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(And more, including the future of BREXIT and relations with America. –DM)
Posted tagged ‘Islamic terrorism’
BREAKING : Nigel Farage Comments on Berlin Terror Attack & Russan Ambassador Killed in Ankara
December 20, 2016Merkel Government Still in Denial
December 20, 2016Merkel Government Still in Denial, Gatestone Institute, Vijeta Uniyal, December 20, 2016
Islamic State took responsibility for the December 19 Berlin truck-ramming attack that killed 12 people, similar to the July 14 attack in the French city of Nice, and countless car-rammings in Israel. Now Europeans feel what Israelis live with every day.
This month, the police union in the German state of Thuringia issued an open letter to the state’s Interior Minister, describing the crumbling law-and-order situation amid the rising migrant crime: “[You] are abandoning us completely helpless to a superior force… But what changes? Nothing. One instead gets a sense of uninterest.”
Meanwhile, representatives of Arab community were reported telling the police in Ruhr, “The police will not win a war with us because we are too many.”
Chancellor Merkel, Germany’s ruling elites and the media can continue putting a happy face on uncontrolled mass-migration from Arab and Muslim lands, or suppress news reporting on rising migrant crime, but they cannot wish away the country’s deteriorating law and order situation.
It should be evident to even a casual observer that her government still does not care about the victims of its own failed “refugee” policy.
Monday’s terrorist attack on a Berlin Christmas market killed at least 12 people and injured 50 others. Islamic State took responsibility for the truck-ramming attack, as recommend by the al-Qaeda magazine, Inspire, and similar to the July 14 attack in the French city of Nice, and countless car-rammings in Israel. Now Europeans feel what Israelis live with every day.
Police confer at the site of the December 19 car-ramming attack at a Christmas market in Berlin. (Image source: RT video screenshot)
Earlier this year, Germany was hit by a series of ISIS-inspired attacks and failed terror plots. Despite that almost all the perpetrators were recent Syrian or Afghan migrants, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in the middle of a re-election bid, has stuck to her claim that there is “no connection” between terror attacks in the country and uncontrolled mass migration from Arab and Muslim lands.
Ahead of an election year, Merkel and her coalition partners also want to avoid another mass sexual attack — in Cologne.
Adding insult to injury, the Mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, is planning to put on a big show this coming New Year’s Eve in the city’s main square. After an elaborate year-long cover up, the city will be lighting up the crime scene as part of a multi-media show. “The City of Cologne has announced plans for a spectacular multi-media show in the area immediately surrounding the famous Gothic cathedral, close to the main train station,” state-run broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported.
“Cologne will send good images to the world,” says the city’s mayor. The taxpayer-funded spectacle has been named “Time Drifts Cologne.” The “light artist” running the show, Philipp Geist, considers last year’s crime scene “a fantastic place for an art installation.”
Of an estimated two thousand exclusively Muslim men who raped, assaulted and robbed more than 1200 women, almost all the attackers have managed to walk free. Ralf Jäger, Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, admitted recently that “most of the cases will remain unsolved.”
An estimated 1,800 police officers will be on duty in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, compared to just 140 last year. Barricades have been erected in the city center to check the flow of the crowd. The city’s historic cathedral and adjoining area have been placed under a crush barrier. Police will man observation posts and fly helicopters to monitor the crowd, and deploy mounted police and six armoured vehicles for riot-control. “No expense will be spared,” assured the mayor. In an important election year, the government wants to defend the city to the last taxpayer dime.
Even before it can face any real onslaught, however, Merkel’s fortification is showing some serious cracks.
Just days ahead of the News Year’s Eve, the police union in the eastern German state of Thuringia has issued an open letter describing the crumbling law-and-order situation amid the rising migrant crime. “[You] are abandoning us completely helpless to a superior force,” says the desperate note addressed to the Interior Minister of Thuringia. The union claims that politicians have been repeatedly briefed on the deteriorating conditions under which police have been working. “But what changes? Nothing. One instead gets a sense of uninterest.”
Unwilling to acknowledge the breakdown of law and order in face of the rising migrant crime wave, the German media and politicians are going after the messenger.
Their latest target is the head of German Police Union, Rainer Wendt. Wendt’s crime, after a series of rape crimes this December, was to speak the obvious truth. “The criminals are using open borders,” he said.
Ralf Stegner, deputy leader of Social Democratic Party (SPD) and a fervent supporter of Merkel’s “Refugees Welcome” policy, denounced Wendt’s statement as “politically disgusting and stupid as one can get.”
Wendt has also been attacked for questioning the customary kid-glove treatment given to violent and criminal “refugees” by German courts. Sven Rebehn, Chairman of the German Association of Judges, called Wendt, “the Donald Trump of domestic politics” — apparently the biggest insult a German liberal can come up with these days.
The Merkel government can turn the center of Cologne into an impenetrable fortress for a day or two, but the threat is not going away. The problem lies in the Ruhr region that encircles Cologne. “Have foreign clans turned Ruhr region into a No-Go-Area?” asks the leading German newspaper, Die Welt, just days ahead of News Year’s Eve.
Meanwhile, representatives of Arab community were reported telling the police in Ruhr, “The police will not win a war with us because we are too many.”
Chancellor Merkel, Germany’s ruling elites and the media can continue putting a happy face on uncontrolled mass-migration from Arab and Muslim lands, or suppress news reporting on rising migrant crime, as much as they want, but they cannot wish away the country’s deteriorating law-and-order situation.
As the desperate plea of the police union shows, the Merkel government has decided to ignore the plight of law enforcement, at least for now. It should be evident to even a casual observer that her government still does not care about the victims of its own failed “refugee” policy: Germany appears to be heading toward another rough year.
Aleppo’s Fall Signals Rise of Emboldened Radical Shi’ite Axis
December 16, 2016Aleppo’s Fall Signals Rise of Emboldened Radical Shi’ite Axis, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Yaakov Lappin, December 16, 2016
Recent sweeping gains by the pro-Assad alliance in Aleppo signal the rise of an emboldened Iranian-led radical Shi’ite axis. The more this axis gains strength, territory, weapons, and influence, the more likely it is to threaten regional and global security.
