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State Dept. counts ‘bringing peace’ to Syria as a 2015 win

December 28, 2015

State Dept. counts ‘bringing peace’ to Syria as a 2015 win, Politico, , December 28, 2015

(Does that mean that Obama’s America won’t accept any more Syrian refugees and that those already there will be sent home? — DM)

The State Department is counting “bringing peace” to Syria as one of its wins in 2015.

A boastful recap of the State Department’s accomplishments, written by spokesman John Kirby, includes the bold subheadline of “Bringing Peace, Security to Syria” above a more modest entry talking about U.S. aid for those affected by the country’s turmoil and the U.S. push for a political transition from President Bashar Assad.

While Secretary of State John Kerry has played an integral role in the Syrian peace talks, the country remains embroiled in a nasty civil war and terrorized by the Islamic State.

“The United States and many members of the international community have stepped up to aid the Syrian people during their time of need — the United States has led the world in humanitarian aid contributions since the crisis began in 2011,” Kirby said.

Kirby wrote that the Syrians have “borne a heavy load” but that under Kerry’s stewardship the United Nations passed a U.S.-sponsored resolution to create a road map for Syria going forward.

The apparent declaration of a win echoes comments from President Barack Obama, who has been heavily criticized for calling the Islamic State a “JV team” in a January 2014 article and for calling the group’s territorial expansion efforts “contained,” just days before the Paris attacks.

Kirby also explicitly touched on the Islamic State, also called ISIL, saying that the U.S. is “winning [the] fight against violent extremists.”

“Although challenges remain, we have made positive strides over the last year, including in our fight against ISIL,” Kirby said. “This forward progress will only continue as more countries pledge resources to the anti-ISIL effort and as citizens around the world increasingly reject ISIL’s misguided ideology.”

Kirby cited the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, hosted in February, which he called “monumental.”

Other things the State Department is counting as wins: re-establishing ties with Cuba, protecting the Arctic, clinching the Iran nuclear agreement, stopping the Ebola outbreak, committing to U.N. development goals, securing a free trade deal, preserving ocean health, and reaching the climate agreement.

Categories: State Department, Syrian war
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Obama White House Turns To Islamists Who Demonize Terror Investigations

December 28, 2015

Obama White House Turns To Islamists Who Demonize Terror Investigations, Investigative Project on Terrorism, John Rossomando, December 28, 2015

(CAIR is a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate. Please see also, Naming the Muslim Brotherhood a National Security Threat. — DM)

Jihadist attacks in San Bernardino and Paris have Americans on edge. Yet part of the Obama White House’s response to the attacks has been to invite Islamist groups that routinely demonize the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies to the White House to discuss a religious discrimination. “If we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away,” President Obama said in his speech following the San Bernardino attack.

But partnering with such organizations sends the wrong message to the American people, said Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AFID).

“I think it says a lot when the president uses those organizations that have an ACLU-type mentality. They should have a seat at the table. That’s fine,” Jasser said.  “But not to include groups, which have completely different focuses about counter-radicalization, counter-Islamism creates this monolithic megaphone for demonization of our government and demonization of America that ends up radicalizing our community.”

A White House spokesperson acknowledged to the Investigative Project on Terrorism that the Dec. 14 meeting on countering anti-Muslim animus included Hassan Shibly, executive director of Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) Florida chapter. The same forum – attended by Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett and Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes – also included Farhana Khera, president and executive director of Muslim Advocates; Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab-American Institute (AAI); Mohamed Magid, imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS); and Hoda Hawa, director of policy and advocacy with the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) among others.

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The White House guests, or the organizations they represent, have long histories of criticizing counter-terror investigations. CAIR leads the pack. Its Philadelphia chapter is advertising a workshop, “The FBI and Entrapment in the Muslim Community,” which features a spider with an FBI badge on its back, spinning a web of entrapment around an image of a mosque. The workshop “provides the tools needed to prevent entrapment of community members to become terrorists in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

Since 9/11, CAIR has repeatedly taken the side of defendants accused of financing or plotting attacks, calling their prosecutions a “witch hunt” against the Muslim community.  For example, CAIR denounced the prosecution of Sami Al-Arian, who turned out to be the secretary of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s governing board, as “politically motivated” and a result of the “Israelization of American policy and procedures.”

A year ago, CAIR similarly protested the incarceration of Aafia Siddiqui, aka “Lady Al Qaeda” – convicted in 2010 of trying to kill two FBI agents. The protest came after the Islamic State (ISIS) offered to spare the lives of executed American photojournalist James Foley and aid worker Kayla Mueller in exchange for Siddiqui’s release.

CAIR also denounced the December 2001 shutdown of the Holy Land Foundation for Hamas support, saying, “…there has been a shift from a war on terrorism to an attack on Islam.”

Demonizing law enforcement and spreading “the idea that America and Western societies [are] anti-Muslim – the whole Islamophobia mantra is part of the early steps of radicalization so that Muslims get separated out of society,” Jasser said. “These groups certainly aren’t on the violent end of the Islamist continuum, but if there’s a conveyer belt that goes towards radicalization then it certainly starts with this siege and separatist mentality.”

CAIR has used such inflammatory imagery and rhetoric for years, with its San Francisco chapter removing a poster urging Muslims to “Build a Wall of Resistance – Don’t Talk to the FBI” in 2011 after the IPT reported on it.

Later that year, a CAIR-New York official told a Muslim audience that FBI agents would break the law to force them to talk. That includes threats and “blackmail, seriously blackmail; that’s illegal,” Lamis Deek told the audience. “But they’ll do it.”

Jasser blames CAIR and others which spread similar rhetoric for the increased fear of Islam and Muslims in America since 9/11 because they refuse to discuss Islamic extremism and the role Muslims have in fixing the problem.

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“This creates a climate where people don’t trust us to be part of the solution,” Jasser said. “People say that if you aren’t part of the solution then you are part of the problem, which creates more fear and distrust.”

Neither Jasser nor the AIFD, which advocates for “liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state,” were invited to the White House meeting. Also shut out were Jasser’s colleagues in the new Muslim Reform Movement, whose members “reject interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam” and stand “for secular governance, democracy and liberty. Every individual has the right to publicly express criticism of Islam. Ideas do not have rights. Human beings have rights.”

The White House did not reply to a request for comment about Jasser’s characterization of these groups; however, it previously said it engaged CAIR because of “their work on civil rights issues” despite the group’s Hamas ties.

Former FBI Associate Deputy Director Buck Revell also finds the White House’s choice of Muslim groups troubling.

“It’s a very confusing time and circumstance when you have the White House dealing with people who have fronted for the Muslim Brotherhood and are the spokespeople for Hamas in the United States and you bring them in for a conference at the White House and say they are supposed to speak for the Muslim community in America,” Revell said. “It’s unhelpful to have the White House essentially fronting for groups that want to make it harder to reach the jihadists in our society and in effect flush them out.”

Khera’s group Muslim Advocates has a pending lawsuit against the New York Police Department regarding its surveillance of mosques and other Islamic institutions using undercover police officers and informants.

“One of our key priorities at Muslim Advocates is ending racial and religious profiling by law enforcement,” Khera says in a YouTube video supporting the suit. “We’ve done work to combat profiling by the FBI, by Customs and Border Protection and now more recently we’ve had concerns about the way the New York Police Department – the nation’s largest police department – has been conducting itself.”

Like CAIR, Khera has called the FBI’s sting operations and informants against potential jihadists “entrapment operations” that rope in individuals who might otherwise never engage in terrorist activity.

CAIR’s Shibly also used the entrapment narrative in a June 2014 blog post in which he argued that the “FBI entrapment program targeting the Muslim community” was an example of tyranny. Many other CAIR representatives, such as Michigan director Dawud Walid, previously alleged the FBI has “recruited more so-called extremist Muslims than al-Qaida themselves.”

