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Obama: My Worst Mistake Was Not Planning For Day After Libya Intervention

April 10, 2016

Obama: My Worst Mistake Was Not Planning For Day After Libya Intervention, Washington Free Beacon,  , April 10, 2016

(Let me count the . . . . DM)

Obama recently blamed French and British leaders in Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic article for causing the chaos in Libya today by ignoring the country after the initial intervention.

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President Barack Obama said Sunday that his biggest failure as president was not planning for the aftermath of the 2011 intervention into Libya, after which the country became a failed state in which jihadists groups have gained strong footholds.

“[My worst mistake was] probably failing to plan for the day after for what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya,” Obama said on Fox News Sunday.

In 2011, the U.S. joined a multi-state coalition of European and Arab countries to intervene militarily in Libya. The intervention was meant to prevent Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out attacks against civilians.

Hillary Clinton was the primary advocate for intervening and persuaded a reluctant presidential cabinet to support the effort.

Obama let the Europeans take the lead with military operations in what he termed as an American strategy of “leading from behind.” Ultimately Gaddafi was killed in October of 2011 and his regime overthrown.

None of the intervening countries followed up with a plan to build a post-Gaddafi Libya, however, and the country steadily descended into chaos.

Several jihadist groups were able to entrench themselves in Libya in the following years, including the Islamic State, which has reportedly doubled its presence in Libya over the past year, causing some American policymakers to call for renewed military action in the North African country.

Obama recently blamed French and British leaders in Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic article for causing the chaos in Libya today by ignoring the country after the initial intervention.

Categories: Foreign policy, Libya, Obama and Libya, Obama's foreign failures
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UK Equalities Chief Who Popularised The Term ‘Islamophobia’ Admits: ‘I Thought Muslims Would Blend into Britain… I Should Have Known Better’

April 10, 2016

UK Equalities Chief Who Popularised The Term ‘Islamophobia’ Admits: ‘I Thought Muslims Would Blend into Britain… I Should Have Known Better’, Breitbart, Raheem Kassam, April 10, 2016

(So soon ve get oldt and so late ve get schmart. — DM)

GettyImages-469698190-640x480Bradford, United Kingdom – Gett

The former head of Britain’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), Trevor Phillips, has admitted he “got almost everything wrong” on Muslim immigration in a damning new report on integration, segregation, and how the followers of Islam are creating “nations within nations” in the West.

Phillips, a former elected member of the Labour Party who served as the Chairman of the EHRC from 2003-2012 will present “What British Muslims Really Think” on Channel 4 on Wednesday. An ICM poll released to the Times ahead of the broadcast reveals: 

  • One in five Muslims in Britain never enter a non-Muslim house;
  • 39 per cent of Muslims, male and female, say a woman should always obey her husband;
  • 31 per cent of British Muslims support the right of a man to have more than one wife;
  • 52 per cent of Muslims did not believe that homosexuality should be legal;
  • 23 per cent of Muslims support the introduction of Sharia law rather than the laws laid down by parliament.

Writing in the Times on the issue, Phillips admits: “Liberal opinion in Britain has, for more than two decades, maintained that most Muslims are just like everyone else… Britain desperately wants to think of its Muslims as versions of the Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain, or the cheeky-chappie athlete Mo Farah. But thanks to the most detailed and comprehensive survey of British Muslim opinion yet conducted, we now know that just isn’t how it is.”

Phillips commissioned “the Runnymede report” into Britain and Islamophobia in 1997 which, according to both Phillips himself and academics across the country, popularised the phrase which has now become synonymous with any criticism – legitimate or not – of Islam or Muslims.

Durham University’s Anthropology Journal noted in 2007: “It has been a decade since the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia was established, a Commission that through its 1997 report, “Islamophobia: a challenge for us all” (“the Runnymede report”) not only raised an awareness of the growing reality of anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic hostility in Britain, but also marked the onset of what might be described as ‘the first decade of Islamophobia’. In doing so, the Runnymede report propelled the word ‘Islamophobia’ into the everyday common parlance and discourses of both the public and political spaces.”

Phillips says his new data shows “a chasm” opening between Muslims and non-Muslims on fundamental issues such as marriage, relations between men and women, schooling, freedom of expression and even the validity of violence in defence of religion. He notes – echoing an article on Breitbart London just two weeks ago which reveals a growing disparity between older and younger Muslims in Britain – that “the gaps between Muslim and non-Muslim youngsters are nearly as large as those between their elders”.

And while he is cautious to note that many Muslims in Britain are grateful to be here, and do identify with role models such as Hussain and Farah, there is a widening gap in society with many Muslims segregating themselves.

“It’s not as though we couldn’t have seen this coming. But we’ve repeatedly failed to spot the warning signs,” he admits.

“Twenty years ago… I published the report titled Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All, we thought that the real risk of the arrival of new communities was discrimination against Muslims. Our 1996 survey of recent incidents showed that there was plenty of it around. But we got almost everything else wrong.”

His comments will come as a blow to those who continue to attack elements in British society who are concerned about Muslim immigration and integration, and in fact may even go some way to shoring up comments made by U.S. Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) seeking to slow down or pause the rate of Muslim immigration into the West.

