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Iran: Attack on US Boats is Warning to Congress on Sanctions

January 13, 2016

Iran: Attack on US Boats is Warning to Congress on Sanctions, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, January 13, 2016

(Here’s an analysis of the Iranian actions:

— Oh well. — DM)

obama_tv

The official media narrative is that Obama’s great relationship with Iran enabled the release of the American sailors captured at gunpoint by Iran’s terrorist IRGC. The media is full of praise for Obama for letting ten American sailors be taken hostage… and then released.

That’s how low the bar is set.

Meanwhile Iran is making it clear that it’s sending a very different kind of message.

Iran’s army chief said on Wednesday the seizure of two US navy boats and their 10 sailors should be a lesson to members the US Congress trying to impose new sanctions on Tehran.

“This incident in the Persian Gulf, which probably will not be the American forces’ last mistake in the region, should be a lesson to troublemakers in the US Congress,” Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, head of Iran’s armed forces, was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

Iran isn’t even bothering to threaten Obama. It just slaps him around. Instead it uses his weakness to threaten Congress which it now considers stronger than Obama.

Categories: Iran - sanctions, Iran - sanctions relief, Iran scam, Obama and Iran, U.S. Congress
Tags: Iran - sanctions relief, Iran sanctions, Iran Scam, Obama and Iran, U.S. Congress

Comments: 1 Comment

Electronic Doomsday for the US?

January 13, 2016

Electronic Doomsday for the US? The Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)

by Peter Huessy

January 13, 2016 at 4:45 am

Source: Electronic Doomsday for the US?

The recent North Korean nuclear and the Iranian ballistic missile tests are serious deadly threats to the United States. North Korea’s latest bomb test is being widely dismissed by “experts” because the apparent yield is around 10 kilotons or less – which just so happens to be exactly the right amount for an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) explosion.
An EMP attack on the U.S. would leave the country with no electricity, no communications, no transportation, no fuel, no food, and no running water.
“Our increasing dependence on advanced electronics systems results in the potential for an increased EMP vulnerability… and if unaddressed makes EMP employment by an adversary an attractive asymmetric option.” — EMP Commission
The recent military writings and exercises of potential adversaries would combine EMP with cyber-attacks, sabotage, and kinetic attacks against the national electric grid and other critical infrastructures.

Contrary to some “expert” analysis, both the recent North Korean nuclear and the Iranian ballistic missile tests are deadly serious threats to the United States.

The danger to the United States is particularly consequential due to the close military cooperation of North Korea and Iran. Their combined capabilities, as demonstrated recently, could very well signal a future nuclear attack of the electromagnetic pulse type, for which the U.S., at the moment, is totally unprepared.

The threat to the United States from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack — the high-altitude detonation of a nuclear weapon over the United States — is so potentially catastrophic that both the 2004 and 2008 reports of the Congressional EMP Commission said so openly — probably in the hope that the public warning would spur the nation and the Department of Defense to action. [1]

Even an EMP attack from a single 10-kiloton nuclear weapon — of the type now in North Korea’s arsenal — could cause cascading failures which could black out the U.S. Eastern Grid for months or years, and devastate the civilian economy. An EMP, detonated at an altitude above 30-70 kilometers, could be delivered by a short-range missile fired off a freighter, hundreds of kilometers off U.S. shores.

The result would be no communications, no transportation, no fuel, no food, and no water for a decade or more. That would be true for at least the entire eastern half of the United States, where most of the population lives. National Geographic has described it as an “Electronic Armageddon.”

An illustrative rendering of an EMP attack on the United States. (Image source: Video screenshot from “33 Minutes”)

Despite these previous warnings and North Korea’s recent bomb test — its fourth known nuclear test since 2006 — “experts” are dismissing a nuclear threat from North Korea as of little concern because the apparent yield of the bomb was in the neighborhood of 10 kilotons or less.

Hydrogen Bombs, or thermonuclear weapons, which is what North Korea claimed to have detonated, produce yields higher than those.

In fact, however, these experts may be way off base. The yield of an EMP explosion is lower. The North Korean bomb capability that was tested may therefore well be that of a super-EMP.

Neutron bombs, or Enhanced Radiation Weapons such as Super-EMP weapons, are essentially very low yield H-Bombs. They typically have yields of 1-10 kilotons, exactly like North Korea’s device. Indeed, because of their very low yield, all four North Korean nuclear tests look like Super-EMP weapons.

A Super-EMP weapon is designed to produce special effects (gamma rays, in the case of Super-EMP). A Super-EMP warhead, while having a seemingly insignificant explosive yield, could be far more deadly and dangerous to the United States than the most powerful H-Bomb ever built.

Russia’s Tsar H-Bomb, (known as Tsar Bomba), the most powerful H-Bomb ever detonated, produced during its test in October 1961 a yield of 60 megatons. It would have been capable of flattening everything in the state of Rhode Island. [2]

A Super-EMP weapon, however, detonated 300 kilometers above the center of the U.S., could destroy the entire nation’s industrial and military capacity, and kill a large percentage of the American people, by taking down the U.S. electrical grid. Once destroyed, the grid’s elements would take decades to rebuild.[3]

Even if the U.S. were to protect its electrical infrastructure from such a threat — legislation to protect the grid is now in Congress, primarily thanks to Rep. Trent Franks (R-Arizona) — the parallel vulnerability of U.S. military forces to an EMP attack would be just as serious.

We know the Department of Defense has testified to Congress that 99% of the electricity for continental U.S. military bases comes from the civilian grid. Our military bases would thereby be without electrical power for decades as well. Unfortunately, the thousands of electrical transformers destroyed by an EMP attack were not primarily built in America. Even if they were, they require at least a five-year lead-time for production.

Overseas power-projection from U.S. military bases would be effectively impossible without an operational grid. Moreover, after such an EMP attack, the national focus would be on saving millions of Americans from mass starvation and preserving societal existence, not on going “over there” to fight a war or defend U.S. interests.

