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The Islamic State Is Here to Stay

June 5, 2015

The Islamic State Is Here to Stay, VICE News, Ahmed S. Hashim, June 6, 2015

(Please see also, The Kurd-Shia War Behind the War on ISIS. — DM)

The victories against IS in early 2015 have proven ephemeral — or have been nullified by IS gains elsewhere. On Sunday, CIA director John Brennan said on Face the Nation, “I don’t see this being resolved anytime soon.” Assad’s vaunted offensives of February 2015 have fallen short as the regime faced stiff resistance from a wide variety of opposition fighters, including elements from IS. The failure was alarming in part because the campaign was designed and aided by both Hezbollah and the Iranians, two seemingly ascendant Shia powers.

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Just a few months ago, analysts and policy-makers were certain that the defeat of Islamic State (IS) forces was simply a matter of time.

Coalition airstrikes would degrade the group’s capabilities and eventually allow Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga — though discredited by their poor military showing in mid-2014 — to push back the extremists. And indeed, IS fighters were ejected from Tikrit in March 2015 by the Iraqi army and thousands of motivated fighters from Shia militias. In Kobani in northern Syria, IS fighters were defeated by Syrian Kurdish fighters. Elsewhere in the country, the regime of Bashar al-Assad was going on the offensive with help from Hezbollah and advisers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

The Islamic State, however, rose like a phoenix from the ashes of every setback. And today, the situation is not so rosy.

The victories against IS in early 2015 have proven ephemeral — or have been nullified by IS gains elsewhere. On Sunday, CIA director John Brennan said on Face the Nation, “I don’t see this being resolved anytime soon.” Assad’s vaunted offensives of February 2015 have fallen short as the regime faced stiff resistance from a wide variety of opposition fighters, including elements from IS. The failure was alarming in part because the campaign was designed and aided by both Hezbollah and the Iranians, two seemingly ascendant Shia powers.

The situation in Iraq is just as complicated, something that the Obama administration appears either oblivious to or reluctant to acknowledge. Much of the US strategy continues to hinge on what is increasingly a mirage: a unified, albeit federal, Iraq under the control of Baghdad. Meanwhile, the resilience of IS is greatly enhanced by the ability of its military forces to innovate and adapt faster on the ground than its lackluster opponents.

In light of the constant aerial strikes by the US and its allies, IS has dispersed and made its forces more mobile, no longer presenting dense concentrations of fighting men as it did when it seized Mosul in mid-2014. Instead, when IS seized Ramadi in May 2015, it made use of inclement weather and sent several small units from different directions simultaneously into the city aided by suicide bombers. Moreover, the fact that the group faced ill-equipped and poorly motivated Sunni fighters in and around Ramadi did not do anything for Baghdad’s standing with the country’s already alienated Sunni community, which had pleaded for arms while caught between the unfathomable brutality of IS and revengeful Shia militias.

Many Sunnis are now angling for their own “super-region,” one that would have considerable independence from Baghdad. The problem? In order to have it, the Sunnis would need to first defeat IS. Currently, they’re unable to do so because they lack the resources; despite all the talk from Baghdad and Washington about arming Sunni tribes, Baghdad is not actually keen to do so.

And besides, the Sunnis seem relatively ambivalent about defeating IS. They took an unequivocal stance between late 2006 and 2009, when they joined with the Americans and the Iraqi government to deal the Islamist militants what was then seen as a decisive blow. Now, however, despite Sunnis’ resentment and fear of IS, the Islamists’ existence is seen as a kind of insurance policy against Shia revanchism should Baghdad succeed in retaking the three Sunni provinces of Anbar, Salahuddin, and Ninevah.

(Please see video at the link. — DM

The “victory” of the Iraqi government in Tikrit was more propaganda than reality; a few hundred IS fighters managed to inflict considerable damage on the Shia militias that had been mobilized to fight alongside the Iraqi army, then withdrew because they were outnumbered and wished to avoid being surrounded. The IS forces in Tikrit simply felt that they had done enough damage; there was no need to waste further assets in an untenable situation.

Militarily, the Iraqi Shia militias are better motivated and more dedicated than the regular army. Anecdotal information out of Baghdad suggests that Iraqi Shias are wondering whether the government should invest more effort building these forces into an effective and more organized parallel army. Even that parallel army, however, might be reluctant to commit to any significant long-term offensive to reclaim provinces full of “ungrateful” Sunnis.

But the Shia are willing to die to defend what they have, and there is increased sentiment among the Shia in central Iraq and Baghdad, along with the southern part of the country, that they would be better off without the Sunnis. There also exists the belief that the Kurds have more or less opted out of the Iraqi state despite the fact that they maintain a presence within the government in Baghdad. The Shia would seemingly not be sorry to see them exit the government in a deal that would settle as best as possible divisions of resources and territory. However, whether the Kurds would take the plunge and opt for de jure rather than de facto independence is a question that is subject to regional realities — How would Ankara and Tehran react? — rather than merely a matter of a deal between Baghdad and Erbil.

The Islamic State will continue to be a profound geopolitical problem for the region and the international community, and a long battle lies ahead. Syria and Iraq are more or less shattered states; it is unlikely that they will be put back together in their previous shapes. If Assad survives 2015, it will be as head of a rump state of Alawites and other minorities protected by Hezbollah, Iran, and Alawite militias. Shia Iraq will survive, and will possibly dissociate itself from the nettlesome Sunni regions. The Kurds will go their own way step by step. The international community is currently at a loss for how to stem the flow of foreign fighters to the IS battlefields — and even more serious is the growing sympathy and admiration for the group in various parts of the world among disgruntled and alienated youth.

If the US is serious about defeating IS, it needs to take on a larger share of the fight on the ground. This means more troops embedded with regular Iraqi forces in order to bring about better command, control, and coordination. It also means advisors who can continue to train these forces so that they improve over time. If this is not done, the regular Iraqi military will continue to be nothing more than an auxiliary to the more motivated — and pro-Iranian — Shia militias. Currently, militia commanders are giving orders to the regular military; that cannot be good for morale.

This month, the Islamic State celebrates the first anniversary of its self-declared caliphate. The group has little reason to fear it will be the last.