“We estimated that the Muslim population of the UK would be approaching 2 [million] by 2020. We underestimated by nearly a million. We predicted that the most lethal threat to Muslims would come from racial attacks and social exclusion. We completely failed to foresee the urban conflicts of 2001 that ravaged our northern cities. And of course we didn’t dream of 9/11 and the atrocities in Madrid, Paris, Istanbul, Brussels and London.”

“For a long time, I too thought that Europe’s Muslims would become like previous waves of migrants, gradually abandoning their ancestral ways, wearing their religious and cultural baggage lightly, and gradually blending into Britain’s diverse identity landscape. I should have known better.”

And Mr. Phillips even acknowledges that the mass sexual grooming and rape scandals that are plaguing heavily Muslim populated towns across Britain are because of Muslim – not ‘Asian’ – men. He writes: “The contempt for white girls among some Muslim men has been highlighted by the recent scandals in Rotherham, Oxford, Rochdale and other towns. But this merely reflects a deeply ingrained sexism that runs through Britain’s Muslim communities” – in a nod to those who have long protested this to be the case in the face of political, media, and even police cover ups.

Even left wing columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown told him: “[W]e [liberal Muslims] are a dying breed — in 10 years there will be very few of us left unless something really important is done.”

Phillips comments: “Some of my journalist friends imagine that, with time, the Muslims will grow out of it. They won’t.”

And indeed he lays the blame at the feet of the liberal, metropolitan elite, media classes: “Oddly, the biggest obstacles we now face in addressing the growth of this nation-within-a-nation are not created by British Muslims themselves. Many of our (distinctly un-diverse) elite political and media classes simply refuse to acknowledge the truth. Any undesirable behaviours are attributed to poverty and alienation. Backing for violent extremism must be the fault of the Americans. Oppression of women is a cultural trait that will fade with time, nothing to do with the true face of Islam.”

“Even when confronted with the growing pile of evidence to the contrary, and the angst of the liberal minority of British Muslims, clever, important people still cling to the patronising certainty that British Muslims will, over time, come to see that “our” ways are better.”

In terms of solutions, Mr. Phillips opines on “halting the growth of sharia courts and placing them under regulation” ensuring that school governance never falls into the hands of a single-minority group, “ensuring mosques that receive a steady flow of funds from foreign governments such as Saudi Arabia, however disguised, are forced to reduce their dependency on Wahhabi patronage” and an end to the “silence-for-votes understanding between local politicians and Muslim leaders — the sort of Pontius Pilate deal that had such catastrophic outcomes in Rotherham and Rochdale”.

Mr. Phillips’s comments echo those of the Czech president, and research from across Europe that revealed attitudes amongst Muslims on the continent have hardened. The younger the Muslim, the more likely they are to hold hard-line views, one recent study found.

Categories: Britain, Islam and girls, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic jihad, Islamisation, Islamophobia
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Turkish Justice: ISIS Walks Free; Peace Activists Jailed

April 10, 2016

Turkish Justice: ISIS Walks Free; Peace Activists Jailed, Gatestone Institute, Uzay Bulut, April 10, 2016

♦ Belonging to ISIS or trafficking in slavery evidently do not constitute serious crimes in Turkey. But signing petitions calling for peace and non-violence, or requesting political equality for Kurds, are unspeakable offenses.

♦ “We are not shocked that the defendants have been acquitted. This lawsuit has become one of the hundreds of other lawsuits in our country in which the criminals have been protected even though the evidence against them is obvious.” — Association of Progressive Women, on the acquittal of six people charged with having ties with ISIS and trading in Yazidi sex slaves.

♦ “Requesting peace has become a crime in this country. The state of Turkey has committed the gravest rights violations against those who struggle for human rights, against the Kurds and against free thought.” — Sebnem Korur Fincanci, President of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey.

♦ Turkish politics has therefore not been able to go beyond a clash between assorted Islamists whose worldviews are foreign to democratic values, and non-Islamist but still extremely oppressive political parties that operate under the shadow of a tyrannical military, whose worldview is also foreign to democratic values.

Turkey’s “fight” against the Islamic State (ISIS) continues. On March 24, Turkey released seven suspects who had been arrested in a case involving the Turkish branch of ISIS.

Halis Bayancuk, alleged to be the “Emir,” or commander-in-chief, of ISIS, is among the suspects. This was the fourth hearing of the trial known as the “Istanbul ISIS trial.” A total of 96 suspects are on trial. Only seven had been jailed; the others had not. Although those seven were released on March 24 at the end of the hearing, their trial is still ongoing; the final verdict has not been given. All of them are now outside jail, free, and living their lives as they wish.

The indictment prepared by the chief public prosecutor’s office of Istanbul stated that the suspects

“engaged in the activities of the terrorist organization called DAESH [Arabic acronym of ISIS]. The suspects had sent persons to the conflict zones; they applied pressure, force, violence and threats by using the name of the terrorist organization, and they had provided members and logistic support for the group. Ilyas Aydin, the leader [of the ISIS cell], gave verdicts at a so-called sharia court about killing people.”

At the end of the hearing, the seven defendants on trial being ISIS members were released. They left the courtroom shouting “Allahu akbar!” [Allah is the Greatest!”]

This means that all 96 defendants in the ongoing case are walking the streets freely.

