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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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Cartoons of the Day

March 29, 2016

Via Washington Times

Tap dancing

 

Via The Jewish Press

Selective-Denial

Categories: Humor, Israel, Obama and Islamic terrorism
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Two left feet: Obama’s week of ‘bad optics’ really just bad leadership

March 28, 2016

Two left feet: Obama’s week of ‘bad optics’ really just bad leadership, New York Post, Kyle Smith, March 27, 2016

obama_us_analysisBarack Obama shakes hands with Cuban President Raul Castro. Photo AP

To be a president means regularly to find oneself caught off balance. Sometimes you want to chill at the same moment your enemies move to kill. You may find yourself doing an innocent photo op reading a book to little kids when terrorists launch a coordinated attack on the country.

So let’s have a little sympathy for President Obama this week. It has to be frustrating when you set out to make nice with the leaders of a mass-murdering fanatical regime and at the exact same time a mass murder is carried out by a completely different group of fanatics — the ones you keep saying are no big deal.

It has to get under your skin when you bring a planeload of fanboy hacks with you to a tropical paradise on the understanding that they’ll write nice stories about your kicking back with one half of a pair of homicidal brothers when instead people get all distracted about the tiny detail of 31 people getting killed by a different pair of homicidal brothers.

The president whose acolytes call him No Drama Obama aren’t quite right, but they are on to something. The president does get angry, but not at terrorists, dictators or mass murderers. Every time rage sneaks into his face, he’s talking about his domestic political opponents. He’s talking about budgetary disputes, federal appointments, Constitutional interpretation.

Blood literally running in the streets of Belgium? Heads being cut off by sabers? A movement that wants to kill every Jew and Christian? Shrug. Obama spoke about the ISIS mass murder briefly.

Then he did “the wave” with Raul Castro.

cuba_obama4Obama and Castro wave to the crowd during a exhibition game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team.

As one newspaper headline put it, juxtaposing a photo of Obama doing the tango in Argentina against an image from the latest ISIS atrocity, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?” That’s the polite way of referring to the words that are ordinarily indicated by “WTF?”

There are often no great options for a president in times of strain; if President Bush had, when informed that the second plane had hit the World Trade Center, scared the kids by throwing down his copy of “The Pet Goat” and said, “Holy s–t! We’re under attack!” he would have been criticized even more heartily than he was for continuing to read for seven more minutes. (Though it’s hard to grasp exactly what exactly liberals find so outrageous about that notorious delay: Would they be happy if Bush had invaded Afghanistan seven minutes sooner than he did?)

Once Obama decided to go to the ballgame, his only choices were to stick with it and risk looking out of sync with the world’s mood, which is what he did, or ruin his fun day out with a new pal who once ordered up the execution of hundreds of political enemies.

Hey, at least Raul Castro never did anything really vile like declining to appear on a television program with Obama. (In January, The Hill reported, the president grew “visibly angry” when he mentioned the NRA at his gun-control town hall.)

Maybe Obama was invisibly angry with ISIS after the Brussels slaughter. But if you were looking for a signal that he was taking it seriously, you were disappointed. “We defeat them in part by saying, ‘You are not strong, you are weak,’” was his message, reverting to his default reasoning about how terrorism is really all a matter of adjusting your perceptions because the bad guys obviously can’t hurt us if we keep saying we’re not hurt.

usa-argentina_3Obama tangos in Argentina.Photo: Reuters

It’s the same logic you heard in high school from your highly educated feminist English teacher, the one who drove a rusted Chevette with a bumper sticker reading, “It will be a great day when schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.” She told you the best way to beat bullies was to deny them any satisfaction, i.e. to pretend they weren’t pummeling you. “Just curl up into the fetal position, Johnny, you’ll have the last laugh when their punching muscles wear out in an hour or two.” Roughly at the same time, you developed strange new respect for your meathead gym teacher, the one who taught you how to throw a punch in such a way that it would definitely make a nose bleed.

What this week really demonstrated was not that Obama has a wee problem with “the optics” of his job, but that he’s stuck forever in campaign mode, confusing rhetoric with leading. ISIS just laughs and reloads when the president chides them.