If the EMP attack were executed anonymously, say, by a missile launched off a freighter at sea close-in to the United States, we would probably not even know against whom to retaliate. Thus, classical deterrence would not work, further “inviting” such an attack.

In 1999, for example, at a high level meeting in Vienna of a Congressional delegation with senior members of the Russian government, Vladimir Lukin, the chairman of the Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee, angry with American policy in the Balkans, issued the following threat: “If we really wanted to hurt you with no fear of retaliation, we would launch a Submarine-launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM), [and] we would detonate a nuclear weapon high above your country and shut down your power grid.”

Congressman Curt Weldon, (R-PA), the American delegation chair, who understood Russian, turned to his Maryland colleague, (Roscoe Bartlett, D-MD) and asked, “Roscoe, did you hear what he said?”

The chairman of the State Duma Geopolitics Commission, Alexander Shabanov, smiled and said, “And if that one doesn’t work, we have plenty of spares”.[4]

Thus a nuclear weapon designed specifically for EMP attack, what Russian experts call a “Super-EMP” warhead, would constitute a worst-case threat.

A single Super-EMP warhead, detonated in the sky 300 kilometers over the center of the U.S., would generate such a powerful EMP field over all 48 contiguous United States that, not only would a protracted nationwide blackout result, but even the best protected U.S. military forces and C3I on all military bases—if not sufficiently protected– could also be at risk.

The technology to protect the electrical grid is relatively straightforward and inexpensive. But only with action now could the grid be protected sufficiently to give the US industrial and economic capability a fighting chance to survive an “Electronic Armageddon”.

It is also possible to protect military assets through “hardening,” but doing so after production and the fielding of equipment is time-consuming and costly. The sooner the U.S. starts with hardening its equipment, sooner the job will get done. The U.S. is seriously behind schedule in what is required to protect it.

It is not as if the threat is “over the horizon.” Russia and China already have Super-EMP warheads. Moreover, according to the Congressional EMP Commission, the design of Super-EMP warheads is no secret: “Certain types of relatively low-yield nuclear weapons can be employed to generate potentially catastrophic EMP effects over wide geographic areas, and designs for variants of such weapons may have been illicitly trafficked for a quarter-century.”

The EMP Commission warned that non-state actors — terrorists — could also pose an EMP threat: “What is different now is that some potential sources of EMP threats are difficult to deter — they can be terrorist groups that have no state identity, have only one or a few weapons, and are motivated to attack the U.S. without regard for their own safety.”

The EMP Commission also warned that the Department of Defense has failed to maintain adequate EMP protection for U.S. military forces since the end of the Cold War:

“The end of the Cold War relaxed the discipline for achieving EMP survivability within the Department of Defense, and gave rise to the perception that an erosion of EMP survivability of military forces was an acceptable risk. EMP simulation and test facilities have been mothballed or dismantled, and research concerning EMP phenomena, hardening design, testing, and maintenance has been substantially decreased. However, the emerging threat environment, characterized by a wide spectrum of actors that include near-peers, established nuclear powers, rogue nations, sub-national groups, and terrorist organizations that either now have access to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles or may have such access over the next 15 years have combined to place the risk of EMP attack and adverse consequences on the US to a level that is not acceptable.”

The EMP Commission further warned that even U.S. strategic forces and C3I may be at risk from an EMP attack:

“Current policy is to continue to provide EMP protection to strategic forces and their controls. The Department of Defense must continue to pursue the strategy for strategic systems to ensure that weapons delivery systems of the New Triad [land, sea and air] are EMP survivable, and that there is, at a minimum, a survivable ‘thin-line’ of command and control capability to detect threats and direct the delivery systems.”[5]

U.S. strategic forces today are also relatively more vulnerable than they were during the Cold War: they are far less numerous and located on fewer bases, so an adversary could more easily target peak EMP fields on each base. Compared to Cold War era systems, the more modern and sophisticated C3I systems for command and control of U.S. strategic forces could be vulnerable to EMP, unless they are hardened to withstand such electromagnetic pulse attacks. This is also true for the entire industrial infrastructure, the most critical of which is the electrical grid.

The EMP Commission also warned that as U.S. conventional forces become more dependent upon high-technology, they also become more vulnerable to EMP attack:

“The situation for general-purpose forces (GPF) is more complex. The success of these forces depends on the application of a superior force at times and places of our choosing. We accomplish this by using a relatively small force with enormous technological advantages due to superior information flow, advanced warfighting capabilities, and well-orchestrated joint combat operations. Our increasing dependence on advanced electronics systems results in the potential for an increased EMP vulnerability of our technologically advanced forces, and if unaddressed makes EMP employment by an adversary an attractive asymmetric option.”

The above alarming assessments about the vulnerability of U.S. military forces to EMP attack are what the EMP Commission decided must be stated publicly, in its unclassified Executive Summary. The EMP Commission submitted a separate, classified, report to the Department of Defense analyzing these and many other vulnerabilities in far greater detail.

What progress has the Department of Defense (DoD) made to protect itself and the nation from EMP attacks since the reports were completed?

When the EMP Commission terminated in 2008, it was on the understanding that DoD would move aggressively to protect U.S. military forces from EMP, and report biennially to Congress on progress being made implementing the EMP Commission recommendations. The only unclassified biennial report from DoD indicates that there were still serious deficiencies in protecting U.S. military forces from EMP in 2011.

On April 7, 2015, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) chief, Admiral William Gortney, announced that NORAD was moving critical assets back into the nuclear bunker inside Cheyenne Mountain and spending $700 million to harden the mountain further against a potential nuclear EMP attack from North Korea. That the nation’s most critical C3I node is just now being adequately protected does not bode well for the preparedness of U.S. military forces as a whole for an EMP Doomsday scenario.[6]

Fortunately, Congress re-established the EMP Commission in the recently completed and passed Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, to serve as a watchdog on U.S. preparedness and the fast-evolving EMP threat.