Ideologues in Iran have formulated a Shi’ite jihadist vision which holds that the Iranian Islamic revolution must take control of the entire Muslim world. Losing the Assad regime to Sunni rebels, many of them backed by Tehran’s Gulf Arab state archenemies, would have represented a major setback to Iran’s agenda.
This same ideological agenda also calls for the eventual annihilation of Israel, the toppling of Sunni governments, and intimidating the West into complying with Iran’s schemes.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and Tehran’s military elites, in the form of the Islamic Republican Guards Corps (IRGC), use the current regional chaos to promote these goals.
In Syria, Iran has mobilized tens of thousands of Shi’ite militia fighters from all over the Middle East, as well as those from Hizballah in Lebanon, and sent them to do battle with Sunni rebel organizations to help save the Assad regime.
As the Shi’ite axis wages a sectarian war against Sunnis moderate groups and jihadists, it mobilizes and arms its proxies, and moves military assets into Syria, gaining a growing influence that can be used for bellicose purposes in the not too distant future.
The conquest of east Aleppo is a victory for the wider, transnational Iranian-led alliance, of which the Damascus regime is but one component. The Assad regime is composed and led by Syria’s minority Alawite population, which makes up just 11 percent of Syrians (Alawites are seen as an offshoot of Shia Islam).
A look at the order of battle assembled in Aleppo reveals that the war in Syria is not a civil conflict by any measure. In addition to Assad regime forces sent to fight Sunni rebels, such as the Fourth Division, Syrian army special forces, and paramilitary units, there is also the Iranian-backed Hizballah, which has transformed itself into a regional Shi’ite ground army, deployed across Syria and Lebanon.
These are joined by Shi’ite Iraqi Kataib Hizballah militia, Afghan Shi’ite militia groups, and Iranian military personnel on the ground in Syria, all of whom receive the assistance of massive Russian air power.
The large scale, indiscriminate airstrikes and shelling in places like Aleppo resulted in mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing of many Sunni civilians, producing the largest humanitarian catastrophe and refugee crisis in the 21st century. Such extreme war crimes will be sure to produce a new generation of radical recruits for ISIS and al-Qaida.
The IRGC’s Quds Force, under the command of Qassem Suleimani, orchestrates the entire ground war effort. Suleimani is very close to the Iranian supreme leader.
The Quds Force uses Syria as a transit zone to traffic advanced weapons from Iranian and Syrian arms factories to the Hizballah storehouses that pepper neighboring Lebanon.
Hizballah has amassed one of the largest surface to surface rocket and missile arsenal in the world, composed of over 100,000 projectiles, all of which are pointed at Israeli cities.
According to international media reports, Israel recently launched two strikes in the one week, targeting attempts to smuggle game-changing weapons to Lebanon.
Syrian dictator Basher Assad owes his survival to Iran and Hizballah, and their military presence in Syria should continue and expand further.
Assad regime and Hizballah representatives boast of this fact in recent statements highlighted by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
“The power-balances will change not only in Syria but in the entire region,” said Hizballah Executive Council Chairman Hashem Safi Al-Din.
“Syria’s steadfastness, and the support from its allies, have shifted the regional and international balance [of power], said Assad political adviser Bouthaina Sha’aban. “The recent developments in the international arena are bringing the countries of the region face to face with a new world.
If it takes western Syria with Russian air support, the Shi’ite axis victors will likely turn their sights on seizing southern Syria, near the Israeli border. To accomplish that, they will need to do battle with an array of Sunni rebels that now control that area (groups that include ISIS-affiliates). If successful, the axis could be tempted to build bases of attack throughout Syria against Israel, a development that would certainly trigger Israeli defensive action, as has reportedly occurred in the past.
The same pattern repeats itself in Iraq, where Iran-backed militias are moving in on Mosul, and could later be used to threaten Iraq’s Sunnis, and in Yemen, where Iranian-armed Houthi rebels control large swaths of the country, and are currently at war with a Saudi-led military coalition. The Houthis also threaten international oil shipping lanes and have fired on the U.S. Navy using Iranian-smuggled missiles.
In this way, the fundamentalist Iranian coalition gains a growing foothold.
Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is developing long-range strike capabilities that could place Europe in range, and its temporarily dormant nuclear program, represents investments that would make the Shi’ite axis more powerful than any Sunni Islamist camp.
Defense officials in Israel and in pragmatic Sunni states will watch for the danger that Iran will use its presence, proxies, and bases in Syria and Iraq to wage a Shi’ite jihad that extends well beyond the battlegrounds there.
The Iranian coalition can also lure armed Sunni groups into its orbit as well, as it has done in the past with the Palestinian Hamas terrorist regime in Gaza.
While the Israeli defense establishment has no desire to be dragged into Syria’s conflict, Jerusalem has indicated that it would act to remove any Iranian-Hizballah base it detects in Syria that is designed to launch attacks on Israel, and would not tolerate the trafficking of advanced weapons to Hizballah.
Few events illustrate more clearly how an ascendant Shi’ite jihadist axis is redrawing the map of the region than a recent military parade held by Hizballah in the western Syrian town of Al-Qusayr, which it conquered from the rebels in 2013.
According to an assessment by the Tel Aviv-based Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, that parade featured Soviet-made tanks, American armored personnel carriers, artillery guns, anti-aircraft guns, and powerful truck-mounted rocket launchers with an estimated range of between 90 to 180 kilometers. “It is clear that state-owned capabilities, some of them advanced, were delivered to Hizballah, which is a terrorist organization,” the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said in its report.
Hizballah, like the Assad regime and armed groups in Iraq and Yemen, is a component of an international axis whose battles against ISIS have managed to dupe some decision makers into believing that they are stabilizing forces. In actuality, the Shi’ite jihadists are as radical as their Sunni jihadist counterparts – albeit more tactically prudent – and are far better armed and better organized.