Categories: Culture, Department of Defense, Foreign policy, Hezbollah, Ideology, Iran, Iran military, Iraq war, Irqui military, Islamic State, Kurdish fighters, Nasrallah, Obama, Obama's America, Peshmerga, Sharia law, Shiite, Sunni, Syria war, Terrorism
Tags: Culture, Department of Defense, Foreign Policy, Hezbollah, Ideology, Iran, Iran military, Iraq war, Iraqi military, Islamic State, Kurdish fighters, Nasrallah, Obama, Obama's America, Peshmerga, Sharia law, Shiite, Sunni, Syria war, Terrorism

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Goodbye to the First Amendment

June 5, 2015

Goodbye to the First Amendment, Pat Condell via You Tube, January 5, 2015

(What’s left of it, anyway. — DM)

Categories: Diversity, Freedom, Ideology, Islam, Obama's America, Pat Condell, U.S. Congress
Tags: DIversity, First Amendment, Freedom, Ideology, Islam, Obama's America, Pat Condell, U.S. Congress

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How Islam in America Became a Privileged Religion

June 3, 2015

How Islam in America Became a Privileged Religion, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 3, 2015

(Much the same nonsense infects foreign policy and propels the notion that the Islamic State is not Islamic. — DM)

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What is Islam? The obvious dictionary definition answer is that it’s a religion, but legally speaking it actually enjoys all of the advantages of race, religion and culture with none of the disadvantages.

Islam is a religion when mandating that employers accommodate the hijab, but when it comes time to bring it into the schools, places that are legally hostile to religion, American students are taught about Islam, visit mosques and even wear burkas and recite Islamic prayers to learn about another culture. Criticism of Islam is denounced as racist even though the one thing that Islam clearly isn’t is a race.

Islamist organizations have figured out how lock in every advantage of race, religion and culture, while expeditiously shifting from one to the other to avoid any of the disadvantages.

The biggest form of Muslim privilege has been to racialize Islam. The racialization of Islam has locked in all the advantages of racial status for a group that has no common race, only a common ideology.

Islam is the only religion that cannot be criticized. No other religion has a term in wide use that treats criticism of it as bigotry. Islamophobia is a unique term because it equates dislike of a religion with racism. Its usage makes it impossible to criticize that religion without being accused of bigotry.

By equating religion with race, Islam is treated not as a particular set of beliefs expressed in behaviors both good and bad, but as an innate trait that like race cannot be criticized without attacking the existence of an entire people. The idea that Islamic violence stems from its beliefs is denounced as racist.

Muslims are treated as a racial collective rather than a group that shares a set of views about the world.

That has made it impossible for the left to deal with ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali or non-Muslims from Muslim families like Salman Rushdie. If Islam is more like skin color than an ideology, then ex-Muslims, like ex-Blacks, cannot and should not exist. Under such conditions, atheism is not a debate, but a hate crime. Challenging Islam does not question a creed; it attacks the existence of an entire people.

Muslim atheists, unlike all other atheists, are treated as race traitors both by Muslims and leftists. The left has accepted the Brotherhood’s premise that the only authentic Middle Easterner is a Muslim (not a Christian or a Jew) and that the only authentic Muslim is a Salafist (even if they don’t know the word).

The racialization of Islam has turned blasphemy prosecutions into an act of tolerance while making a cartoon of a religious figure racist even when it is drawn by ex-Muslims like Bosch Fawstin. The New York Times will run photos of Chris Ofili’s “The Holy Virgin Mary” covered in dung and pornography, but refuses to run Mohammed cartoons because it deems one anti-religious and the other racist.

The equating of Islam with Arabs and Pakistanis has made it nearly impossible for the media to discuss violence against Christians in those parts of the world. The racialization of Islam has made Arab Christians, like Bangladeshi atheists, a contradiction in terms. The ethnic cleansing of the Yazidi could only be covered by giving them a clearly defined separate identity. Middle Eastern Christians are increasingly moving to avoid being categorized as Arabs because it is the only way to break through this wall of ignorance.

While racialization is the biggest Muslim privilege, race provides no protection for many Islamic religious practices. Muslims then seek religious discrimination laws to protect these practices even if it’s often a matter of debate whether their lawsuits protect their religious practices or impose them on others.

Islam is a theocracy. When it leaves the territories conquered by Islam, it seeks to replicate that theocracy through violence and by adapting the legal codes of the host society to suit its purposes.

Islamic blasphemy laws are duplicated using hate crime laws. Employers are obligated to make religious concessions to Muslim employees because of laws protecting religious practices, but many of these practices, such as refusing to carry out jobs involving pork, liquor or Seeing Eye dogs, are really ways of theocratically forcing behaviors that Islam forbids out of public life much as Saudi Arabia or Iran do.

Accusations of bigotry are used to outlaw ideas that Islam finds blasphemous and religious protection laws are used to banish behaviors that it disapproves of. By switching from race to religion and back again, Islamists construct a virtual theocracy by exploiting laws designed to protect different types of groups.

Religions in America traded theocracy for religious freedom. They gave up being able to impose their practices on others in exchange for being able to freely practice their own religions. Islam rejects religious freedom. It exploits it to remove the freedom of belief and practice of others. When it cannot do so through religious protection laws, it does so through claims of bigotry.

Religions were not meant to be immunized from blasphemy because that is theocracy. Instead religions are protected from restrictions, rather than from criticism. Islam insists on being protected from both. It makes no concessions to the freedom of others while demanding maximum religious accommodation.

While race and religion are used to create negative spaces in which Islam cannot be challenged, the creed is promoted positively as a culture. Presenting Islam as a culture allows it easier entry into schools and cultural institutions. Islamic missionary activity uses the Western longing for oriental exotica that its political activists loudly decry to inject it into secular spaces that would ordinarily be hostile to organized religion.

Leftists prefer to see Islam as a culture rather than a religion. Their worldview is not open to Islam’s clumsy photocopy of the deity that they have already rejected in their own watered down versions of Christianity and Judaism. But they are constantly seeking an aimless and undefined spirituality in non-Western cultures that they imagine are free of the materialism and hypocrisy of Western culture.

Viewing Islam as a culture allows the left to project its own ideology on a blank slate. That is why liberals remain passionately convinced that Islam is a religion of social justice. Their Islam is a mirror that reflects back their own views and ideas at them. They pretend to respect Islam as a culture without bothering to do any more than learn a few words and names so that they can seem like world travelers.

By morphing into a culture, Islam sheds its content and becomes a style, a form of dress, a drape of cloth, a style of beard, a curvature of script and a whiff of spices. It avoids uncomfortable questions about what the Koran actually says and instead sells the religion as a meaningful lifestyle. This approach has always had a great deal of appeal for African-Americans who were cut off from their own heritage through Islamic slavery, but it also enjoys success with white upper class college students.

