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France’s De-radicalization Program Deemed a Failure

October 28, 2016

France’s De-radicalization Program Deemed a Failure, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Patrick Dunleavy, October 28, 2016

(Why not get them jobs with the Clinton Foundation? There, they could learn the benefits, and earn the rewards, of jobs honestly done. — DM)

jailcell

The latest attempt by Western democracies to deal with the ever-growing threat of Islamic radicalization in the prison system has been deemed an utter failure. French officials announced Tuesday that they would no longer isolate inmates with jihadists tendencies from other inmates, or offer therapeutic services or specialized counseling aimed at de-radicalizing Islamic terrorists already in prison.

They found that the program actually increased the threat of radicalizing inmates into terrorists rather than diminishing it.

Following a series of terrorist attacks in France, counterterrorism investigators found that a large number of the jihadists had previously spent time in prison for petty crimes. It was there, in the fertile soil of prison, where they were influenced by the radical Islamic teachings of incarcerated members of groups like al-Qaida, the GIA (Armed Islamic Group of Algeria) and ISIS.

In announcing the suspension of the program Justice Minister Jean Jacques Urvoas admitted the failure: “I don’t use the term de-radicalization. I don’t think we can invent a vaccine against this temptation” (Islamism).

France has produced more soldiers for ISIS than any other Western country.

But France is not the only country that has attempted to come up with a program to prevent Islamic radicalization in prison and help rehabilitate those terrorists who have been successfully prosecuted and sent to prison. The United Kingdom previously announced plans to form “specialized isolation units” within its prison system to deal with convicted Islamic terrorists, like Anjem Choudary, who were seen as a danger to the other inmates.

The United States also sought to establish a de-radicalization program for potential jihadists. Minnesota U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis devised a de-radicalization program that included hiring researcher Daniel Koehler, who has dealt with the neo-Nazi movement in Germany, to provide counseling and training for both inmates and staff.

The first inmate placed in the program, Abdullahi Yusuf, was an example of the program’s potential for failure.

Yusuf was arrested in 2014 when he attempted to board a flight to Turkey to join ISIS and fight in Syria. While awaiting trial, he was admitted to the program for de-radicalization counseling and was allowed to stay in a halfway house instead of in jail. Less than four months later he was removed from the program after he was found with a box cutter.

Further resistance to the U.S. de-radicalization program came from the defense attorney appointed to represent Adan Abdihamid Farah. Farah was arrested last yearas he tried to travel to Syria and fight alongside other Islamic State jihadists. “If the de-radicalization is for him (Farah) to moderate his religious beliefs, I can’t do that,” defense attorney Kenneth Udoibok told the Wall Street Journal.

Some saw the program as a direct violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

And now, faced with the possibility that as many as 100 inmates convicted of terrorism crimes in the United States will be paroled in the next five years, authorities have had to admit that there is no effective re-radicalization program in place to deal with the very really potential for recidivism. The Justice Department acknowledged we are not prepared to release them.

“There are [rehabilitation] programs for drug addicts and gang members [in prison]. There is not one [program] with a proven track record of success for terrorism,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin said earlier this year.

The situation appears hopeless without changes in our approach to radical Islamism. To effectively deal with the threat of terrorists coming out of prison and committing more heinous acts, or others being radicalized by their influences while they are incarcerated, officials must commit to long range counter terrorism initiatives that do not end when the terrorist is captured.

These inmates’ access to Islamic extremist literature should be limited. Their visitors and the volunteers at correctional facilities need to be monitored, and a standardized vetting process for chaplains needs to be instituted.

The Justice Department Inspector General’s office strongly recommended these reforms12 years ago, but they have not been implemented.

Finally, there must be coordination between intelligence agencies, law enforcement, and correctional officials. Courts have reasoned that inmates have a lesser expectation of privacy and corrections administrators can more closely monitor their phone calls, correspondence and financial transactions.

Information gleaned from that data would immensely help in the fight against Islamic terrorism.

Seeking a simple inoculation vaccine like the French does not work.