AAI stops short of embracing the entrapment narrative but labels surveillance programs by the NYPD and other government agencies “unconstitutional, ineffective, and counterproductive.” New York’s Mayor Bill De Blasio disbanded the NYPD unit responsible for infiltrating the city’s mosques and Muslim gathering places looking for potential terrorists in April 2014 under pressure from Muslim groups.

Another group, the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA), which countsMagid as a member, published an article in 2008 written by Hatem al-Haj, a member of its fatwa committee, giving religious justification for not cooperating with authorities. Al-Haj wrote it was “impermissible” for Muslims to work with the FBI because of the “harm they inflict on Muslims.”

However, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), which formerly accused the FBI of entrapment, conceded in 2013 that informants can be useful detecting terror cells and keeping them off balance.

“To be fair, informants at times can be effective in counterterrorism investigations even against cellular structures. Because terrorist groups are concerned about their operational security, fear of informants can create and increase tensions within a terrorist cell. As a result, it may generate enough paranoia that a cell may abandon a planned operation,” MPAC said in its 2013 report “Building Bridges to Strengthen America.”

Looking for jihadis before they strike is a bit like looking for a “needle in a haystack,” so sting operations are useful in finding them before it’s too late, according to Revell.  He says such operations can be useful in preventing the next San Bernardino.

“If you don’t find them when they are talking jihad and you have to wait until they take an action then it’s too late to be able to prevent casualties and ensure that the public is safe,” Revell said. “There certainly is knowledge among those looking to do any type of jihadi activity that there is a force out there that is countering them and that they need to try to cover their activities to the greatest extent possible.”

In the past year, the Islamic State (ISIS) has published at least two documents instructing its jihadis how to evade being lured into stings by the FBI or other law-enforcement agencies.  The ISIS manual “Safety and Security guidelines of the Lone Wolf Mujahideen” devotes a chapter to evading FBI stings by testing the weapons they receive prior to using them in an attack.

Khera’s organization stood front and center in 2011 when Muslim groups called on the Obama administration to purge FBI training materials that they deemed offensive.  She complained in a Sept. 15, 2011 letter that counterterrorism materials then being used to train FBI agents about Islam used “woefully misinformed statements about Islam and bigoted stereotypes about Muslims.” Such allegedly misinformed statements included characterizing zakat – the almsgiving tax mandate on all Muslims – as a “funding mechanism for combat” and that “Accommodation and compromise between [Islam and the West] are impermissible and fighting [for Muslims] is obligatory.”

Yet numerous Muslim commentators, including from the Herndon, Va.-based International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), describe zakat as a funding mechanism for jihad. A footnote for Surah 9:60 found in “The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an” published with editorial assistance from IIIT, says that zakat can be usedamong other things to help “(4) those who are struggling and striving in Allah’s Cause by teaching or fighting or in duties assigned to them by the righteous Imam, who are thus unable to earn their ordinary living.”

The AMJA issued a fatwa in August 2011 stating that zakat could be used to “support legitimate Jihad activities.”

Top Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi similarly states in his book,Fiqh of Jihad, that zakat may be spent to finance “the liberation of Muslim land from the domination of the unbelievers,” particularly against Israel and India in Kashmir.

Numerous Islamic charities have been cited or closed down in connection with terrorist financing since the September 11 attacks. Qaradawi’s actions back up his words. In 2008, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the Union of Good, a network of charities headed by Qaradawi, for Hamas fundraising. That same year a federal court jury convicted the founders of the Richardson, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation (HLF) for illegally financing Hamas.

“The government’s policy has inflicted considerable harm,” MPAC’s Salam al-Marayatiwrote in 2001 after federal authorities closed the Benevolence International Fund (BIF). “By effectively shutting down these charities, it has given Americans the false impression that American Muslims are supporting terrorists. It has also given the Muslim world a similarly false impression that America is intolerant of a religious minority.”

Representatives of MPAC, CAIR and Muslim Advocates each condemned the HLF prosecution or its subsequent verdict.

In the end, the White House’s decision to empower these groups sends a mixed message to the American people that it isn’t fully interested in rooting out the causes of jihadist terror and preventing future attacks.

Categories: CAIR, Islamic jihad, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Islamophobia, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic terrorism, San Bernardino CA Islamic attack, Zuhdi Jasser
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Tehran names Raafat Al-Bakkar as new Hizballah Golan terror ring chief

December 28, 2015

Tehran names Raafat Al-Bakkar as new Hizballah Golan terror ring chief, DEBKAfile, December 28, 2015

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Tehran Monday, Dec. 28, further ramped up the tension between its Lebanese proxy Hizballah, whose leader Sunday threatened to avenge the death of Samir Quntar, and Israel, which is conducting a military exercise along its northern borders. Four days after Quntar was assassinated in Damascus, Tehran appointed a successor to carry on building a new terrorist network for striking Israel from the Golan.

This successor is revealed by DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources as a Lebanese called Raafat Al-Bakkar, about whom very little is known. According to our sources, the Iranians spotted Al-Bakkar as promising talent earlier this year, shortly after the Israeli air strike which on Jan. 18 killed Iranian Gen. Ali Dadi and the high-profile Hizballah leader Jihad Moughniyeh. They were caught touring the Golan around Quneitra in search of a site for a terrorist base. Al-Bakkar was sent to Tehran at that time for a course in building and running terrorist networks, and this week he was given charge of the new “National Resistance on the Golan” organization for deep strikes inside Israel.

When Nasrallah boasted Sunday that his jihadists were already on their way to punish Israel, he was looking forward to the arrival of Quntar’s successor.

See DEBKA files’ earlier report from Sunday, Dec. 27.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gady Eisenkott explained why it was necessary to bring forward the launching of the new Commando Brigade by two months, when he addressed the formation ceremony on Sunday, Dec. 27, at the Ein Harod National Park: “The Commando Brigade is more necessary than ever in light of the threats from Hizballah and the Islamic State,” he said, in reference to the boasts heard in the last 48 hours from Hassan Nasrallah and Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.

The Chief of Staff introduced Col. David Zini as the first commander of the new Brigade.

The ceremony took place shortly after the Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah said, “Revenge for the death of Samir Quntar is on the way… The orders have been given and execution is in the hands of resistance fighters on the ground… The Israelis are worried and rightly so – those on the borders [soldiers] and those inside the country…. We shall not let the blood of our Jihadi fighters and brothers to be spilled anywhere in the world,” he said.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report: Analysis of the kinds of threats posed by Hizballah (and ISIS) at this time, which are likely to focus more on terrorism than on tank or infantry border incursions, persuaded IDF leaders of the need for a new framework for bringing under one roof some of the top-notch, highly-trained, experienced, well-armed and determined fighting men who are willing to take on new challenges.

The self-styled Islamic State’s “caliph” Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, also devoted special attention to Israel, or rather “the Jews,” in his first audio speech in seven months Saturday, Dec. 26, the day before Nasrallah sounded off. His message was similar to that of his Shiite enemy, albeit in his own inimitable style:

The Islamic State would soon be in Palestine to establish an Islamic state there, he said, “Jews, soon you shall hear from us in Palestine which will become your grave… The Jews thought we had forgotten Palestinian… Not at all, Jews…The pioneers of the jihadist fighters are getting closer every day.”

If and when the Shiite Hizballah and Sunni ISIS make good on their similar but separate threats – or sooner – they will encounter Israel’s new Commando Brigade. Its fighting men are trained for combat in miscellaneous conditions of terrain, day or night, under deep cover. They are equipped with high-tech equipment, most of it classified, for gathering visual and electronic intelligence, communications, photography and targeting. They may either kill terrorists or take them captive.