The recent military writings and exercises of potential adversaries, for example, combine EMP with cyber-attacks, sabotage, and kinetic attacks against the national electric grid and other critical infrastructures — a decisive new way of warfare described by Russian experts as a “Revolution in Military Affairs.”[7]

The U.S. response has recently gotten some important traction. The House, on November 16, 2015, unanimously passed the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (CIPA — House of Representatives bill number HR 1073).

CIPA directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to educate emergency planners and first responders at all levels of government about the EMP threat, and to prepare plans to protect and recover the electric grid and other critical infrastructures from an EMP attack and from natural EMP that can be generated by a rare solar super-storm. The House Energy and Commerce Committee also passed provisions to secure the electric grid from EMP, including by stockpiling spare parts and incorporating the SHIELD Act, which gives new authorities to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to protect the grid.

Protecting the national electric grid from EMP is necessary to preserve the existence of American civilization, to sustain U.S. military power-projection capabilities, and it would also mitigate worst-case threats from cyber warfare, sabotage, kinetic attacks, and even severe weather. CIPA and SHIELD are the crowning achievements of Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), who for years has been the conscience of the Congress, warning about the existential threat from EMP. [8]

While both bills now await action in the Senate, there is an increasing threat from Iran, which recently successfully tested two nuclear-capable missiles, and from a North Korean satellite, the KSM-3, which regularly orbits over North America at the optimum trajectory to evade U.S. national missile defenses. If the KSM-3 were to carry a nuclear weapon, it would project an EMP field over all of the 48 contiguous United States.

North Korea is Iran’s strategic partner, and there is a treaty between the two countries that obligates the sharing of scientific and military technology.

North Korea’s military recently carried out what some have described as an attempted test from a submerged barge, an indication that an earlier test failure has not derailed its underwater missile program, according to U.S. defense officials.

Add North Korea’s missile capability and a super EMP weapon to this potential, and the significance of the recent North Korean nuclear test comes into better focus. The possibility of a North Korean or Iranian EMP attack seems to be gathering strength.

We may have already seen what such an attack might look like. During the 2014 Gaza War, Hamas, the Syrian Electronic Army, and Iran attempted mass cyber-attacks, coordinated with massive missile strikes, on Israel’s electrical grid. Hamas launched over 5000 rockets and missiles against Israel. Prepared, Israel’s cyber defenses defeated the cyber-attacks, and the Iron Dome missile defense system shot down all the missiles aimed at the Israeli grid.[9]

There are important lessons here. Missile and cyber defenses work: they are critically important parts of any national security strategy.

Israel had also made a prior decision to harden its grid against threats by EMP attacks. The combined efforts of this crucial ally of ours gives us a roadmap to follow: robust missile defenses to defend the homeland from EMP-armed missiles; cyber defenses to protect critical assets and the infrastructure; and EMP defenses to protect national security and defense assets and the electrical grid from attack.

Both the 2004 and 2008, EMP Commission reports urged America’s leaders to protect against such threats as EMP. The House of Representatives has now passed the necessary legislation to protect the grid. The Senate has a champion — Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), who has pledged to secure Senate passage.

But there are serious pressures working against its passage. Too many “experts” currently dismiss any such threat to the American homeland.

Just recently, for instance, a former intelligence specialist in the U.S. government, Paul Pilar, argued in The National Interest that Iranian ballistic missiles were “here to stay” and were simply elements of Iran’s defenses – and, despite repeated Iranian calls for “Death to America,” were no threat to the United States homeland or its overseas interests.[10]

Such conventional complacency, such as calling ISIS the jay-vee team, is not uncommon in Washington, D.C. The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran in 2007 argued that Iran had stopped all its nuclear weapons work in 2003[11]; the International Atomic Energy Administration has now determined that Iran’s nuclear work had continued to at least 2009.[12]

Unfortunately, there is real-world experience — in Israel — that such threats from missiles and cyber-attacks are constantly serious and looming: the entire job of an adversary is to look for weak spots to attack.

There always seem to be those who wish to downplay all threats and are reluctant even to invest in an “insurance premium.” The consequences of failing to protect America against such threats, however, will be far more serious than future embarrassment for some head-in-the-sand bureaucrats.

An EMP attack would shut down the country; lead to the loss of millions of lives, and set it back into effective defenselessness.

It is a threat as serious as any estimates of what a mushroom cloud at the height of the Cold War would have entailed. Instead, it kills by sending the country back to what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has described as early 18^th century America: people would not be able to function in even the simplest of ways. Buildings would be left standing but the ability to live in them would not. People would be unable to move about, eat, drink, shop or communicate.

It therefore requires full attention, in this era of increased cyber-sophistication, especially among enemies of the West, to see that an EMP attack is never “invited” to happen in the U.S.

Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis of Potomac, Maryland and Senior Defense Consultant to the Mitchell Institute of the Air Force Association and a guest lecture at the US Naval Academy on nuclear deterrent policy and the founder of the 36 year AFA-NDIA-ROA Congressional Breakfast Seminar Series on Nuclear Deterrence, Missile Defense, Arms Control, Proliferation and Defense Policy.

[1] Previous such threat analysis had been classified; the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, July 2004 and April 2008 was issued in both classified and unclassified versions; see also Henry F. Cooper and Peter Vincent Pry, “The Threat to Melt the Electric Grid,” Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2015; and Former Director of Central Intelligence, R. James Woolsey, testimony before the U.S. Congress, May 21, 2013.

[2] “Big Ivan”, The Tsar Bomba”, Viktor Adamsky and Yuri Smirnov, 1994, “Moscow’s Biggest Bomb”.

[3] EMP Commission, April 2008.

[4] Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, July 22, 2004, Hearing on the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the US from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack.

[5] “Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack”, Volume I: Executive Report; hereinafter cited as EMP Commission Report 2004.

[6] EMP Commission Report 2004, p. 47.