Categories: Deradicalization
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Hillary Clinton accepts cash from Hamas-linked CAIR, leads 2016 list of pols getting money from Islamic supremacists

October 28, 2016

Hillary Clinton accepts cash from Hamas-linked CAIR, leads 2016 list of pols getting money from Islamic supremacists, Jihad Watch, , October 28, 2016

Hillary Clinton: bought and paid for, and not by those who have America’s best interests at heart.

cairhil

“Hillary Clinton Accepts Cash From CAIR, Leads 2016 List of Islamist Donations,” by John Hayward, Breitbart, October 27, 2016:

The Middle East Forum’s “Islamist Money in Politics” project compiles an annual list of politicians who receive campaign contributions from Islamist groups and “individuals who subscribe to the same Islamic supremacism as Khomeini, Bin Laden, and ISIS.”

The top-ranking recipient in the 2015-2016 list is Hillary Clinton, who raked in $41,165 from prominent Islamists, says the report:

This includes $19,249 from senior officials of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), declared a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates on November 15, 2014. For example, Mrs. Clinton has accepted $3,900 from former CAIR vice-chairman Ahmad Al-Akhras, who has defended numerous Islamists in Ohio indicted – and later convicted – on terrorism charges.

The top ten list includes nine Democrats, one independent (who just happens to have been Clinton’s chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders) and zero Republicans.

Donald Trump received no Islamist money, and neither did Libertarian Gary Johnson. Jill Stein of the Green Party accepted $250 in such donations.

“While the amounts of Islamist donations are relatively small, the information: (1) holds politicians accountable for accepting funds from soiled sources; (2) signals the Islamist lobby’s affections and intentions; and (3) tells voters who takes money from individuals linked to enemies of the United States and its allies,” the Middle East Forum argues.

CAIR has been declared a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates and was named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding operation. 

CAIR is closely entwined with Islamists and with jihadis that court documents and news reports show that at least five of its people — either board members, employees or former employees — have been jailed or repatriated for various financial and terror-related offenses.

Breitbart has also published evidence highlighted by critics showing that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Texas-based criminal effort to deliver $12 million to the Jew-hating HAMAS jihad group, that CAIR was founded with $490,000 from HAMAS, and that the FBI bans top-level meetings with CAIR officials. “The FBI policy restricting a formal relationship with CAIR remains … [but] does not preclude communication regarding investigative activity or allegations of civil rights violations,” said an Oct. 2015 email from FBI spokesman Christopher Allen.

In 2009, a federal judge concluded that “the government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR… with Hamas.”

Awad has a long history of pro-HAMAS statements, according to critics. CAIR has posted its defense online.

Categories: 2016 elections, CAIR, Hillary Clinton and Islamists, Islamists in America
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Comey Sends Letter To Congress Citing New Evidence (and An Investigation) In The Clinton Email Scandal

October 28, 2016

Comey Sends Letter To Congress Citing New Evidence (and An Investigation) In The Clinton Email Scandal, Jonathan Turley’s Blog, Jonathan Turley

(Please see also, FBI to conduct new investigation of emails from Clinton’s private server. — DM)

jcomey-100

 

hillfbi

There is a major news development with the release of a letter from FBI Director James B. Comey that the Bureau has decided that new evidence requires further investigation into the Clinton emails. It was a surprising change just days before the election. After all, as recently as September 27, 2016, Comey rejected the idea that the bureau would reopen its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. Comey wrote in a letter to top members of Congress that the bureau has “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”

I have been critical recently of the handling of the FBI investigation, particularly in the granting of immunity to key potential targets. I recently wrote a column on FBI investigation into the Clinton email scandal and revised my view as to the handling of the investigation in light of the five immunity deals handed out by the Justice Department.  I had previously noted that FBI Director James Comey was within accepted lines of prosecutorial discretion in declining criminal charges, even though I believed that such charges could have been brought. However, the news of the immunity deals (and particularly the deal given top ranking Clinton aide Cheryl Mills) was baffling and those deals seriously undermined the ability to bring criminal charges in my view.