Unfortunately, this is not the first case in which the Turkish judiciary has turned a blind eye to ISIS or al Qaeda suspects. The indictment prepared by the prosecutors apparently contains serious accusations and ample evidence, including videos and statements by Bayancuk, also known as Abu Hanzala. In 2014, he was arrested for being the head of the al Qaeda network in Turkey. Some of the accusations directed against him and other al Qaeda suspects were “beheading a Christian priest in Syria, kidnapping a Turkish journalist in Syria and planning an assassination of Barack Obama…”

In a video recording from a camp in Syria, Bayancuk was heard saying: “After we conquer Syria, we will conquer Istanbul, insh’allah, [if Allah wills] and then Turkey.”

In 2014, in another video uploaded on YouTube, Bayancuk said:

“They [ISIS] are our Muslim brethren. And we accept any attack against them as an attack against us. … I am, insh’allah, on the side of my Muslim brothers through my prayers and my support. Whoever attacks our brothers, I consider it an attack against me.

“I ask Allah to reward those in Syria and many other places, who are fighting and striving in the name of jihad, with a state ruled by sharia.”

In July 2014, the affiliates of the Islamist magazine “Tawhid” (“Oneness of Allah”) — known to be close to ISIS — organized a public event in Istanbul where they performed salah (Muslim prayer) together to celebrate the Islamic Ramadan festival.

In July 2015, at a public event was held to celebrate the Ramadan festival, the public prayers were led by Halis Bayancuk who afterwards delivered a speech entitled, “A warning to the heads of the regime of the Republic of Turkey.”

“Those who have faith fight for Allah,” he said, “the kafirs [infidels], however, fight for those who engage in taghut [“idolatry”].

Bayancuk also called on Muslims not to vote in elections because “Whoever is the Creator has the right to rule. … “We do not have guns, bombs or action plans to scare you with, but there is Allah with whom we can scare you.”

In December, 2015, the German public television consortium, ARD, produced a show documenting the slave trade being conducted by ISIS through a liaison office in the province of Gaziantep in Turkey, near the Syrian border.

Some human rights groups in the region filed a criminal complaint, calling for the prosecutors to investigate the allegations and hold the perpetrators to account. One of them was the Gaziantep branch of the Association of Progressive Women (IKD).

All six people, who allegedly have ties with ISIS and have engaged in the sexual slavery of Yazidi women in Antep, were acquitted during the first hearing.

The IKD Association issued a written statement about the ruling:

“We learned yesterday that all of defendants were acquitted at one hearing, in a double-quick trial on January 15.

“We are not shocked that the defendants have been acquitted. This lawsuit has become one of the hundreds of other lawsuits in our country in which the criminals have been protected even though the evidence against them is obvious.

“The indictment of the prosecutor stated that the office in the footage has been found, and that all of the evidence in the news reports have been seized. Six people were caught in the process of investigation but were released after a judicial hearing. Despite all of the evidence at hand, the court acquitted the defendants on the grounds that there was no evidence.”

One cannot know if those allegations were true or not, because no state authority has made any effort to refute the allegations or vindicate themselves.

In December, 2015, two members of parliament from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) — Feleknas Uca and Mahmut Togrul — asked Interior Minister Efkan Ala about the office where ISIS members engage in slavery and sex trade.

Neither the interior minister nor any other government official has made a single statement regarding the motions of the MPs, the footage of the German TV channel or the allegations of the region’s human rights groups.

However, when it comes to academics or activists who demand peace with the Kurds and human rights for all in Turkey, the Turkish judiciary takes a completely different stand.

On January 11, 2016, a group of academics and researchers from Turkey and abroad called “Academics for Peace” signed and issued a petition entitled, “We will not be a party to this crime.” In it, they criticized the Turkish government for its recent curfews and massacres in Kurdish districts, and demanded an end to violence against Kurds and a return to peace talks.

Since then the 1128 signatories of the declaration have been subjected to sustained attacks and threats from the Turkish government and nationalist groups. Four of the academics are now under arrest.

The jailed academics are Esra Mungan, a lecturer in psychology at Istanbul Bogazici University; Muzaffer Kaya, a lecturer at the Department of Social Services at Istanbul Nisantasi University (who after signing the petition was fired from his job); Kıvanc Ersoy, a mathematics lecturer at Istanbul Mimar Sinan University; and Meral Camci, a lecturer of translation and interpreting studies at Istanbul Yeni Yuzyıl University.

On March 24, the same day when ISIS suspects were released in Istanbul, Academics for Peace issued an open letter about the situation of the arrested academics:

“Yesterday, Esra Mungan was taken to another cell which is smaller, filthier, and stuffier for no valid reason. Also, Muzaffer Kaya and Kıvanc Ersoy were transferred to the Silivri Prison.

“One of our lawyers visited the Silivri Prison. Muzaffer Kaya and Kıvanc Ersoy say that they are strictly segregated, they stay alone in the cells for three people, they are not allowed to see each other or any others; all their books were taken from them with the promise that they would be given back later, their rooms are completely empty except for a pen and a notebook, they were searched naked when they were first taken to Silivri and kept naked for twenty minutes which is an utterly dishonoring situation, and that their first request is to stay together in the same cell.”