What Is Justice? Ohio State Students Protest Killing of Jihadi
December 12, 2016What Is Justice? Ohio State Students Protest Killing of Jihadi, Clarion Project, Meira Svirsky, December 12, 2016
Scene of the Ohio Attack (Photo: © Kirk Irwin/Getty Images)
Protests erupted at Ohio State University over the killing of terrorist Abdul Razak Ali Artan. Claiming he had reached a “boiling point” after becoming “sick and tired” of the treatment of Muslims, Artan injured 11 students when he drove his car over them and afterwards tried to stab them to death with a butcher knife.
The protests were part of a larger gathering organized by the OSU Coalition for Black Liberation meant to eulogize “people of color” killed by police since October, as reported by the student newspaper, The Lantern.
Artan’s name was added to that list.
As explained by Maryam Abidi, a fourth-year in women’s, gender and sexuality studies, “We broadened the scope of what today was supposed to be, to talk about the aftermath of what happened on the 28th.”
The event commenced with a eulogy for each name on the list, followed by a reading of all of their names, ages and the location of their deaths.
While acknowledging the violent nature of some of their crimes, Abidi still countered, “The protest against police brutality extends to the innocent and the guilty alike, because we know that no matter the crime, justice and due process don’t come from a cop’s bullet.”
This flawed moral argument – as well as the sheer ludicrousness of such a statement – is breathtaking. First and foremost, a person armed with a lethal weapon (whether it be a car, a knife or even his or her bare hands) engaged in an act meant to kill innocent people has opted out of any system of “due process.”
The definition of justice in the moral realm is not a static reality. Justice in this case was served, namely, the killing of the attacker before he was able to carry out his intentions.
If he had not been stopped by a policeman’s bullet – which, given the circumstances, was most likely the only way he could have been neutralized – where would the justice be for his victims who most certainly would have been dead by that time?
Contrary to Abidi’s concept of justice, moral values are not determined in a vacuum. As much as it would be convenient to deconstruct every moral dilemma into binary parts (in this case, killed by a bullet shot by a policeman or not), that is not how our world is constructed.
Justice takes into consideration more components than simply this one fact seized on by the OSU Coalition for Black Liberation. In the case of a jihadi terrorist perpetrating an attack on innocent civilians, justice was served when Artan was stopped.
Egypt: Muslims bomb St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo, murdering dozens
December 11, 2016Egypt: Muslims bomb St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo, murdering dozens, Jihad Watch,
St Mark’s Cathedral is the “seat of Egypt’s Orthodox Christian church and home to the office of its spiritual leader, Pope Tawadros II.”
Muslim Brotherhood operatives have long hated Pope Tawadros and the Coptic Christians, blaming them for the toppling of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in 2013, and considering them kuffar harbi, infidels at war with Islam whose lives can, because of that war, be lawfully taken.
“The blast took place as a Sunday mass being held in the chapel was about to end and coincided with a national holiday in Egypt marking the birth of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.”
The bomb seems to have been timed to maximize the carnage.
“St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo bombed, killing dozens,” Associated Press, December 11, 2016:
CAIRO – A bombing at Egypt’s main Coptic Christian cathedral killed 25 people and wounded another 35 on Sunday, in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory.
The attack came two days after a bomb elsewhere in Cairo killed six policemen, an assault claimed by a shadowy group that authorities say is linked to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Islamic militants have targeted Christians in the past, including a New Year’s Day bombing at a church in Alexandria in 2011 that killed at least 21 people.
Egypt’s official MENA news agency said an assailant lobbed a bomb into a chapel close to the outer wall of St Mark’s Cathedral, seat of Egypt’s Orthodox Christian church and home to the office of its spiritual leader, Pope Tawadros II. Egyptian state TV gave the casualty toll.
Witnesses said the explosion may have been caused by an explosive device planted inside the chapel. Conflicting accounts are common in the immediate aftermath of attacks.
The blast took place as a Sunday mass being held in the chapel was about to end and coincided with a national holiday in Egypt marking the birth of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Most of the victims are thought to be women and children.
An Associated Press reporter who arrived at the scene shortly after the blast saw blood-stained pews and shards of glass scattered across the chapel’s floor. Men and women wailed and cried outside….
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday’s attack.
Egypt has seen a wave of attacks by Islamic militants since the military overthrew President Mohammed Morsi, a freely elected leader who hailed from the Brotherhood, in 2013. Many of Morsi’s supporters blamed Christians for supporting the overthrow, and scores of churches and other Christian-owned properties in southern Egypt were ransacked that year….
Spain: Muslim migrants break through border fence, over 80 still at large
December 10, 2016Spain: Muslim migrants break through border fence, over 80 still at large, Jihad Watch,
What could possibly go wrong?
In February 2015, the Islamic State boasted it would soon flood Europe with as many as 500,000 refugees. And the Lebanese Education Minister said in September 2015 that there were 20,000 jihadis among the refugees in camps in his country. Meanwhile, 80% of migrants who have come to Europe claiming to be fleeing the war in Syria aren’t really from Syria at all.
So why are they claiming to be Syrian and streaming into Europe, and now the U.S. as well? An Islamic State operative gave the answer when he boasted in September 2015, shortly after the migrant influx began, that among the flood of refugees, 4,000 Islamic State jihadis had already entered Europe. He explained their purpose: “It’s our dream that there should be a caliphate not only in Syria but in all the world, and we will have it soon, inshallah.” These Muslims were going to Europe in the service of that caliphate: “They are going like refugees,” he said, but they were going with the plan of sowing blood and mayhem on European streets. As he told this to journalists, he smiled and said, “Just wait.”
All nine of the jihadis who murdered 130 people in Paris in November 2015 had just entered Europe as refugees.
