that serves vengeance and restores honor and purity to the community of believers.
Islamist jihadists from different movements, countries, sects, and factions all emphasize the need to cleanse Islam of its impurities. Al Qaeda’s ideological belief is the purification of Islam through violent struggle. Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri have continually called on supporters to purify Muslim holy lands of infidels, un-Islamic beliefs, and practices. The Islamic State cleanses Islam of its impurities while protecting its territory in the same manner as Mexican cartels, using brutal tactics that are justified as vengeance.
The title of the video, Healing the Believers’ Chests, is a quote from the Quran: “Fight them, and Allah will punish them by your hands, cover them with shame, help you over them, heal the breasts of Believers.” (Qur’an 9:14). It was reported to mean ‘giving them pleasure’ – interpreted as a reference to achieving revenge. That is one interpretation, however healing is symbolic of purification, the title Healing the Believers’ Chests can be understood as cleansing the community of the contamination of impurity. Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh’s alleged crimes symbolically unleashed an epidemic of contagious evil. The function of the burning ritual is a communal act of expiation, expelling the contagious evil of an infidel enemy through fire. Having ISIS fighters participate and watch makes it a communal sacrificial ritual. Ritualizing the violence justifies it and makes it sacred. Once the transgressor is ritually killed the impurity is removed, the evil has been expelled, taboo has been ameliorated and justice is served. The body is immediately buried under the earth, another purifying element, restoring honor and purity.
Filming and disseminating the ritual killing strikes fear into the hearts of enemies and attracts new recruits. Similar to an arsonist that is fascinated with fire, disaffected young people will be attracted to this ritual burning. Like moths to a flame.
Basis in Islamic Jurisprudence (Shariah) and Scripture for Execution of Jordanian Pilot
February 4, 2015Basis in Islamic Jurisprudence (Shariah) and Scripture for Execution of Jordanian Pilot, Counter Jihad Report, February 4, 2015
(Please visit Counter Jihad Report frequently for information about Islam and Jihad. It is an invaluable source.
When the Islamic State and its cohorts are branded as “non-Islamic” and as “having nothing to do with any religion,” we substitute fantasy for reality. We cannot, and therefore will not, defeat an enemy whose rightful context we are unwilling even to mention. — DM)
Obama refers to this “bankrupt ideology” that has come, apparently, out of nowhere. King Abdullah, in Washington, is apparently amazed and flabbergasted at these people, who have absolutely nothing to do with Islam. And the rest of the world’s leaders are also horrified, and amazed, and presumably puzzled, as to this “ideology” that comes out of nowhere, that has “nothing to do with Islam” and for which no texts, not a single sentence, can be found that is not in the Qur’an, or not in the Hadith, or not in essence discoverable in the biography (Sira) of Muhammad, beginning with that of Ibn Ishaq.
This menace, and this misinformation about that menacee, and this growing mistrust of those all over the West who have a duty to instruct as well as protect us, will not go away. It will not lessen. It will only get worse.
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Terror Trends Bulletin, by Christopher Holton, Feb. 3, 2015:
“Indeed, those who disbelieve in Our verses – We will drive them into a Fire. Every time their skins are roasted through We will replace them with other skins so they may taste the punishment. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted in Might and Wise.”
Quran Sura 4:56
In the burning scene video the Islamic State gave the Islamic edict straight from the top Islamic authority of Ibn Taymiyya’s jurisprudence:
“So if horror of commonly desecrating the body is a call for them [the infidels] to believe [in Islam], or to stop their aggression, it is from here that we carry out the punishment and the allowance for legal Jihad”
Ibn Taymiyya was one of the most esteemed Sunni Islamic scholars of all time. He is considered one of the originators of the Hanbali school of Shariah. He originated the practice of declaring Jihad on Muslims who did not follow the Shariah based on the belief that they were not true Muslims, despite their claims to the faith.
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“Healing The Chests Of Believers,” And The Duty To Instruct As Well As Protect
NER, by Hugh Fitzgerald
That was the title, that was the theme, that was the point, of the video of the burning alive of Moaz Al-Kasasbeh. Obama refers to this “bankrupt ideology” that has come, apparently, out of nowhere. King Abdullah, in Washington, is apparently amazed and flabbergasted at these people, who have absolutely nothing to do with Islam. And the rest of the world’s leaders are also horrified, and amazed, and presumably puzzled, as to this “ideology” that comes out of nowhere, that has “nothing to do with Islam” and for which no texts, not a single sentence, can be found that is not in the Qur’an, or not in the Hadith, or not in essence discoverable in the biography (Sira) of Muhammad, beginning with that of Ibn Ishaq. Perhaps someone should offer a sufficiently high reward — say, $25 million, the price the American government put on the head of Osama bin Laden — to anyone who can come forward with the presumably fictional quotes from Qur’an and Hadith that the Islamic State relies on.
If you happen to google — it takes about 30 seconds — “heal the chests of believers” or a variant, you will find what I found, in Sura 9, ayat 14.
Read here.
For a story about setting fire to someone regarded as an enemy — a Jew of the Khaybar Oasis, because he didn’t want to give up all of his property to Muhammad and his marauding followers at Khaybar — who was set alight, and then decapitated, google “Kinana” and, if you need to, “Ibn Ishaq,” and you will discover that Kinana first had his chest set alight. And then he was decapitated. And his propoerty taken. And his wife Safiya taken by Muhammad to be his sex slave. Youu can read more about it, in Ibn Ishaq and in the Hadith, here.
Obama — and other Western leaders — cannot continue this attempt to hide from those to whom they have a duty not only to protect, but to instruct — what is in the Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira. They think they can continue this indefinitely. They apparently think it is possible to “keep the support” — what support, really? — of our “staunch allies” in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, and also “keep the support” — what support, really? — of Muslims in the West, and yet not lose the support of non-Muslims who in ever greater numbers will be alarmed, as they find out what is being kept from them, and will, already do, distrust their governments, distrust much of the media, and wonder why they cannot be properly informed so that they may, in turn, vote for candidates who understand the problem abroad, and the problem within our countries too.
This menace, and this misinformation about that menacee, and this growing mistrust of those all over the West who have a duty to instruct as well as protect us, will not go away. It will not lessen. It will only get worse.
Video of the Month (in my humble opinion)
February 4, 2015Video of the Month
February 3, 2015 Via Intellectual Froglegs dot Com
(Best viewed with a good set of headphones. Enjoy. – LS)
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