Wikileaks disclosures have only embarrassed the Bureau further in showing Clinton aides debating how to explain the deletions and how to delay turning over material. Comey now has told legislators that “I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.”

He did note that the FBI could not yet assess whether the new material is significant. Comey clearly felt obligated to let the Committees know about the development. In making such a decision, Comey is caught in the horns of a dilemma. The Justice Department strongly discourages investigatory announcements or actions shortly before an election to avoid any claims of trying to influence the outcome. On the other hand, if this is significant, the FBI does not want to be accused of hiding material developments from Congress or the public, particularly after criticism over its alleged different treatment given Clinton and her aides as opposed to other recent cases.

In such a situation, caution favors disclosure. It is unlikely that we will see major developments in the remaining two weeks, but the announcement shows that this is not a closed matter. In many ways, the lingering character of this scandal was only worsened by the tactics of Clinton aides in changing explanations and refusals to cooperate absent immunity. That served to delay the investigation, which will now likely extend beyond the election.

Categories: Clinton e-mails, Clinton unsecured server, Comey, FBI, U.S. Congress
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Congress: Attorney General Lynch ‘Pleads Fifth’ on Secret Iran ‘Ransom’ Payments

October 28, 2016

Congress: Attorney General Lynch ‘Pleads Fifth’ on Secret Iran ‘Ransom’ Payments, Washington Free Beacon, , October 28, 2016

US attorney general, Loretta E. Lynch attends a conference on organised crime in Rome, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

US attorney general, Loretta E. Lynch, AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia

Attorney General Loretta Lynch is declining to comply with an investigation by leading members of Congress about the Obama administration’s secret efforts to send Iran $1.7 billion in cash earlier this year, prompting accusations that Lynch has “pleaded the Fifth” Amendment to avoid incriminating herself over these payments, according to lawmakers and communications exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) initially presented Lynch in October with a series of questions about how the cash payment to Iran was approved and delivered.

In an Oct. 24 response, Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik responded on Lynch’s behalf, refusing to answer the questions and informing the lawmakers that they are barred from publicly disclosing any details about the cash payment, which was bound up in a ransom deal aimed at freeing several American hostages from Iran.

The response from the attorney general’s office is “unacceptable” and provides evidence that Lynch has chosen to “essentially plead the fifth and refuse to respond to inquiries regarding [her] role in providing cash to the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism,” Rubio and Pompeo wrote on Friday in a follow-up letter to Lynch, according to a copy obtained by the Free Beacon.

The inquiry launched by the lawmakers is just one of several concurrent ongoing congressional probes aimed at unearthing a full accounting of the administration’s secret negotiations with Iran.

“It is frankly unacceptable that your department refuses to answer straightforward questions from the people’s elected representatives in Congress about an important national security issue,” the lawmakers wrote. “Your staff failed to address any of our questions, and instead provided a copy of public testimony and a lecture about the sensitivity of information associated with this issue.”

“As the United States’ chief law enforcement officer, it is outrageous that you would essentially plead the fifth and refuse to respond to inquiries,” they stated. “The actions of your department come at time when Iran continues to hold Americans hostage and unjustly sentence them to prison.”

The lawmakers included a copy of their previous 13 questions and are requesting that Lynch provide answers by Nov. 4.

When asked about Lynch’s efforts to avoid answering questions about the cash payment, Pompeo told the Free Beacon that the Obama administration has blocked Congress at every turn as lawmakers attempt to investigate the payments to Iran.

“Who knew that simple questions regarding Attorney General Lynch’s approval of billions of dollars in payments to Iran could be so controversial that she would refuse to answer them?” Pompeo said. “This has become the Obama administration’s coping mechanism for anything related to the Islamic Republic of Iran—hide information, obfuscate details, and deny answers to Congress and the American people.”

“They know this isn’t a sustainable strategy, however, and I trust they will start to take their professional, and moral, obligations seriously,” the lawmaker added.

In the Oct. 24 letter to Rubio and Pompeo, Assistant Attorney General Kadzik warned the lawmakers against disclosing to the public any information about the cash payment.