The parents of those students often learn too late that Islam is not just another interchangeable monotheistic religion, that its mosques are not places where earnest grad students lecture elderly congregants about social justice and that its laws are not reducible to the importance of being nice to others.

Like a magician using misdirection, these transformations from religion to race, from race to culture and from culture to religion, distract Americans from asking what Islam really believes. By combining race, religion and culture, it replicates the building blocks of its theocracy within our legal and social spaces.

Separately each of these has its advantages and disadvantages. By combining them, Islam gains the advantages of all three, and by moving from one to the other, it escapes all of the disadvantages. The task of its critics is to deracialize Islam, to reduce it to an ideology and to ask what it really believes.

Islam is a privileged religion. And there’s a word for that. Theocracy.

Categories: Cartoonophobia, Christians, Education, Foreign policy, Freedom, Human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Islamophobia, Jews, Moral equivalence, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama, Obama's America, Political correctness, Religion, Religion of Peace, Sharia law, Support for terrorism, Terrorism, Theocracy
Tags: Cartoonophobia, Christians, Education, Foreign Policy, human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Islamophobia, Jews, Moral equivalence, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama, Obama's America, Political correctness, Religion, religion of peace, Sharia law, Support for terrorism, Theocracy

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Egypt Says NY Times Promoting Muslim Brotherhood Agitprop

June 3, 2015

Egypt Says NY Times Promoting Muslim Brotherhood Agitprop, The Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, June 3, 2015

(Obama has spread and relied upon much the same meme as the NY Times and Washington Post. — DM)

New-York-Times-Building-IP_1

The New York Times building in New York City

If the New York Times values objective reporting, then it must mention the Brotherhood’s calls to violence in its coverage as well as the many other instances of violence that the group has been involved in.

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The Egyptian ambassador to the U.S. has written a public letter toThe New York Times protesting “its unquestioning adoption of Moslem Brotherhood’s propaganda” and false characterization of the Islamist group as non-violent.

Ambassador Mohamed Tawfik’s letter was written around the same time that the Egyptian embassy released three videos of calls to violence made on Muslim Brotherhood television networks based in Turkey.

The networks’ coverage promoted explicit calls for killing Egyptian police officers and attacking foreign companies and embassies. A threat was also made to carry out regional attacks against the interests of countries who support the Egyptian government.

Egypt is infuriated at the Times as well as the Washington Post for repeatedly asserting that the Brotherhood is non-violent. In response to the Times suggestion that the Egyptian government’s prosecution of the Brotherhood is pushing it towards terrorism, the Egyptian ambassador writes:

This statement demonstrates, at best, a complete misunderstanding of the roots of radicalism. At worst, it amounts to a justification for violent extremism. Today, terrorists in Egypt are part of a network of extremists who are bound by a singular distorted ideology, and by a shared goal of taking our region back hundreds of years. They are inspired by the radical teachings of the former Moslem Brotherhood leader Sayyid Kutb [Qutb]. Terrorists in Egypt share the same evil goals as terrorists in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

Indeed, Ambassador Tawfik is correct that the New York Times separates Islamists from terrorists and extremists. The Times editorial condemns “relentless and sweeping crackdown on Islamists, under the baseless contention that they are inherently dangerous.”

The New York Times described sentencing to death of former President Morsi and 100 other Brotherhood members as “deplorable.” It describes the Brotherhood as having renounced violence in the 1970s.

However, Morsi and the defendants were sentenced for his involvement in prison breaks in 2011 that freed 20,000 inmates, including Morsi himself. The Egyptian government says the attacks were well-orchestrated and involved participation by the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Tawfik chastises the Times for failing to mention that the prison break was a violent operation that resulted in the deaths of prison guards and inmates and freed members of Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Egyptian ambassador also excoriated the Washington Post in February for “toeing the Muslim Brotherhood line” and advised it to be more balance in order to “save whatever is left of your credibility in the Arab world.”

Egyptian President El-Sisi came into power after the popularly-supported military intervention in July 2013 overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government. The move had the support of a broad spectrum of Egyptian society with public endorsements from secular-democratic activists, the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar University and the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

The overthrow came after Morsi (whose election itself was marred bycharges of voter fraud) seized far-sweeping powers for himself, essentially negating any semblance of a democratic government.

El-Sisi is often characterized as an anti-democratic strongman; a depiction that his government is now challenging.

He argues that these strongman tactics are necessary because a democratic transition cannot be completed without stability, economic development and a confrontation with Islamism (also known as Political Islam). He asks the West to understand that there is a “civilizational gap between us and you” and it will take time to modernize.

A study commissioned by the Egyptian government criticized its heavy-handedness but concluded that banning Islamist parties is required for the country’s stability and democratic development. It recommended a program to separate politics and religion.

The Egyptian government sees the Islamic State (ISIS) as a natural outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its website warns that the Muslim Brotherhood has a network of fronts in America that are disguised as civil society organizations.

El-Sisi called for a reformation in Islamic interpretation in January 2014 and made a dramatic call on the Islamic religious establishment to address problematic teachings this January that received widespread media coverage. He has explicitly said that Egypt should be “a civil state, not an Islamic one” and defined the ideology of the enemy as Political Islam in an interview on FOX News Channel.

El-Sisi is also confronting Islamist terrorism internationally, in addition to its fight against Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula. His government is an enemy of Hamas and is as minimally anti-Israel as can be expected of an Arab leader.

Egypt has conducted airstrikes on ISIS in Libya and is materially supporting the Libyan government in its civil war against Islamist forces. Egypt and Libya are complaining about a lack of American backing. A new Egyptian-backed offensive is said to be in the works.

El-Sisi is assembling an Arab rapid-reaction force of 40-50,000 troops that can quickly be deployed to fight Islamic State and other terrorists. Egypt is also taking part in the Arab military intervention against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

El-Sisi also made a historic visit to a Coptic Christian church during mass on Christmas Eve. He challenged the Egyptian honor culture when he apologized to a woman who was raped in Tahrir Square.

Major American media outlets have fallen for the falsehood that the Muslim Brotherhood is non-violent. It is true that the Egyptian government is often criticized for its human rights record, but coverage of those accusations should not automatically exempt the Brotherhood and other Islamists from blame.