[7] “Defense Science Board (DSB) Task Force on the Survivability of Systems and Assets to Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and other Nuclear Weapon Effects (NWE)”, Summary Report No. 1, Interim Report of the DSB Task Force, 2011. See also Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, Apocalypse Unknown: The Struggle to Protect America from an Electromagnetic Pulse Catastrophe, Task Force on National and Homeland Security, 2013, pp. 158-164.

[8] For a good history of these efforts, see Congressman Trent Franks, remarks at the AFA-NDIA-ROA Congressional Breakfast Seminar, December 17, 2015, transcript available from Peter Huessy at AFA (Phuessy@afa.org).

[9] Information from Uzi Rubin, President of Rubicon, to the authors.

[10] See an excellent rejoinder by Emily Landau and Shimon Stein, INSS, National Defense University, “Iran’s Ballistic Missiles Are Actually a Huge Problem“, January 5, 2016.

[11] Paul Pillar spoke approvingly of the 2007 NIE at “The Iran National Intelligence Estimate and Intelligence Assessment Capabilities”, December 20, 2007, the Brookings Institution.

[12] IAEA Board Report: Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action implementation and verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015), Resolution adopted by the Board of Governors on 15 December 2015.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Iran, Iranian nukes, Islam, North Korea, Terrorism, The Electromagnetic Pulse, U.S. Congress, USA

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House Democrats Turn to the Wrong Muslims for SOTU

January 12, 2016

House Democrats Turn to the Wrong Muslims for SOTU, Investigative Project on Terrorism, January 11, 2016

As many as 25 House Democrats are expected to have Muslim guests during Tuesday night’s State of the Union speech. It’s in response to a call from Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim voted into Congress, to counter an “alarming rise in hateful rhetoric against Muslim Americans and people of the Islamic faith worldwide.”

The gesture might not generate much more than a shrug, except that in at least two cases, Democrats invited officials from a group the FBI formally avoids due to historic ties to a Hamas support network. Delray Beach Rep. Alcee Hastings invited Nezar Hamze, regional operations director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Florida. And San Jose, Cal. Rep. Zoe Lofgren invited Sameena Usman, a 10-year veteran government relations official with CAIR’s San Francisco chapter, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned.

CAIR officials routinely accuse federal law enforcement of entrapping otherwise innocent and peaceful Muslims in order to gin up terrorism prosecutions. Hamze’s colleagues in CAIR-Florida are helping a family sue the FBI over the 2013 fatal shooting of a terror suspect who attacked agents after extensive questioning.

Usman’s office published a notorious poster urging Muslims to “Build a Wall of Resistance [and] Don’t Talk to the FBI.” For its part, the FBI cut off contact with CAIR, except in investigations, in 2008 based on evidence its agents uncovered which placed CAIR in a Hamas-support network in the United States. Until it can be shown that those connections no longer exist, an FBI official explained in 2009, CAIR is not “an appropriate liaison partner.”

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In addition, several CAIR officials have compared Israel to ISIS.

Calls to press contacts in Lofgren and Hastings’ offices were not returned Monday.

Last month, the IPT provided exclusive details from eyewitness accounts about CAIR’s creation, including an account of how a co-founder sought approval from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood for CAIR’s bylaws, and how Executive Director Nihad Awad’s move to Washington was “in order to represent Hamas.”

Hastings and Lofgren either failed to check out their guests’ employer or they don’t care. These connections have nothing to do with the faith of CAIR officials. But the organization has a record that elected officials stubbornly insist should be ignored.

Unfortunately, this is part of a pattern of outreach House Democrats seek out with the wrong people. Last month, CAIR-Florida’s Hassan Shibly was invited to the White House for a discussion about religious discrimination. Then, as with the State of the Union speech, no one from the new Muslim Reform Movement – which issued a declaration clearly rejecting “interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam” and standing for “peace, human rights and secular governance.”

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In 2012, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sat with Awad, the only executive director in the organization’s history, at a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

A seat in the House chamber for the State of the Union bestows undeserved clout to the CAIR officials. And, in trying to show the public that American Muslims are not a monolithic group of radicalized Islamists, Hastings and Lofgren are doing their cause more harm than good.

Categories: CAIR, Democrats, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic State, Islamisation, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, U.S. Congress
Tags: CAIR, Democrats, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic State, Islamisation, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, U.S. Congress

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Congress Investigating Obama Spy Ops on Congress

January 5, 2016

Congress Seeks Investigation Into Obama Spy Ops on Congress, Israel Lawmakers demand Obama administration disclose how it used private communications

BY: Adam Kredo Follow @Kredo0
January 4, 2016 5:00 pm

Source: Congress Investigating Obama Spy Ops on Congress

Lawmakers are demanding that the Obama administration disclose how it used private communications that were intercepted during a massive spy operation on Israel that included private conversations with members of Congress, according to letters sent to the National Security Agency and White House.

Rep. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) petitioned President Barack Obama late Monday afternoon, demanding the administration reveal how it used information obtained during secret surveillance of Israeli leaders, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Reports emerged last week that the NSA’s spy operation picked up private communications between Israeli officials, members of Congress, and U.S. Jewish community leaders. The information reportedly centered on Israeli efforts to halt the nuclear negotiations. The White House reportedly did not take steps to ensure that these political conversations were omitted.

DeSantis, who along with several other lawmakers has already requested that the NSA provide Congress with details of the operation, informed the Obama administration late Monday that he is seeking to learn if the information gleaned from these private conversations was used by the White House to sway the national debate over the Iran nuclear agreement.

“I am concerned that the vague guidelines and policies used by the NSA for intelligence collection and sharing, in conjunction with elusive direction from the Administration, have led to intelligence being collected on sitting members of Congress for political purposes, specifically relating to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that was being negotiated at the time this information was collected,” DeSantis wrote.

The lawmaker is further requesting that the White House reveal if this information was shared with any other country, particularly other members of the international negotiating team that struck the nuclear accord with Iran last year.

“Did the White House receive any communications between Israeli officials and members of Congress regarding the nuclear negotiations and agreement with Iran?” Desantis asks.

