The New Pecking Order: Muslims Over Gays

Posted April 6, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Hypocrisy, Islam and homosexuals, Leftists and Homosexuals, Leftists and Islam, Media and Islam
Tags: , , , ,

The New Pecking Order: Muslims Over Gays, PJ Media, Bruce Bawer, April 5, 2017

(Much the same article could be written substituting the “feminist” movement and females for gays. — DM)

Image via Shutterstock, a man holds up a sign reading “Islam is not terrorism.”

They’ve bought into the idea that they and Muslims are fellow members of the oppression brigade. Either they’re unaware that sharia law prescribes execution for gays and that a large majority of Western Muslims are totally okay with that, or they’ve allowed themselves to be convinced that Muslims today don’t care any more about Islamic law than most Christians or Jews do about Leviticus. Or, even more worrisome, they’ve worked out some Orwellian way of knowing the truth while at the same time not knowing it. So it is that we end up seeing grotesquely absurd pictures of gay people waving banners that decry Islamophobia or that declare gay solidarity with Palestine.

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Last month, when Marine Le Pen refused to put on a headscarf for a meeting with Lebanon’s “Grand Mufti,” a friend of mine, whom I’ll call Dave, commended her for it on Facebook. Dave, as it happens, is a Manhattan liberal who voted for Hillary Clinton, despises Donald Trump, and thinks Le Pen is a fascist. But he’s also a gay man who’s very clear-eyed about the danger of Islam, especially to gay people, and who is angry at the left, both in the U.S. and Europe, for appeasing the Religion of Peace. And so he gave Le Pen a thumbs-up for her gutsy action.

Since Dave’s own friends list consists almost exclusively of other big-city liberal types, he was immediately savaged for his post on Le Pen. One of them wrote that just because Muslim women decide to cover their hair or body doesn’t mean they’re oppressed, and added that Le Pen, by refusing to wear a headscarf, wasn’t standing up for women but simply “trying to spread hate” towards Islam. Another of Dave’s friends agreed: Le Pen “didn’t behave properly.” So did another: “This woman is not a feminist, she is a fa[s]cist.” Several more comments were along the same lines. Many of Dave’s friends were livid at him for even daring to compliment Le Pen and criticize Islam.

In response to his friends’ complaints, Dave tried to play the gay-rights card, explaining to them that if they accepted the Muslim rule that women need to don a veil to meet a mufti or enter a mosque, they also had to accept the Muslim requirement that gay people – people such as himself – be stoned to death. Plainly, Dave expected that this argument would win the day with his oh-so-liberal, oh-so-gay-friendly friends. But it didn’t. On the contrary, their responses made it clear that they’d fully accepted the current progressive pecking order among officially recognized oppressed groups: gays (especially affluent gay American males such as Dave) are at the bottom of the ladder; Muslims are at the very top. Which means that when gays criticize Islam, a decent progressive is supposed to scream “Islamophobe”; but when Muslims drop gays to their deaths off the roofs of buildings, one is expected to look away and change the topic.

Of course, plenty of gays don’t share Dave’s critical attitude toward Islam. They’ve bought into the idea that they and Muslims are fellow members of the oppression brigade. Either they’re unaware that sharia law prescribes execution for gays and that a large majority of Western Muslims are totally okay with that, or they’ve allowed themselves to be convinced that Muslims today don’t care any more about Islamic law than most Christians or Jews do about Leviticus. Or, even more worrisome, they’ve worked out some Orwellian way of knowing the truth while at the same time not knowing it. So it is that we end up seeing grotesquely absurd pictures of gay people waving banners that decry Islamophobia or that declare gay solidarity with Palestine.

Meanwhile news stories mount up that challenge this widespread, fatuous self-delusion. Recently, during a course in “Middle Eastern Humanities” at Florida’s Rollins College, a Muslim student stated a truth about Islam out loud: according to sharia, he explained, gays and adulterers should be punished by beheading, and as a good Muslim he apparently had no problem with that. After the class was over, another student in the class, a Christian named Marshall Polston, expressed his concerns to the course professor, Areej Zufair, about the Muslim student’s statement. The result? Polston was summoned to the office of the dean of safety and informed that he’d been suspended. Perhaps because his case drew nationwide attention, his suspension was later revoked – but of course it should never have happened in the first place.

The other day, Michael Hurd, a Delaware psychologist and author, reported on yet another incident in which ISIS threw “a young man to his death from a rooftop and pelted him with rocks after discovering he was gay.” This happened in Mosul, in front of an enthusiastic crowd that eagerly took part in the stoning. Hurd expressed his continuing astonishment at the failure of such events to move those in America who claim to support gay rights (the same people who, I might add, are capable of getting apoplectic over the failure of Christian bakers to supply a cake for a same-sex wedding). Hurd wrote:

Crimes committed by Muslims against gays are largely (if not totally) ignored by the political left and the gay rights movement. Neither Madonna nor Meryl Streep will stand before mass audiences and sob over the brutal execution of gays by Muslims in Mosul, because this assaults their ideological narrative of political correctness. And that ideological narrative is what matters most to them, not the gays or others they claim to love. In fact, you’re labeled a hater and extremist if you even call attention to these events…

Indeed. The point, wrote Hurd, is clear: according to contemporary progressive ideology, Muslims are higher on the victim scale than gays. Period. Actual events don’t enter into this calculus. Gay rights only matter when the offenders against those rights are people even lower on the totem pole than gays – for example, the aforementioned Christian bakers. When gays are butchered by Muslims, the only proper progressive response is silence.

Consider this: in March, pop singer Katy Perry accepted an award from the Human Rights Campaign, a self-identified gay-rights group that is probably better described as an arm of the Democratic Party establishment. In her acceptance speech, Perry recounted her struggle to shake off her childhood indoctrination in Christian hostility toward gays. “When I was growing up,” she said, “homosexuality was synonymous with the word abomination.” Now, Perry affirmed, she was long past that primitive mentality, and was a strong opponent of discrimination, “whether it be [against] the LGBTQ community, or [our] Latino brothers and sisters, or the millions of Muslims in this country.” Should one laugh or cry?