In a word, these elite troops will hit the enemy in his back yard or at home, and blow the threats heard from Hizballah and ISIS leaders’ back on their own forces.

The 89th Commando Brigade is composed of four battalions:

Duvdevan specializes in operating amidst an Arab population under deep cover for locating and arresting terror suspects.

Egoz is a special kind of infantry battalion, whose commandos operate solo or in very small teams behind enemy lines, especially across the Syrian and Lebanese borders.

Maglan is skilled in the use of weaponry designed for precision operations against high quality enemy targets. These elite fighters go deep inside enemy territory to gather intelligence and use their specialized technology, exclusive for the use of this unit, for devastating assaults.

Rimon members are desert fighters who gained their experience in the terrain of the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Their experience as back-up for operations against drug smugglers is invaluable for urban combat in civilian environments.

Excluded from the new brigade are the separate IDF commando units: Sayeret Matkal, Shayetet 13 (Navy), the Oketz unit which trains dogs for anti-terror work, and Yahalom, of the Engineering Corps.

Categories: Golan, Hezbollah, Iran - Syria war, Iran and Israel, Israel, Nasrallah, Samir Quntar, Syrian war
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“Islamophobia” in one State

December 28, 2015

“Islamophobia” in one State, Power Line, Scott Johnson, December 28, 2015

Minnesota’s Somali community presents a stark challenge to Americans concerned about terrorism. The community is Muslim, large, and protected by an extreme form of ideological conformity that runs from the governor down and permeates the media. In this month’s story on the indicted ISIS wannabe and local ringleader, reporters Dan Browning and Mary Lynn Smith add this editorial observation:

Minnesota is believed to have produced more would-be foreign fighters than any other state, but it also has a Muslim community that’s exceptionally engaged with efforts to counter extremism. Word that another Twin Cities Somali-American was being charged spread quickly Wednesday night in Minneapolis.

“This is deju vu all over again,” said community leader Sadik Warfa. “The safety of this country is a concern for all of us. … We’re hoping this case is the last, and we can all move forward where these kind of things don’t happen.”

But Warfa said he wants to know why Warsame is being charged now: “Did the government get new evidence?”

So far as I can tell, Warfa’s support for law enforcement is invisible. Warfa’s comments to the Star Tribune certainly express no such support, though reporters Browning and Smith seem not to notice. Maybe they need another reporter or two to lend a hand.

Here Warfa warns of a backlash against Minnesota Somalis:

“This sort of thing takes our eyes off the big picture,” said Warfa. “The big picture is really that first of all the 1.7 billion people of Islam cannot be on trial on the actions of a few and we feel like our community, we have been sometimes, really, there is a lot of fear-mongering going on and a lot of, I think, that is backlash we would always be very concerned.”

On a day when GOP candidate Donald Trump called for banning all Muslim immigrants, Warfa praised President Barak Obama’s speech to the nation Sunday night.

“We, as Muslim-American community, are very proud of our President last night,” said Warfa. “The speech he gave to American people when he addressed, because he spoke and said what needed to be said and that is, first of all, we do not want to divide us as Americans. We do not want our neighbors to have suspicion on their fellow Muslim-Americans. I think that is what the terrorists want. They want to divide us.”

Warfa insisted that the real issue is gun violence and the availability of assault weapons.

And here Warfa serves as translator for the mother of one of the indicted ISIS wannabes charged in Minnesota this past April. She protests that he is innocent: “He has not committed any crime,” she said through Warfa. “Why does he have to take a [plea] deal?” She also protests the conditions of his confinement as unduly harsh:

Fadumo Hussein’s son, 20-year-old Guled Omar, is being held in the Ramsey County Jail.

The five co-defendants are scheduled to stand trial on terror charges in February.

Hussein says this is especially difficult for her family because of the loss of Guled’s older brother, Ahmed Ali Omar.

Ahmed Ali Omar has been a fugitive since 2009 and has been charged with fighting for al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Hussein is a single mother of 13 children. Through translator Sadik Warfa, she spoke out Monday against what she says is the harsh treatment of Guled in the Ramsey County Jail.

“He is suffering greatly at this moment,” she said through the interpreter.

Guled Omar’s attorney has written two letters to federal Judge Michael Davis, complaining that his client is the only one of the five defendants being held in solitary confinement and “is not allowed access to television or reading materials.”

“The only thing she can assume is that they are putting him under pressure so he can take the plea deal,” Warfa said.

What a family. The mother is at best a tool. The older brother is absent, probably fighting the jihad with al Shabaab in Somalia. The younger brother sought to augment the ranks of ISIS in Syria with fellow “Minnesotans” and join in himself. And mom has 11 more at home. But we are to suppress rude thoughts and stifle critical comments lest we be found guilty of “Islamophobia” and invited by the governor to move to another state.

While the Somali community’s support for law enforcement is questionable at best, its support for community members charged with supporting terrorist organizations is highly visible. Yet the Star Tribune goes out of its way in a news story on this month’s charges against the former airport employee who recruited here for ISIS to state as a fact that “Muslim community that’s exceptionally engaged with efforts to counter extremism.”

In the Star Tribune column “Islam and Minnesota: Can we hear some straight talk for a change?” I dispute the proposition and invite discussion. In Minnesota, we really need to crack open the Overton Window that applies here.

Please check out the column and leave a comment at the Star Tribune if you might be so inclined.

Categories: Islamophobia, Minnesota, Somali Muslims
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A year of Taliban gains shows that ‘we haven’t delivered,’ top Afghan official says

December 28, 2015

A year of Taliban gains shows that ‘we haven’t delivered,’ top Afghan official says, Washington Post, Sudarsan Raghavan, December 27, 2015

As the fighting intensifies, the stakes are growing higher for the United States in its longest war. “I will not allow Helmand to fall,” Campbell told the Afghan officials in the recent meeting with the Afghan National Security Council. “But I can’t make you fight. You’ve got to want it more than we do.”

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MARJA, Afghanistan — As the Afghan convoy entered the battered village, Taliban fighters opened fire. U.S.-trained Afghan policemen poured out of their Humvees and began wildly shooting their AK-47 rifles in every direction.

“The enemy is firing one bullet, and you are responding with dozens!” their commander, Col. Khalil Jawad, screamed into his radio in frustration. “Aim, then fire!”

A minute later, the militants melted away. On this day in early December in the southern province of Helmand, they had delivered their message: The Taliban is back, its fighters showing a battle discipline and initiative far superior to the Afghan security forces trained and equipped by the United States.

In private, top Afghan and American officials have begun to voice increasingly grim assessments of the resurgent Taliban threat, most notably in a previously undisclosed transcript of a late-October meeting of the Afghan National Security Council.

“We have not met the people’s expectations. We haven’t delivered,” Abdullah Abdullah, the country’s chief executive, told the high-level gathering. “Our forces lack discipline. They lack rotation opportunities. We haven’t taken care of our own policemen and soldiers. They continue to absorb enormous casualties.”

[Please refer to map here.]

With control of — or a significant presence in — roughly 30 percent of districts across the nation, according to Western and Afghan officials, the Taliban now holds more territory than in any year since 2001, when the puritanical Islamists were ousted from power after the 9/11 attacks. For now, the top American and Afghan priority is preventing Helmand, largely secured by U.S. Marines and British forces in 2012, from again falling to the insurgency.

As of last month, about 7,000 members of the Afghan security forces had been killed this year, with 12,000 injured, a 26 percent increase over the total number of dead and wounded in all of 2014, said a Western official with access to the most recent NATO statistics. Attrition rates are soaring. Deserters and injured Afghan soldiers say they are fighting a more sophisticated and well-armed insurgency than they have seen in years.