Details about the deal are unclassified, but are being kept under lock and key in a secure facility on Capitol Hill, the Free Beacon first disclosed. Lawmakers and staffers who have clearance to view the documents are forced to relinquish their cellular devices and are barred from taking any notes about what they see.

“Please note that these documents contain sensitive information that is not appropriate for public release,” Kadzik wrote to the lawmakers. “Disclosure of this information beyond members of the House and Senate and staff who are able to view them could adversely affect the diplomatic relations of the United States, including with key allies, as well as the State Department’s ability to defend [legal] claims against the United States [by Iran] that are still being litigated at the Hague Tribunal.”

“The public release of any portion of these documents, or the information contained therein, is not authorized by the transmittal of these documents or by this communication,” Kadzik wrote.

Congressional sources have told the Free Beacon that this is another part of the effort to hide details about these secret negotiations with Iran from the American public.

One senior congressional source familiar with both the secret documents and the inquiry into them told the Free Beacon that the details of the negotiations are so damning that the administration’s best strategy is to ignore lawmakers’ requests for more information.

“Every Obama administration official and department involved in the Iran Deal appear to be running for cover,” the source said. “Like we feared, the [Iran deal] is turning out to be a disaster and Iran is emboldened in its aggression. Evidently Attorney General Lynch and the Department of Justice have decided ‘refusal to cooperate’ is their best strategy. But this is dangerous and ultimately won’t protect them from anything.”

Update: The headline has been updated to more accurately characterize the story.

Categories: Department of Justice, Iran - hostages, Iran - ransom payments, Iran - sanctions relief, Iran scam, Obama and Iran scam, Obama and ransom payments, U.S. Congress
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FBI to conduct new investigation of emails from Clinton’s private server

October 28, 2016

FBI to conduct new investigation of emails from Clinton’s private server, Washington Post, Rosalind S. Helderman, October 28, 2016

The FBI will investigate whether additional classified material is contained in emails sent using Hillary Clinton’s private email server while she was secretary of state, FBI director James Comey informed congressional leaders Friday.

The announcement appears to restart the FBI’s probe of Clinton’s server, less than two weeks before the presidential election, an explosive development that could shape the campaign’s final days.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Comey said that the FBI had, in connection with an “unrelated case,” recently “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the Clinton investigation.”

Comey indicated that he had been briefed on the new material yesterday. “I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation,” he wrote.

The FBI had previously closed its investigation in July with no charges, though Comey had concluded there had been classified content exchanged on the server and that Clinton had been “extremely careless.”

A Clinton campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Categories: Clinton e-mails, Clinton unsecured server, FBI
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Cartoons of the Day

October 28, 2016

H/t Vermont Loon Watch

pay-up1

 

thieves

 

H/t Joop

trump-accuser

 

H/t Townhall

clintonhaloween

 

H/t Vermont Loon Watch

room-service

 

via e-mail

obamaislam

 

whpress

 

Categories: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Humor, Obama
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Pro-Iranian Shiites ready to lead Mosul operation

October 28, 2016

Pro-Iranian Shiites ready to lead Mosul operation, DEBKAfile, October 28, 2016

1-5

The US-led coalition offensive for liberating Mosul from ISIS suffered two ominous downturns on its 10th day

Friday, Oct. 28, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. One: Pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiites stand ready to assume a lead role, sparking the threat of sectarian violence in the mainly Sunni city; and, two, the Islamic State is poised to launch surface missiles with a range of 500km against Baghdad, as well as Jordan and Israel.

Friday, a spokesman for the Iraqi Shiite paramilitary groups the Bader Brigades and the Population Mobilization Force announced that their advance toward the Islamic State-held town of Tal Afar, about 55 km west of Mosul, was imminent.

These militias are fighting under the command of the Iranian Al Qods chief, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who takes his orders from Tehran.

The capture of Tal Afar – a mix of Sunni and Shiite ethnic Turkmen until the Islamic State’s takeover two years ago – would cut off ISIS-held Mosul from Syria.

Turkey, Iraq’s northern neighbor, and the Kurds are seriously alarmed by the Shiite groups’ initiative.