Beginning to normalize relations with Cuba is a good idea — but Obama loved the picture of himself giving a speech in Havana so much that he skipped over the part where he’d win concessions from the regime. Giving away the game was his opening bid.

We have the kind of president who would drive away from a car lot congratulating himself on his sweet deal after paying the sucker’s price — plus extra for the “protective undercoating.”

 

Categories: Brussels terror attack, Cuba, Free world, Islamic terrorism, Obama and Cuba, Obama and Islamic State, Obama and Islamic terrorism, Obama's leadership
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Addressing terrorism: what’s the plan?

March 25, 2016

Addressing terrorism: what’s the plan? Sharyl Attkisson, March 24, 2016

Obama and Raul

[W]e’ve been convinced that we’re disallowed from taking most any action that would be logical or effective in protecting ourselves. That’s not to argue that all or even one of these specific measures should be taken. But the fact is, more Americans can probably cite the list of things we won’t do; it would be helpful for us to understand what we will do.

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In early 2014, I was in a small meeting with a high-ranking Obama administration official who was involved in counterterrorism. When asked, he made several candid assertions:

  • Al-Qaeda was never on the run. The President’s terrorism experts never told him it was. They were mystified by his 2012 campaign claims that seemed to the contrary.
  • Al-Qaeda and related terrorists had vastly expanded to other nations and grown more powerful during President Obama’s tenure.
  • The wave of terrorist violence had spread from the Mideast to North Africa and would next hit Europe, then the U.S. The official said this matter-of-factly, with no visible sense of urgency or distress, as if a fait accompli.
  • The terrorists, he acknowledged, had a better and more developed strategy than did the U.S. In fact, he said the U.S. did not have a strategy for addressing the terrorist threat.

In the two years since that conversation, the official’s predictions about terror spreading to Europe and then the U.S. have come to pass. ISIS has emerged as a driving force. And most Americans would say there’s still no discernible plan.

The debates over securing the border and tightening the screening of immigrants are an outgrowth of the absence of a national plan. In order to feel a sense of security, Americans need to believe there’s a cohesive strategy with stated goals and explicit tactics. We don’t need to know all the fine points. Sensitive tactical details, for example, should be protected. But we should be able to understand how our leaders are using their authority and our billions of tax dollars to protect us. What’s the plan?

Brussels_suspects_CCTV-1March 2016 Brussels terrorist suspects

n the defense of this (or any) administration, it’s the most difficult plan to devise. It’s hard to imagine a more daunting task than defeating terrorist fighters who play by no rules; while the U.S. is bound by ethics, politics, guidelines and international agreements. And there’s little disincentive for Islamic extremists to join the jihad. After all, what’s the worst that can happen to these barbaric fighters who may come from primitive and destitute circumstances? They get captured by the U.S. and get a better way of life: three meals a day, a roof over their head, a shirt on their back, security, interrogation that promises not to get too tough, free health care and American advocates who will fight to make sure they have recreation, literature and religious expression.

Yet the academic and military discussions about strategy to date have been a source of confusion rather than clarity. The administration may say it’s not changing strategy while the military says it is. At best, the expressed “battle plans” are piecemeal. We’re working to retake cities we already once controlled…but walked away from? Then what? What’s the plan?

President_of_the_United_States_Barack_Obama_making_a_call_in_a_sensitive_compartmented_information_facility_SCIF-1-768x512President Obama in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF)

The conundrum evokes complaints from Vietnam War-era soldiers who said they never really knew what they were doing. They would battle to the death to take a village or a hill, then be ordered to simply walk away from it a few days later, relinquishing it back to the enemy. What was the plan?

It reminds me of the border. While some politicians claim the southern U.S. border is secure, federal and local law enforcement who are there say that couldn’t be farther from the truth. They insist there’s no will or leadership from Washington to bring the border under control, and no strategy to do so. In fact, the only strategy they can verbalize, when asked, is the one they infer: to be as lax as possible in policing the border and enforcing immigration law. What’s the plan?