As of last month, about 7,000 members of the Afghan security forces had been killed this year, with 12,000 injured, a 26 percent increase over the total number of dead and wounded in all of 2014, said a Western official with access to the most recent NATO statistics. Attrition rates are soaring. Deserters and injured Afghan soldiers say they are fighting a more sophisticated and well-armed insurgency than they have seen in years.

As Afghan security forces struggle, U.S. Special Operations troops are increasingly being deployed into harm’s way to assist their Afghan counterparts. Since Nov. 4, four members of the U.S.-led coalition have been wounded in Helmand, said U.S. Army Col. Michael Lawhorn, a military spokesman. Officially, U.S. military personnel have a mandate only “to train, advise and assist” Afghan forces.

In the confidential October meeting, Gen. John F. Campbell, the commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, told his Afghan counterparts that he was as guilty as they were of “just putting our finger in the dike in Helmand.”

But he was highly critical of Afghan security officials for “not managing” their forces in a way that ensured they got enough training, and for allowing “breakdowns in discipline” in the ranks. “The Taliban are not 10 feet tall,” he said. “You have much more equipment than they do. You’re better trained. It’s all about leadership and accountability.”

Campbell vowed “to fix Helmand.”

“I will use more of my SOF and enablers to buy you more space and time,” he said, referring to Special Operations forces. A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of military rules, said Campbell’s comments represented “an attempt to encourage the Afghans to take action in Helmand province.”

Progress unraveling

Helmand was a key focus in a major American offensive launched in 2010, after President Obama dispatched a “surge” of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Marja was the first place Marines launched operations, and by the end of the surge, in late 2012, the Taliban had been subdued in much of its southern heartland.

Now, the fresh concerns over Helmand arrive at the end of a year in which the Taliban and other insurgent groups, including the Islamic State, have steadily advanced, particularly in the north. They have taken advantage of the end of the U.S. and NATO combat mission, which has left a military and political vacuum, forcing Obama to extend the U.S. role by keeping at least 5,500 U.S. troops here after he leaves office.

A Pakistani military operation has also flushed hundreds of well-trained foreign fighters into Afghanistan, bolstering the Taliban and the Islamic State.

Meanwhile, the government is grappling with its own problems. The economy is crippled; high unemployment and corruption remain entrenched, breeding public resentment. Political infighting, policy disputes and leadership woes have deepened inside the administration of President Ashraf Ghani, who shares power with Abdullah, the chief executive. The cabinet remains incomplete, with no defense minister as the security issues become more serious.

The gains by the Taliban have come amid internal divisions and a leadership crisis triggered by the surprise announcement in the summer that its leader, Mohammad Omar, had been dead for more than two years. The contest for power and territory among Taliban factions, rather than weakening the movement, has spawned more uncertainty and violence.

The group’s infighting has blocked efforts by Ghani to bring the Taliban to peace talks. The insurgents’ new leader, Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, appears determined to prove his mettle and strengthen the Taliban’s bargaining position by escalating attacks, Western diplomats and analysts said. In September, the Taliban briefly seized Kunduz, the first city to fall since the demise of its regime, prompting the U.S. military to dispatch Special Operations troops and stage airstrikes to help the Afghan security forces retake control.

Now, the insurgents are on the doorsteps of several provincial capitals, applying more pressure on urban areas than in any year of the conflict. The clashes in Helmand have reflected the Taliban strategy that led to the takeover of Kunduz — seizing surrounding districts before moving in on the provincial capital. Already, the Taliban are in the enclave of Ba­baji, within the borders of Helmand’s capital, Lashkar Gah.

Helmand, which lies along the Pakistani border, is the source of much of the country’s opium, providing lucrative funding for the insurgents, who also collect “taxes” from the marble mining business. The province is home to the Kajaki Dam, which provides electricity to Helmand and to neighboring Kandahar, the cradle of the Taliban. In some districts, electricity bills are paid to the Taliban.

In the Afghan National Security Council meeting, Rahmatullah Nabil, the nation’s intelligence chief, described the province as “the biggest recruiting tool for the Taliban” and its “primary source of revenue.” Nabil resigned Dec. 10 to protest Ghani’s peace overtures to Pakistan, which is viewed with suspicion by most Afghans for its backing of the Taliban.

Losing control of Helmand

The 21-mile-long road from Lashkar Gah to Marja is peppered with craters from bombs planted by the Taliban. Stores are shuttered; villages are silent. The residents have fled.

A mile from a civil-order police base, built by U.S. Marines for $17 million, a charred, mangled Humvee lies in the middle of the highway. A rocket-propelled grenade tore into it, and the Taliban later set it afire. On a recent day, the base was as far as anyone could go, at least by road: Less than a mile ahead, the Taliban had buried more mines.

“They have destroyed bridges. They have burned our houses,” Ghul Mawla Malang, a tribal elder who leads Marja’s Afghan Local Police (ALP), a U.S.-funded pro-government militia, told top police commanders in a meeting at the base.

A few minutes later, the Taliban fired a few rounds toward the base. The senior officials cut short their visit and left in their Humvees.

If there was one province in Afghanistan that the Taliban should have found impenetrable, it was Helmand. The Afghan army has its entire215th Corps based here, numbering more than 18,000 soldiers. There are also thousands of Afghan police officers. Yet a few hundred Taliban fighters managed to overrun parts of Marja and other districts. Soldiers and police officers fled with little resistance or surrendered to the insurgents.

In Babaji, nine police officers including Abdul Qadim Hemat were unprepared last month when the Taliban fighters attacked their outpost. They were running out of ammunition. And reinforcements they had requested never turned up. “I watched seven comrades killed in front of me,” recalled Hemat, who soon fled along with the remaining officer. Both then deserted.

“We were surrounded, but we didn’t get any help,” Hemat said. “I will not shoot one bullet for the government again.”

In parts of Marja, villagers pine for U.S. troops — and the British forces who were once based here — to return.

“When they were here, Marja was as peaceful as this city,” said Ahmed Jan, who was bringing his 13-year-old nephew to a hospital in Lashkar Gah. A bullet had struck the boy in their village during fighting. “Now, the Taliban are like the government in my village. They drive police vehicles and Humvees, and they have raised their white flag over houses.”

A well-equipped enemy

In an interview, Gen. Mohammed Moeen Faqir, the commander of the 215th Corps, said that “only half of a percent” of his force may have deserted and that new recruits were filling the void. He noted that the police and ALP forces in Helmand were also under his command and that “whenever they needed reinforcements, I sent them.”

But the confidential transcript of the minutes from the National Security Council meeting presents a grimmer picture.

The Afghan army’s chief of staff, Gen. Qadam Shah Shaheem, said that limited reinforcements and new recruits couldn’t make up for force attrition in Helmand, according to the transcript, which was provided to The Washington Post by an official concerned by the insecurity in Helmand.

Some 40 percent of Afghan army vehicles in Helmand are broken, Shaheem said. He described a leadership crisis within the security forces, where “clashing personalities exist between the security pillars,” according to the transcript.

The morale of the security forces was low, said Nabil, the intelligence chief, and some soldiers had complained that they had not been home in two years. Junior commanders, he added, were “openly defying their superiors.” Gen. Mohammad Salem Ehsas, the top ALP commander, said that troops were tired and that there was poor coordination among the various security organs.

Campbell said that only about half the troop positions in the 215th Corps were manned. Western and Afghan officials said that was largely because of desertions, high casualty rates and a lack of new recruits.

“The blame game must stop now,” Campbell said. “If I hear one more policeman complain about the army or vice versa, I will pull my advisers immediately. It’s over. You’re Afghans first. Work together.”

Soldiers and police officers on the front lines say they face an enemy that is well trained and equipped with heavy artillery and machine guns, rockets and mortars — and a seemingly endless supply of ammunition. Taliban snipers now have night-vision scopes on their rifles. And as they have overrun bases, the militants have seized an arsenal of U.S. weaponry provided to the Afghans.