If the New York Times values objective reporting, then it must mention the Brotherhood’s calls to violence in its coverage as well as the many other instances of violence that the group has been involved in.

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Hamas, Ideology, Islam, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Reform Islam, Terrorism
Tags: Egypt, Foreign Policy, Hamas, Ideology, Islam, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Reform Islam, Terrorism

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Iran Implicated in Foiled Hezbollah Attacks on Europe

June 2, 2015

Iran Implicated in Foiled Hezbollah Attacks on Europe, The Clarion Project, RYAN MAURO, June 2, 2015

Iran-Basij-IP_3

Iranian Basij volunteer militia members (Photo: © Reuters)

If this is the behavior of the Iranian regime when it has every incentive to temporarily play nice, then what will it do when it breaks free of sanctions and uses trade deals to disarm the U.S. of its economic leverage?

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The arrest of a Hezbollah terrorist in Cyprus is believed to have foiled attacks in Europe, probably against Israeli or Jewish targets. The plots show that Iran is as committed to international terrorism as ever and is not the least bit dissuaded by the prospect of a lucrative nuclear deal.

The terrorist came to Cyprus last month and had nearly two tons of ammonium nitrate—a substance commonly used for making bombs—in his basement. That’s about the amount that was used to carry out the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that took down a federal building and killed 168 people.

It is suspected that he was planning on attacking Israelis, and there is evidence linking the operative to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. It is also believed that the operative belonged to a network planning on using Cyprus as a “port of export” for additional terrorist plots in Europe.

The National Council of Resistance in Iran, an opposition group, says that a Cyprus newspaper reported that he was trained in Iran by the Revolutionary Guards Corps.

In 2012, a Hezbollah terrorist was arrested and later found guilty of planning attacks on Israeli tourists in Cyprus. His possession of a Swedish passport enabled him to conduct surveillance on targets in Europe. It was discovered that he was tracking flights from Israel to Cyprus, researching bus routes used by Israeli tourists and assessing a hospital parking lot. He also traveled to France and the Netherlands for Hezbollah.

The foiled plot helps make an important point about the nature of the Iranian regime. If there was any time for the regime to resist its impulses to engage in international terrorism, it is now.

An Iranian-sponsored plot could unravel the nuclear deal that could strengthen its “Islamic Revolution,” bolster the regime and allow it to dramatically increase its sponsorship of terrorism. And yet, even under these conditions, the Iranian regime can’t help but orchestrate terror plots in Europe with the objective of killing hundreds of innocents.

If this is the behavior of the Iranian regime when it has every incentive to temporarily play nice, then what will it do when it breaks free of sanctions and uses trade deals to disarm the U.S. of its economic leverage?

Categories: Antisemitism, Diplomacy, Europe, Foreign policy, Hezbollah, Ideology, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian anti-semitism, Iranian proxies, Islamism, Jews, P5+1
Tags: Antisemitism, Cyprus, Europe, Foreign Policy, Hezbollah, Ideology, Iran, Iran Scam, Iranian antisemitism, Iranian proxies, Islamism, Jews

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Harf ”perplexed” by NYT story on Iran’s increased nuclear stockpile

June 2, 2015

Harf ”perplexed” by NYT story on Iran’s increased nuclear stockpile, Washington Free Beacon via You Tube, June 2, 2015

(Please see also, Contrary to Obama’s claims, Iran increased its nuclear fuel stockpiles — DM)

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Obama, Obama administration, P5+1
Tags: Foreign Policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iranian nukes, Obama, Obama Administration

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The “Speech-Denialists”

June 2, 2015

The “Speech-Denialists,” The Gatestone Institute, Daniel Mael, June 2, 2015

In denying the average college student the opportunity to hear, think, question and learn, these minority organizations violated the basic principles of a liberal arts education and what higher learning should presumably be about: challenging assumptions and talking openly about issues that might cause discomfort.
Both micro-sensitivity and political correctness require at best, obfuscating information, and at worst, silencing it.

On college campuses, teachers, students and sometimes even administrators seem to have become ever more eager to block any idea with which they disagree.

Often it appears as if their first impulse is to demonize the individual or organization presenting the offending idea, rather than to address the substance of the argument and open a discussion in the “free marketplace of ideas.”

On the campus of Lake Superior State University, wall postings “deemed offensive, sexist, vulgar, discriminatory or suggestive will not be approved.” The campus code of conduct states that if students fail to comply, they may be disciplined — a rule that was named “Speech Code of the Month” for May by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

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Lake Superior State University’s campus code of conduct states that wall postings “deemed offensive, sexist, vulgar, discriminatory or suggestive will not be approved.” (Image source: Bobak Ha’Eri/Wikimedia Commons)

Increasingly, individuals and groups, perhaps unknowingly betraying the spirit of classic liberalism, seek to shame or ridicule dissenting opinion into silence. Both in politics and on college campuses, it seems as if aggressive shaming has replaced the art of persuasion as the favored means of argumentation. Substantive, non-politically correct discussion is now at a premium.

In her recently published book The Silencing, life-long liberal and Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers documents the escalating efforts of people claiming to be liberal to silence dissent on issues they regard as contentious. The tactic follows what Powers calls the “authoritarian impulse to silence.”

On issues ranging from campus “speech codes” to feminism, these self-described liberals are unwilling to entertain the notion that a well-intentioned individual from the other side of the aisle might have a different remedy for the problems of the day.

When feminist scholar Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute gave a lecture on the campus of Oberlin University on the topic of campus sexual assault and due process, protesters labeled her a “rape denialist” and claimed that they felt “unsafe.” Perhaps we should begin calling such protesters “due-process denialists.”

When the subject is religion, these “liberals” maintain a disingenuous double standard. “While the illiberal left seems to hold a special animosity to Christianity,” Powers notes, in a remark that could also apply to Israel, “it is strangely protective of Islam, despite the fact that orthodox Muslims oppose same-sex marriage.” Not only are Muslim attitudes toward gay marriage overlooked or roadsided completely, but if anyone dares to discuss the issue of minorities in the Muslim-majority world, they are labeled “racist,” “Islamophobic,” or other slurs at arm’s reach.

Meanwhile, critics are unrelenting in their animosity toward observant Christians’ views of homosexuality. “If you think about it, we are at the water’s edge of the argument that mainstream Christian teaching is hate speech,” Senator Marco Rubio recently told CBN News. “Because today we’ve reached the point in our society where if you do not support same-sex marriage you are labeled a homophobe and a hater.”