“How was this information used by the Administration in the course of the JCPOA negotiations?” he follows up.

The White House also should disclose whether the information collected was “used by White House officials during the political debate in the United States about the Iran deal,” according to the letter.

DeSantis and three other lawmakers requested last week that the NSA turn over all information pertaining to how the program was run and how the information collected could be used.

Congress must continue to investigate the spy program to determine if the Obama administration violated laws pertaining to the separation of powers, DeSantis said in a statement.

While the Obama Administration was negotiating a nuclear deal with the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, they were simultaneously spying on and trying to undermine our closest ally in the region, Israel,” he said. “This spying may very well have swept up the communications of members of Congress, which represents an affront to the separation of powers.”

“Congress needs to investigate how the Obama administration used this information and determine whether it shared information gleaned from this spying with Iran,” according to DeSantis.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Iran, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Islam, Israel, Obama, U.S. Congress, USA

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Iran Deal Backers Embarrassed By Obama Admin’s Sanctions Blunder

January 4, 2016

Iran Deal Backers Embarrassed By Obama Admin’s Sanctions Blunder, Washington Free Beacon, Adam Kredo, January 4, 2016

Hassan Rouhani

A last minute delay last week in the implementation of new Iran sanctions has some prominent congressional backers of the nuclear deal accusing the Obama administration of capitulating to Iranian demands, according to sources both on and off Capitol Hill.

Senior Obama administration officials at the White House’s National Security Council told Congress Wednesday morning that new sanctions were coming as a result of Iran’s repeated ballistic missile tests, which violate current United Nations Security Council Resolutions prohibiting such activity.

However, the administration quietly walked back its announcement, telling lawmakers that the sanctions would be indefinitely delayed.

The move sparked a fierce backlash among prominent congressional leaders who have served as chief advocates for the administration’s efforts to ink a nuclear deal with Iran.

Sources who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon about the delay claim that the administration has repeatedly allowed Iran to dictate the terms of the deal out of fear that the Islamic Republic will ditch the deal before it is officially implemented later this month.

Iranian leaders have made clear that any new U.S. sanctions will force it to walk away from the nuclear agreement. In the wake of the new sanctions debate, Iranian military leaders announced over the weekend they are working to increase the strength and destructive power of the country’s arsenal.

The White House’s initial message to Congress on Wednesday morning offered tough rhetoric chastising Iran’s ballistic missile program and its recent test firings.

“Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat to regional and global security, and it will continue to be subject to international sanctions,” Adam Szubin, the Treasury Department’s acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in an embargoed statement that was forwarded to congressional offices that morning and viewed by the Free Beacon.

“We have consistently made clear that the United States will vigorously press sanctions against Iranian activities outside of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—including those related to Iran’s support for terrorism, regional destabilization, human rights abuses, and ballistic missile program,” Szubin maintained in the statement, which was later scrapped.

Hours after that initial communication was sent to the Hill, the administration nixed the announcement, saying in a subsequent communication that the new sanctions—which were to hit 11 entities and individuals known to be enabling Iran’s missile program—would be indefinitely delayed.

Lawmakers who just that morning had applauded the new sanctions were not pleased.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D., Md.), a leading supporter of the Iran deal, blasted the move, expressing disappointment with the administration’s efforts to appease Iran.

“I am disappointed that the Administration has delayed punitive action in response to Iran’s recent ballistic missile tests,” Hoyer said in a statement. “We are always in a sensitive moment in our dealings with Iran, and there is never a perfect time to undertake such actions. But Iran must know with certainty that violating U.N. Security Council resolutions, both inside and outside the scope of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), will be met with serious consequences.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.), another leading deal supporter who initially praised the new sanctions, also expressed dismay at the administration’s move to delay the effort.

“I believe in the power of vigorous enforcement that pushes back on Iran’s bad behavior,” Coons told the Wall Street Journal. “If we don’t do that, we invite Iran to cheat.”

When asked to address the issue on Sunday, a senior Obama administration official told the Free Beacon that there are still “remaining issues” that need to be addressed before new sanctions are announced.

“As we’ve said, we’ve been looking for some time‎ at options for additional actions related to Iran’s ballistic missile program based on our continued concerns about its activities, including the October 10th launch,” the senior official explained, reiterating the White House’s commitment to sanctions.

“We are considering various aspects related to additional designations, as well as evolving diplomatic work that is consistent with our national security interests,” the official said. “As always, we keep Congress informed about issues related to Iran sanctions, and will continue to do so as we work through remaining issues.”

A State Department spokesman echoed this stance, telling the Free Beacon that it continues to explore ways to increase sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Sanctions expert Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Free Beacon that the administration might reconsider new sanctions once it strikes a “side deal” with Iran.

“I would expect that the administration will return to these sanctions after cutting some kind of side deal with the Iranians offering even more unilateral concessions,” Dubowitz said.

Critics of the move remain skeptical.

“To push back against Iran’s repeated missile and human rights provocations, Congress should pass the Menendez-Kirk bill to immediately renew a critical Iran sanctions law that expires this year,” said Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), an opponent of the Iran nuclear deal.

One consultant who has worked with Congress on issues pertaining to the nuclear deal told the Free Beacon that the administration fears Iran’s threats to break the deal.

“First the Obama administration strong-armed congressional Democrats into approving a politically toxic nuclear deal, under the pretense that at least the White House would fight Iranian aggression in other ways,” the source said, explaining that lawmakers who have defended the deal were made to look foolish by the sanctions delay.

“People like Coons and Hoyer went home and told constituents that they’d at least make sure Iranian terrorism and missile work was punished,” the source said. “Now the Obama team has deprived them of even that fig leaf. They’re going to have to defend total capitulation to their constituents.”

Meanwhile, Iran announced on Friday that it is working to significantly boost “the destruction power and precision” of its missiles, according to comments carried in the country’s state-controlled press.

Iran President Hassan Rouhani instructed the country’s military leaders to strengthen the missile program following rumors that the United States was contemplating new sanctions.