The Shiites, who are not part of the main coalition fighting body preparing to storm Mosul, are about to strike ISIS from the north.

DEBKAfile’s military sources note that coalition commanders erred by not taking Tal Afar in the early stage of the Mosul offensive and so blocking ISIS supply lines.

The offensive was hobbled two days day earlier by the Kurdish decision to withdraw Peshmerga fighters from the operation to retake Mosul. President Masoud Barzani of the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government stated Wednesday, Oct. 26, that his army had ended its role in the warfare, after cleansing dozens of mostly uninhabited villages on the road to Mosul, and did not intend to enter the city at this time.

This decision by the KRG in Irbil was not published.

Since the Kurds and the Shiite militias are out of it, who is left to finish the job and go into Mosul?

The mission which started out as a grand coalition enterprise has been left now to US forces and the Iraqi army.

However, Iraq’s elite 9th Golden Division and its federal anti-terror police unit have not made much headway in their advance against ISIS forces east of Mosul. Their commanders now warn the government in Baghdad that they can’t go any further without reinforcements.

But there are no Iraqi military reserves to draw on, without stripping any more main Iraqi towns of their defenses and laying them open to Islamists assaults, like those ISIS staged successfully last week on the oil city of Kirkuk, the Kurdish town of Sinjar and Rutba near the Jordanian border.

The long and short of it is that the Mosul offensive has virtually ground to a halt.

ISIS meanwhile is compounding its atrocities and gearing up for escalation.

1. The UN Human Rights agency reported Friday that, since the Mosul offensive began on Oct. 17, Islamic State forces in Iraq have abducted tens of thousands of men, women and children from areas around Mosul and are using them as “human shields” in the city as Iraqi government troops advance.

They shot dead at least 232 people on Wednesday, including 190 former Iraqi troops and 42 civilians when they refused to obey their orders.

2.  ISIS has plans to use chemical weapons against the coalition forces advancing any further towards Mosul.

3.  Following their raids on key Iraqi cities, the Islamist State is preparing to launch surface missiles against Baghdad.

4. ISIS may not confine its missile attacks to targets in Iraq. Our military sources report that the jihadists have laid hands on Syrian and Iraqi ground-to-ground missiles with a range of 500km and are holding them ready for attacks on Iraq’s neighbors, which could be Jordan. Israel too is in their sights.

Categories: Iran in Iraq, Iranian proxies, Iraq war, Mosul, Shiite vs Sunni, Soleimani
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The New Anti-Racist Racists

October 28, 2016

The New Anti-Racist Racists, Gatestone Institute, Douglas Murray, October 28, 2016

There is a trait campaigning groups have that is well known. Once they have achieved their objective, they continue. Usually it is because there are people with salaries at stake, pensions, perks and more.

Suddenly the SPLC seemed to spy a new fascism. The SPLC saw this new fascism in people who objected to people flying planes into skyscrapers, decapitating journalists and aid workers and blowing up the finish line of marathons.

One got the impression that it had become immensely useful for some people to be able to smear those concerned about Islamic fundamentalism, and try to make them akin to Nazis. The only other movements who find this equally useful are, of course, Islamic extremists.

Here is this “anti-racist” organisation, largely made up of white men who present themselves as being anti-racists, and yet who spend their time attacking Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a black immigrant woman. At the top of any list of “hate-groups,” the SPLC must in future be sure to place itself.

The SPLC’s list of “anti-Muslim activists” also includes a practising Muslim, Maajid Nawaz, one of the most principled and courageous people around calling out the extremists in his faith for their bigotry and hatred. He does so, like Hirsi Ali, at no small risk to himself.

 

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SLPC), based in Montgomery, Alabama, has struck again. The self-appointed boundary-markers and policemen of free discussion have issued what they call a “Field Guide” to help “guide” the media in “countering prominent anti-Muslim extremists.” It is hard to know where to start with such idiocy, so let us start from the beginning.