Last year, at Brandeis University, when I sought to bring a human rights display highlighting the oppression of LGBTQ individuals in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Iran, the initiative was blocked in a flood of administrative bureaucracy. The member of the administration with whom I met was clearly not thrilled by the idea.

Meetings with a gay rights group and the Muslim Students Association (MSA), however, were just as telling. Hoping to solicit partnerships in the initiative, I explained to leaders and members of both organizations that the project was not about Islam, but about how, on a routine basis, certain governments murder people who identify as LGBTQ. Members of the gay rights organization expressed concern about “Islamophobia,” while members of the Muslim Students Association expressed concern about “homophobia.” The initiative was rejected. Both groups evidently prioritized the emotional and intellectual comfort of the campus community over drawing attention to the plight of innocent LGBTQ individuals in the Muslim world.

In denying the average college student the opportunity to hear, think, question and learn, these minority organizations violated the basic principles of a liberal arts education and what higher learning should presumably be about: challenging assumptions and talking openly about issues that might cause discomfort. It is still puzzling why the LGBTQ club and the MSA are not at the forefront of defending other members of their respective groups, regardless of where they may live.

Both micro-sensitivity and political correctness require at best, obfuscating information, and at worst, silencing it. It is incumbent upon those who recognize the dangers of the ever-expanding “speech-denialists” in the “political correctness” movement to put up a fight — figuratively, of course.

Categories: Colleges in U.S., Culture, Diversity, Education, Freedom, Ideology, Islamism, Islamophobia, Leftists, Multiculturalism, Obama's America, Religion, U.S. Constitution
Tags: Colleges in U.S., Culture, Diversity., Education, Freedom, Ideology, Islamism, Islamophobia, Leftists, Multiculturalism, Obama's America, Political correctness, Religion, U.S. Constitution

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Obama Assures Iran It Has Nothing to Fear

June 2, 2015

Obama Assures Iran It Has Nothing to Fear, Commentary Magazine, Jonathan S. Tobin, June 1, 2015

(Obama seems to have been talking about Iranian efforts to militarize nukes, not peaceful uses such as medical or generation of electricity. If, as claimed, Iran has no intention of getting, keeping or using nukes why try to halt it? Why bother even to negotiate?– DM)

“A military solution will not fix it. Even if the United States participates, it would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program but it will not eliminate it.”

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At this point, there is virtually no one in Israel or the United States who thinks it is remotely possible that the Obama administration would ever, under virtually any circumstances, use force against Iran. Though President Obama and his foreign policy team have always claimed that “all options,” including force, are always on the table in the event that Iran refuses to back down and seeks to produce a nuclear weapon, that is a threat that few took seriously. But President Obama has never been quite as explicit about this before as he was in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 in which he reportedly said there is no military option to stop Iran. If Obama wanted to telegraph Iran that it could be as tough as it likes in the talks over the final text of the nuclear deal being negotiated this month this statement certainly did the job. Though they had little worry about Obama’s toughness or resolve, the ayatollahs will be pleased to note that the president no longer even bothers to pretend he is prepared to do whatever is necessary to stop Iran’s nuclear ambition.

According to the Times of Israel, Obama said:

“A military solution will not fix it. Even if the United States participates, it would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program but it will not eliminate it.”

Though he continued to use rhetoric that left force as an option, the implicit threat of American action if a nuclear weapon were a possibility has lacked credibility since the president began his second term. Once he embarked upon secret back-channel talks in which, one by one, he abandoned his previous pledges about forcing Iran to shut down its program in concessions and virtually every other U.S. position on the issue, force was never a real possibility. The signing of a weak interim deal in November, 2013, and then the framework agreed upon this spring signaled the end of any idea that the U.S. was prepared to act. That is especially so because the current deal leaves Tehran in possession of its nuclear infrastructure and with no guarantees about inspections or the re-imposition of sanctions in the event the agreement collapsed. The current deal, even with so many crucial details left unspecified makes Iran a U.S. partner and, in effect, the centerpiece of a new U.S. Middle East policy that essentially sidelines traditional allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel that are directly threatened by Iran.

Moreover, it must be conceded that the use of force against Iran would be problematic even for the United States and its vast military resources. As for Israel, despite a lot of bold talk by some in the Jewish state, there has always been skepticism that its outstanding air force had the ability to sustain an air campaign for the length of time that would be required to make a difference. Nevertheless, the notion that force would not be effective in forestalling an Iranian bomb is mistaken. Serious damage could put off the threat for a long time and, if sanctions were kept in place or made stricter as they should have been to strengthen the West’s bargaining position, the possibility of an Iranian nuke could have been put off for the foreseeable future.

Yet, while talk about using force has been largely obsolete once the interim deal was signed in 2013, for the president to send such a clear signal that he will not under any circumstances walk away from the current talks, no matter what Iran does, is significant.

After all, some of the most important elements of the deal have yet to be nailed down. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly stated that he will never allow the sort of inspections that would make a deal verifiable. He has also demanded that sanctions be lifted permanently on the day the agreement is signed, and that there should be no provision for them to be snapped back. Nor are the Iranians conceding that their stockpile of nuclear fuel be taken out of their hands.

So if Obama is to get the “verifiable tough agreement” he told Channel 2 he seeks, the U.S. must somehow convince the Iranians to back down on all these points. That’s going to be difficult since the past two years of negotiations with Obama have taught them to wait for him to give up since he always does so sooner or later. The president’s statement makes it clear that, no matter how obdurate the Iranians remain, he will never walk away from the talks. And since this deal is the lynchpin of his foreign policy legacy, they know very well that all they have to do is to be patient.

Iran already knows that the deal in its current form allows them two clear paths to a bomb. One is by cheating on its easily evaded terms. The other is by waiting patiently for it to expire, the sunset provision being another astonishing concession by Obama.

If a tough deal were even a possibility, this would have been the moment for the president to sound tough. But throughout this process, the only toughness the president has shown has been toward Israel as he sought to disparage and dismiss its justifiable worries about his course of action. Merely saying now, as he does in the Channel 2 interview, that he understands Israel’s fears is mere lip service, especially since it comes along with a virtual guarantee to Iran that it needn’t worry about a U.S. strike under any circumstance.