“Spain’s Ceuta enclave stormed by migrants,” BBC, December 9, 2016:
At least 400 people have broken through the border fence between Morocco and the enclave of Ceuta, which is part of Spain.
The migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, stormed different points of the 6m-high (19ft) barbed-wire fence from 06:15 local time (07:15 GMT) on Friday.
It is the biggest single breach of the border in a decade, local media report.
Two border guards were injured in the surprise assault on the border, according to Spanish authorities.
Local TV footage showed dozens of migrants celebrating their crossing, while others appeared exhausted, lying on the pavement with visible cuts to their feet and hands.
Most of those who made the crossing have now been detained, with 20% still unaccounted for, Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said….
Architect of CIA Enhanced Interrogation: ‘We Interrogate Terrorists Like That to Stop Attacks’
December 9, 2016This idea that the jihadis are going to quit trying to destroy America or kill Americans because Gitmo closes: in my mind, that’s insane. That’s just a narcissistic thing that somebody wants to do for their own legacy. Not because it’s going to make Americans any safer. I can’t imagine a situation in which some guy who has been crucifying children, or setting people on fire in cages, or decapitating people, and cutting the throats of Yezidi sex slaves so they can bleed out in a great big bowl, and believes that’s an act of worship, I can’t believe they are suddenly going to look and say, “Oh, they’re going to close Gitmo. I’m done with this.” That’s not going to happen.
**********************
Interview: Dr. James Mitchell debunks myths on the CIA’s interrogation program
National Registry Office for Classified Information near Bucharest, Romania. Between 2003 and 2006, CIA operated secret prison from building’s basement / AP
Following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, psychologist and U.S. Air Force veteran Dr. James Mitchell was called back to national service. Along with a partner, Bruce Jessen, he was tasked with developing the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, or EITs. Designed to elicit time-sensitive intelligence from hardened al Qaeda leaders, the EITs later became immersed in controversy. In 2014, Senate Democrats released a report accusing Mitchell of torturing suspects with EITs and producing no results.
In his new book, Enhanced Interrogation, Mitchell offers his own testimony on the EITs. He argues that the techniques were critical in saving the lives of Americans and others. The Washington Free Beacon interviewed Mitchell on Thursday to discuss his new book.
Washington Free Beacon: What motivated you to write Enhanced Interrogation?
James Mitchell: Senator Dianne Feinstein put out that one-sided [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] SSCI report on the CIA Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, and the press ignored the SSCI report from the Republican minority, which pushed back against it. And the CIA pushed back. In addition, reporters, when they contacted me, said that Feinstein’s staffers had told them on deep background who Bruce and I were. We had these pseudonyms in the book. So Feinstein just outed us. And then after that, there has been all kinds of misinformation about the program. So I wrote the book because I really believed Americans needed to know what was done in their name to keep them safe after 9/11.
WFB: Why do you think there was such a profound bias against you and your CIA colleagues?
Mitchell: Feinstein’s report read like a prosecutorial brief to me. I’ve got extensive experience doing all kinds of investigations. And I’ve read a prosecutorial briefing. Feinstein interviewed no one who was involved in the program. Not one director, not one high-level intelligence officer. Not one guard, not one analyst.
I think what [SSCI Democrats] wanted to do was poison the American mind with this, because in part Feinstein had the wrong idea about what was done. One of the reasons I wrote the book was to try and dispel the idea that the detainees were subjected to enhanced interrogations the whole time they were [at CIA black sites]. You know, Abu Zubaydah was enhanced-interrogated for about two weeks in the entire time he was with CIA. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) was only enhanced-interrogated for three weeks. And he was never enhanced-interrogated again, even though some in the CIA were pushing to go back to enhanced-interrogations to try and find Osama bin Laden. The interrogators weren’t willing to do it, because we don’t interrogate people like that to find people; we do it to stop attacks.
WFB: What is your personal response to the treatment you received in the Senate report?
Mitchell: Feinstein maims us in every place she thinks she can smear us. And in those places where we could potentially be seen as doing the right thing, [she doesn’t give us recognition]. For example, [SSCI Democrats] say that Bruce wrote a cable in which he recommended EITs [on a prisoner at a black site]. But what Bruce actually said–and this is a verbatim quote–is that “EITs are not the first, nor best option for getting information” from [that suspect] because he’s too tough. What [Bruce] did recommend is heaters, food, blankets, get rid of the indigenous guards–get an American down there at night–and if you’re going to get interrogators down there, get people who are trained.
WFB: To what degree do you believe Islamist extremist thinkers such as Sayyid Qutb and Ibn Taymiyyah influence terrorist leaders like KSM more than the unique personality of each terrorist leader?
Mitchell: They absolutely believe, the way I can’t believe I can breathe underwater, that there is a paradise. They absolutely believe that Allah has given them a mandate to purify the Earth, to get rid of all the infidels. To bring peace by subjugating, converting, slaughtering, or enslaving everyone. It took me a year to get my head around it. I’ve dealt with some people who have strong beliefs, but I’ve never dealt with people whose beliefs almost bordered on magic to me. What I think happened in the case of people like KSM is that their personalities and who they are influence how those beliefs are expressed. But beliefs drive behavior and it gets colored by the personality, but ultimately, they are Islamists. They are trying to impose sharia law on the world. And their beliefs about their mandate and need to purify, rather than being a relatively new phenomenon, they’re trying to breathe new life into these traditions from 1,400 years ago.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is seen shortly after his capture / AP
WFB: If you were president of the United States, what would your high-value detention program look like?
Mitchell: What the president has to ask himself is: What’s he going to do when he has reliable intelligence that there’s going to be another catastrophic attack–possibly involving nuclear weapons, like we had right after 9/11–to get the person who has the information to tell us that information? And that person is good at withholding information and they don’t want to give it up. I know, because we tried it with all of them, to get them to speak before they were ever given enhanced-interrogation. KSM is an excellent example of it. Before he was transferred to a black site, he had several days in which he was given tea and polite conversation. During that time he prayed and chanted. One of the interrogators during that period wore Pakistani dress [to try and earn KSM’s respect]. KSM later told me he thought those guys were clowns.