The SPLC was founded in 1971, ostensibly to fight for civil rights among other good causes. By the end of its first decade it was targeting the KKK and other racist organisations. So far so good. But like many a campaigning organisation, they experienced the happy blow of basically winning their argument. By the 1990s, there were mercifully few racist groups in America going about unchallenged. When a member of the KKK cropped up everybody in civil society pretty much understood that here was a bad person who should not be given a free pass.

But there is an odd trait in campaigning groups that is well known. Once they have achieved their objective, they continue. Why is this so? Usually it is because there are people with salaries at stake, pensions, perks and more. Campaigning for a particular thing or against a particular thing has become their way of life and their means of earning. And so they find a way to continue. For some years, the SPLC staggered around in such a manner, as pointless and purposeless an organisation as could be imagined.

And then in the last decade something happened to this increasingly obscure institution. It is not for me to speculate why or how this happened, whether it had to do with new staff or new money, but the focus of the organisation changed. Suddenly the SPLC seemed to spy a new fascism. They did not spy it in people who flew planes into skyscrapers, decapitated American journalists and aid workers or blew up the finish line of marathons. No, the SPLC saw it somewhere else. The SPLC saw this new fascism in people who objected to people flying planes into skyscrapers, decapitating journalists and aid workers and blowing up the finish line of marathons. For the SPLC, the big threat on the horizon was not Islamists but those people who objected to Islamists — that is, people they called “Islamophobes.” In the same way, they did not seem to have any particular problem with jihad, but they developed a huge problem with people they called “counter-jihadists.” To their existing lists of designated “hate-groups” they now added such people.

More honest groups might have balked at such a stance. More informed groups would have walked a thousand miles from such a stance. But the SPLC did no such thing. In fact, one got the impression that it had become immensely useful for some people to be able to smear those concerned about Islamic fundamentalism and try to make them akin to Nazis. The only other movements who find this equally useful are, of course, Islamic extremists.

The media today in America are increasingly wary of Islamic extremists. Most journalists do not want the parameters of what should be discussed dictated by Islamic fanatics. Whereas an organisation such as the SPLC, which did something good forty years ago, is the sort of institution that the media is for the time-being happy to hear from. Perhaps after this latest development that will no longer be the case.

The SPLC’s latest production is disgraceful, discrediting and sloppy even by its own increasingly disgraceful, discredited and sloppy standards. For this publication, they have listed “Fifteen anti-Muslim activists,” most likely in the hope that they will scare the media off inviting them on, or the wider public from being allowed to listen to them.

Among the list is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The SPLC lists a set of allegedly outrageous things that she has said, which have appeared in such obscure and extreme venues as The Wall Street Journal and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. They mention in passing — as though it were an incidental mishap — that Hirsi Ali’s film-making partner, Theo van Gogh, was slaughtered on an Amsterdam street by a jihadist, with a death-threat to Hirsi Ali pinned into van Gogh’s dying body. But they still clearly cannot imagine why anybody would have a problem with such a thing. One wonders how the staff of the SPLC would feel if one of their colleagues was murdered in such a manner? Doubtless they would shrug it off. Yet it remains that case that here is this “anti-racist” organisation, largely made up of white men who present themselves as being anti-racists, and yet who spend their time attacking a black immigrant woman.

Hirsi Ali is of course well known for being an ex-Muslim. But the SPLC’s list of “anti-Muslim activists” also includes a practising Muslim. Of course, if Maajid Nawaz were an Islamic extremist then SPLC would have nothing to say about him. But Maajid Nawaz is not an extremist — he is one of the most principled and courageous people around calling out the extremists in his faith for their bigotry and hatred. He does so, like Hirsi Ali, at no small risk to himself. If the jihadists within Islam are ever going to be defeated, it will be because of Muslims like Nawaz, who are willing to argue for reform on liberal, progressive, pluralistic and democratic grounds.

Yet for the SPLC, this Muslim is not just not the right type of Muslim — he is “anti-Muslim.” The charges that SPLC levels against Nawaz are (this is not satire) that he has (a) co-operated with, rather than worked against, the British police (b) suggested that customers in banks should have to show their faces (c) once failed to abide by the most hardline interpretation of Islamic blasphemy law (d) once visited a strip club on his stag-night.