With only weeks to go until the June 30 deadline for an Iran deal, there is no question that Obama’s statement makes an unsatisfactory final text even more certain than it was before. That’s good news for Tehran and very bad news for an Israeli people who have no reason to trust the president’s promises or believe in his good intentions.

Categories: Cognitive dissonance, Foreign policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran, Iran - underground sites, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Supreme Leader
Tags: Cognitive dissonance, Foreign Policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran, Iran - underground sites, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, Supreme leader

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Satire | Op-Ed: Jews Take Up Too Much Space

June 1, 2015

Satire | Op-Ed: Jews Take Up Too Much Space, Israel National News, Yehezkel Laing, June 1, 2015

(Please see also,

.– DM)

In July 2022 the UN passed a resolution declaring that for “for the Jews’ own safety” it has been decided to evacuate them to the moon where they would be granted rights to colonize, with the understanding that the world’s lien to the moon would “not be harmed or diminished”. The same resolution removed all Jewish citizenship rights on Earth.

All this I recount in order to properly put into context the latest “development”. As most of you have no doubt heard by now, yesterday the UN assembly unanimously passed a resolution accusing the Jews of having “stolen the moon”. The resolution states that if we do not relinquish full rights the world community will be left with no choice but to attack.

While there are several influential Jewish politicians and scientists who claim we can colonize Jupiter – I do not believe this is feasible at this time. Even if we were successful, where would it end? Would we be forced to colonize another solar system, another galaxy, another universe? If we do not make a stand here, where will we ever make a stand?

**********************

I am not the type of person who seeks publicity for myself and I wouldn’t even be writing this if it could be avoided. But since circumstances leave me no choice, I have decided to break my silence and reveal my true role in the events of the past two decades. While many of these facts are known to the general public, their order and cause are often obscure or confused. So please bear with me as I recount the events in their proper order, as I remember them.

I will start all the way back in 1948 – three years after the destruction of European Jewry, the State of Israel was formed – within two years Sephardic Jewry having been expelled from all the Arab lands fled to the newborn state and joined their Ashkenazi brethren.

Jump ahead 72 years…

In January 2020 the Iranians announced they had decided for “defensive purposes” to build a nuclear arsenal. The US responded it was “shocked” by this development and quickly instituted “robust” new sanctions, but said it would not instigate any hostilities. Following this announcement, the final Israeli government instituted “The Month of Defense” – wherein all citizens were told to prepare for war with Iran. Riots broke out against Jews in Europe and even in North America. Two weeks after the Israeli declaration – the US announced it would not support any Israeli “aggression” against Iran saying it feared this would lead to nuclear war in the region.

It was at this point I went to the Prime Minister. For many years I had been toying with the idea of a lunar colony. My background in environmental physics gave me the perfect training for this experiment. Its true that my Noble Prize in physics was won for discoveries in Isotopic Negativity, what many consider an unrelated field. But any post-doctoral physics student can tell you that the underlying principles of the two disciplines are quite the same. In other words, the original idea was mine and not the Prime Minister’s, but for political reasons it was believed it had a better chance of success if he would propose it and not I.

In February 2021, I was appointed Director of the Jewish Lunar Colony Project. By the way, the space elevator was not my idea but rather that of Yakob Farche, a Czech engineer of Jewish extraction, who approached me shortly after the Prime Minister publicly designated me with the task of designing the plan for the colony.

In July 2022 the UN passed a resolution declaring that for “for the Jews’ own safety” it has been decided to evacuate them to the moon where they would be granted rights to colonize, with the understanding that the world’s lien to the moon would “not be harmed or diminished”. The same resolution removed all Jewish citizenship rights on Earth. Of course, the far Right “Earth Homeland Party” lead by Hezy Ben Arroche fought the plan arguing that Jews had a right to live on Earth just like all other human beings. But the Prime Minister eloquently explained that the Jewish people “had to be practical and not just ideological”. While no referendum was formally held on the matter – rigorous polling showed a consistent majority of Jews in favor of the project.

The UN said it would only back the plan if World Jewry itself would fundthe move. Since Jews could no longer legally live on earth this was accomplished much more easily than was originally imagined. One trilliondollars were raised and the plan was set in motion.

After all the Jews completed evacuation of the Land of Israel in 2015 – the UN passed a resolution formally recognizing the Arab State of Palestine. Unfortunately for the UN, the Palestinians themselves rejected the move. They insisted that the Jews had “ravaged the land of all its natural resources” and that without massive funding, the new state would collapse. A $500 billion world investment plan was quickly instituted to prop up the foundling state – but the subsequent civil was over control of the funds destroyed most of the population and with no prospects for self-support the remaining survivors immigrated.

With the collapse of the State of Palestine, Iran declared it rights to the region claiming that Palestine had always been “a natural extension of Persian autonomy”. The Europeans said this was preposterous and noted that the former State of Israel had once held observer status in the EU and that the land was actually closer to Europe than Iran. What seemed to be a squabble over a small piece of property quickly escalated into hostilities, resulting in the First Nuclear War. While this was limited in scope and only resulted in the loss of only 4 million lives, the lessons of its destructiveness were unfortunately not learned and by the Third Nuclear War most of the planet’s populace had been wiped out and most of the Earth is now uninhabitable.

During this time the Moon Colony flourished. The first dome held up remarkably well and within two years it was decided to expand the dome and institute the lunar landscaping project. Eight years ago I was approached by a young astro-physicist by the name of Aaron Belzberg originally from Bnei Brak. He suggested an incredible idea whereby using a process of reverse ionization of the colony’s oxygen we could create an artificial atmosphere that would remove the need for the dome and make the moon inhabitable. That is how today we have a living moon with 500 million trees, ten lakes and 15 million inhabitants.

All this I recount in order to properly put into context the latest “development”. As most of you have no doubt heard by now, yesterday the UN assembly unanimously passed a resolution accusing the Jews of having “stolen the moon”. The resolution states that if we do not relinquish full rights the world community will be left with no choice but to attack.

While there are several influential Jewish politicians and scientists who claim we can colonize Jupiter – I do not believe this is feasible at this time. Even if we were successful, where would it end? Would we be forced to colonize another solar system, another galaxy, another universe? If we do not make a stand here, where will we ever make a stand?

Don’t the Jews deserve a place to live just like everyone else?