Nabil said the insurgents have night-vision goggles and have captured more than 45 Humvees in Helmand. They also have Russian-made ZSU antiaircraft guns with night capability, an abundant supply of mortars and a communications network that is difficult to infiltrate.

Stakes grow higher

U.S. Special Operations troops arrived in early November at an empty school in Chanjar, a front line about 15 miles west of the provincial capital. The walls of the compound bore the impact of shells the size of baseballs. A group of soldiers and police officers was stationed there. Taliban militants were in houses less than 20 yards away.

“The Americans told us that they wanted to push the Taliban back,” recalled Sgt. Abdul Mohamad. “They were here to give coordinates for an airstrike.”

But the Taliban fired a mortar, the men said, wounding one of the Americans. The Americans quickly left the area, in Nad Ali district, with their injured comrade.

Lawhorn, the U.S. military spokesman, confirmed that a U.S. coalition member was injured in the district Nov. 4.

Brig. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, the U.S. military’s top spokesman, said in an interview that U.S. troops were adhering to their limited mandate of “train, advise and assist” and that their Afghan counterparts were taking the lead.

But Afghans, including senior military officials, no longer even pretend that they can fight the Taliban effectively on their own.

“When the foreigners were here, we had plenty of facilities and equipment,” said 1st Lt. Naseer Ahmad Sahel, 30, a civil-order police company commander who was wounded last month in a firefight in Marja. “There were 100 cameras overlooking Marja alone.”

Faqir, the commander of the 215th Corps, said, “We don’t have the air support that we should have.”

As the fighting intensifies, the stakes are growing higher for the United States in its longest war. “I will not allow Helmand to fall,” Campbell told the Afghan officials in the recent meeting with the Afghan National Security Council. “But I can’t make you fight. You’ve got to want it more than we do.”

Categories: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Taliban, U.S. Military
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Naming the Muslim Brotherhood a National Security Threat

December 28, 2015

Naming the Muslim Brotherhood a National Security Threat, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, December 28, 2015

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The Muslim Brotherhood is to Islamic terrorism what a virus is to disease. Major terrorist leaders from the Caliph of ISIS to Arafat have the Muslim Brotherhood on their resume. And the current leader of Al Qaeda led a Muslim Brotherhood splinter terror group. But its linkages to Islamic terrorism are only a secondary aspect of the organization whose focus is on Islamizing nations through more subtle means.

Paradoxically the Brotherhood has met with far less success in the Muslim world than in the West. Its greatest victories in the Arab Spring would not have happened without Obama’s backing and its takeovers of Egypt and Tunisia were rolled back by popular uprisings while its efforts in Libya, Syria and Yemen were stymied by armed conflict with other Muslims.

The Muslim Brotherhood is unpopular in Egypt these days. It’s also unpopular with Americans.

In one poll, 61 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of the Muslim Brotherhood. Only 11 percent had a positive view of the Islamic supremacist organization. Only 5 percent of Americans saw the Muslim Brotherhood’s takeover of Egypt as a positive development.

Unfortunately Obama is at odds with the views of most Americans. The Muslim Brotherhood may have lost power in Cairo, but it still wields a great deal of power in Washington D.C. Brotherhood front groups such as CAIR and ISNA have open access to the media and dominate all discussions about Islam. The MSA dominates American campuses despite its history of terror ties.

As David Horowitz has warned, “The principal institutions of Islam in this country, the Muslim American Society, the Muslim Students Association, the Islamic Society of North America, to name a few — are all fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood.”

But not every country is equally willing to roll over for the Muslim Brotherhood’s hate network.

The Muslim Brotherhood headquarters was in London, but while Washington D.C. panders to the violent Islamic supremacist organization, the UK decided it did not want to host its Jihad. Last year, the British government authorized a report on the Muslim Brotherhood by veteran diplomat Sir John Jenkins. The report has been submitted to parliament and it’s making waves.

The British government report defines “aspects of Muslim Brotherhood ideology and tactics” as “contrary to our national interests and our national security.”  It’s a striking contrast with a White House where the Muslim Brotherhood has its own revolving door and a rogue’s gallery of operatives.

Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the United States have been allowed to dismantle our counterterrorism training and replace it with Islamist propaganda. Even now, Obama pushes Countering Violent Extremism programs that encourage law enforcement to partner with Brotherhood front groups. Secretary of State Kerry urges including the Muslim Brotherhood in the political process.

Meanwhile the UK government has stepped forward to assert that the Muslim Brotherhood is not the solution to terrorism, instead it’s the source of the problem.

The Jenkins report rejects the “moderate” label so often slapped on the hate group by lazy media hacks. Instead it describes the Brotherhood as a clandestine group organized into a “secretive ‘cell’ structure” seeking to create a “Caliphate under sharia law” using a doctrine that allows “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society”. That ideology inspired “Al Qaida and its offshoots”. The most obvious offshoot to employ this Takfiri approach is ISIS.

It’s quite a contrast from the claim by Obama’s Director of National Intelligence that the Muslim Brotherhood is a “very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence”.

The British report rejects the idea that the Brotherhood is peaceful. Instead it states that it is prepared to engage in violence, but prefers “incremental change on the grounds of expediency” because it believes that the “political opposition will disappear when the process of Islamisation is complete”.

The Muslim Brotherhood is not moderate or peaceful. It just thinks long term. Its endgame is the same as ISIS. It just has a slower and surer way of getting there. As fellow Islamist dictator Erdogan once said in Turkey, democracy is “a train that takes you to your destination, and then you get off.”

The British report takes a hard look at the Muslim Brotherhood’s support for Hamas and its local organizations in the UK. It notes that, “much about the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK remains secretive, including membership, fund raising and educational programmes” but that its front groups “which have claimed to represent Muslim communities” wield “an influence here which is disproportionate to their size”.

It’s a vital observation that can’t even be voiced in the Senate here, let alone in the media or the White House. It is utterly inconceivable that Obama and Hillary, who have fought wars on behalf of the Brotherhood, would ever be willing to authorize the creation of a similar report on the Brotherhood.

And yet such a report is desperately needed. The Muslim Brotherhood’s front groups have hijacked our foreign policy, involved us in foreign wars, endangered our national security and undermined our ability to fight terrorism. They promote a program of mass Muslim migration while pushing anti-American agendas with the ultimate aim of destroying the Constitution and replacing it with Islamic law.

Changes are already taking places in the UK after the release of the Brotherhood report. The Board of Deputies of the Jewish community distanced itself from the Brotherhood’s Muslim Council of Britain. While the government will not currently ban the Brotherhood, Prime Minister Cameron has stated that “membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism”. That may sound mild, but it should be contrasted with the position of Democrats and even some Republicans in this country that the Muslim Brotherhood is our best friend.

Prime Minister Cameron warned that the Muslim Brotherhood is “a transnational network, with links in the UK, and national organisations in and outside the Islamic world. The movement is deliberately opaque, and habitually secretive.” He stated that “it has been a rite of passage for some individuals and groups who have gone on to engage in violence and terrorism.” He concluded that aspects of its activities “run counter to British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, equality and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.”

This is a major development not only for the UK, but for the US where any criticism of the Islamic hate network has been banished as Islamophobic. The British finding is an important weapon in our own struggle with the Brotherhood and its collaborators on the left and the right.

Cameron has warned that the UK will keep a close watch to see “whether the views and activities of the Muslim Brotherhood meet the legal test for proscription.” This is a clear warning to the Brotherhood not to abuse the hospitality of the UK or face government action. By taking this step, the UK is joining a diverse group of countries, from Egypt to the UAE to Israel, in confronting the Muslim Brotherhood.