“Following [on] the president’s letter, we held numerous meetings with the executive officials, commanders, and officials in the missile sector and decided work out appropriate plans as soon as possible to enhance the defensive power and capability as well as the effective deterrence power of our missiles contrary to the will of the hegemonic system which seeks to restrict the Islamic Republic militarily,” Hossein Dehqan, Iran’s defense minister, said.

Categories: Democrats, Iran - sanctions, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Obama and Iran, U.S. Congress
Tags: Democrats, Iran sanctions, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Obama and Iran, U.S. Congress

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House Democrats Mover to Criminalize Criticism of Islam

December 29, 2015

House Democrats Mover to Criminalize Criticism of Islam, Front Page Magazine, Robert Spencer, December 29, 2015

(Please see also, Islam: Hate, Honor, Women’s Rights and Congress. — DM)

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December 17, 2015 ought henceforth to be a date which will live in infamy, as that was the day that some of the leading Democrats in the House of Representatives came out in favor of the destruction of the First Amendment. Sponsored by among others, Muslim Congressmen Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, as well as Eleanor Holmes Norton, Loretta Sanchez, Charles Rangel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Kennedy, Al Green, Judy Chu, Debbie Dingell, Niki Tsongas, John Conyers, José Serrano, Hank Johnson, and many others, House Resolution 569 condemns “violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States.” The Resolution has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

That’s right: “violence, bigotry and hateful rhetoric.” The implications of those five words will fly by most people who read them, and the mainstream media, of course, will do nothing to elucidate them. But what H. Res. 569 does is conflate violence — attacks on innocent civilians, which have no justification under any circumstances – with “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric,” which are identified on the basis of subjective judgments. The inclusion of condemnations of “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric” in this Resolution, while appearing to be high-minded, take on an ominous character when one recalls the fact that for years, Ellison, Carson, and his allies (including groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR) have been smearing any and all honest examination of how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to incite hatred and violence as “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric.” This Resolution is using the specter of violence against Muslims to try to quash legitimate research into the motives and goals of those who have vowed to destroy us, which will have the effect of allowing the jihad to advance unimpeded and unopposed.

That’s not what this H. Res. 569 would do, you say? It’s just about condemning “hate speech,” not free speech? That kind of sloppy reasoning may pass for thought on most campuses today, but there is really no excuse for it. Take, for example, the wife of Paris jihad murderer Samy Amimour – please. It was recently revealed that she happily boasted about his role in the murder of 130 Paris infidels: “I encouraged my husband to leave in order to terrorize the people of France who have so much blood on their hands […] I’m so proud of my husband and to boast about his virtue, ah la la, I am so happy.” Proud wifey added: “As long as you continue to offend Islam and Muslims, you will be potential targets, and not just cops and Jews but everyone.”

Now Samy Amimour’s wife sounds as if she would be very happy with H. Res. 569, and its sponsors would no doubt gladly avow that we should stop offending Islam and Muslims – that is, cut out the “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric.” If we are going to be “potential targets” even if we’re not “cops” or “Jews,” as long as we “continue to offend Islam and Muslims,” then the obvious solution, according to the Western intelligentsia, is to stop doing anything that might offend Islam and Muslims – oh, and stop being cops and Jews. Barack “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam” says it. Hillary “We’re going to have that filmmaker arrested” Clinton says it. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, certain that anyone who speaks honestly about Islam and jihad is a continuing danger to the Church, says it.

And it should be easy. What offends Islam and Muslims? It ought to be a simple matter to cross those things off our list, right? Making a few sacrifices for the sake of our future of glorious diversity should be a no-brainer for every millennial, and everyone of every age who is concerned about “hate,” right? So let’s see. Drawing Muhammad – that’s right out. And of course, Christmas celebrations, officially banned this year in three Muslim countries and frowned upon (at best) in many others, will have to go as well. Alcohol and pork? Not in public, at least. Conversion from Islam to Christianity? No more of that. Building churches? Come on, you’ve got to be more multicultural!

Everyone agrees. The leaders of free societies are eagerly lining up to relinquish those freedoms. The glorious diversity of our multicultural future demands it. And that future will be grand indeed, a gorgeous mosaic, as everyone assures us, once those horrible “Islamophobes” are forcibly silenced. Everyone will applaud that. Most won’t even remember, once the jihad agenda becomes clear and undeniable to everyone in the U.S. on a daily basis and no one is able to say a single thing about it, that there used to be some people around who tried to warn them.

Categories: CAIR, Democrats, Freedom of speech, Hate speech, Human rights, Islam, Islamic supremacy, Islamophobia, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution
Tags: CAIR, Democrats, freedom of speech, Hate speech, human rights, Islam, Islamic supremacy, Islamophobia, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution

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Islam: Hate, Honor, Women’s Rights and Congress

December 27, 2015

Islam: Hate, Honor, Women’s Rights and Congress, Dan Miller’s Blog, December 27, 2015

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

A pro-Islamist resolution, HR 569, was introduced in Congress and referred to the Judiciary Committee on December 17th. Although it is quite unlikely that a binding law implementing the resolution will be enacted anytime soon, the resolution shows that troublesome views are held by many members of Congress.

The fight for the rights of women is among the most difficult aspects of the fight against Islam and Islamisation. The views expressed in HR 569, if implemented, would make that fight even more difficult.