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Europe’s Out-of-Control Censorship

Posted April 6, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: "Community values", Censorship, European Union, European values, Freedom of speech, Germany, Merkel, social media
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Europe’s Out-of-Control Censorship, Gatestone Institute, Judith Bergman, April 6, 2017

Who would have thought that more than a quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), Western Europe would be reinventing itself in the image of the Soviet Union?

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If Facebook insists on the rules of censorship, it should at the very least administer those rules in a fair way. Facebook, however, does not even pretend that it administers its censorship in any way that approximates fairness.

Posts critical of Chancellor Merkel’s migrant policies, for example, can be categorized as “Islamophobia”, and are often found to violate “Community Standards”, while incitement to actual violence and the murder of Jews and Israelis by Palestinian Arabs is generally considered as conforming to Facebook’s “Community Standards”.

Notwithstanding the lawsuits, Facebook’s bias is so strong that it recently restored Palestinian Arab terrorist group Fatah’s Facebook page, which incites hatred and violence against Jews — despite having shut it down only three days earlier. In 2016 alone, this page had a minimum of 130 posts glorifying terror and murder of Jews.

Germany has formally announced its draconian push towards censorship of social media. On March 14, Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas announced the plan to formalize into law the “code of conduct”, which Germany pressed upon Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in late 2015, and which included a pledge to delete “hate speech” from their websites within 24 hours.

“This [draft law] sets out binding standards for the way operators of social networks deal with complaints and obliges them to delete criminal content,” Justice Minister Heiko Maas said in a statement announcing the planned legislation.

“Criminal” content? Statements that are deemed illegal under German law are now being conflated with statements that are merely deemed, subjectively and on the basis of entirely random complaints from social media users — who are free to abuse the code of conduct to their heart’s content — to be “hate speech”. “Hate speech” has included critiques of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s migration policies. To be in disagreement with the government’s policies is now potentially “criminal”. Social media companies, such as Facebook, are supposed to be the German government’s informers and enforcers — qualified by whom and in what way? — working at the speed of light to comply with the 24-hour rule. Rule of law, clearly, as in North Korea, Iran, Russia or any banana-republic, has no place in this system.

Maas is not pleased with the efforts of the social media companies. They do not, supposedly, delete enough reported content, nor do they delete it fast enough, according to a survey by the Justice Ministry’s youth protection agency. It found that YouTube was able to remove around 90% of “illegal” postings within a week, while Facebook deleted or blocked 39% of content and Twitter only 1%. The German minister, it seems, wants more efficiency.

“We need to increase the pressure on social networks… There is just as little room for criminal propaganda and slander [on social media] as on the streets,” said Maas. “For this we need legal regulations.” He has now presented these legal regulations in the form of a draft bill, which provides for complaints, reporting and fines.

There also appears to be no differentiation made between primary-source hate speech, as in many religious tenets, and secondary-source hate speech, reporting on the former.

According to the draft, social media platforms with more than two million users would be obliged to delete or block any criminal offenses, such as libel, slander, defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint. The networks receive seven days for more complicated cases. Germany could fine a social media company up to 50 million euros for failing to comply with the law; it could fine a company’s chief representative in Germany up to 5 million euros.

It does not stop there. Germany does not want these measures to be limited to its own jurisdiction. It wants to share them with the rest of Europe: “In the end, we also need European solutions for European-wide companies,” said Maas. The European Union already has a similar code of conduct in place, so that should not be very hard to accomplish.

Facebook, for its part, has announced that by the end of 2017, the number of employees in complaints-management in Berlin will be increased to more than 700. A spokeswoman said that Facebook had clear rules against hate speech and works “hard” on removing “criminal content”.

If Facebook insists on operating under rules of censorship, it should at the very least aim to administer those rules in a fair manner. Facebook, however, does not even pretend that it administers its censorship in any way that approximates fairness. Instead, Facebook’s practice of its so-called “Community Standards” — the standards to which Facebook refers when deleting or allowing content on its platform in response to user complaints — shows evidence of entrenched bias. Posts critical of Merkel’s migrant policies, for example, can get categorized as “Islamophobia”, and are often found to violate “Community Standards”, while incitement to actual violence and the murder of Jews and Israelis by Palestinian Arabs is generally considered as conforming to Facebook’s “Community Standards”.

Facebook’s bias, in fact, became so pronounced that in October 2015, Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center filed an unprecedented lawsuit against Facebook on behalf of some 20,000 Israelis, to stop allowing Palestinian Arab terrorists to use the social network to incite violent attacks against Jews. The complaint sought an injunction against Facebook that required it to monitor incitement and to respond immediately to complaints about content that incites people to violence. Shurat Hadin wrote at the time:

“…Facebook is much more than a neutral internet platform or a mere ‘publisher’ of speech because its algorithms connect the terrorists to the inciters. Facebook actively assists the inciters to find people who are interested in acting on their hateful messages by offering friend, group and event suggestions … Additionally, Facebook often refuses to take down the inciting pages, claiming that they do not violate its ‘community standards’. Calling on people to commit crimes is not constitutionally protected speech and endangers the lives of Jews and Israelis”.

In 2016, Shurat Hadin filed a separate $1 billion lawsuit on behalf of five victims of Hamas terrorism and their families. They are seeking damages against Facebook under the U.S. Antiterrorism Act, for Facebook’s having provided material support and resources to Hamas in the form of Facebook services, which Hamas then used to carry out their terrorist activities. The US has officially designated Hamas a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” which means that it is a criminal offense to provide material support to such an organization.