We’re left with presidential candidates who have attempted to put plan to paper. Because of her experience and knowledge, Hillary Clinton may seem best positioned to verbalize a clear strategy. Yet as secretary of state, her own miscalculations arguably hastened the rise of ISIS from the ashes of Libya. Her emails from the time confirm that she took the lead in aggressively pursuing the poorly-conceived ouster of Libyan dictator Muammar Ghaddafi without foreseeing the vacuum it would create. In its wake: the tragedy of Benghazi, and the transformation of Libya into a new proving ground for Islamic extremists. It doesn’t inspire confidence that a Clinton leadership would competently address what she failed to foresee as a top Obama official. On the other hand, it could be argued that mistakes of the past provide important lessons for those open to learning from them.

Hillary_Clinton_official_Secretary_of_State_portrait_cropHillary Clinton as secretary of state

There’s little doubt that, left its own devices, the world’s strongest military and best intelligence structure could do much better. But they’re hampered by the growing list of what we won’t do.

We won’t secure our southern border that FBI and Homeland Security officials have warned terrorists seek to exploit.

We won’t tighten up visa and immigration security because of the special interests who would cry racism.

We won’t send more terrorists captured in the field to Guantanamo Bay, lest we be criticized.

We won’t question detainees harshly to get information; that’s viewed as inhumane.

We won’t bomb targets in a way that may hurt a civilian or destroy assets. Obviously, the enemy has thus learned to live and work among civilians.

We’re told to report suspicions by the same authorities that view suspicion as racist.

In short, we’ve been convinced that we’re disallowed from taking most any action that would be logical or effective in protecting ourselves. That’s not to argue that all or even one of these specific measures should be taken. But the fact is, more Americans can probably cite the list of things we won’t do; it would be helpful for us to understand what we will do.

It’s an arduous question. But answering it is under the purview of our chosen leaders. What’s the plan?

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Categories: Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Obama and Islamic terrorism, What's the plan?
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Everyone in Syria is Violating Kerry’s Imaginary Ceasefire

February 28, 2016

Everyone in Syria is Violating Kerry’s Imaginary Ceasefire, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, February 28, 2016

obama_kerry_bikes

Good news. The ceasefire in Syria is “holding”. You know the great Kerry diplomatic achievement after letting Iran go nuclear and forcing Israel to free a bunch of terrorists. It’s holding about as well as a leaky roof in the rain because everyone and their cousin is violating the mostly imaginary ceasefire.

The Saudis claim that the Russians are violating the ceasefire.

Saudi Arabia on Sunday accused President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its ally Russia of “ceasefire violations” in Syria.

“There are violations to the ceasefire from Russian and (Syrian) regime aircraft,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir told reporters in Riyadh.

“We are discussing this with (the 17-nation) Syria Support Group,” co-chaired by Russia and the United States, said Jubeir.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said that several air strikes hit central and northern Syria on Sunday.

Warplanes, believed to be either Syrian or Russian, bombed seven villages in the provinces of Aleppo and Hama, the monitor said.

The Russians are accusing the Syrian rebels of violating the ceasefire.

The Sunni opposition claims 15 violations. The Russians claim 9 violations. And the ceasefire just began. So it’s off to a great start.

Also nobody is really sure what counts as a violation because this agreement was negotiated by John Kerry.

“We do not know which planes carried out the strikes and also we are not sure if this is considered a breach to the truce because it is not clear if these towns are included in the truce,” Abdulrahman said.

So to summarize, the ceasefire is holding, but no one is sure what the ceasefire involves and everyone is violating it.

If you loved this Kerry diplomatic achievement, just wait till Iran detonates its first bomb.

 

Categories: Kerry, Obama and Islamic terrorism, Obama's legacy, Syria ceasefire
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A Strategy to Defeat Islamic Theo-fascism

January 7, 2016

A Strategy to Defeat Islamic Theo-fascism, American Thinker, G. Murphy Donovan, January 7, 2016

Surely, whatever passed for American foreign or military policy in the past three decades is not working. Just as clearly, in case anyone keeps score these days, the dark side of Islam is ascendant at home and abroad. What follows here is a catalogue of policy initiatives that might halt the spread of Islamic fascism and encourage religious reform in the Ummah.

Some observers believe that the Muslim problem is a matter of life and death. Be assured that the need for Islamic reform is much more important than either. The choices for Islam are the same as they are for Palestine Arabs; behave or be humbled. Europe may still have a Quisling North and a Vichy South; but Russia, China, and even America, at heart, are still grounded by national survival instincts – and Samuel Colt.