WFB: Some of your critics say that al Qaeda’s London plots against Canary Wharf/Heathrow were exaggerated. What’s your response?
Mitchell: Here’s why they say that. They say that if [the terrorists] are not inside the door with their backpacks on, it’s not an operational threat. But you know, the thing that saved most of the world from another catastrophic attack is that President Bush didn’t treat [9/11] like a law-enforcement issue. But when we did respond with military force, it threw them off balance. And on the London plots, Ramzi bin al-Shibh was behind that and he was working on it right when we picked him up. [Underplaying that threat] is a little bit like someone saying the guy down the street wants to kill you but he hasn’t loaded his weapon just yet, he’s not driving to your house yet. So when you stop him getting into his car, he wasn’t really coming to kill you. It’s a silly idea.
WFB: To what degree do you believe the Obama administration has taken too far of a step back from detaining and interrogating those who might be able to help us prevent Islamic State attacks?
Mitchell: I believe that we need a detention and interrogation program that focuses on actionable intelligence. That we don’t have that, I think, puts us at grave risk. I think that President Obama has stepped all the way back. But what I would do is quote KSM. When KSM was telling me that he expected George W. Bush to do exactly what Ronald Reagan had done and exactly what Clinton had done, to me that conveys that these guys look at how people have handled these situations in the past. And I think all you have to do is look at how the Obama administration has handled this problem.
We’re seeing more of these kinds of attacks because, quite frankly, the Obama administration is trying to manage it like a problem [as if the terrorists] can exist in our midst. The president treats it like a law enforcement problem, as opposed to how Bush did it–it’s a declaration of war. KSM expected that the [post-9/11 response] would be a law enforcement investigation and that the [Department of Justice] would try and extradite them from the Taliban. He expected that this would give them time to get other large-scale attacks off.
If U.S. policy continues to be what it is–if we don’t even call the problem, the problem–I think the [terrorists] would be emboldened by it. Here’s the problem that people in America don’t understand. [Terrorists] really do believe that our civil liberties, our willingness to be open to people, our tolerance, our multicultural diversity, they believe those are all weapons that Allah has provided them. [They believe] these things are flaws in us.
WFB: How do you feel about President Obama’s intention to close down the terrorist detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay?
Mitchell: I have mixed feelings about it. I have seen a Federal supermax prison. The [terrorists’] lives will be much, much worse in a Federal supermax prison. But I don’t want them on U.S. soil. So until there’s a federal prison that can isolate them from outside contact, I don’t think they should be on U.S. soil. KSM said that our desire to have the world be like us is a great flaw. He said that we lack the stomach to do what must be done to defeat them. Or even to protect ourselves.
This idea that the jihadis are going to quit trying to destroy America or kill Americans because Gitmo closes: in my mind, that’s insane. That’s just a narcissistic thing that somebody wants to do for their own legacy. Not because it’s going to make Americans any safer. I can’t imagine a situation in which some guy who has been crucifying children, or setting people on fire in cages, or decapitating people, and cutting the throats of Yezidi sex slaves so they can bleed out in a great big bowl, and believes that’s an act of worship, I can’t believe they are suddenly going to look and say, “Oh, they’re going to close Gitmo. I’m done with this.” That’s not going to happen.
I asked KSM about this. What he told me was that if it wasn’t Gitmo it would be something else: “We need something to stir things up.” The [terrorists] are going to find something because they need a place holder. Gitmo is what we’re fixated on; it’s not what they’re fixated on. The way you fight these hardcore guys is to make their mission look less sexy. They fear strength. They regard our efforts to look conciliatory as a weakness, as a gift to them from God.
Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba / AP
WFB: Knowing all you know now, and having experienced all you have experienced, would you do it again?
Mitchell: [The CIA] presented all this information to me [when they asked for my help]. But really I thought I shouldn’t do this, this is going to ruin my life. And then I thought to myself, nothing in my ethics or my moral code said to me, I should put the temporary discomfort of a terrorist before saving hundreds of lives. I mean, I couldn’t live with myself. For some people that’s a hypothetical question that they can answer by taking the moral high ground. But for me it was a real question, I mean [CIA] really was asking me this. So I would make sure that what I did was legal. But if there was another situation where there was a catastrophic attack and there was credible intelligence that it was imminent, I would get out of the chair today and go do it.
WFB: Is there anything else that you want to add?
Mitchell: I would ask people to get familiar with what [ISIS/al Qaeda] ideology involves. We do not understand the depth of their commitment. The only way they can avoid the torment of the grave is to get up every day and try to figure out how they can convert, kill, enslave, or humiliate everyone else on the planet.
They want to purify the planet.
Mainstream Media Still Omits Uncomfortable Truth About Muslim ‘Grievances’
December 7, 2016Mainstream Media Still Omits Uncomfortable Truth About Muslim ‘Grievances’, PJ Media, Raymond Ibrahim, December 7, 2016
Do you know the difference between a supremacist grievance and an egalitarian grievance? This is the key to understanding the widely held claim that Muslim grievances are the source of Muslim violence.
Take the latest Muslim attack on U.S. soil. Last week, Abdul Razak Ali Artan — an 18-year-old Muslim refugee from Somalia, who was receiving aid from Catholic charities — rammed his car into a building at The Ohio State University. He then got out and stabbed people with a butcher knife. He was eventually shot and killed by a guard; 13 people were hospitalized.
Why did he do it?
According to the “experts,” Artan — like so many other violent Muslim refugees before him — had grievances. CNN, NBC, the Washington Post, and many others cited a Facebook post by Artan:
I am sick and tired of seeing my fellow Muslim Brothers and Sisters being killed and tortured EVERYWHERE.
Yet despite this claim of ubiquity, he only cited one nation:
Seeing my fellow Muslims being tortured, raped and killed in Burma led to a boiling point. I can’t take it anymore.