Notwithstanding the lawsuits, Facebook’s bias is so strong that it recently restored Palestinian Arab terrorist group Fatah’s Facebook page, which incites hatred and violence against Jews — despite having shut it down only three days earlier. In 2016 alone, this page had a minimum of 130 posts glorifying terror and the murder of Jews.

It is only a small step from imposing censorship on social media companies to asking the same of email providers, or ordering postal authorities to screen letters, magazines and brochures in the event that citizens spread supposed “xenophobia” and “fake news”. There is ample precedent for such a course of action on the continent: During the Cold War, people living behind the Iron Curtain had their private letters opened by the communist authorities; those passages deemed to be out of line with the communist orthodoxy, were simply blacked out.

Who would have thought that more than a quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), Western Europe would be reinventing itself in the image of the Soviet Union?

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Sisi, Trump, and the Politics of Designating the Muslim Brotherhood

Posted April 6, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Arab nations, CAIR, Islamist objectives, Islamists in America, Media and Islam, Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act, Sharia law, Sisi and Muslim Brotherhood, Trump and Muslim Brotherhood, Trump and Sisi, US Congress
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Sisi, Trump, and the Politics of Designating the Muslim Brotherhood, National Review, Clifford Smith, April 6, 2017

President Trump welcomes Egyptian President El-Sisi to the White House, April 3, 2017. (Reuters photo: Carlos Barria)

Hopes that the Trump administration will designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization have hit rough waters, with anonymous officials citing concerns about diplomatic blowback and frayed relationships with Muslims at home and abroad. The leaks come on the eve of a historic visit to Washington by Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a key Arab ally and devoted Muslim who is locked in a life-or-death struggle with the Brotherhood.

The irony is hard to miss, particularly given that Egypt and several other Arab countries have already designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

Whatever the truth behind the leaks, they underscore that the inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom — that the Brotherhood is “moderate” and so popular that designation would be seen as “a declaration of war against . . . Islam itself” — will not die as easily as many hoped.

This thinking is rooted in a failure to understand the difference between Islamists — a sizable but distinct minority of Muslims who adhere to a totalitarian religious ideology — and the moderate majority of Muslims, who are our friends and allies. President el-Sisi, who has publicly called out extremism to clerics in Egypt, understands this. After all, Egypt is not the only state in which the Brotherhood engaged in attempts to kill its way to power. It did the same in Syria in the early 1980s.

Despite the Brotherhood’s long history of bloodshed, claims that it is “moderate,” or opposes violence, are still prominent. While above-ground Brotherhood organizations use peaceful means when effective, they are “prepared to countenance violence . . . where gradualism is ineffective,” as a 2015 report by the British government noted with significant understatement.

Claims that designation will complicate U.S. relationships with certain Arab allies are overblown. While it is true that some allies, such as Jordan, have Muslim Brotherhood–affiliated parties represented in their parliaments, this is easy enough to finesse. Members of Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, have long served in Lebanon’s parliament, but American diplomats manage to avoid contact with them and still do business with the Lebanese.

Moreover, failure to designate the Brotherhood complicates some alliances. The Egyptian public has grown deeply suspicious of the U.S. government precisely because under Obama the U.S. came to be seen as overly sympathetic to the Brotherhood. When Senator Ted Cruz introduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terror Designation Act, many Egyptians saw it as a sign the U.S. may be waking from its long slumber. A tweet introducing the bill was the subject of a segment by popular Egyptian talk-show host Amr Adib and was retweeted 17,000+ times.

Domestically, in the wake of Trump’s admittedly troubling comments suggesting a “Muslim ban” during his presidential campaign last year, some fear that designation will fuel anti-Muslim bigotry and pave the way for “a legal assault on the institutions of American Muslim life.” After all, several organizations claiming to represent U.S. Muslims, particularly the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), have deep Muslim Brotherhood ties.

But groups such as CAIR are hardly “institutions of American Muslim life” — they’re just pretending to be. A 2011 Gallup poll found support for CAIR among U.S. Muslims to be just under 12 percent. Britain’s inquiry into the Brotherhood found that its activists in the U.K. “appear to be unable to generate any grassroots support.”

Frankly, however, if public support for CAIR were higher, that would be all the more reason to be concerned. Notwithstanding its carefully crafted public image, CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007–09 Holy Land Foundation terror-finance case, and was blacklisted by the FBI as a result. Unfortunately, the Obama administration failed to aggressively continue an FBI investigation into CAIR after it conspired to fund terrorist-designated organization Hamas, the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, the United Arab Emirates has declared CAIR itself a terrorist organization.

Trump’s rhetorical excesses cannot be understood without recalling the Obama administration’s refusal to name the problem. Using euphemisms such as “violent extremism” and feigning puzzlement as to the motives of obvious jihadists made the administration’s rhetoric concerning terrorism a national joke. In both the U.S. and Europe, when elites insist that voters must believe them, rather than their own “lying eyes,” the voters turn sharply in the opposite direction. The cure for Trump’s rhetorical excesses is increased security, not denial.

Trump laid out a number of smart proposals on radical Islam during his campaign. His administration should now use President el-Sisi’s visit to move forward with these ideas. In particular, it should follow up designation of the Brotherhood with the formation of a congressionally authorized commission on radical Islam tasked with developing a strategy for winning the war against Islamic extremists and explaining the threat of Islamism to the American people. Both are badly needed. Wrongheaded conventional wisdom won’t keep Americans, or our Muslim allies, safe.

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Bannon kicked off National Security Council by squish on jihadis

Posted April 6, 2017 by Peter Hofman
Categories: Uncategorized

Bannon kicked off National Security Council by squish on jihadis

By Karin McQuillan
April 6, 2017

Source: Blog: Bannon kicked off National Security Council by squish on jihadis

The news of the week is that Trump’s second pick as national security adviser, Army lieutenant general McMaster, has kicked Steve Bannon off the National Security Council.  The W.H. is spinning it to the effect that Bannon’s job there is over, since he doesn’t need to keep an eye on Flynn.  Or because Susan Rice has been outed.  Or something.  There’s a lot more to this story, with McMaster emerging with more power.  This is not good news.