Call a spade a spade

The threat is Islam, both kinetic and passive aggressive factions. If “moderate” Islam is real, then that community needs to step up and assume responsibility for barbaric terror lunatics and immigrants/refugees alike. Neither America nor Europe has solutions to the Islamic dystopia; civic incompetence, strategic illiteracy, migrants, poverty, religious schisms, or galloping irredentism. The UN and NATO have no remedies either. Islamism is an Ummah, Arab League, OIC problem to solve. Absent moral or civic conscience, unreformed Islam deserves no better consideration than any other criminal cult.

Western Intelligence agencies must stop cooking the books too. The West is at war and the enemy is clearly the adherents of a pernicious ideology. A global war against imperial Islam might be declared, just as angry Islam has declared war on civilization.  A modus vivendi might be negotiated only after the Ummah erects a universal barrier between church and state globally. Islam, as we know it, is incompatible with democracy, civility, peace, stability, and adult beverages.

Oxymoronic “Islamic” states need to be relegated to the dustbin of history. If the Muslim world cannot or will not mend itself, Islamism, like the secular fascism of the 20th Century, must be defeated, humbled in detail. Sooner is better.

Answer the Ayatollahs

Recent allied concessions to Tehran may prove to be a bridge too far. If the Persian priests do not abide by their nuclear commitments, two red lines might be drawn around Israel. Firstly, the ayatollahs should be put on notice, publicly, that any attack against Israel would be considered an attack against America — and met with massive Yankee retaliation. Secondly, any future cooperation with NATO or America should be predicated on an immediate cessation of clerical hate speech and so-called fatwas, those arbitrary death sentences.

Clerical threats to “wipe Israel off the face of the earth” and “death to America” injunctions are designed to stimulate jihad and terror globally. The only difference between a Shia ayatollah and a Sunni imam in this regard these days seems to be the torque in their head threads.

Ostracize the Puppeteers

Strategic peril does not emanate from Sunni tacticians like Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, or Abu Bakr al-Baghadadi. Nor does the real threat begin with or end with al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezb’allah, Hamas, or the Islamic State. Lethal threat comes, instead, on four winds: toxic culture, religious politics, fanatic fighters, and furtive finance, all of which originate with Muslim state sponsors. The most prominent of these are Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan.

Put aside for a moment the Saudi team that brought down the Twin Towers in New York. Consider instead, the House of Saud as the most egregious exporter of Salifism (aka Wahabbism) doctrine, clerics, imams, and mosques from which ultra-irredentist ideologies are spread. The Saudis are at once the custodians of Islam’s sacredshrines and at the same time the world’s most decadent, corrupt, and duplicitous hypocrites. Imam Baghdadi is correct about two things: the venality of elites in Washington and Riyadh. The House of Saud, an absolutist tribal monarchy, does not have the moral standing to administer “holy” sites of any description — Mecca, Medina, or Disneyland.

The cozy relationship between Europe, the European Union, and Arabia can be summarized with a few words; oil, money, arms sales, and base rights. This near-sighted blend of Mideast obscenities has reached its sell-by date. The “white man’s burden” should have expired when Edward Said vacated New York for paradise.

Jettison Turkey and Pakistan

What Saudi Arabia is to toxic ideology in North Africa, Turkey and Pakistan are to perfidy in the Levant and South Asia. Turkey and Pakistan are Islam’s most obvious and persistent grifters. Turkey supports the Islamic State and other Sunni terror groups with a black market oil racket. Pakistan supports the Taliban, al Qaeda, and ISIS with sanctuary and tolerance of the world’s largest opium garden. Oil and drug monies from Arabia, Turkey, and South Asia are financing the global jihad. Turkey also facilitates the migration of Muslims west to Europe while sending Islamist fighters and weapons south to Syria and Iraq.

With the advent of Erdogan and his Islamist AKP, Turkey has morphed into NATO’s Achilles Heel, potentially a fatal flaw.  Turkey needs to be drummed out of NATO until secular comity returns to Ankara. Pakistan needs to be restrained, too, with sanctions until it ceases to provide refuge for terrorists. Pakistani troops harassing India could be more prudently redeployed to exterminate jihadists.