The question before us is simple: Was Artan provoked to go on a murderous rampage in America because of grievances concerning the treatment of Muslims in Burma?
For about a decade now, I’ve argued that the “Muslim grievance” narrative is a myth meant to shield Islamic teachings from scrutiny. The “Muslim grievance” narrative goes like this: if Islam is a religion of peace yet Muslims everywhere are behaving violently, then the explanation we must all cling to is that they are really, really pissed off about something being done to them.
Most recently, the Islamic State, instead of disseminating and taking advantage of the “grievance” claim, could not have been clearer as they told the West the truth: no matter what the West does, the true reason ISIS hates and terrorizes us is because we are infidels.
Millions of Muslims — including Artan — do harbor strong grievances against the West and others. The problem is that they define “grievance” in a manner incompatible with liberty.
When most Westerners think of the word “grievance,” they think in egalitarian terms: X has a grievance against Y because Y doesn’t treat X with equality. For example, your boss or your teacher treats you worse — without equality — than other employees or other students. You then have a grievance which most in the West would say is legitimate: because the people of the West were raised on the unique idea of treating others as they would be treated.
This is not the sort of grievance that animates many Muslims – and certainly not those who resort to terrorism.
Rather, they are animated by a supremacist-based grievance: they get angry seeing infidels on an equal footing with Muslims. And they get murderous seeing infidels actually lording over Muslims.
Islamic doctrine, which persuades Muslims into believing they are superior to non-Muslims — to the degree that they are dogs and cattle — imbues Muslims with this sense of entitlement.
For example, in Pakistan, as Christian children were singing carols inside a church, Muslim men from a nearby mosque barged into the church with an axe, destroyed the furniture and altar, and beat the children. “You are disturbing our prayers. … How dare you use the mike and speakers?” explained the enraged Muslims. When a Muslim slapped a Christian and the latter reciprocated, the Muslim exclaimed: “How dare a Christian slap me!” Anti-Christian violence immediately ensued.
Islamic grievances are based on what I call Islam’s “How Dare You?” phenomenon. Remember it the next time media, politicians, and other talking heads tell you that Muslim mayhem and outbursts of violence are products of grievances. Missing from their rationale is the supremacist basis of these grievances.
Consider the Conditions of Omar, a foundational medieval Muslim text dealing with how “infidels” living under Muslim authority must behave, attributed to the second caliph and close friend of Muhammad, Omar.
Among other stipulations, it commands conquered Christians not to raise their “voices during prayer or readings in churches anywhere near Muslims” (hence the axe attack in Pakistan). It also commands them not to display any signs of Christianity — specifically listing Bibles and crosses — and not to build churches.
(See Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians, for my translation of “The Conditions of Omar.”)
If the supremacist nature of Islamic law is still not clear enough, the Conditions literally commands Christians to give up their seats to Muslims as a show of respect. By way of analogy, consider when Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her bus seat to white passengers. Any white supremacist at the time had sincere grievances: how dare she think herself equal?
But were such grievances legitimate? Should they have been accommodated? Similarly, are the endless supremacist-based “grievances” of Muslims legitimate and should they be accommodated?
These are the questions missing from the debate about easily bruised Muslim sensitivities.
One can go on and on with examples from all around the Islamic world:
— In Turkey, a Bible publishing house was stormed and three of its Christian employees tortured, disemboweled, and finally murdered. One suspect later said: “We didn’t do this for ourselves, but for our religion [Islam] … Our religion is being destroyed.”
— In Egypt, after a 17-year-old Christian student refused to obey his Muslim teacher’s orders to cover up his cross, the teacher and some Muslim students attacked, beat, and ultimately murdered the youth.
— These Turkish and Egyptian Muslims were truly aggrieved: As seen, Islam’s Conditions makes clear that Christians must not “produce a cross or Bible” around Muslims. How dare the Egyptian student and Turkish Bible publishers refuse to comply — thus grieving Muslims into murdering them?
— In parts of Indonesia, because it is becoming next to impossible for Christians to build churches, they often congregate outside to celebrate Christmas — only to be attacked by Muslims hurling cow dung and bags of urine at the Christians as they pray.
— In Egypt, the mere rumor that Christians are trying to build, or even renovate, an existing church sets off mass riots and attacks on Christians. The Muslims of Indonesia and Egypt are also sincerely aggrieved: how dare these Christians think they can build or renovate a church when the Conditions forbid it?
In short, anytime non-Muslims dare to overstep their Sharia-designated “inferior” status, supremacist Muslims become violently aggrieved.
From here, one can begin to understand the ultimate Muslim grievance: Israel.
For if “infidel” Christian minorities are deemed inferior and attacked by aggrieved Muslims for exercising their basic human rights, like freedom of worship, how must Muslims feel about Jews — the descendants of pigs and apes, according to the Koran — exercising power and authority over fellow Muslims in what is perceived to be Muslim land?
How dare they?!
Of course, if grievances against Israel were really about universal justice and displaced Palestinians, Muslims would be aggrieved at the fact that millions of Christians are currently being displaced in the name of jihad.
Needless to say, they are not.
Which brings us back to Artan’s “grievances.” Recall his Facebook lament:
I am sick and tired of seeing my fellow Muslim Brothers and Sisters being killed and tortured EVERYWHERE. Seeing my fellow Muslims being tortured, raped and killed in Burma led to a boiling point. I can’t take it anymore.
Note, he is aggrieved because his “Muslim Brothers and Sisters” are being abused. Key word: Muslim. He didn’t care about universal justice.
Otherwise, he would have been expressing his anger at the brutal persecution experienced by a tiny minority in his own home country of Somalia. There, any Somali discovered practicing Christianity is ruthlessly persecuted and sometimes butchered, especially by the popular Islamic organization Al-Shabaab — “The Youth.”
Somali Christians share the same looks, nationality, ethnicity, language, and culture as Artan. They are literally his true “brothers.” Yet their unjust persecution didn’t matter to him; his sympathies belonged instead with a people in distant Burma who have nothing in common with him other than being Muslim.