The Deep State operatives in the Obama administration knew what they were doing when they targeted retired lieutenant general Mike Flynn, President Trump’s first pick as national security adviser.  Flynn was one of the strongest, most honest voices in Washington on the threat of Islam’s jihadi ambitions.  Although President Trump declared what happened to Flynn “very unfair,” he fired him anyway and appointed Lt. Gen. McMaster, a Bush-Obama squish on Islam.

McMaster’s first act on heading the Trump national security team was to order staff not to use the term “radical Islamic terror.”  He claims that ISIS is “un-Islamic.”  And he even urged President Trump not to say the words “radical Islamic terrorism” in his speech before Congress.  Trump ignored the advice.

McMaster and Bannon clashed big in mid-March, with Bannon and Jared Kushner winning that round.

Perhaps part of the answer is here – the Deep State at the CIA  is working to push out Trump’s anti-jihad appointees and replace them with Obama holdovers.  McMaster is cooperating.

From the Weekly Standard, as reported on Frontpagemag.com, about that clash three weeks ago:

Over the weekend, a personnel dispute within the National Security Council between the national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, and senior White House aides Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon was eventually brought to President Trump himself. As Politico reported Tuesday evening, Trump overruled McMaster, who had sought to move the NSC’s senior director of intelligence programs to another position, reportedly after “weeks of pressure from career officials at the CIA.” Some of those CIA officials, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned, were pushing for one of their own to take the job in Trump’s White House.

The CIA career officials had targeted a Mike Flynn appointee and wanted to replace him with an appalling Obama holdover.  The question is, why was McMaster pushing for the Deep State Obama choice?

The current NSC official is Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a 30-year-old former intelligence operations officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency who was brought into the Trump White House by the former DIA director, Mike Flynn. … McMaster had interviewed a potential replacement for Cohen-Watnick: longtime CIA official Linda Weissgold.

Who is this Linda Weissgold whom Trump’s new national security adviser McMaster was trying to bring in, over the objections of Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner?  None other than the CIA Office of Terrorism Obama flack who drafted the false Benghazi talking points, that the 9/11 al-Qaeda attack was merely a spontaneous protest over a video.

Trump overruled McMaster on Weissgold. He overruled Mattis on Patterson. But it’s a ridiculous situation. Top appointees shouldn’t be bringing these people through the door. Period. Lee Smith at the Tablet has a list of some of the cretins that have gone through the door. Smith is no fan of Trump, but the list of people who are still on there, but shouldn’t be, is hard to argue with.

Bannon won the clash, as reported on March 19.  April 5, Bannon is out, and McMaster is stronger than ever.

Who picked McMaster to replace Flynn?  McMaster is not a worthy successor to Flynn.  He is the opposite of everything Trump is supposed to believe in and promised the public regarding the jihadi threat.

Soeren Kern at the Gatestone Institute:

Flynn … has long argued that the West is in a civilizational clash with Islam, and that the war on terror must be expanded and intensified to reflect this reality.

By contrast, McMaster emphatically rejects the notion of a clash of civilizations. His statements on Islam are … not materially different from those of former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

Flynn had this to say about radical Islam:

We are facing another “ism,” just like we faced Nazism, and fascism, and imperialism and communism. This is Islamism, it is a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people on this planet and it has to be excised.

Flynn warned:

Ask the people in San Bernardino or South Florida, or the relatives of the thousands killed on 9/11. We’re either going to win or lose. There is no other “solution.”  I believe we can and must win[.] …

We have the wherewithal, but lack the will. That has to change. It’s hard to imagine it happening with our current leaders, but the next president will have to do it.

McMaster believes the exact opposite of Flynn, and the exact opposite of President Trump.  He is an enthusiastic follower of Obama’s policies on the Islamic threat.  He thinks the terrorist ideology is “irreligious” (nothing to do with Islam, folks, move along) and preys on the “undereducated,” and that we should work with the Muslim Brotherhood.

McMaster publicly endorsed a book that called on U.S. military commanders to kiss the Koran and ceremoniously present it to Muslims with a humble apology.

In 2010, McMaster enthusiastically endorsed a book entitled, “Militant Islamist Ideology: Understanding the Global Threat[.]” … Aboul-Enein’s central objective is to urge American policymakers to distinguish between militant Islamists such as members of the Islamic State and non-militant Islamists such as members of the Muslim Brotherhood. …

Aboul-Enein also suggests that if an American soldier ever desecrates a Koran, U.S. leadership must not merely relieve him of duty, but offer ‘unconditional apologies,’ and emulate the words of Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Hammond, which Aboul-Enein quotes as exemplary: ‘I come before you [Muslims] seeking your forgiveness, in the most humble manner I look in your eyes today, and say please forgive me and my soldiers,’ followed by kissing a new Koran and ‘ceremoniously’ presenting it to Muslims.

McMaster’s endorsement of the book, which appears on the jacket cover, reads:

Terrorist organizations use a narrow and irreligious ideology to recruit undereducated and disenfranchised people to their cause. Understanding terrorist ideology is the first and may also be the most important step in ensuring national and international security against the threat that these organizations pose.

With his own words, McMaster damns himself as a threat to our national security.  McMaster is correct that “understanding terrorist ideology is the first and may also be the most important step in ensuring national and international security.”  What he misses is that there is no such thing as “terrorist ideology” – we are facing jihadi ideology, deeply embedded in traditional Islam.  Our enemies are not the undereducated and irreligious; they are radicalized Muslims.

We need Steve Bannon to be fighting for us, because McMaster is not alone in promoting Obama operatives in positions of power and authority in defiance of Trump’s objectives.  At Defense, we had General Mattis wanting to bring in as his top adviser at the Pentagon, Anne Patterson, Obama’s ambassador to Egypt, an infamous promoter of the Muslim Brotherhood and the “least popular American in all of  Egypt.”