Sanctions against Russia and Israel are a study in moral and political fatuity whilst Arabs and Muslims are appeased midst a cultural sewer of geo-political crime and human rights abuses. If NATO’s eastern flank needs to be anchored in trust and dependability, Russia, Kurdistan, or both, would make better allies than Turkey. Ignoring Turkish perfidy to protect ephemeral base rights confuses tactical necessity with strategic sufficiency.

Recognize Kurdistan

Aside from Israel, Kurdistan might be the most enlightened culture in the Mideast. The Kurds are also the largest ethnic group in the world not recognized as a state. While largely Muslim, the Kurds, unlike most of the Ummah, appreciate the virtues of religious diversity and women’s rights. Indeed, Kurdish women fight alongside their men against Turkish chauvinism and Sunni misogyny with equal aplomb. For too long, the Kurds have been patronized by Brussels and Washington.

While Kurdish fighters engage ISIS and attempt to control the Turkish oil black market, Ankara uses American manufactured NATO F-16s to bomb Kurds in Turkey and Syria. Turkish ground forces now occupy parts of Iraq too. In eastern Turkey, Ergdogan’s NATO legions use ISIS as an excuse for bookend genocide, a cleansing of Kurds that might rival the Armenian Christian genocide (1915-1917).

195876_5_Kurdish angel of death

All the while, American strategic amateurs argue for a “no-fly” zone in contested areas south of Turkey. Creating a no-fly zone is the kind of operational vacuity we have come to expect from American politicians and generals. Such a stratagem would foil Kurdish efforts to flank ISIS and allow the Erdogan jihad, arms, and oil rackets to flourish. A no-fly zone is a dangerous ploy designed to provoke Russia, not protect Muslim “moderates.”

Putin, Lavrov, and the Russians have it right this time; Turkish and Erdogan family subterfuges are lethal liabilities, not assets.

Washington and European allies have been redrawing the map in Eastern Europe, North Africa, South Asia, and the Mideast since the end of WWII. The time has come to put Kurdistan on the map too. Kurdistan is a unique and exemplary case of reformed or enlightened Islam; indeed, a nation that could serve as a model for the Muslim world.  If base rights are a consideration, Kurdistan would be an infinitely more dependable ally than Turkey or any corrupt tribal autocracy in Arabia. America has a little in common with desert dictators — and fewer genuine friends there either. Indeed, at the moment America is allied with the worst of Islam.

Create New Alliances

NATO, like the European Union, has become a parody of itself. Absent a threat like the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact, Brussels has taken to justifying itself by meddling in East Europe and resuscitating a Cold War with the Kremlin. Indeed, having divided Yugoslavia, NATO now expands to the new Russian border with reckless abandon; in fact, fanning anti-Russian flames now with neo-Nazi cohorts in former Yugoslavia, Georgia, and Ukraine.

NATO support for the Muslims of one-time Yugoslavia is of a piece with support for Islamic troublemakers in Chechnya and China too. Throughout, we are led to believe that jihad Uighurs and caliphate Chechens are freedom fighters. Beslan, Boston, Paris, and now San Bernardino put the lie to any notion that Islamists are “victims” (or heroes). Indeed, the Boston Marathon bombing might have been prevented had Washington a better relationship with Moscow.

Truth is, America has more in common with Russia and China these days than we do with any number of traditional European Quislings. Indeed, it seems that Europe and America can’t take yes for an answer.

The Cold War ideological or philosophical argument has been won. Moscow and Beijing have succumbed to market capitalism. Islamism, in stark contrast, is now a menace to Russian, Chinese, and American secular polities alike. The logic of a cooperative or unified approach to a common enemy seems self-evident. America, China, and Russia, at least on issues like toxic Islam, is a match made in Mecca.

The late great contest with Marxist Russia and China was indeed a revolution without guns. Now the parties to that epic Cold War struggle may have to join forces to suppress a theo-fascist movement that, like its Nazi predecessor, will not be defeated without guns. The West is at war again, albeit in slow motion. Withal, questions of war are not rhetorical. Saying that you are not at war does not make it so. Once declared, by one party or the other, the only relevant question about war is who wins and who loses. Losers do not make the future.