And it was that fact — that “subhuman infidels” dared to mistreat “superior Muslims” — that so irked the young Somali. Hence why he concluded his Facebook rant with the following sentence — often omitted by the same media that cited his post as evidence of “grievances”:
By Allah, I am willing to kill a billion infidels in retribution for a single disabled Muslim/Musliman.
Incidentally, like Muslim minorities in other nations, Muslims in Burma have long antagonized their Buddhist hosts — through the usual Muslim-on-infidel attacks, murders, rapes, temple burnings, etc. — and their current unenviable lot is in great part due to this fact.
In the words of Wirathu, the leading anti-Muslim Buddhist monk in Burma: “If we are weak, our land will become Muslim.” The theme song of his party speaks of people who “live in our land, drink our water, and are ungrateful to us,” a reference to Muslims. And that “we will build a fence with our bones if necessary” to keep them out. His pamphlets say “Myanmar [Burma] is currently facing a most dangerous and fearful poison that is severe enough to eradicate all civilization.”
In short, the next time you hear that Muslim rage and terrorism are products of grievances — from cartoons to territorial disputes to the treatment of Muslims in distant nations — remember that this is absolutely true. But these “grievances” are not predicated on any rational standards of equality or justice, but on a supremacist worldview.
Iran to Trump: Death to America Will Live On
December 5, 2016Iran to Trump: Death to America Will Live On
by Majid Rafizadeh
December 5, 2016 at 4:00 am
Source: Iran to Trump: Death to America Will Live On
- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made it clear that Trump’s presidency causes “no difference” to Iran-US relationships. He called the Americans’ election “a spectacle for exposing their crimes and debacles.”
- “Thank God, we are prepared to confront any possible incident.” — Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
- From the perspective of Iranian moderates, reformists and hardliners, the US is not a superpower anymore; but a weak actor in the Middle East and on the global stage.
- Iranian leaders also made it clear that Tehran will continue supporting Hezbollah and other groups that have been designated as terrorist groups by the US Department of State. These groups pursue anti-American and anti-Israeli agendas.
Ideologically speaking, Iran’s hardliners, primarily Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who enjoy the final say in Iran’s domestic and foreign policies, have made it clear that Iran will not change the core pillars of its religious and revolutionary establishment: Anti-Americanism and hatred towards the “Great Satan” and the “Little Satan”, Israel.
Supporters of Ayatollah Khamenei and the IRGC enthusiastically shouted “Death to America” in response to a recent speech that Khamenei gave, applauding the 1979 hostage-taking and takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran.
Iran’s major state newspapers carried anti-American headlines this week, quoting the Supreme Leader. In his latest public speech to thousands of people, which was televised via Iran’s state TV, Khamenei made it clear that Trump’s presidency will cause “no difference” to Iran-US relationships. Khamenei pointed out that, “We have no judgment on this election because America is the same America”. In his speech, Khamenei attacked President-elect Donald Trump and the American people. The Ayatollah called the US election “a spectacle for exposing their crimes and debacles.”
Other hardliners echoed the same message that there would be no change in Iran’s revolutionary principles and ideals against the US and its allies. The deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, told Iran’s Fars news agency: “When the Republicans were in power, they threatened us and showed their hostility… and when the Democrats were in power, the policies of the United States were the same.”
Khamenei also remarked that the US will remain the evil, or the “Great Satan,” saying:
“In the past 37 years, neither of the two parties who were in charge did us any good and their evil has always been directed toward us….We neither mourn nor celebrate, because it makes no difference to us… We have no concerns. Thank God, we are prepared to confront any possible incident.”
He added that the remarks made by Donald Trump “over the last few weeks on immoral issues — which are, for the most part, not baseless accusations — are enough to disgrace America.”
Militarily, strategically and geopolitically, Tehran’s core pillars of damaging US national interests, and scuttling US foreign policy objectives will remain intact.
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, has heavily criticized Donald Trump for stating that the US will confront Iranian boats in the Gulf if they harass US Navy ships. In the last year, Iran has increasingly harassed and provoked US Navy ships, and detained 11 American sailors.
General Bagheri stated out that, “The person [Trump] who has recently achieved power, has talked off the top of his head! Threatening Iran in the Persian Gulf is just a joke.”
In 2016, the number of incidents of boats from Iran’s navy and Revolutionary Guards provoking and harassing the US Navy ships rose significantly to 31 incidents, highlighting that the IRGC evidently feels sufficiently emboldened to damage US national security publicly and on a regular basis. From the perspective of Iranian moderates, reformists and hardliners, the US is not a superpower anymore; but a weak actor in the Middle East and on the global stage.
In addition, Iran, with underlying anti-American objectives, is aggressively expanding its military presence and naval bases in foreign nations and international waters. Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqheri said, as cited by the Iranian Tasnim news agency, that the expanding presence in international waters and naval bases in foreign countries “could be ten times more efficient than nuclear power.” For the first time, the Iranian Navy’s 44th flotilla, comprised of a Bushehr logistic warship and an Alvand destroyer, has now sailed into the Atlantic Ocean as well.
Tehran is also considering having naval bases on the coasts of Yemen and Syria to support the Assad government and the Houthis. As Iran’s Chief of the General Staff told a gathering of senior naval commanders, “One day, we may need bases on the coasts of Yemen and Syria, and we need the necessary infrastructures for them under international maritime law.”
Iran’s naval commander, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, also told the gathering of senior naval commanders that boosting military presence in international waters reflects Iran’s power.
According to the Tasnim news agency, Iran’s navy has already deployed 49 flotillas to various maritime zones. Sayyari added that the flotillas “showcased Iran’s symbol of power.”
Iranian leaders also made it clear that Tehran will continue supporting Hezbollah and other groups that are designated as terrorist groups by the US Department of State.
These groups pursue anti-American and anti-Israel agendas.