At the State Department, Tillerson has promoted the beautiful Sahar Nowrouzzadeh to be in charge of our Iran and Persian Gulf region, a woman who worked for a mullah front group, then helped Obama craft our sell-out to Iran:

A trusted Obama aide who once worked for an alleged Iranian regime lobbying group is one of the individuals in charge of Iran policy planning at the State Department under Secretary Rex Tillerson.

Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, the Iran director for former President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), has burrowed into the government under President Trump. She’s now in charge of Iran and the Persian Gulf region on the policy planning staff at the State Department.

To make matters worse, Nowrouzzadeh is a former employee of the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), a non-profit that is accused of being a lobbying group for the Iranian regime. NIAC’s current president, Trita Parsi, has long held close relationships with top officials in the Tehran dictatorship. In February, a group of over 100 prominent Iranian dissidents called for Congress to investigate NIAC’s ties to the Iranian regime.

Nowrouzzadeh has old familiar Obama faces around her.

The Trump team has selected Brett McGurk[.] … McGurk was the point man on (Obama’s) pro-Iran policy, famously arranging for Iran to get $400 million in cash delivered on wooden pallets to the IRGC in exchange for American hostages[.] … Remember when the Trump administration promised to make public the secret agreements that Obama made with Iran? McGurk signed some of the secret documents[.] … Notably, none of those documents has actually been made public.

Who short-listed the soft-on-jihad McMaster for Trump to pick as Flynn’s replacement as top national security adviser?

Why has Sec. of State Tillerson kept on and promoted Obama’s pro-mullah Iran specialist to lead our Iran policy?

Why did Sec. of Defense Mattis push hard to hire Anne Patterson, “the Muslim Brotherhood’s greatest ally in Egypt,” who carried out Obama’s project to push out our ally, Mubarak, and put the jihadi Brotherhood in power?

Lee Smith at The Tablet calls the Trump team “Obama’s Foreign Policy Wizards”:

What’s really bizarre is that the Trump team keeps blaming damaging leaks to the press on Obama holdovers – when the Trump team is hiring Obama holdovers. They may have caught Anne Patterson before she got past the velvet rope, but Obama people staff key positions elsewhere, on Israel, Iran, ISIS, and Syria issues. Which makes sense, since the policies they are tasked with carrying out are so far exactly the same as they were under Obama.

Whoever queued up these disasters does not deserve Trump’s trust.

That McMaster as Trump’s head of the NSC won’t say the words “radical Islamic terrorism” is disqualifying.  This betrays every campaign speech President Trump ever made.

Trump says he’ll drain the swamp.  His own appointees and Cabinet members are filling it up with Obama loyalists.

Hat tip: powerlineblog.com, frontpagemag.com

 

 

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‘We are compelled to take own action’ if UN fails in Syria

Posted April 6, 2017 by Peter Hofman
Categories: Uncategorized

The US has hinted it may take its own action in Syria, unless the UN Security Council takes action to prevent the use of chemical weapons in Syria. It comes after a reported chemical weapons attack in the Idlib province, which rebels blamed on Damascus.

Published time: 5 Apr, 2017 15:46 Edited time: 5 Apr, 2017 20:17

Source: ‘We are compelled to take own action’ if UN fails in Syria – US envoy — RT News

The US has hinted it may take its own action in Syria, unless the UN Security Council takes action to prevent the use of chemical weapons in Syria. It comes after a reported chemical weapons attack in the Idlib province, which rebels blamed on Damascus.

The UN Security Council convened on Wednesday to discuss a draft resolution proposed by the US, the UK and France, which would condemn Damascus for the reported chemical weapons attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday morning.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, delivered an emotional speech that included images of children to argue in favor of swift action. The pictures were used in reporting of the alleged chemical weapons attack.

She claimed the incident carried “all hallmarks” of an attack by Damascus, adding that the toxin used in the alleged assault was “more deadly” than in previous cases attributed to the Syrian military by Washington.

Read more

© Ministry of defence of the Russian Federation

Russia to continue Syria military op in support of Assad after ‘chemical attack’ claims – Kremlin

US envoy to UN also accused Russia of failing to ensure that there were no chemical weapons in the possession of the Syrian government.

“The truth is that Russia, Iran and [Syrian President Bashar] Assad have no interest in peace,” Haley claimed.

The US has hinted at taking its own action in Syria unless the UN Security Council moves to prevent the use of chemical weapons in the war-torn country.

“When the United Nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action,” the US ambassador to the UN said.

Russia criticized the draft resolution for being unbalanced and jumping to conclusions. It said the document would have to include several amendments, such as calling on the rebels controlling the area to provide full access to UN investigators and setting an unbiased and comprehensive probe into the incident as the primary goal of the resolution.

Read more

Syrian children receive treatment following a suspected gas attack in Khan Sheikhun, Idlib province. April 4, 2017. © Mohamed Al-Bakour

Dozens reported killed in alleged gas attack in Syria, military denies involvement (PHOTOS)

“This draft was penned in haste and adopting it would have been irresponsible,” the Russian deputy acting envoy to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, said.

He also blamed Western members of the UNSC for unwillingness to investigate previous cases of alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria, where rebel groups were accused of using toxin agents.

Safronkov said that it was premature to adopt a separate Security Council resolution over the alleged chemical attack in Idlib, as earlier adopted documents were sufficient to provide for its thorough investigation.

The deputy envoy stressed that Moscow supports the calls voiced by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for a full and objective probe of the alleged chemical attack.

Russia considers the use of chemical weapons by any of the warring parties in Syria “unacceptable,” he said, adding that the perpetrators must be held responsible.

“We should put an end to the useless practice of carrying out investigations remotely,” Safronkov said, adding that experts must travel to Khan Sheikhoun and use all available methods in their inquiry, instead of relying on “unverifiable” data from the internet.