1472In Turkey, signatories of the “Academics for Peace” petition (pictured above) have been subjected to sustained attacks and threats from the Turkish government and nationalist groups. Four of the signatories were arrested. Meanwhile, 96 suspected terrorists currently standing trial on charges of belonging to an ISIS cell in Istanbul are not under arrest, and walk the streets freely.

The academic Meral Camci was fired from her job after signing the petition. A warrant was also issued against her — along with the three other academics — but she could not be interrogated because she was then outside Turkey. She returned to Turkey on March 30 — and was arrested the next day.

In the meantime, Kurdish lawyer Eren Keskin, who is also the vice-president of the Human Rights Association (IHD) and the executive editor of the pro-Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Gundem, has been investigated and banned from traveling abroad on charges of “terrorism propaganda.”

Dr. Sebnem Korur Fincanci, the President of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TIHV), said that Keskin has been one of the key symbols of the human rights struggle in Turkey. “Requesting peace has become a crime in this country. The state of Turkey has committed the gravest rights violations against those who struggle for human rights, against the Kurds and against free thought,” Fincanci added.

The gravest human rights violations are committed against Kurds. The Kurdish town of Silopi was under military siege and attacks from December 14 to January 19, when the curfew was partly removed. Many people were murdered by state security forces, and the town has largely been destroyed.

The Diyarbakir Bar Association and several human rights groups recently went to the town to observe what is left of it. Sidar Avsar, a lawyer with the Diyarbakir Bar Association, reported that the police threatened them: “You know how Tahir Elci was killed, don’t you?” the police had told him.

Tahir Elci, a leading Kurdish lawyer and the head of the Diyarbakir Bar Association, was murdered in broad daylight in the city of Diyarbakir on November 28, 2015.

So, in Europe’s newest “best friend forever,” Turkey, a candidate country for EU membership, those who rape and sell Yazidi women, or have alleged ties with al-Qaeda or ISIS, are set free to walk around with impunity. Belonging to ISIS or trafficking in slavery evidently do not constitute serious crimes in Turkey. But signing petitions calling for peace and non-violence, or requesting political equality for Kurds, are unspeakable offenses. This also demonstrates the tragic fact that Turkey still prefers the Islamic State (ISIS) to Kurds.

Turkey seems bound by traditional misconceptions of what is terrorism and what is not, or who should enjoy free speech and who should not, or be punished for real crimes and who should not.

Turkish politics has therefore not been able to go beyond a clash between assorted Islamists whose worldviews are foreign to democratic values, and non-Islamist but still extremely oppressive political parties that operate under the shadow of a tyrannical military, whose worldview is also foreign to democratic values.

Recent political and judicial developments are further indicators that a third alternative — a Turkish pro-democracy movement to transform Turkey into a diverse, tolerant and pluralistic society — is not on the horizon.

Categories: Human rights, Turkey, Turkey and Islamic State
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Satire?| Snap Elections in Sweden Bring Islamic Jihad Party Government to Power

April 10, 2016

Snap Elections in Sweden Bring Islamic Jihad Party Government to Power, Diversity Chronicle, Ray Charleston, April 9, 2016

(It has to be either satire or a blast from the future. — DM)

muslims

Last week the world saw an exciting new development as Sweden was declared an Islamic nation under Sharia law. For those who may have missed the news, over the last several years more and more Muslim refugees have been peacefully migrating to Sweden in search of a better life. Last month Islamic Jihad Party leaders demanded snap elections, after polling indicated that a majority of Swedish Muslims favoured a new government based on Islamic law, and disapproved of Sweden’s former secular, and largely white government.

Islamophobic extremists and conservative reactionaries are predictably throwing an intolerant tantrum. They ask how Sweden can become an Islamic nation. Well, the answer is simple; most Swedes want Sweden to be Islamic. The decision was made democratically! The majority of Swedes are Muslims! The majority of Swedes are from the Middle East, and they want a government that represents them! If you believe in democracy and European values, you must accept that Sweden should be an Islamic state! Sweden isn’t a white nation anymore!

The fact that a majority of indigenous Swedes voted against the Islamic Jihad Party, and instead for the Sweden Democrats, a racist anti-immigrant party, is of no consequence. These bigoted white supremacists need to accept the fact that Europe can no longer be a homogeneous continent of whites. Europe is going into multi-cultural mode, and without this transformation, Europe cannot survive!

Bigots are using the fact that the Islamic Jihad party’s secretary is a distant in-law to a prominent Taliban figure, in order to try and smear the party as somehow radical or extremist. There is nothing radical or extremist about sharia law. Christians in Sweden complain about having to pay a special tax to the Islamic government, yet these people could simply convert to Islam and avoid the tax entirely! They have no real basis for claiming discrimination of any kind. Some right-wingers are even circulating the bogus rumour that Jews, Buddhists, Bahá’ís, and Hindus in Sweden have been murdered outright. The new government is certainly working through some bureaucratic kinks, but these claims are a total exaggeration! The government explains that some religious minorities have been taken into custody “in order to protect them.”

Progressives around the world are delighted to finally see a Swedish government that represents the people of Sweden. Sweden’s white neighbour, Finland, has already closed its borders with Sweden, and outlawed its own minor Islamic political parties, in a shocking move to stifle democracy! Several mosques have also be closed down because some of the imams and mosque directors supported “terrorism.” The Finnish government claims that advocating the violent overthrow of their white racist government is somehow criminal! Now that parties advocating sharia law have been banned, just what are Muslims in Finland supposed to do?