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Here is a list of the seventy-four members who supported H.R. 569:

Mr. Beyer (for himself, Mr. Honda, Mr. Ellison, Mr. Crowley, Mr. Carson of Indiana, Ms. Norton, Ms. McCollum, Ms.Kaptur, Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, Mr. Kildee, Ms. Loretta Sanchez of California, Mr. Rangel, Mr. Peters, Mr. Ashford, Mr. Grayson, Mr. Takai, Mr. Higgins, Mr. Keating, Mr. Grijalva, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Mr.Butterfield, Mr. Connolly, Mr. Gallego, Mrs. Bustos, Mr. Delaney, Ms. Castor of Florida, Mr. Gutiérrez, Mr. Quigley, Ms. Esty, Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Kelly of Illinois, Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, Mr. Meeks, Ms. Meng, Mr. Al Green of Texas, Ms. Clark of Massachusetts, Mr. Schiff, Mr. Hastings, Mr. Farr, Mr. Pallone, Mr. McDermott, Ms. Lee, Ms. Edwards, Mr. Brady of Pennsylvania, Ms. Wilson of Florida, Mr. Michael F. Doyle of Pennsylvania, Mr. Sires, Ms. DelBene, Ms. Judy Chu of California, Mr. Polis, Mr. Loebsack, Mr. Pascrell, Mrs.Dingell, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Hinojosa, Mr. Yarmuth, Ms. Tsongas, Mr. Langevin, Mr. Pocan, Mr.Conyers, Mr. Takano, Mr. Ryan of Ohio, Mr. Serrano, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Mr. Tonko, Ms. Lofgren, Mr. Van Hollen, Mrs. Capps, Mr. Price of North Carolina, Ms. Matsui, Ms. Moore, and Mr. Heck of Washington) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

Edward Kline, writing at The Rule of Reason, observes

Many of the usual suspects have endorsed the resolution: Keith Ellison, a Democrat and Muslim from Minnesota; Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Democrat and chairman of the Democratic National Committee; Charles Rangel, New York Democrat; and Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida. Most of the other endorsers’ names I do not recognize. They are all termites who have made careers of eating away at the rule of law and “transforming” America from a Western nation into a multicultural, welfare-statist, politically correct stewpot of no particular character. [Emphasis added.]

The full text of the bill is provided here. It praises Muslims for their “contributions” to America, in much the same way that Obama did in His June 4, 2009 Cairo speech in which He opined:

[S]ince our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers – Thomas Jefferson – kept in his personal library.

. . . .

I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. [Emphasis added.]

A problem with Obama’s stated desire to deal with Islam as it is, not as it isn’t, is that His perceptions of what it is and what it isn’t are essentially backward.

The House Resolution does not mention such Muslim “contributions” to America as those made at Ford Hood, Texas several years ago or those more recently made at San Bernardino, California. Nor does it mention their “contributions” of honor killings and female genital mutilation, about which more is provided later in this post. It bemoans the disparagements some Muslims have suffered due to their “contributions” and others simply because they are Muslims.

Here’s a particularly disturbing part of the bill, set forth under “Resolved:”

The House of Representatives

(3) denounces in the strongest terms the increase of hate speech, intimidation, violence, vandalism, arson, and other hate crimes targeted against mosques, Muslims, or those perceived to be Muslim; [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

(6) urges local and Federal law enforcement authorities to work to prevent hate crimes; and to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those perpetrators of hate crimes; [Emhasis added.]

Note the inclusion in (3) of “hate speech” as a “hate crime.”

According to the American Bar Association,

Hate speech is speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other traits. Should hate speech be discouraged? The answer is easy—of course! However, developing such policies runs the risk of limiting an individual’s ability to exercise free speech. When a conflict arises about which is more important—protecting community interests or safeguarding the rights of the individual—a balance must be found that protects the civil rights of all without limiting the civil liberties of the speaker. [Emphasis added.]

In this country there is no right to speak fighting words—those words without social value, directed to a specific individual, that would provoke a reasonable member of the group about whom the words are spoken. For example, a person cannot utter a racial or ethnic epithet to another if those words are likely to cause the listener to react violently. However, under the First Amendment, individuals do have a right to speech that the listener disagrees with and to speech that is offensive and hateful. [Emphasis added.]

Hate speech, fighting words and hate crimes

HR 569’s apparent inclusion of anti-Muslim “hate speech” as a “hate crime” is inconsistent with American law and the American Constitution. However, it is consistent with Attorney General Lynch’s remarks shortly after the December 2nd San Bernardino Islamic attack. She then

complained that the First Amendment allows people to say hateful things and noted that many do so from the safety of their computer keyboard. It’s something, she said, the DoJ would “take action” against, especially when that speech “edges towards violence, when we see the potential to lift…that mantle of anti-Muslim rhetoric.” [Emphasis added.]

Later, in response to many objections, Ms. Lynch pulled back with this: “Of course, we prosecute deeds and not words.” Really?

Statements such as “Islam is the religion of death” or “Mohamed was a pedophile” could indeed “provoke” a devout Muslim and perhaps “cause” him to react violently. Are such statements “fighting words,” which we have “no right to speak?”

Can “hateful” words be construed as “hateful” actions or “hateful” deeds” and therefore “hate” crimes? Is the following passage from Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book Heretic, “hate” speech? Are her words “fighting words,” which the ABA material quoted above claims we have no right to speak? The quoted paragraph deals with an event in Somalia. However, she now lives in America, her books are sold in America and could offend devout Muslims in America.

In my homeland of Somalia, a thirteen-year-old girl reported that she had been gang-raped by three men. The Al-Shabaab militia that then controlled her town of Kismayo, a port city in the south, responded by accusing her of adultery, found her guilty, and sentenced her to death. Her execution was announced in the morning from a loudspeaker blaring from a Toyota pickup truck. At the local soccer stadium, Al-Shabaab loyalists dug a hole in the ground and brought in a truckload of rocks. A crowd of one thousand gathered in the hours leading up to 4: 00 p.m. Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow— named after the Prophet Muhammad’s nine-year-old wife— was dragged, screaming and flailing, into the stadium. It took four men to bury her up to her neck in the hole. Then fifty men spent ten minutes pelting her with rocks and stones. After the ten minutes had passed, there was a pause. She was dug out of the ground and two nurses examined her to see if she was still alive. Someone found a pulse and breathing. Aisha was returned to the hole and the stoning continued. One man who tried to intervene was shot; an eight-year-old boy was also killed by the militia. Afterward, a local sheik told a radio station that Aisha had provided evidence, confirmed her guilt, and “was happy with the punishment under Islamic law.” [Emphasis added.]