2001The Southern Poverty Law Center decided to turn itself into a racist organization, with its attacks on principled and courageous critics of radical Islamism such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali (left), a prominent ex-Muslim writer, and Maajid Nawaz (right), a moderate practising Muslim writer, radio host and politician. (Images source: Wikimedia Commons)

Who knows what lapses in personal decorum have occurred among the staff of the SPLC? Perhaps one of them once had extra-marital intercourse? Or perhaps one of them once consumed a glass of Merlot, in contravention of the hardest-line interpretations of Islamic scripture? Who knows, but who the hell would anybody else be to judge, and who the hell do the SPLC think they are? It seems that the SPLC has decided to turn itself from an anti-racist organisation into a racist one. An organisation that used to prosecute white racists has ended up attacking black and Muslim immigrants. At the top of any list of “hate-groups,” the SPLC must in future be sure to place itself.

Categories: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Islamophobia, Racism, Southern Poverty Law Center
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The Russian Connection (Iran and Syria, Too)

October 28, 2016

The Russian Connection (Iran and Syria, Too), Counter Jihad, October 27, 2016

iranhil

According to a blockbuster new report by Christine Brim, Clinton crony Thomas Pickering profited to the tune of half a million dollars while arranging shady deals with Russia, Syria, and Iran.

Some of these deals were outright illegal, the report says:

[Hillary Clinton’s] Foreign Affairs Policy Advisor Thomas Pickering was a paid director for the Russian company Trubnaya Metallurgicheskaya Kompaniya (TMK) from June 30, 2009 to June 26, 2012. TMK is majority-owned by Russian billionaire oligarch Dmitry Pumpyansky, a close Putin ally.

I discovered extensive proof of TMK’s business dealings in Iran and Syria while Pickering was on its board, including TMK sales of oil and gas pipelines to Iran that were specifically prohibited under U.S. laws and executive orders.

Emphasis added.

The Brim report notes that this Clinton crony had a similar relationship with Boeing during the Iran negotiations, one that resulted in a $25 billion contract between Boeing and Iran.  When the stakes are that high, corporations are willing to work with tyrants and human rights abusers like the mullahs.  Pickering served as a lobbyist encouraging ratification of the Iran deal while on Boeing’s payroll — a fact he kept secret from those he was lobbying, according to news reports.

We have learned about Pickering’s dealings thanks in part to emails recovered from Hillary Clinton’s illegal secret server.  These emails show him engaged in pay for play negotiations between the Clintons and foreign governments, according to the Brim report.

Emails released from Clinton’s private server show that Pickering was emailing, meeting, and coordinating foreign travel with Clinton and her staff from the beginning of her time as secretary of State and arguing for an end to economic sanctions on Iran all during the same years he was on TMK’s board of directors. Starting in December 2011, he also served in official capacity on Clinton’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board. Clinton appointed Pickering chairman for the Benghazi Accountability Review Board three months after he left TMK.

Unsurprisingly, in that role he found that Hillary Clinton was in no way blameworthy for the disaster at Benghazi.  Indeed, in a parallel role he ensured that she received a “Pursuit of Peace” trophy from the International Crisis Group in 2014, the day before the House Select Committee on Benghazi launched its work.

These stories are of course deeply familiar to anyone who has followed the tales of the Clinton State Department.  It’s not a very different story from the story about her taking big money donations from Bahrain to her foundation, and then approving a major arms deal sought by that country.  Official State Department channels had rejected the deal previously, but just like the laws forbidding sales of pipeline technology to Iran, neither the law nor the ordinary standards of diplomatic practice matter for Clinton “friends” who are willing to come across with plenty of cash.

Nor is it very different from the story about how Clinton rubber-stamped a vastly increased number of visas from Saudi Arabia following tens of millions of dollars in donations to her family foundation.  She did this in spite of having herself sent a cable in 2009 stating that “Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida.”

So this story is one we know all too well.  Is this kind of shameless corruption the future of the American government?  The next few weeks will tell.