Obama insists that his critics are isolated, but his affinity for the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the elements that isolated his foreign policy even in the Muslim world. Western countries are beginning to wake up to the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood and his CVE policy will one day go down in history as a shameless whitewashing of a violently bigoted organization that has endangered our national security.

The UK has found that the Muslim Brotherhood is a national security threat. It’s time for Republicans and Democrats to start speaking the truth about the Brotherhood.

Categories: Britain, CAIR, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamophobia, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and Islam, Obama's America
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Headlines Ignore Palestinian Terrorism

December 28, 2015

It’s not so hard to write a headline like “Palestinian Terrorists Kill Israelis.”

Yet for some reason, so many headlines blur the lines between attackers and victims when it comes to Israel.

This vid details how we can FIGHT BACK against this media distortion.

–  JW

 

–

Categories: Uncategorized

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IDF Commando Brigade unveiled amid threats from Nasrallah and Al-Baghdadi

December 28, 2015

IDF Commando Brigade unveiled amid threats from Nasrallah and Al-Baghdadi, DEBKAfile, December 27, 2015, December 27, 2015

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IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gady Eisenkott explained why it was necessary to bring forward the launching of the new Commando Brigade by two months, when he addressed the formation ceremony on Sunday, Dec. 27, at the Ein Harod National Park: “The Commando Brigade is more necessary than ever in light of the threats from Hizballah and the Islamic State,” he said, in reference to the boasts heard in the last 48 hours from Hassan Nasrallah and Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.

The Chief of Staff introduced Col. David Zini as the first commander of the new Brigade.

The ceremony took place shortly after the Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah said, “Revenge for the death of Samir Quntar is on the way… The orders have been given and execution is in the hands of resistance fighters on the ground… The Israelis are worried and rightly so – those on the borders [soldiers] and those inside the country…. We shall not let the blood of our Jihadi fighters and brothers to be spilled anywhere in the world,” he said.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report: Analysis of the kinds of threats posed by Hizballah (and ISIS) at this time, which are likely to focus more on terrorism than on tank or infantry border incursions, persuaded IDF leaders of the need for a new framework for bringing under one roof some of the top-notch, highly-trained, experienced, well-armed and determined fighting men who are willing to take on new challenges.

The self-styled Islamic State’s “caliph” Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, also devoted special attention to Israel, or rather “the Jews,” in his first audio speech in seven months Saturday, Dec. 26, the day before Nasrallah sounded off. His message was similar to that of his Shiite enemy, albeit in his own inimitable style:

The Islamic State would soon be in Palestine to establish an Islamic state there, he said, “Jews, soon you shall hear from us in Palestine which will become your grave… The Jews thought we had forgotten Palestinian… Not at all, Jews…The pioneers of the jihadist fighters are getting closer every day.”

If and when the Shiite Hizballah and Sunni ISIS make good on their similar but separate threats – or sooner – they will encounter Israel’s new Commando Brigade. Its fighting men are trained for combat in miscellaneous conditions of terrain, day or night, under deep cover. They are equipped with high-tech equipment, most of it classified, for gathering visual and electronic intelligence, communications, photography and targeting. They may either kill terrorists or take them captive.

In a word, these elite troops will hit the enemy in his back yard or at home, and blow the threats heard from Hizballah and ISIS leaders’ back on their own forces.

The 89th Commando Brigade is composed of four battalions:

Duvdevan specializes in operating amidst an Arab population under deep cover for locating and arresting terror suspects.

Egoz is a special kind of infantry battalion, whose commandos operate solo or in very small teams behind enemy lines, especially across the Syrian and Lebanese borders.

Maglan is skilled in the use of weaponry designed for precision operations against high quality enemy targets. These elite fighters go deep inside enemy territory to gather intelligence and use their specialized technology, exclusive for the use of this unit, for devastating assaults.

Rimon members are desert fighters who gained their experience in the terrain of the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Their experience as back-up for operations against drug smugglers is invaluable for urban combat in civilian environments.

Excluded from the new brigade are the separate IDF commando units: Sayeret Matkal, Shayetet 13 (Navy), the Oketz unit which trains dogs for anti-terror work, and Yahalom, of the Engineering Corps.

Categories: Hezbollah, IDF, Islamic State, Israel
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British Universities have Gone Crazy too

December 27, 2015

British Universities have Gone Crazy too. Why? Power Line, John Hinderaker, December 27, 2015

Italian journalist Giulio Menotti documents the madness that has overtaken British universities–a madness that is eerily familiar:

“Rhodes Must Fall” cry the students and professors outside Oxford, many of whom are themselves part of the Rhodes Scholarship group, the program built by the “racist” tycoon to allow foreign students to study at Oxford.

It’s exactly like students at Amherst and Harvard denouncing Jeffrey Amherst and Isaac Royall.

Meanwhile, across the UK, a general air of hostility is spreading against opinions that could cause even only a hint of distress in students, forcing theFinancial Times to publish an editorial: “It is in the interest of universities to maintain a free and fertile academic environment.”

Ditto in the U.S.

Iranian dissident Maryam Lamaze … was attacked and prevented from speaking at many UK colleges, like Goldsmiths and Warwick. Her hymn against religion and for Western free speech “offended” British students of Islamic faith.

At University College in London, a former student, Macer Gifford, was prevented from telling his experience in the ranks of Kurdish fighters committed to battle against the Islamic State. The reason? “In every conflict there are two sides and our college does not want to take sides.”

Should we be anti-ISIS? That’s too close a question for universities in Britain, as in the U.S., to call.

The University of East Anglia has just banned the use of the sombrero, because it is considered hateful towards Hispanic students.

Just like the recent fiasco at Yale. It’s odd, though. Doesn’t every kind of hat originate with one culture or another, and mustn’t all hats therefore be banned? And why stop with hats?

Oxford has canceled a debate on abortion, because women’s organizations had complained about the presence, among the speakers, of “a person without a uterus.” Don’t laugh, it is really happening at the university founded in 1096.

Don’t laugh, because feminists don’t have a sense of humor, either here or in the U.K.

The University of Cardiff has tried to remove the feminist Germaine Greer, “guilty” of not considering women and transsexuals as equals.

Transsexuals, slightly more common than unicorns, have opened up whole new horizons of insanity.

Meanwhile, these British “safe spaces” are used by apologists for Islamist cutthroats who gather support and are affiliated with these universities (“Jihadi John”, the late Isis executioner, was a brilliant student of Westminster).

I hadn’t realized that. Apparently “brilliant” students aren’t what they used to be.

Some days ago, the Telegraph published an article entitled: “The ideology of the ISIS dominates British universities.”

Why are so many students and professors attracted to evil? It was true in the 1930s, too, when German students and professors were among the most enthusiastic supporters of National Socialism, and when Nazis were weirdly popular–as it seems today–on many American campuses.

The same universities that are uncomfortable accommodating heterodox feminists and Islamic dissidents, such as the Queen Mary University of London, allow events under the banner of Islam where women sit separated from men, in accordance with the Sharia or Islamic law, as if they were in Riyadh or Tehran.

Because that’s diversity.

Muslim activist for women’s rights, Maryam Namazie, has been driven away by fanatic Islamists with the approval of the stupid gay militants. In British colleges it was Namazie who needed a “safe space” to deliver her speech, protected by bodyguards….

Much like the treatment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Michelle Malkin here in the United States. And finally:

Meanwhile, British professors, writers, musicians, intellectuals and professionals are busy promoting initiatives to boycott the Jewish State and its professors.

All of this is nauseatingly familiar. My question is: why? Why have British universities gone off the rails in precisely the same ways as American universities? Steve has referred to the “spreading virus” of madness on American campuses, but the virus has apparently replicated itself in England. Why?