Armed thugs are also increasingly patrolling the streets of Finland, looking for innocent Muslims, or anyone with dark skin to beat up. These hooligans falsely claim that they are looking for criminals, and trying to protect women from harassment and rape. These racists falsely claim that somehow non-white immigrants commit rape at disproportionately higher rates! The world should not stand by while Finland persecutes its Muslim minority. Sweden is asking NATO to consider direct military action against Finland.

In a move that has received a lot of criticism, the newly enthroned Islamic Emir of Sweden is asking that the Swedish royal family release to him “All of their blonde Swedish virgin girls,” claiming that they belong to him “By right of Islamic law and by right of conquest.” In light of Sweden’s long history of discrimination and oppression of migrant peoples, the Emir’s demands seem fairly reasonable. If white Swedes and Christians will intermarry with Arab and Muslim Swedes, soon they can all become one people, and then race won’t matter anymore! No one will know what race anyone is! If everyone is the same race, logically there can be no more racism!

Swedish nationalists and racists complain that the new Swedish national flag excludes them. The new flag features two crossing AK 47 assault rifles with the Shahada above them, in green and gold. A small globe appears below the symbols. Some claim this refers to a desire to conquer the world for Islam, but according to party leaders it represents “The whole world living in peace together as brothers and sisters.” It is amazing how racists will try to deliberately misrepresent something so beautiful and enlightened!

According to Sweden’s General Khalid Ararat, “As Sweden is no longer a Christian nation, the former cross design flag made little sense. Perhaps if these racists and bigots would make some effort to assimilate into Sweden’s Islamic society they would find life easier. Some Swedish women defiantly refuse to wear hijab, which of course forces us to beat them. Then we are somehow portrayed as the bad guys. The media is really distorting the facts! If Swedes would only submit to Islamic law, we wouldn’t have to use these coercive measures.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has welcomed Sweden’s new Islamic government, declaring that “Centuries of Swedish racism are now being overcome as Sweden truly embraces diversity. Sweden’s new government will serve as a beacon of light, in a dark, boring, and drab white Europe. We must embrace our Muslim and Arab neighbours with open hearts. Perhaps someday soon, if Germans are fortunate, we can become a minority people in our own country. This will help to erase the ugly blight of Germany’s racist and anti-Semitic past.”

This much is clear. If white Swedes continue to defiantly cling to the past, Sweden is going to be left behind. We live in an increasingly interconnected world. Europe is changing and progressives embrace this change with open arms. We enjoy the many exciting new restaurants and hookah lounges opening up in Europe. Yet, sadly, some stubborn racists insist on clinging to the past. If whites are not willing to embrace change, it may be necessary for Muslims to mandate conversion by law, and to mandate intermarriage between whites and Muslims. White bigots, you brought this all on yourselves!

White people have created a racist, sexist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic Europe. History has shown that white people don’t deserve to have homelands of their own. White people enslaved Africans, murdered six million Jews, and they have stolen land from the native-Americans and murdered them. They kept women chained up as kitchen slaves, and then when they finally let them work they paid them less than men, for the same work! They kept homosexuals in the closet for hundreds of years and denied them the right to marry! It is certain that an Islamic Europe will be a better, more tolerant, more humane one. After all, Islam means peace.

Categories: Islamic jihad, Islamisation, Islamophobia, Racism, Satire
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What about the Kurds?

April 10, 2016

What about the Kurds? Israel Hayom, Boaz Bismuth, April 10, 2016

(What’s in it for Israel and what aspects of an agreement would Turkey honor long term? — DM)

Turkey always espoused a policy of zero conflicts. For years Ankara believed this was the best way to enhance its international standing — even at the expense of the United States. Up until recently, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had some very lofty aspirations, but something went wrong with his plan. The Turks now find themselves in the middle of a global war of terror, and instead of zero conflicts they have zero friendly neighbors. If that weren’t enough, inside Turkey are millions of refugees and far too many bombings. At this rate, Turkey will also find itself with zero accomplishments.

The emerging Turkish-Israeli reconciliation needs to be put in precisely this context. It’s not easy for Ankara to suddenly be alone in the neighborhood, friendless: The Iranians were never true partners; the bitter enemy Bashar Assad, who had one foot in the grave, received a stay of execution and a new hold on his country from Putin, who became Ankara’s biggest new enemy ever since a Russian spy plane was shot out of the sky.

The Europeans as well, despite agreements in place, are not really partners. This has been especially true since it became apparent that Islamic State terrorist, utilizing the Turkish double game, crossed the Syrian border and eventually into Europe to carry out terrorist attacks.

Of course, reports of oil deals between Turkey and ISIS, exposed by the Russians, have not helped Ankara’s image in the world. If we closely examine Turkey’s extremely opportunistic policies from the past decade, we will see that Ankara has rightfully earned its current predicament.

Of all countries, however, Israel, which for decades has been the victim of Palestinian terrorist organizations, has reason to stand by Turkey in these difficult days.