Categories: Antisemitism, Appeasement, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Europe, Foreign policy, Humor, Ideology, Iran, Islamism, Israel, Jews, Judiasm, Middle East, Muslims, Nukes, P5+1, Palestinians, Peace process, United Nations
Tags: Antisemitism, Appeasement, Europe, Foreign Policy, Humor, Ideology, Iran, Islamism, Israel, Jews, Judiasm, Middle East, Muslims, Nukes, Palestinians, Peace Process, United Nations

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European Welfare Systems Milked by Jihadis

May 31, 2015

European Welfare Systems Milked by Jihadis, The Clarion Project, Soeren Kern, May 31, 2015

Khalid-AbdurahmanIP

Khalid Abdurahman (center)

The disclosures show that Islamists continue to exploit European social welfare systems to finance their activities both at home and abroad — costing European taxpayers potentially millions of euros each year.

Anjem Choudary, a British-born radical Islamic cleric who lives off the British welfare state, has repeatedly urged his followers to quit their jobs and claim unemployment benefits so they have more time to plot holy war against non-Muslims.

Choudary believes that Muslims are entitled to welfare payments because they are a form of jizya, a tax imposed on non-Muslims in countries run by Muslims, as a reminder that non-Muslims are permanently inferior and subservient to Muslims.

******************

More than 30 Danish jihadists have collected unemployment benefits totaling 379,000 Danish krone (€51,000; $55,000) while fighting with the Islamic State in Syria, according to leaked intelligence documents.

The fraud, which was reported by Television 2 Danmark on May 18, comes less than six months after the Danish newspaperBT revealed that Denmark had paid unemployment benefits to 28 other jihadists while they were waging war in Syria.

The disclosures show that Islamists continue to exploit European social welfare systems to finance their activities both at home and abroad — costing European taxpayers potentially millions of euros each year.

According to Television 2 Danmark, the welfare fraud was discovered after the Danish intelligence agency PET began sharing data about known Danish jihadists with the Ministry of Employment to determine if any of these individuals were receiving unemployment benefits.

As a percentage of the overall population, Denmark is the second-largest European source of foreign fighters in Syria after Belgium. At least 115 Danes have become foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq since Syria’s civil war broke out in March 2011, according to a recent report by the Center for Terrorism Analysis, an agency of PET. The report states:

“CTA assesses that approximately half of those who have gone abroad are now back in Denmark, while a quarter of them remain in the conflict zone. CTA assesses that two thirds of these individuals have been in the conflict zone for more than a year. The remaining travelers are located elsewhere abroad. CTA assesses that at least 19 travelers from Denmark have been killed in Syria and Iraq.”

The CTA admits that, “the number may be higher” than 115. The comment is a tacit recognition that it does not know exactly how many Danes have become jihadists abroad.

In April, it emerged that the parents of Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein — a Danish-Jordanian jihadist responsible for the terror attacks in Copenhagen in February 2015 in which two people died — have been welfare recipients in Denmark for more than 20 years. Omar’s parents received a total of 3.8 million krone between 1994 and 2014, amounting to roughly 500,000 euros or $560,000.

Social welfare fraud of the kind perpetrated in Denmark is being repeated throughout Europe.

In Austria, police arrested 13 jihadists in November 2014 who were allegedly collecting welfare payments to finance their trips to Syria. Among those detained was Mirsad Omerovic, 32, an extremist Islamic preacher who police say raised several hundred thousand euros for the war in Syria. A father of six who lives exclusively off the Austrian welfare state, Omerovic has benefited from additional payments for paternity leave (Väterkarenz).

Austrian police also arrested, in August 2014, nine other jihadists who were attempting to join the jihad in Syria. Their trip was being financed by Austrian taxpayers by way of social welfare payments.

In Belgium, 29 jihadists from the Flemish cities of Antwerp and Vilvoorde were prevented from receiving social welfare benefits from the state. The move came after an investigation found that the individuals had been accessing their Belgian bank accounts by withdrawing money from banks in Turkey, just across the Syrian border.

Per capita, Belgium is the largest European source of jihadist fighters going to the Middle East; up to 400 Belgians have become jihadists in Syria and Iraq.

In Britain, Terri Nicholson, an assistant commander at the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism command unit, told the Telegraph newspaper in November 2014 that taxpayers’ money was being claimed fraudulently and used by jihadists in Iraq and Syria. “We are seeing a diverse fraud, including substantial fraud online, abuse of the benefits system, abuse of student loans, in order to fund terrorism,” she said.

Nicholson added that women were increasingly being used to smuggle welfare money out of Britain to fund terrorists abroad, because they supposedly arouse less suspicion.

In November 2014, for example, Amal El-Wahabi, a British mother of two, was jailed for 28 months for trying to arrange to smuggle €20,000 to her husband, a jihadist fighting in Syria. She persuaded her friend, Nawal Msaad, to carry the cash in her underwear in return for €1,000. Msaad was stopped at Heathrow Airport. The money she was carrying is thought to have come from social welfare payments.

Anjem Choudary, a British-born radical Islamic cleric who lives off the British welfare state, has repeatedly urged his followers to quit their jobs and claim unemployment benefits so they have more time to plot holy war against non-Muslims.

Choudary believes that Muslims are entitled to welfare payments because they are a form ofjizya, a tax imposed on non-Muslims in countries run by Muslims, as a reminder that non-Muslims are permanently inferior and subservient to Muslims.

In 2010, The Sun reported that Choudary takes home more than £25,000 ($39,000) a year in welfare benefits. Among other handouts, Choudary receives £15,600 a year in housing benefit to keep him in a £320,000 ($495,000) house in Leytonstone, East London. He also receives £1,820 council tax allowance, £5,200 income support and £3,120 child benefits. Because his welfare payments are not taxed, his income is equivalent to a £32,500 ($50,000) salary. By comparison, the average annual earnings of full-time workers in Britain was £26,936 ($41,000) in 2014.

Although analysts are divided over the question of how many followers Choudary actually has, no one disputes the fact that he is far from alone in exploiting the British welfare system.

British taxpayers have footed the bill for the Moroccan-born Najat Mostafa, the second wife of the Egyptian-born Islamic hate preacher Abu Hamza, who was extradited to the United States in October 2012. She has lived in a £1 million, five-bedroom house in one of London’s wealthiest neighborhoods for more than 15 years, and has raised the couple’s eight children there.

Abu Hamza and his family are believed to have cost British taxpayers more than £338,000 in benefits. He has also received £680,000 in legal assistance for his failed U.S. extradition battle. The cost of keeping him in a British prison since 2004 is estimated at £500,000.