I mean the question seriously. Have British students and professors taken inspiration from their American cousins? Or vice versa? Is it because Leftism is an international movement? Do left-wing British professors and students, like their American counterparts, hate the society that sustains them, and does their hatred produce eerily similar symptoms? I don’t know the answer to these questions. But a contagion is loose that transcends, apparently, international boundaries.

Categories: Britain, Education, Freedom of speech, Fundamentalist Islam, Islam, Islamic culture, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic perversions, Islamic supremacy, Islamic tolerance, Islamophobia, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Political correctness
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Islam: Hate, Honor, Women’s Rights and Congress

December 27, 2015

Islam: Hate, Honor, Women’s Rights and Congress, Dan Miller’s Blog, December 27, 2015

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

A pro-Islamist resolution, HR 569, was introduced in Congress and referred to the Judiciary Committee on December 17th. Although it is quite unlikely that a binding law implementing the resolution will be enacted anytime soon, the resolution shows that troublesome views are held by many members of Congress.

The fight for the rights of women is among the most difficult aspects of the fight against Islam and Islamisation. The views expressed in HR 569, if implemented, would make that fight even more difficult.

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Here is a list of the seventy-four members who supported H.R. 569:

Mr. Beyer (for himself, Mr. Honda, Mr. Ellison, Mr. Crowley, Mr. Carson of Indiana, Ms. Norton, Ms. McCollum, Ms.Kaptur, Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, Mr. Kildee, Ms. Loretta Sanchez of California, Mr. Rangel, Mr. Peters, Mr. Ashford, Mr. Grayson, Mr. Takai, Mr. Higgins, Mr. Keating, Mr. Grijalva, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Mr.Butterfield, Mr. Connolly, Mr. Gallego, Mrs. Bustos, Mr. Delaney, Ms. Castor of Florida, Mr. Gutiérrez, Mr. Quigley, Ms. Esty, Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Kelly of Illinois, Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, Mr. Meeks, Ms. Meng, Mr. Al Green of Texas, Ms. Clark of Massachusetts, Mr. Schiff, Mr. Hastings, Mr. Farr, Mr. Pallone, Mr. McDermott, Ms. Lee, Ms. Edwards, Mr. Brady of Pennsylvania, Ms. Wilson of Florida, Mr. Michael F. Doyle of Pennsylvania, Mr. Sires, Ms. DelBene, Ms. Judy Chu of California, Mr. Polis, Mr. Loebsack, Mr. Pascrell, Mrs.Dingell, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Hinojosa, Mr. Yarmuth, Ms. Tsongas, Mr. Langevin, Mr. Pocan, Mr.Conyers, Mr. Takano, Mr. Ryan of Ohio, Mr. Serrano, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Mr. Tonko, Ms. Lofgren, Mr. Van Hollen, Mrs. Capps, Mr. Price of North Carolina, Ms. Matsui, Ms. Moore, and Mr. Heck of Washington) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

Edward Kline, writing at The Rule of Reason, observes

Many of the usual suspects have endorsed the resolution: Keith Ellison, a Democrat and Muslim from Minnesota; Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Democrat and chairman of the Democratic National Committee; Charles Rangel, New York Democrat; and Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida. Most of the other endorsers’ names I do not recognize. They are all termites who have made careers of eating away at the rule of law and “transforming” America from a Western nation into a multicultural, welfare-statist, politically correct stewpot of no particular character. [Emphasis added.]

The full text of the bill is provided here. It praises Muslims for their “contributions” to America, in much the same way that Obama did in His June 4, 2009 Cairo speech in which He opined:

[S]ince our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers – Thomas Jefferson – kept in his personal library.

. . . .

I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. [Emphasis added.]

A problem with Obama’s stated desire to deal with Islam as it is, not as it isn’t, is that His perceptions of what it is and what it isn’t are essentially backward.

The House Resolution does not mention such Muslim “contributions” to America as those made at Ford Hood, Texas several years ago or those more recently made at San Bernardino, California. Nor does it mention their “contributions” of honor killings and female genital mutilation, about which more is provided later in this post. It bemoans the disparagements some Muslims have suffered due to their “contributions” and others simply because they are Muslims.

Here’s a particularly disturbing part of the bill, set forth under “Resolved:”

The House of Representatives

(3) denounces in the strongest terms the increase of hate speech, intimidation, violence, vandalism, arson, and other hate crimes targeted against mosques, Muslims, or those perceived to be Muslim; [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

(6) urges local and Federal law enforcement authorities to work to prevent hate crimes; and to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those perpetrators of hate crimes; [Emhasis added.]

Note the inclusion in (3) of “hate speech” as a “hate crime.”

According to the American Bar Association,

Hate speech is speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other traits. Should hate speech be discouraged? The answer is easy—of course! However, developing such policies runs the risk of limiting an individual’s ability to exercise free speech. When a conflict arises about which is more important—protecting community interests or safeguarding the rights of the individual—a balance must be found that protects the civil rights of all without limiting the civil liberties of the speaker. [Emphasis added.]

In this country there is no right to speak fighting words—those words without social value, directed to a specific individual, that would provoke a reasonable member of the group about whom the words are spoken. For example, a person cannot utter a racial or ethnic epithet to another if those words are likely to cause the listener to react violently. However, under the First Amendment, individuals do have a right to speech that the listener disagrees with and to speech that is offensive and hateful. [Emphasis added.]

Hate speech, fighting words and hate crimes

HR 569’s apparent inclusion of anti-Muslim “hate speech” as a “hate crime” is inconsistent with American law and the American Constitution. However, it is consistent with Attorney General Lynch’s remarks shortly after the December 2nd San Bernardino Islamic attack. She then

complained that the First Amendment allows people to say hateful things and noted that many do so from the safety of their computer keyboard. It’s something, she said, the DoJ would “take action” against, especially when that speech “edges towards violence, when we see the potential to lift…that mantle of anti-Muslim rhetoric.”  [Emphasis added.]

Later, in response to many objections, Ms. Lynch pulled back with this: “Of course, we prosecute deeds and not words.” Really?

Statements such as “Islam is the religion of death” or “Mohamed was a pedophile” could indeed “provoke” a devout Muslim and perhaps “cause” him to react violently. Are such statements “fighting words,” which we have “no right to speak?”

Can “hateful” words be construed as “hateful” actions or “hateful” deeds” and therefore “hate” crimes? Is the following passage from Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book Heretic, “hate” speech? Are her words “fighting words,” which the ABA material quoted above claims we have no right to speak? The quoted paragraph deals with an event in Somalia. However, she now lives in America, her books are sold in America and could offend devout Muslims in America.

In my homeland of Somalia, a thirteen-year-old girl reported that she had been gang-raped by three men. The Al-Shabaab militia that then controlled her town of Kismayo, a port city in the south, responded by accusing her of adultery, found her guilty, and sentenced her to death. Her execution was announced in the morning from a loudspeaker blaring from a Toyota pickup truck. At the local soccer stadium, Al-Shabaab loyalists dug a hole in the ground and brought in a truckload of rocks. A crowd of one thousand gathered in the hours leading up to 4: 00 p.m. Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow— named after the Prophet Muhammad’s nine-year-old wife— was dragged, screaming and flailing, into the stadium.  It took four men to bury her up to her neck in the hole. Then fifty men spent ten minutes pelting her with rocks and stones. After the ten minutes had passed, there was a pause. She was dug out of the ground and two nurses examined her to see if she was still alive. Someone found a pulse and breathing. Aisha was returned to the hole and the stoning continued. One man who tried to intervene was shot; an eight-year-old boy was also killed by the militia. Afterward, a local sheik told a radio station that Aisha had provided evidence, confirmed her guilt, and “was happy with the punishment under Islamic law.” [Emphasis added.]