Khamenei and IRGC are sending a strong message that Iran will neither alter its core religious and revolutionary pillar of anti-Americanism, nor change its foreign policy and military objectives of damaging US interests. Iran’s policy towards the “Great Satan” will remain as it has been since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, political scientist and Harvard University scholar is president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He can be reached at Dr.rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu.
Prime Minister Trudeau’s affection for despots, autocrats and Islamists
December 4, 2016Prime Minister Trudeau’s affection for despots, autocrats and Islamists, CIJ News, Diane Weber Bederman, December 4, 2016
Justin Trudeau. Photo: CIJnews
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau displayed his affection for fascism on the death of Fidel Castro. “We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.” He seems to be following in the footsteps of his father Pierre. Members of Parliament, media outlets in Canada, and around the world expressed their shock at his comments.
Trudeau has also shared his affection for Chinese Communists. “Justin’s 2013 tribute to the role of big government in forcing people into living more environmentally might explain his flirtation with dictators and despots. ‘There is a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime…”’
Trudeau is in the process of cozying up to the Iranians. Iran; a country run by an autocratic, theocratic despot. Trudeau has opened the doors to warmer relations with Russia.
According to Canadian journalist Terence Corcoran “The Trudeaus have been at this for six decades, flirting with the murderous icons of communist oppression since the 1950s when Trudeau the First expressed his admiration for elements of Stalin’s Soviet Communism.
In the 1960s, a 41-year-old Pierre Trudeau visited Communist China during the great famine and co-wrote a book hailing Maoism and denying the existence of a national food policy that killed 38 million people. He never retracted his China views. But, in the 1970s, he cozied up to Fidel Castro, who until his death Friday has held the Caribbean island in a form of political slavery.”
Paul Wells from the Toronto Star did not parse his words of condemnation. “Trudeau lauded Castro’s ‘tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people,’ whose speech and dietary protein Castro rationed, by law, for decades. I guess it was tough love.”
Margaret Wente from the Globe and Mail wrote “Mr. Trudeau’s affection for the old dictator puts him in the company of Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad.” She found his comments oddly timed. “He was just winding up a far-flung trip whose theme was human rights, during which he lectured various African nations on the need to improve their treatment of women and sexual minorities. Unfortunately, Mr. Castro wasn’t all that progressive either. “
The Globe Editorial Board wrote their concerns about Justin Trudeau; that his comments leave the disturbing impression that he actually believes what he said about Castro including “I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.”
Gerald Caplan wrote “Scarcity became the overriding characteristic of Fidelismo, scarcity in both the quantity and quality of the life he provided. Dissent was not tolerated, political dissidents imprisoned, human rights a foreign intrusion, free speech counterrevolutionary, trade unions government servants, gays an insult to the revolution.”
Kelly McParland of the National Post wrote: “Given a choice between saying something nice about his Dad’s Cuban pal, and defending the values of democracy and human rights, Justin Trudeau picked the wrong one.”
He went with “el Comandante” – the captain, the commander – one of the appellations accorded Cuba’s Fidel Castro during the 50+ years in which treated his country like a personal political project, impoverishing millions while pursuing a self-defeating confrontation with Washington.”
Mark Bonokoski, Toronto Sun wrote “Blind to Cuban history, and blinkered by his fathers’ fairy tales about Fidel Castro, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement about the death of the Cuban dictator was an embarrassment of international proportions. He ignored the brutal truth about the man, dancing around like a clown in a parade dodging horse droppings.”
Members of parliament shared their outrage; from Lisa Raitt, to Rona Ambrose, Maxime Bernier, Kellie Leitch, to Stephen Harper’s son. And then there was world-wide condemnation of Trudeau’s affection for this despot.
So I ask all of these people, journalists, columnists, and Canadian Members of Parliament, where is your outrage at Trudeau’s attempts to mimic these despots? First, by allowing him to pass a petition that attacks free speech without a word from any of you.
The Parliament passed petition 411 that could attack free speech.
“We, the undersigned, Citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to join us in recognizing that extremist individuals do not represent the religion of Islam, and in condemning all forms of Islamophobia” (dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force).
In English this means that we will not be able to criticize Islam as a political force. This is denying us of our right to criticize an ideology that is diametrically opposed to the ideology of democracy.
This leads me to the next question. Where is your outrage with Trudeau’s statement that Islam is compatible with the west while the leading Muslim organization in Canada, ICNA, posted a publication on its official site saying this is not true?
“The political system of Islam is totally incompatible with western democracy.
“The concept of government party and the opposition is alien to Islam.
“All belong to one Ummah with only one goal and pursue the same aims and objects of Islamic guidelines!”[Online publication of ICNA Canada’s site]
ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America) Canada is an Islamic nation-wide organization striving “to build an Exemplary Canadian Muslim Community” by “total submission to Him [Allah] and through the propagation of true and universal message of Islam.” Dr. Iqbal Massod Al-Nadvi is the Amir (President) of Islamic Circle of ICNA Canada and is also serving as Chairperson of Canadian Council of Imams.
Whom should we believe? Non-Muslims or respected Muslim leaders?
Trudeau’s stance is a breach of our Constitution and free speech. Islam, based on Sharia Law as is being interpreted by major Islamic groups, is innately homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic and viciously anti-semitic. Saudi Arabia just announced they aren’t ready for female drivers!
Islam, as being reflected in Islamic literature in Canada, does not treat all people as equal; does not believe in free will; does not accept gay rights or women as equal to men. Islam the ideology does not separate itself from Islam the religion so it is not tolerant of other religions (there are no synagogues or churches in many Muslim countries) and it makes demands on democracy to accommodate religious beliefs in the secular world.
Where is Main Stream media when it comes to “outing” Trudeau and his comments about Islam? Where are these people who are shocked by Trudeau’s comments about Castro and his love of autocrats, despots and theocrats? Why are they not holding him to account for his declaration that Islam is compatible with the West?
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