Although the sides have yet to settle the two issues at the heart of their discord, namely Hamas operating out of Istanbul and the blockade of Gaza, which Ankara wants lifted, it appears Turkey is inclined to close the gaps. That is, of course, unless someone in Ankara believes this is still the time for playing games.

The Counterterrorism Bureau on Friday issued a rare warning, calling on Israelis visiting Turkey to leave the country immediately, and on those planning trips there to postpone them. The Americans, almost simultaneously, issued a similar warning. We can assume that both warnings are based on the same information.

Turkey today is on the defensive against ISIS and the Kurdish PKK. In the past, Turkey acted according to its own set of priorities. While the world saw ISIS as a threat, Turkey saw it as an opportunity to yet again prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdish state.

And this perhaps is the point that Israel needs to ponder, in a Middle East that is not only changing but being reconstructed. From a historical perspective, the Kurds have always stood by our side. We too, in various times throughout history, have stood by them. The Kurds, along with Israel, are the most formidable pro-Western force in the Middle East today. The manner in which they have confronted ISIS in Syria and Iraq (representing the only significant force on the ground) obligates the international community to compensate them.

The question of an independent Kurdistan is undoubtedly a legitimate one, which for some reason or another is being pushed aside. Various parliaments across the globe, among them the French, were quick to recognize Palestine while inexplicably forgetting about Kurdistan.

One of Israel’s main problems in the way of recognizing Kurdish self-determination was its fruitful cooperation with Turkey. The Israeli-Turkish rift could have pushed Israel to consummate something that began in the 1950s in Iraq, and put into practice the axiom stipulating that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” And perhaps this is the exact reason that Erdogan, who understands we are living in a changing world, would rather be friends again.

Categories: Israel, Kurds, Turkey
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Donald Trump Judge Jeanine Pirro FULL Interview 4-9-2016

April 10, 2016

Donald Trump Judge Jeanine Pirro FULL Interview 4-9-2016, Fox News via You Tube, April 9, 2016

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Republicans
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Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement – Donald Trump Vs Establishment – Election 2016

April 10, 2016

Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement – Donald Trump Vs Establishment – Election 2016, Fox News via You Tube, April 9, 2016

Categories: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, Republicans, Ted Cruz
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Germany Arrested Two Iranian Spies

April 10, 2016

Germany Arrested Two Iranian Spies, Israel Defense, Ami Rojkes Dombe, April 10, 2016

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According to dw.com, Federal prosecutors on Friday accused two Iranian men of spying on the militant People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) on behalf of the Iranian intelligence.

Prosecutors said both men used to belong to MEK. The NCRI revealed intelligence to the public in 2002 on the existence of an underground nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz.

Categories: Germany, Iranian spies
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From Poet to Jihai: The Story of a Somali American in Minnesota

April 10, 2016

From Poet to Jihai: The Story of a Somali American in Minnesota, Clarion Project, Meira Svirsky, April 10, 2016

Abdirizak-Mohamed-Warsame-IPAbdirizak Mohamed Warsame

While it may be hard to understand how Warsame, with his unique background, “could have gone either way,” it is important to put into the equation Islamist groups, including CAIR, that that have a history of working against some of the counter-radicalization programs active in the Somali community, giving these kids a different message.

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He had everything going for him – except the will to resist a powerful and angry narrative that eventually pulled him in.

Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame, now 21, was on the path to fulfilling the American dream.  And it wasn’t a just a materialist dream, the kind that leaves feelings of emptiness upon achievement.

By the time he was a teenager, he was expressing himself as a poet and actualizing talents in art and music. He was active at a local neighborhood center and part of a local arts group. He began talking to other young Somalis about following their dreams. In a video he made as a teenager in 2011, Warsame says, “You guys are tomorrow. And all you have to have, to get anywhere you want, is determination.”

Warsame, a Somali American, came to America when he was 10 months old. One of eight children, Warsane grew up in a neighborhood called “Little Mogadishu.” His mother and cousin were prominent voices in the movement to prevent the radicalization of the next generation of Somali Americans.

Warsame himself is described as a person who was successfully taking advantages of opportunities he was offered. Post high school, he held down jobs, attended a community college and had support from his family.

Still, Warsame gravitated to negative influences, problematic friends that concerned his mother. In 2014, she sent him away from Minneapolis to Chicago to live with his father. But it wasn’t enough. Warsame began watching videos of lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American Yemani imam described as the “Bin Laden of the internet.”  Awlaki, a high-level Al Qaeda operative, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, the first U.S. citizen to be so targeted.

From a young man who had spoken out against violence, Warsame became enthralled with beheading videos. He came to conclude that as a devout Muslim, he must join the fight against the infidels. In 2014, Warsame, with a group of friends plotted to go to Syria to join the Islamic State. According to his confession to authorities, Warsame was the ”emir,” the leader of a group recruiting and encouraging other young Somalis to join the terror group.

He was arrested in December of 2015 and now faces up to 15 years in prison.

Two months earlier, his mother had lectured a group of Somali parents at a town hall meeting, “I need you guys to wake up and to tell your child, ‘Who’s recruiting you?’ Ask what happened. …. We have to stop the denial thing that we have, and we have to talk to our kids and work with the FBI.”

Yet even she was unaware of her son’s activities.

At his hearing he offered a in his defense a seemingly incomprehensible explanation, “I was always listening to one side. I didn’t see the other side of it, that innocent people were being killed.”