According to the deputy envoy, the Syrian authorities are also interested in establishing the truth about the attack.

Damascus will soon address the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, asking for a mission to be sent to Syria to look into the incident, he added.

Russia introduces draft UNSC resolution on Idlib attack investigation

Later on Wednesday, Russia introduced its own draft resolution on the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Idlib to the UN Security Council in response to the document prepared by the US, UK and France.

“On today’s Security Council meeting, deputy envoy Vladimir Safronkov criticized the obviously hastily and sloppy-written draft resolution on the chemical attack in Syria. Instead, we offered our own, short, business-like draft aimed at staging a real investigation, instead of appointing those guilty before the facts are even established,” the Russian UN envoy’s press secretary, Fedor Strzhyzhovsky, said.

The consultations on the Russian draft have already begun, with the UN Security Council to continue its session as soon as a compromise is reached, the press secretary added.

Earlier the council was briefed by Kim Won-soo, the UN high representative for disarmament affairs, who acknowledged that the organization so far has no independent evidence on the suspected chemical weapons attack.

The Korean diplomat expressed grave concern over the media reports on the incident, saying that if confirmed, it would constitute the deadliest use of chemical weapons in Syria since the Ghouta attack in August 2013.

Kim reported that all chemical weapons declared by the Syrian government had been removed and destroyed. Verification for a handful of sites has not yet been completed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons due to security concerns, he added.

He also said that chemical weapons inspectors are currently in the process of finalizing their findings on several cases of the reported use of chemical weapons in Syria over the past several months. The report will be available in several weeks, Kim said.

Former Pentagon official Michael Maloof said the UN needs to take the initiative in its hands to prevent the “effort to try and ratchet things up” in Syria over the alleged chemical attack.

“What the UN needs to do… [is to] call in a fact finding team, get there on the ground and look at it for themselves. I was hoping that Russia could invite the US to bring in officials to jointly do such an examination… under the UN’s auspices,” he said.

“Immediately, the notion is to blame not only Russia, but, more importantly, Syria,” Maloof said, adding that “there’s some reason to believe that a storehouse of chemical weapons was hit. Idlib province is known for housing opposition members and they’re known to have sarin capability production and they’ve also received it in from Turkey, which is not very far away.”

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Did the Obama Administration’s Abuse of Foreign-Intelligence Collection Start Before Trump?

Posted April 5, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Intelligence community, Intelligence leaks, Iran scam, Israel and Iran scam, Netanyahu and Iran, Obama, Susan Rice, Trump and Iran scam, Trump and Israel, U.S. Congress
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Did the Obama Administration’s Abuse of Foreign-Intelligence Collection Start Before Trump?, Tablet Magazine, Lee Smith, April 5, 2017

The accusation that the Obama administration used information gleaned from classified foreign surveillance to smear and blackmail its political opponents at home has gained new traction in recent days, after reports that former National Security Adviser Susan Rice may have been rifling through classified transcripts for over a year that could have included information about Donald Trump and his associates. While using resources that are supposed to keep Americans safe from terrorism for other purposes may be a dereliction of duty, it is no more of a crime than spending all day on Twitter instead of doing your job. The crime here would be if she leaked the names of U.S. citizens to reporters. In the end, the seriousness of the accusation against Rice and other former administration officials who will be caught up in the “unmasking” scandal will rise or fall based on whether or not Donald Trump was actively engaged in a conspiracy to turn over the keys of the White House to the Kremlin. For true believers in the Trump-Kremlin conspiracy theories, the Obama “spying and lying” scandal isn’t a scandal at all; just public officials taking prudent steps to guard against an imminent threat to the republic.

But what if Donald Trump wasn’t the first or only target of an Obama White House campaign of spying and illegal leaks directed at domestic political opponents?

In a December 29, 2015 article, The Wall Street Journal described how the Obama administration had conducted surveillance on Israeli officials to understand how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, like Ambassador Ron Dermer, intended to fight the Iran Deal. The Journal reported that the targeting “also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups.”

Despite this reporting, it seemed inconceivable at the time that—given myriad legal, ethical, political, and historical concerns, as well as strict National Security Agency protocols that protect the identity of American names caught in intercepts—the Obama White House would have actually spied on American citizens. In a December 31, 2016, Tablet article on the controversy, “Why the White House Wanted Congress to Think It Was Being Spied on By the NSA,” I argued that the Obama administration had merely used the appearance of spying on American lawmakers to corner opponents of the Iran Deal. Spying on U.S. citizens would be a clear abuse of the foreign-intelligence surveillance system. It would be a felony offense to leak the names of U.S. citizens to the press.

Increasingly, I believe that my conclusion in that piece was wrong. I believe the spying was real and that it was done not in an effort to keep the country safe from threats—but in order to help the White House fight their domestic political opponents.

“At some point, the administration weaponized the NSA’s legitimate monitoring of communications of foreign officials to stay one step ahead of domestic political opponents,” says a pro-Israel political operative who was deeply involved in the day-to-day fight over the Iran Deal. “The NSA’s collections of foreigners became a means of gathering real-time intelligence on Americans engaged in perfectly legitimate political activism—activism, due to the nature of the issue, that naturally involved conversations with foreigners. We began to notice the White House was responding immediately, sometimes within 24 hours, to specific conversations we were having. At first, we thought it was a coincidence being amplified by our own paranoia. After a while, it simply became our working assumption that we were being spied on.”

This is what systematic abuse of foreign-intelligence collection for domestic political purposes looks like: Intelligence collected on Americans, lawmakers, and figures in the pro-Israel community was fed back to the Obama White House as part of its political operations. The administration got the drop on its opponents by using classified information, which it then used to draw up its own game plan to block and freeze those on the other side. And—with the help of certain journalists whose stories (and thus careers) depend on high-level access—terrorize them.