Categories: Clinton corruption, Clinton e-mails, Hillary Clinton and Benghazi, Hillary Clinton and Iran, Iran scam, Russia, Thomas Pickering
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Krauthammer: Is Obama preparing a parting shot on Israel?

October 28, 2016

Source: Krauthammer: Is Obama preparing a parting shot on Israel? – NY Daily News

Last week, the UN’s premier cultural agency, UNESCO, approved a resolution viciously condemning Israel (referred to as “the Occupying Power”) for various alleged trespasses and violations of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Except that the resolution never uses that term for Judaism’s holiest shrine. It refers to and treats it as an exclusively Muslim site, a deliberate attempt to eradicate its connection — let alone its centrality — to the Jewish people and Jewish history.

This Orwellian absurdity is an insult not just to Judaism but to Christianity. It makes a mockery of the Gospels, which chronicle the story of a Galilean Jew whose life and ministry unfolded throughout the Holy Land, most especially in Jerusalem and the Temple. If this is nothing but a Muslim site, what happens to the very foundation of Christianity, which occurred 600 years before Islam even came into being?

This UNESCO resolution is merely the surreal extreme of the worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel. It features the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), now growing on Western university campuses and some mainline Protestant churches. And it extends even into some precincts of the Democratic Party.

Bernie Sanders tried to introduce into the Democratic Party platform a plank more unfavorable to Israel. He failed, but when a couple of Clinton campaign consultants questioned (in emails revealed by WikiLeaks) why she should be mentioning Israel in her speeches, campaign manager Robby Mook concurred, “We shouldn’t have Israel at public events. Especially dem activists.” For whom the very mention of Israel is toxic.

And what to make of the White House’s correction to a press release about last month’s funeral of Shimon Peres? The original release identified the location as “Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, Israel.” The correction crossed out the country identifier — “Israel.”

Well, where else is Jerusalem? Sri Lanka? Moreover, Mount Herzl isn’t even in disputed East Jerusalem. It’s in West Jerusalem, within the boundaries of pre-1967 Israel. If that’s not Israel, what is?

But such cowardly gestures are mere pinpricks compared to the damage Israel faces in the final days of the Obama presidency. As John Hannah of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies recently wrote (in Foreign Policy), there have been indications for months that President Obama might go to the U.N. and unveil his own final status parameters of a two-state solution. These would then be enshrined in a new Security Council resolution that could officially recognize a Palestinian state on the territory Israel came into possession of during the 1967 Six-Day War.

There is a reason such a move has been resisted by eight previous U.S. administrations: It overthrows the central premise of Middle East peacemaking — land for peace. Under which the Palestinians get their state after negotiations in which the parties agree on recognized boundaries, exchange mutual recognition and declare a permanent end to the conflict.

Land for peace would be replaced by land for nothing. Endorsing in advance a Palestinian state and what would essentially be a full Israeli withdrawal removes the Palestinian incentive to negotiate and strips Israel of territorial bargaining chips of the kind it used, for example, to achieve peace with Egypt.

The result would be not just perpetual war but incalculable damage to Israel. Consider but one example: the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, destroyed and ethnically cleansed of Jews by its Arab conquerors in the war of 1948-1949. It was rebuilt by Israel after 1967. It would now be open to the absurd judicial charge that the Jewish state’s possession of the Jewish Quarter constitutes a criminal occupation of another country .

Israel would be hauled endlessly into courts (both national and international) to face sanctions, boycotts (now under color of law) and arrest of its leaders. All this for violating a U.N. mandate to which no Israeli government, left or right, could possibly accede.

Before the election, Obama dare not attempt this final legacy item, to go along with the Iran deal and the Castro conciliation, for fear of damaging Hillary Clinton. His last opportunity comes after Election Day. The one person who might deter him, points out Hannah, is Clinton herself, by committing Obama to do nothing before he leaves office that would tie her hands should she become President.

Clinton’s supporters who care about Israel and about peace need to urge her to do that now. It will soon be too late. Soon Obama will be free to deliver a devastating parting shot to Israel and to the prime minister he detests.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

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