Fellow extremist Islamic preacher Abu Qatada, a Palestinian, has cost British taxpayers an estimated £500,000. He has also won £390,000 in legal aid to avoid deportation to Jordan.

The Islamic preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed, a Syrian, obtained £300,000 benefits before being exiled to Lebanon. The money was provided to raise his six children, including Yasmin Fostok, a single mother who makes a living as a pole-dancer in London nightclubs.

More instances of British welfare abuse can be found here.

In France, the government in March 2015 cut welfare benefits for 290 persons identified as jihadists. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve downplayed the problem. “We shouldn’t make a controversy of this subject or allow people to think no action has been taken. We’re taking this seriously and will continue to do so,” he said.

In Germany, an analysis of the estimated 450 German jihadists fighting in Syria found that more than 20% of them were receiving welfare benefits from the German state. In addition, the 150 jihadists who have returned to Germany are eligible to begin receiving benefits again.

The Interior Minister of Bavaria, Joachim Herrmann, said:

“It should never come to this. German taxpayers’ money should never directly or indirectly finance Islamist terrorism. The benefits of such terrorist parasites should be eliminated immediately. Not working and spreading terror at the expense of the German state is not only extremely dangerous, it is also the worst provocation and disgrace!”

Separately, a study by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research found that Muslim immigrants were more likely to be unemployed and living off the social welfare state than any other immigrant group in Germany.

According to the study, 55% of the immigrants from Lebanon are unemployed, as are 46% from Iraq, 37.5% from Afghanistan, 37.1% from Iran, 27.1% from Morocco and 21.5% from Turkey. In real terms, immigrants from Turkey (140,000) constitute the largest number of unemployed. The report said the root cause for the high unemployment rates was the lack of educational attainment and job training qualifications.

In the Netherlands, a Dutch jihadist named Khalid Abdurahman appeared in a YouTube video with five severed heads. Originally from Iraq, Abdurahman was living on social welfare benefits in the Netherlands for more than a decade before he joined the Islamic State in Syria. Dutch social services declared him to be unfit for work and taxpayers paid for the medication to treat him for claustrophobia and schizophrenia.

Meanwhile, city councils across the Netherlands are attempting to help rather than to prosecute returning jihadists. In the city of Delft, for example, local politicians are using taxpayer money to “reintegrate” jihadists and to help them “rebuild their lives.” Dutch public television explained it this way: “The idea is that the local authorities do not want to alienate the returnees by means of a repressive approach which might lead to their further radicalization.”

Separately, several Dutch-Moroccan organizations sent a letter to the Labor Party (Partij van de Arbeid, PvdA) in which they threatened to urge Dutch-Moroccans to stop supporting the party if it agreed to a proposal by its Minister of Social Affairs, Lodewijk Asscher, to cut social welfare payments to Moroccans who do not live in the Netherlands. Asscher accused the organizations of using an “improper electoral threat.”

In Spain, police arrested five Muslims in the Basque Country who allegedly pocketed the social welfare payments of Redouan Bensbih, a Moroccan immigrant killed on the battlefield in Syria in March. Despite his no longer living in Spain, Bensbih continued receiving monthly payments of €836 euros ($920), which the suspects are accused of having wired to Morocco.

Meanwhile, a network of more than 250 butcher shops, grocery stores and telephone call centers was accused of financing the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. The network used the so-called hawala system — defined by Interpol as money transfer without money movement — where money is transferred through an informal and virtually untraceable system.

According to the El País newspaper, “the secret hawala network in Spain is comprised of about 300 hawaladars — the majority of them Pakistanis — who run clandestine offices in Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida, Bilbao, Santander, Valencia, Madrid, Logroño, León, Jaén and Almería, and other cities with large Pakistani communities.” They manage the savings of over 150,000 Muslims, many of whom are believed to be receiving social welfare payments from the Spanish state, without any legal oversight.

The network allegedly paid the salaries of Spanish jihadists in Syria: They received about $800 if they were single and $1,200 if they were married.

In February 2015, a Pakistani couple residing in the Basque capital of Vitoria was accused of falsifying identity documents to fraudulently obtain social welfare payments for 10 fictitious individuals. The man was receiving six different welfare payments and his wife was receiving four. Each welfare payment was between €6,000 ($6,600) and €10,000 ($11,000) per month. Police say that over a period of three years, the couple defrauded the Basque government of more than €395,000 ($453,000).

The Basque Country is known for its liberal social welfare policies; all residents, including illegal immigrants, are eligible to receive welfare payments. In 2012, a massive wave of immigrants from Morocco and Algeria arrived in the Basque Country in order to — in the words of a local politician — “live off of welfare benefits without working.”

According to local observers, more than 65% of the immigrants from Morocco and Algeria are receiving benefits. Auditors found that in 2012 alone the Basque Country made €86 million ($95 million) in dubious welfare payments.

In Sweden, the state employment agency, Arbetsformedlingen, terminated a pilot program aimed at helping immigrants find jobs. Information had emerged that Muslim employees at the agency were helping jobseekers find jobs as jihadists for the Islamic State. Operatives from the Islamic State had also allegedly bribed — and in some cases issued death threats against — agency employees in efforts to recruit fighters from Sweden.

Also in Sweden, the government said it wanted to impose a special tax to finance a jobs program for returning jihadists. The project is based on a scheme in the Swedish city of Örebro, where the city is using taxpayer money to help returning jihadists find employment. Town councilor Rasmus Persson said:

“We have discussed how we should work for these guys who have come back, to ensure that they do not return to the battlefield. They should be helped to process the traumatic experiences they have been through.”

The project was challenged by a Swedish soldier deployed in Afghanistan, who said that he was likely to get less help when he came back to Sweden than returning jihadists were. Soldier Fredrik Brandberg wrote:

“It would be wonderful if I was met with a comparable program after my homecoming, after which I could feel safe in having a regular job, with monthly income and a social stable situation in the society where I wouldn’t need to wonder whether I’m wanted or not.”

A spokesperson for the Swedish Armed Forces said that what happens to soldiers upon their return from war was not an issue that fell under its mandate.

Categories: Britain, Domestic policy, Europe, Foreign policy, Funding terrorism, Ideology, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Moral equivalence, Religion of Peace, Welfare for jihadists
Tags: Britain, Domestic policy, Europe, Foreign Policy, Funding terrorism, Ideology, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Moral equivalence, religion of peace, Welfare for jihadists

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