The Minnesota Somali communities have been the leading location in the U.S. for terror recruiting. Over the last number of year, close to 40 young Somali men have left the U.S. to fight for Islamist terror groups in Somalia and Syria.

Programs have sprung up to stem the flow, most notably Ka Joog, a community group called whose name literally means “stay away.” Ka Jooj works to build Somali youths into the next generation of American leaders and steer them away from terror recruitment, drugs and gang violence. The group was recently awarded $850,000 to establish a number of new projects, including a new job center in the Somali community where unemployment is close 19 percent, three times worse than state average.

“He was one of those kids that could’ve gone either way,” said Bob Fletcher, a former county sheriff and founder of the Center for Somalia History Studies. “To the gangs, to the radicalization, or to succeed academically with the circle of Ka Joog kids who he is close to.”

While it may be hard to understand how Warsame, with his unique background, “could have gone either way,” it is important to put into the equation Islamist groups, including CAIR, that that have a history of working against some of the counter-radicalization programs active in the Somali community, giving these kids a different message.

Abdirizak Bihi, is a Somai American who works with Ka Joog and is the director of the Somali Education and Social Advocacy Center. Bihi’s nephew was recruited by Al-Shabaab and died in Somalia, where the terror group is based.

In 2011, CAIR-MN attacked Bihi and a Muslim colleague of his, Omar Jamal, branding them as “anti-Muslim” when they participated in a seminar run by Fletcher’s center that included teaching about Al-Shabaab. CAIR-MN was upset that their session described Al-Shabaab as an “Islamic extremist terrorist organization,” saying they did not “distinguish between Islam and terrorism.”

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim human rights activist,writes,”Representatives of CAIR, like Dawud Walid from their Michigan chapter are on record repeatedly when discussing al-Shabaab to American Muslims telling American Muslim youth for example that “9 out of 10 times the person trying to influence you over the internet is not even real…it’s someone with the government trying to set you up.

“[Walid] even casts doubt on whether Al-Shabaab is a terrorist organization. Yet when courageous American Muslims do speak out about radicalization in some mosques and among American Muslim groups, CAIR calls them “anti-Muslim.”

Bihi says that CAIR-MN has impeded his efforts to inform the U.S. government about Islamist radicalization for years by saying that he’s bigoted and doesn’t represent the Somali community.

“They say that I am a bad person, that I am anti-Muslim, and that I don’t represent a hundred percent the Somali community. They lie about my life most of the time and try to destroy my character, my capability and my trust in the community,” says Bihi.

As early as 2009, local Somali Muslims were angered by a CAIR Minnesota campaign that urged Muslims only to talk to law enforcement with a lawyer present, sowing distrust in the Muslim community about law enforcement agencies.  Local Somali Muslims argued that CAIR’s campaign merely served to obstruct federal investigations. At the time, Bihi organized a demonstration outside a CAIR-MN event where protesters chanted, “CAIR out! Doublespeak out!”

Bihi expresses hope that Warsame can be deprogrammed and return to being an asset to the community. At his hearing, the presiding judge offered Warsame a spot in ta new program that assesses his prospects for deradicalization before sentencing.

“I can envision him going to schools, talking to young people in the community, going to mosques, working with imams. His message here could resonate in many communities,” said Bihi.

Categories: CAIR, Islamic jihad, Somalis in Minnesota
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Op-Ed: Where did all the “Islamic terrorists” go?

April 10, 2016

Op-Ed: Where did all the “Islamic terrorists” go? Israel National News, Jeffrey Ludwig, April 10, 2016

(Please see also, Signs of an Incipient Islamic Reformation? — DM)

[O]ur enemies abound as never before in the Middle East. They all attend mosques. They all pray five times a day to their God; they all read the same books.  We see their concerted hatred for the West, and for Judaism and Christianity.  But, according to our government, the perception of this reality is actually a massive misperception. 

Duplicity has replaced forthright policy and governance.

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ISIS is often portrayed by the mainstream media (MSM) as the demonic face of what is euphemistically called “extremism.”  To our President, this organization is not Islamic.

For our President (and for other Muslims with whom this writer has spoken) ISIS is composed of pathological individuals who are masquerading as Islamics, hence it is inappropriate to call them “Islamic extremists” or “Islamic radicals.”  Not only ISIS is to be exempted from the “Islamic” appellation, but so are other groups like Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the growing number of “lone wolf” assassins.

Even Hamas,  on our State Department terror list, is allowed to receive money as they “partner” with the Palestinian Authority (in complete contravention of U.S. law).  Even Iran, a country with which we do not have formal diplomatic relations because of its atrocities, is purposely not portrayed as governed by “radical Islamists” or “Islamic terrorists.”

Despite appearances, therefore, you can rest assured that Islam is not at war with the West or with the kafirs (unbelievers).

Graeme Wood sees the appeal of ISIS to Islamics as lying in its ability to control land, thus its growing power lies in the idea that it is reinstating the Caliphate, with all the apocalyptic implications of that reinstatement for Islamic eschatology.  The re-establishment of the Caliphate will precipitate incredible supernatural events that will lead to the final authority of Allah and of Islam over the entire world.