If America and Europe were as committed to Judeo/Christian secular values as Islamists are committed to a sick religious culture, then the war against pernicious Islam would have been won decades ago. Or as Jack Kennedy once put it: “Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.”

Trump Footnote

Donald Trump made several policy suggestions on the Islamism issue, one on immigration, the other on Mideast oil. On the former, he suggests a hiatus on Muslim immigration until America develops a plan or reliable programs to vet migrants. On Arab oil, he suggests, given the lives and treasure spent liberating Kuwait and Iraqi oil fields, America should have held those resources in trust and use oil revenues to finance the war against jihad, however long that takes. The problem with both Trump ideas is that they come perilously close to common sense, an American instinct in short supply these days.

 

Categories: Donald Trump, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran - Middle East, Iran and Israel, Iran scam, Islam, Islamic immigration, Islamic jihad, Islamic nations, Islamic reformation, Islamic State, Israel, Kurdish fighters, Kurdistan, Middle East, NATO, Obama - Middle East, Obama and Iran, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic State, Obama and Islamic terrorism, Obama and Israel, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Pakistan, Palestinians, Russia, Saudi Arabia
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Re-evaluating the law that benefits the terrorists

January 5, 2016

Re-evaluating the law that benefits the terrorists, Washington Times, Fred Gedrich, January 4, 2015

In the aftermath of Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump created a political and media firestorm by provocatively suggesting the United States is fighting a “politically correct” war, and since jihadists “don’t care about their lives you have to take out their families.”

Predictably, critics such as Jeb Bush, Rand Paul and others immediately pounced on his comment as a non-serious response or, if implemented, would be tantamount to engaging in international war crimes. Once again, Mr. Trump succeeded in putting a topic on the debate table that needs to be discussed, even though it might have been better if he advocated hitting jihadis when family members are present as opposed to specifically targeting family members.

To be fair, Mr. Trump’s critics should acknowledge that President Obama has already admitted that U.S. drones (the president’s covert program that targets terrorists from afar) have killed civilians, but the United States insists that terrorists themselves are to blame for using family or other civilians as human shields. Also, the United Nations and groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others disagree, stating that current U.S. policy may constitute international war crimes.

Why would Mr. Trump bring up this issue? A recent CNN/ORC Poll offers an answer: 75 percent of those polled say they are unhappy with Mr. Obama’s progress in the war on terror. And it’s clear to many of them that something else needs to be done to deter jihadists.

What should be done? A good start would be for U.S. leaders to acknowledge that jihadists use international law and political correctness as a tactical weapon against the West, and their success is being enhanced by the support of witless enablers in America and elsewhere.

Terror groups like the Islamic State (ISIS), al Qaeda and others know their adversaries fight based on the idea that the rule of law is what separates the civilized world from the barbarians. They have shrewdly and callously exploited civilized rules of warfare to their advantage.

Jihadists’ weapons of choice are improvised explosive devices, suicide bombing attacks, videotaped beheadings, and caged executions by fire and drowning. They seek to inflict as much mutilation, death, destruction and terror on civilian and military targets as possible.

In the regions of the world that bore them, many jihadists are treated as heroes and, shockingly, in many quarters of the civilized world, including the United Nations and some media, they are considered freedom fighters, insurgents or militants — even though, among other things, they disguise themselves as civilians; use willing family members and civilians as human shields; store weapons in hospitals, schools and mosques; and kill, maim and torture with impunity.

When attacked, jihadists respond by claiming the retaliatory violence is misdirected against civilian populations and religious, educational and humanitarian institutions.

If killed, fellow jihadists claim innocent civilians have been killed.

If captured, the terrorists claim they have been denied legal rights as prisoners of war under Geneva Conventions and Protocols.

If questioned by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, they claim they have been tortured and abused.

The flagrant barbarism of the region would, a reasonable person might think, lead to a quick and general consensus on the need for military action and swift and appropriate justice for the terrorists — but they haven’t. Since his capture in 2003, Sept. 11 accused mass murderer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed still hasn’t stood trial owing to a string of legal wranglings.