Once you understand how this may have worked, it becomes easier to comprehend why and how we keep being fed daily treats of Trump’s nefarious Russia ties. The issue this time isn’t Israel, but Russia, yet the basic contours may very well be the same.

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Two inquiries now underway on Capitol Hill, conducted by the Senate intelligence committee and the House intelligence committee, may discover the extent to which Obama administration officials unmasked the identities of Trump team members caught in foreign-intelligence intercepts. What we know so far is that Obama administration officials unmasked the identity of one Trump team member, Michael Flynn, and leaked his name to the Washington Post’s David Ignatius.

“According to a senior U.S. government official,” Ignatius wrote in his Jan. 12 column, “Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions?”

Nothing, the Times and the Post later reported. But exposing Flynn’s name in the intercept for political purposes was an abuse of the national-security apparatus, and leaking it to the press is a crime.

This is familiar territory. In spying on the representatives of the American people and members of the pro-Israel community, the Obama administration learned how far it could go in manipulating the foreign-intelligence surveillance apparatus for its own domestic political advantage. In both instances, the ostensible targets—Israel and Russia—were simply instruments used to go after the real targets at home.

In order to spy on U.S. congressmen before the Iran Deal vote, the Obama administration exploited a loophole, which is described in the original Journal article. The U.S. intelligence community is supposed to keep tabs on foreign officials, even those representing allies. Hence, everyone in Washington knows that Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer is under surveillance. But it’s different for his American interlocutors, especially U.S. lawmakers, whose identities are, according to NSA protocol, supposed to be, at the very least, redacted. But the standard for collecting and disseminating “intercepted communications involving U.S. lawmakers” is much less strict if it is swept up through “foreign-foreign” intercepts, for instance between a foreign ambassador and his capital. Washington, i.e. the seat of the American government, is where foreign ambassadors are supposed to meet with American officials. The Obama administration turned an ancient diplomatic convention inside out—foreign ambassadors were so dangerous that meeting them signaled betrayal of your own country.

During the long and contentious lead-up to the Iran Deal the Israeli ambassador was regularly briefing senior officials in Jerusalem, including the prime minister, about the situation, including his meetings with American lawmakers and Jewish community leaders. The Obama administration would be less interested in what the Israelis were doing than in the actions of those who actually had the ability to block the deal—namely, Senate and House members. The administration then fed this information to members of the press, who were happy to relay thinly veiled anti-Semitic conceits by accusing deal opponents of dual loyalty and being in the pay of foreign interests.

It didn’t take much imagination for members of Congress to imagine their names being inserted in the Iran deal echo chamber’s boilerplate—that they were beholden to “donors” and “foreign lobbies.” What would happen if the White House leaked your phone call with the Israeli ambassador to a friendly reporter, and you were then profiled as betraying the interests of your constituents and the security of your nation to a foreign power? What if the fact of your phone call appeared under the byline of a famous columnist friendly to the Obama administration, say, in a major national publication?

To make its case for the Iran Deal, the Obama administration redefined America’s pro-Israel community as agents of Israel. They did something similar with Trump and the Russians—whereby every Russian with money was defined as an agent of the state. Where the Israeli ambassador once was poison, now the Russian ambassador is the kiss of death—a phone call with him led to Flynn’s departure from the White House and a meeting with him landed Attorney General Jeff Sessions in hot water.

Did Trump really have dealings with FSB officers? Thanks to the administration’s whisper campaigns, the facts don’t matter; that kind of contact is no longer needed to justify surveillance, whose spoils could then be weaponized and leaked. There are oligarchs who live in Trump Tower, and they all know Putin—ergo, talking to them is tantamount to dealing with the Russian state.

Yet there is one key difference between the two information operations that abused the foreign-intelligence surveillance apparatus for political purposes. The campaign to sell the Iran deal was waged while the Obama administration was in office. The campaign to tie down Trump with the false Russia narrative was put together as the Obama team was on its way out.

The intelligence gathered from Iran Deal surveillance was shared with the fewest people possible inside the administration. It was leaked to only a few top-shelf reporters, like the authors of The Wall Street Journal article, who showed how the administration exploited a loophole to spy on Congress. Congressmen and their staffs certainly noticed, as did the Jewish organizations that were being spied on. But the campaign was mostly conducted sotto voce, through whispers and leaks that made it clear what the price of opposition might be.

The reason the prior abuse of the foreign-intelligence surveillance apparatus is clear only now is because the Russia campaign has illuminated it. As The New York Timesreported last month, the administration distributed the intelligence gathered on the Trump transition team widely throughout government agencies, after it had changed the rules on distributing intercepted communications. The point of distributing the information so widely was to “preserve it,” the administration and its friends in the press explained—“preserve” being a euphemism for “leak.” The Obama team seems not to have understood that in proliferating that material they have exposed themselves to risk, by creating a potential criminal trail that may expose systematic abuse of foreign-intelligence collection.

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Dr. Jasser discusses CAIRs attempts to have a teacher fired claiming he is ‘islamophobic’

Posted April 5, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: CAIR, Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamists and freedom of speech, Islamists in America, Islamophobia, Zuhdi Jasser
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Dr. Jasser discusses CAIRs attempts to have a teacher fired claiming he is ‘islamophobic’, AIFD via YouTube, April 4, 2017

(Please see also CAIR Smears and Tries to Silence an IPT Fellow — DM)

According to the blurb beneath the video,

Dr. Jasser joins the Dana Loesche Show discussing CAIRs pressuring the Air Force to fire Patrick Dunleavy, an instructor it deems islamophobic.

Zuhdi refutes CAIRs claims and exaggerations saying that Dunleavy’s course educates Air Force personnel about issues critical for them to know o [sic] the front lines.