According to Wood, it’s their control over land that gives ISIS credibility. For the U.S. to continue to present ISIS as non-Islamic, we have to prevent their territorial expansion, thereby diluting their claim to being the long-awaited Caliphate.  If they don’t have as much land, then they lose credibility, and relapse to the Obama definition stating that they are just a ragtag bunch of demonic thugs.

Al-Qaeda, the organization founded by Osama Bin Laden, has not been making headlines since ISIS began to be newsworthy.  Are Al-Qaeda’s members terrorists?  Do they deserve to be called “Islamic jihadists”? Well, yes and no.  According to MSM’s sycophantic commentators and to our left wing President, Al-Qaeda’s dependence on committing atrocities partially disqualifies them from being Islamic.  Remember, we are dealing with the oft-misunderstood “religion of peace.”  They are also disqualified because they do not govern any territory, but are comprised of a confederation of activist cells, killing but not governing. True Islamists will govern as well as kill.

In sum, Al-Qaeda is defined by a criminal pathology and lack control over any land area, two characteristically non-Islamic traits according to our President.

In recent days, following the above line of reasoning, the Taliban, whom we have been fighting for 13 years, are now to be referred to as “armed insurgents” and not as terrorists.  They are no longer armed men who gave safe haven to Osama Bin Laden so he could attack us on 9/11, but dedicated Afghanis fighting against a corrupt government of “folks” installed by the diabolical George W. Bush.

Five of their leaders were recently released to Qatar for one year in exchange for one American soldier held in captivity.  After the year, they may go wherever they please.  Tired of violence, after their year-long sequestration in sunny-but-barren Qatar, they will undoubtedly move to Costa Rica and get peaceful jobs setting up beach chairs and umbrellas.

Then there is Iran.  Iran is Muslim, but of the Shia faction of Islam that is repudiated by mainstream Sunni Muslims as well as by Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Mainstream Sunnis, even though they have hatred or contempt for Shi’ites, are not as apt to kill them as are Al-Qaeda and ISIS.  [It might be interesting for the reader to know that when Ramzi Youssef, a Sunni muslim who planned and carried out the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, was on the run from the FBI and Interpol, he found time to kill a number of female Shi’ite pilgrims in Iran.]

Iran held 144 Americans hostage during Carter’s presidency, has arranged assassinations all over the world, regularly refers to the U.S. as “the Great Satan,” regularly threatens the total annihilation of Israel, frequently calls for the destruction of the USA, and is providing arms, missiles, and money to support Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations.

These behaviors hardly can be classified as “moderate,” but if one is Sunni, then Iran could be disqualified as Muslim. For Sunnis, the Shi’ites are not truly obedient to Mohammed, hence are non-Islamic.  By this sort of inversion, accommodation with Iran, then, might not be seen as accommodating Islamic violence since, for Sunni Islam (such as is practiced in Indonesia where Obama was schooled), Iran’s Islamacism is a renegade Islam at best, or, at worst, flat-out non-Islamic in light of Qu’ranic requirements.

Thus, if Iran does not represent true Islam, and Iran is promoting violence and terrorism through surrogates such as Hamas and Hezbollah, that violence is not Islamic.  If Iraq for which thousands of our men fought and died is controlled by a Shi’ite government accountable to Iran, then the problem this causes the U.S. is not, by definition, caused by Islamics.  Likewise the instability and danger of Yemen’s Houthis.

If Iran has been disqualified as an Islamic extremist entity, then their surrogates Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Yemen’s Houthis, and Iraq’s government are also disqualified. The Taliban has been disqualified as being Islamic terrorists and are now to be seen as people who just want to regain control of their country, and sometimes commit excesses in pursuit of that goal.  And if Al-Qaeda and ISIS are also disqualified as legitimate Islamic organizations, then how can any lone wolves or splinter teams of hit men claiming to be “jihadis” really be “Islamic terrorists”?

Are there no Islamic terrorists extant?

Obama’s deconstruction of the facts on the ground is completely ahistorical.  Not only does he deny that all these killers draw their inspiration from the teachings of Islam, but he denies that Islam has been marked by its warlike and anti-Western, anti-Christianity, and anti-Jewish fervor throughout most of its history.

Any student of history knows that this fantasy of world domination has been the dominant mindset of Islam for the better part of 1400 years.  A full-scale Islamic attack on the West was repulsed as recently as 1683 when Austria was attacked.  In the 19th century, U.S. Marines had to attack and defeat the Barbary pirates in No. Africa who were disrupting Western shipping and enslaving Americans.  We dare not forget that as recently as 1914-1918, the Ottoman Empire (Islamic religiously but ethnically Seljuk, not Arab) allied itself with the Central Powers in WWI, which alliance was intended to dramatically enhance Islamic power over the West.

Instead of perceiving the historical truth, the Obama administration has determined to deconstruct the definitions related to every violent group within Islam. They are each being portrayed as non-Islamic for different reasons.

But – our enemies abound as never before in the Middle East. They all attend mosques. They all pray five times a day to their God; they all read the same books.  We see their concerted hatred for the West, and for Judaism and Christianity.  But, according to our government, the perception of this reality is actually a massive misperception.

Duplicity has replaced forthright policy and governance.

Categories: Islam - causes of terrorism, Islam and terrorism, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic terrorism
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