She related that incident to point out that that sort of thing is, unfortunately, both Islamic and  common. It is both, as indicated later in this article. Where, other than in Islamic lands, does it happen? Perhaps writing, publishing or selling any book that disparages the present condition of Islam “as it is” according to Obama, and seeks the reformation of what Obama insists upon calling the religion of peace and tolerance now, could be considered a “hate” crime. After all,

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, condemned [Ayaan Hirsi Ali as] “one of the worst of the worst of the Islam haters in America, not only in America but worldwide.”

Neither HR 569, nor a criminal law based on it, will likely be passed anytime soon by either house of Congress. However, the mere introduction of such a bill, supported by seventy-four House members, is disturbing enough. It’s part of our multicultural, politically correct march for moral equivalence which ignores our —  Judeo-Christian versus Islamic — distinctions between what is good and what is evil.

Was it good or evil to stone a thirteen-year-old Somali girl to death for her “crime” of having been raped by a gang of young men? Being raped was deemed to be her crime of adultery. Was her inability, and hence failure, to prevent her rape more or less evil than stoning her to death or, indeed, the rape itself? Few if any sane westerners would have difficulty answering such questions. Muslims? That’s different.

According to Ayaan Hirsi Ali and other current and former Muslims, Muslims are taught about “honor” from infancy. However, Islamic conceptions of “honor” are very different from Judeo-Christian conceptions. In Islam, “honor” consists of honoring one’s family and clan, and thereby Mohamed and Allah. “Adultery” by a woman dishonors her husband, family, her clan, Mohamed and Allah. It does so even if her “adultery” consisted of being raped. It warrants death by stoning. To react “dishonorably” by not imposing such punishments would be a weakness which would dishonor them all.

Those women are not fighting for free birth control, abortions or even health care. Nor are they fighting for safe spaces against microaggressions or where unpleasant views cannot be heard. They are fighting for the most important “women’s rights,” absent under Islam. Has Obama ever spoken about the work those and other brave women are doing or why they are doing it? If so, I am not aware of it. American “feminists,” other American women and men? Europeans? If they are not, and I am not aware of many who are, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Iran — now our great partner for nuclear peace — stones lots of people.

[W]hile certain stoning-related passages have been removed from Iran’s new penal code, other passages in the new code refer to stoning, and stoning remains as a possible form of punishment under the new Iranian penal code.

Amnesty International has documented 76 cases of lethal stoning between 1980-1989 in Iran, while the International Committee Against Execution (ICAE) has reported that 74 others were stoned to death in Iran between 1990-2009.

Is Iran better than the Taliban? Here’s a video, with the obligatory remarks that stoning adulterers is mandated by the Bible and denials that this sort of thing is either widespread or Islamic.

Great. Should the Taliban be given a pathway to “the bomb?”

Pakistan?

Pakistan already has nukes. Should we help her to get more and better nukes?

Saudi Arabia, our gallant Islamist Salifast ally, has interesting variations in its punishments for crimes against Islam.

Saudi Arabia has a criminal justice system based on a hardline and literal form of Shari’ah law reflecting a particular state-sanctioned interpretation of Islam.

The death penalty can be imposed for a wide range of offences[4] including murder, rape, false prophecy, blasphemy, armed robbery, repeated drug use, apostasy,[5] adultery,[6] witchcraft and sorcery[7][8][9][10] and can be carried out by beheading with a sword,[11] or more rarely by firing squad, and sometimes by stoning.[12][13]  [Emphasis added.]

The 345 reported executions between 2007 and 2010 were all carried out by public beheading.[14] The last reported execution for sorcery took place in August 2014.[15][16] There were no reports of stoning between 2007 and 2010,[14] but between 1981 and 1992 there were four cases of execution by stoning reported.[17]

Crucifixion of the beheaded body is sometimes ordered.[7] For example, in 2009, the Saudi Gazette reported that “An Abha court has sentenced the leader of an armed gang to death and three-day crucifixion (public displaying of the beheaded body) and six other gang members to beheading for their role in jewelry store robberies in Asir.”[18] (This practice resembles gibbeting, in which the entire body is displayed).

In 2003, Muhammad Saad al-Beshi, whom the BBC described as “Saudi Arabia’s leading executioner”, gave a rare interview to Arab News.[5] He described his first execution in 1998: “The criminal was tied and blindfolded. With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled metres away…People are amazed how fast [the sword] can separate the head from the body.”[5] He also said that before an execution he visits the victim’s family to seek forgiveness for the criminal, which can lead to the criminal’s life being spared.[5] Once an execution goes ahead, his only conversation with the prisoner is to tell him or her to recite the Muslim declaration of belief, the Shahada.[5] “When they get to the execution square, their strength drains away. Then I read the execution order, and at a signal I cut the prisoner’s head off,” he said.[5]

As of 2003, executions have not been announced in advance. They can take place any day of the week, and they often generate large crowds. Photography and video of the executions is also forbidden, although there have been numerous cases of photographed and videoed executions in . . . spite of the law against them.

Europe is different

In Germany, the rape victim most likely will not be stoned to death for the offense of being raped.

Sweden?

Conclusions

“Honor killings” and other Islamic infringements on women’s rights in general are becoming more common in America. It has been estimated that there are twenty-seven honor killings in America each year. That estimate is probably low, because

Honor killings and violence, which typically see men victimize wives and daughters because of behavior that has somehow insulted their faith, are among the most secretive crimes in society, say experts. [Emphasis added.]

“Cases of honor killings and/or violence in the U.S. are often unreported because of the shame it can cause to the victim and the victim’s family,” Farhana Qazi, a former U.S. government analyst and senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism, told FoxNews.com. “Also, because victims are often young women, they may feel that reporting the crime to authorities will draw too much attention to the family committing the crime.” [Emphasis added.]

Even cases that appear to be honor killings, such as the Jan. 1, 2008 murder of two Irving, Texas, sisters that landed their father on the FBI’s most wanted list, cannot always be conclusively linked to a religious motivation. Without hard evidence, critics say, ascribing a religious motivation to crimes committed by Muslims demeans Islam. Yet, federal authorities believe they must be able to identify “honor” as a motive for violence and even murder if they are to address a growing cultural problem. [Emphasis added.]

Doesn’t alleging an Islamic motivation for any crime “demean” Islam?

The report, which estimated that 23-27 honor killings per year occur in the U.S., noted that 91 percent of victims in North America are murdered for being “too Westernized,” and in incidents involving daughters 18 years or younger, a father is almost always involved. And for every honor killing, there are many more instances of physical and emotional abuse, all in the name of fundamentalist Islam, say experts. [Emphasis added.]

America is slowly falling under the domination of Islam. Will the “Titanic effect” soothe us into believing that it can’t, and therefore won’t, happen in America? It’s

an aspect of human nature that denies the enormity of any disaster where death is imminent because the mantra of its impossibility was accepted and believed by all. Regarding the Titanic, it was touted as the largest and the safest ship ever built (true at that time) … it is unsinkable (false, nothing man builds is disaster free). When the mantra is believed by all, including the builders … the designers who did not provide adequate life boats … the passengers and crew whose minds denied acceptance of the reality of disaster and peril as incomprehensible. This denial continued even while the disaster was unfolding. They either would not or could not admit or acknowledge the imminence of their peril of floundering in the icy cold sea of the North Atlantic. [Emphasis added.]

It can happen in America, America is already moving in that direction and will arrive there unless we prevent it. Are American feminists working on the problems? Very few, at most.

Categories: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Feminists, Freedom of speech, Fundamentalist Islam, Heresy, Honor killings, Human rights, Islam and cruelty, Islam and women, Islamic honor, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic perversions, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamophobia, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Muslim assimilation, Obama and Islam, Reform Islam, U.S. Congress
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