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Iran Sponsored Shi’a Militia Launches Terror Group to Fight Israel

Posted April 5, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Al-Nujaba, Golan, Hezbollah vs Israel, Iran - Syria war, Iran and Israel, Iranian proxies
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Iran Sponsored Shi’a Militia Launches Terror Group to Fight Israel, Investigative Project on Terrorism, April 5, 2017

Israel is very concerned with the establishment of Iranian-led terrorist bases in the Golan Heights. Hizballah openly seeks to consolidate its presence in the region and launch attacks against Israel from a new front in a future war.

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An Iranian supported Shi’a militia, Al-Nujaba, says it formed the “Golan Liberation Army” to fight Israel, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reports.

“This army has been trained and has detailed plans. If the Syria regime asks us to, we are ready to act to liberate the Golan [from Israel] along with our allies,” Al-Nujaba spokesman Hashem Al-Mousawi said in a March 8 interview with Iran’s Tasnim news agency.

Al-Mousawi also admitted that the new militant group is “part of the PMU [Popular Mobilization Units],” an Iraqi-backed umbrella organization comprised of numerous Shi’a militias, including some with close ties to Iran. The Golan Liberation Army emerged from the Iranian led “resistance” axis and consists of “special forces who have received training and equipment,” he said.

“Iran is the only country that has helped us,” Al-Mousawi said, “and sent us its military advisors, led by Qassem Soleimani.”

Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, is tasked with advancing Iran’s regional expansion and terrorist networks. Since September 2015, Iran increased its forces in Syria from hundreds to thousands to support Hizballah terrorists acting at Iran’s behest in propping up the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Despite Iran’s commitment to Syria, the Islamic Republic is establishing terrorist networks in the Golan Heights, using Hizballah, Druze, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operatives to target Israel. The new Golan Liberation Army shows that Iran is now diverting Iraqi militia assets from fighting ISIS to confront the Jewish state.

Soleimani’s Quds Force financed most of the Iraqi-Shi’ite militias and provided them with weapons specifically to target American soldiers. With Hizballah’s assistance, the Quds Force supplied terrorists with powerful explosive devices that killed numerous American and coalition troops in Iraq.

Israel is very concerned with the establishment of Iranian-led terrorist bases in the Golan Heights. Hizballah openly seeks to consolidate its presence in the region and launch attacks against Israel from a new front in a future war.

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President Trump and King Abdullah II Hold a Joint Press Conference

Posted April 5, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Iran, Iran - Syria war, Iranian proxies, Israel, Israel and Jordan, King Abdullah II, Middle East, Palestinians, Peace process, President Trump, Syria - chemical weapons, Syria war
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President Trump and King Abdullah II Hold a Joint Press Conference, White House via YouTube, April 5, 2017

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Australia: Muslim women accuse Ayaan Hirsi Ali of “white supremacism”

Posted April 5, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: "Racists", "White supremacists", Australia, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Islamic reform objectives, Islamist objectives
Tags: , , , , ,

Australia: Muslim women accuse Ayaan Hirsi Ali of “white supremacism” Jihad Watch, , April 5, 2017

Ms Ali, a former Muslim turned atheist who spent part of her childhood in Saudi Arabia, has called for a reformation of Islam so the Koran isn’t taken literally and individual rights are respected…..

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Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali has hit back at Australian Muslim women for accusing her of being a white supremacist and a misogynist, describing them as apologists for terrorist groups.

Anyone who criticizes Islam legitimately for its Sharia-sanctioned abuse of women, apostates and infidels is deemed “a white supremacist” and an “Islamophobe.” The absurdity of referencing Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who has herself been victimized in the name of Islam) as a “white supremacist” exposes the stealth agenda of Islamic supremacists, along with the useful idiots who assist them in advancing their Sharia objectives.

“‘Shutting people up raising awareness about Sharia law’: Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali hits back at Muslim women accusing her of being a ‘white supremacist’ – after she was forced to cancel Australian tour over security”, by Stephen Johnson, UK Daily Mail, April 5, 2017:

Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali has hit back at Australian Muslim women for accusing her of being a white supremacist and a misogynist, describing them as apologists for terrorist groups.

Six Muslim women, including four wearing hijabs, feature in a video describing the Somali-born writer and former refugee as someone who marginalises followers of Islam.

The three-minute clip, posted on Facebook by a group called Persons of Interest, describes Ms Ali as a racist and sexist person.

They overlook how she is a black woman who campaigns against female genital mutilation.

‘This is the language of patriarchy and misogyny. This is the language of white supremacy. This is the language used to justify war and genocide,’ the women say.

They posted the video on Monday, after Ms Ali’s AHA Foundation and event organisers Think Inc announced she had abruptly cancelled her Australian tour for security reasons.

Speaking from the United States, Ms Ali accused the woman of ‘carrying water’ for Islamist extremist groups campaigning for a global caliphate based on sharia law.

The 47-year-old former Dutch politician linked them to the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in its home nation, Islamic State and Boko Haram, which captured 276 schoolgirls in 2014.

Moroccan Soup Bar owner Hana Assafiri, who featured in the video, is the same person who was a spokeswoman for a change.org petition calling for Ms Ali’s Australian tour to be cancelled.

That petition was authored by Islamic Museum of Australia board director Sherene Hassan.

Daily Mail Australia contacted Ms Assafiri for comment on Tuesday.

However, on Monday she declined to criticise sharia law, which secular Muslims reject.

‘Sharia law is a whole massive conversation we need time to discuss and debate with,’ she said.

‘It’s not something I can give you a quick sound bite.’

Zerin Firoze, a former Muslim turned atheist who lives in New York, denounced the video.

‘This is the dumbest video I have seen recently,’ she said on Facebook.

‘Ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali are not demonising Muslim women or Islam.

‘Islam itself demonises Muslims, especially Muslim women.’

Ms Ali, a former Muslim turned atheist who spent part of her childhood in Saudi Arabia, has called for a reformation of Islam so the Koran isn’t taken literally and individual rights are respected…..

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