The Geneva Conventions and Protocols of 1949 and 1977, behind which the terrorists attempt to hide, are the civilized world’s most recent attempt to control wartime behavior. These rules established, among other things, laws governing the conduct of soldiers and the treatment of prisoners and civilians during conflict.

At the heart of the conventions and protocols are clear distinctions between warring parties (combatants) and civilians (noncombatants). Their chief benefits are to make it easier for combatants to avoid targeting noncombatants and for lawful combatants (soldiers) from being prosecuted for acts of war.

To qualify as a lawful combatant under Article IV of the Geneva Convention, a soldier must:

1. Be commanded by a person responsible for subordinates;

2. Have a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (a uniform);

3. Carry arms openly;

4. Conduct operations in accordance with laws and customs of war.

Conversely, an unlawful combatant (jihadi) is a fighter who does not conduct operations according to these rules — and arguably is not entitled to Geneva Convention protections. This is the type of combatant the world and humanity currently faces.

It’s beyond time for White House decision-makers and policymakers, and congressional lawmakers and others — instead of reflexively criticizing someone like Mr. Trump — to recognize that this is a battle against stateless, lawless and uncivilized Islamic jihadists who have no regard for the civilized world’s laws of war but are effectively using those laws against it. Action should be taken to debate, re-examine and change those laws, international or otherwise, that impede successful prosecution of this war against Islamic jihadists that threaten Western civilization. The international order and humanity depend on it.

Categories: Donald Trump, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Obama and Islamic terrorism, Rules of war, U.S. Military
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the Challenge of Radical Islam

January 3, 2016

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the Challenge of Radical Islam, You Tube, January 3, 2015

(It’s an hour and six minutes long but well worth watching. — DM)

 

Categories: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Iran, Islam and women, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic jihad, Islamic reformation, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamophobia, Mecca Islam, Medina Islam, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic State, Obama and Islamic terrorism, Political Islam, Racism, Reform Islam, Saudi Arabia, U.S. 2016 elections, U.S. politics
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Obama White House Turns To Islamists Who Demonize Terror Investigations

December 28, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories: CAIR, Islamic jihad, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Islamophobia, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic terrorism, San Bernardino CA Islamic attack, Zuhdi Jasser
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Obama’s crazy visa policy makes Trump look like a Prophet

December 14, 2015

Obama’s crazy visa policy makes Trump look like a Prophet, Power Line, John Hinderaker, December 14, 2015

Today on Good Morning America, John Cohen, a former acting under-secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and now a national security consultant for ABC News, dropped a bombshell: over the objections of security-minded DHS personnel, the Obama administration secretly barred DHS from looking at postings on social media by visa applicants like Tashfeen Malik:

Fearing a civil liberties backlash and “bad public relations” for the Obama administration, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson refused in early 2014 to end a secret U.S. policy that prohibited immigration officials from reviewing the social media messages of all foreign citizens applying for U.S. visas, a former senior department official said. …

Former DHS under-secretary Cohen said he and others pressed hard for just such a policy change in 2014 that would allow a review of publicly-posted social media messages as terror group followers increasingly used Twitter and Facebook to show their allegiance to a variety of jihadist groups.

Cohen said officials from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) both pressed for a change in policy.

“Immigration, security, law enforcement officials recognized at the time that it was important to more extensively review public social media postings because they offered potential insights into whether somebody was an extremist or potentially connected to a terrorist organization or a supporter of the movement,” said Cohen, who left DHS in June 2014.

Cohen said the issue reached a head at a heated 2014 meeting chaired by Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, other top deputies and representatives of the DHS Office of Civil Liberties and the Office of Privacy.

“The primary concern was that it would be viewed negatively if it was disclosed publicly and there were concerns that it would be embarrassing,” Cohen said in an interview broadcast on “Good Morning America” today.

No doubt the policy will now be changed, but it is too late for the 14 people who were murdered by Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook.

As is so often the case with the Obama administration, one is confronted with a policy of such towering stupidity that one wonders whether it can be accidental. If you wanted more terrorists to enter the United States, what would you do differently?

Categories: Islamic invasion, Islamic jihad, Islamism, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic terrorism, San Bernardino CA Islamic attack
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