She related that incident to point out that that sort of thing is, unfortunately, both Islamic and common. It is both, as indicated later in this article. Where, other than in Islamic lands, does it happen? Perhaps writing, publishing or selling any book that disparages the present condition of Islam “as it is” according to Obama, and seeks the reformation of what Obama insists upon calling the religion of peace and tolerance now, could be considered a “hate” crime. After all,

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, condemned [Ayaan Hirsi Ali as] “one of the worst of the worst of the Islam haters in America, not only in America but worldwide.”

Neither HR 569, nor a criminal law based on it, will likely be passed anytime soon by either house of Congress. However, the mere introduction of such a bill, supported by seventy-four House members, is disturbing enough. It’s part of our multicultural, politically correct march for moral equivalence which ignores our — Judeo-Christian versus Islamic — distinctions between what is good and what is evil.

Was it good or evil to stone a thirteen-year-old Somali girl to death for her “crime” of having been raped by a gang of young men? Being raped was deemed to be her crime of adultery. Was her inability, and hence failure, to prevent her rape more or less evil than stoning her to death or, indeed, the rape itself? Few if any sane westerners would have difficulty answering such questions. Muslims? That’s different.

According to Ayaan Hirsi Ali and other current and former Muslims, Muslims are taught about “honor” from infancy. However, Islamic conceptions of “honor” are very different from Judeo-Christian conceptions. In Islam, “honor” consists of honoring one’s family and clan, and thereby Mohamed and Allah. “Adultery” by a woman dishonors her husband, family, her clan, Mohamed and Allah. It does so even if her “adultery” consisted of being raped. It warrants death by stoning. To react “dishonorably” by not imposing such punishments would be a weakness which would dishonor them all.

Those women are not fighting for free birth control, abortions or even health care. Nor are they fighting for safe spaces against microaggressions or where unpleasant views cannot be heard. They are fighting for the most important “women’s rights,” absent under Islam. Has Obama ever spoken about the work those and other brave women are doing or why they are doing it? If so, I am not aware of it. American “feminists,” other American women and men? Europeans? If they are not, and I am not aware of many who are, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Iran — now our great partner for nuclear peace — stones lots of people.

[W]hile certain stoning-related passages have been removed from Iran’s new penal code, other passages in the new code refer to stoning, and stoning remains as a possible form of punishment under the new Iranian penal code.

Amnesty International has documented 76 cases of lethal stoning between 1980-1989 in Iran, while the International Committee Against Execution (ICAE) has reported that 74 others were stoned to death in Iran between 1990-2009.

Is Iran better than the Taliban? Here’s a video, with the obligatory remarks that stoning adulterers is mandated by the Bible and denials that this sort of thing is either widespread or Islamic.

Great. Should the Taliban be given a pathway to “the bomb?”

Pakistan?

Pakistan already has nukes. Should we help her to get more and better nukes?

Saudi Arabia, our gallant Islamist Salifast ally, has interesting variations in its punishments for crimes against Islam.

Saudi Arabia has a criminal justice system based on a hardline and literal form of Shari’ah law reflecting a particular state-sanctioned interpretation of Islam.

The death penalty can be imposed for a wide range of offences^[4] including murder, rape, false prophecy, blasphemy, armed robbery, repeated drug use, apostasy,^[5] adultery,^[6] witchcraft and sorcery^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10] and can be carried out by beheading with a sword,^[11] or more rarely by firing squad, and sometimes by stoning.^[12]^[13][Emphasis added.]

The 345 reported executions between 2007 and 2010 were all carried out by public beheading.^[14] The last reported execution for sorcery took place in August 2014.^[15]^[16] There were no reports of stoning between 2007 and 2010,^[14] but between 1981 and 1992 there were four cases of execution by stoning reported.^[17]

Crucifixion of the beheaded body is sometimes ordered.^[7] For example, in 2009, the Saudi Gazette reported that “An Abha court has sentenced the leader of an armed gang to death and three-day crucifixion (public displaying of the beheaded body) and six other gang members to beheading for their role in jewelry store robberies in Asir.”^[18] (This practice resembles gibbeting, in which the entire body is displayed).

In 2003, Muhammad Saad al-Beshi, whom the BBC described as “Saudi Arabia’s leading executioner”, gave a rare interview to Arab News.^[5] He described his first execution in 1998: “The criminal was tied and blindfolded. With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled metres away…People are amazed how fast [the sword] can separate the head from the body.”^[5] He also said that before an execution he visits the victim’s family to seek forgiveness for the criminal, which can lead to the criminal’s life being spared.^[5] Once an execution goes ahead, his only conversation with the prisoner is to tell him or her to recite the Muslim declaration of belief, the Shahada.^[5] “When they get to the execution square, their strength drains away. Then I read the execution order, and at a signal I cut the prisoner’s head off,” he said.^[5]

As of 2003, executions have not been announced in advance. They can take place any day of the week, and they often generate large crowds. Photography and video of the executions is also forbidden, although there have been numerous cases of photographed and videoed executions in . . . spite of the law against them.

Europe is different

In Germany, the rape victim most likely will not be stoned to death for the offense of being raped.

Sweden?

Conclusions

“Honor killings” and other Islamic infringements on women’s rights in general are becoming more common in America. It has been estimated that there are twenty-seven honor killings in America each year. That estimate is probably low, because

Honor killings and violence, which typically see men victimize wives and daughters because of behavior that has somehow insulted their faith, are among the most secretive crimes in society, say experts. [Emphasis added.]

“Cases of honor killings and/or violence in the U.S. are often unreported because of the shame it can cause to the victim and the victim’s family,” Farhana Qazi, a former U.S. government analyst and senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism, told FoxNews.com. “Also, because victims are often young women, they may feel that reporting the crime to authorities will draw too much attention to the family committing the crime.” [Emphasis added.]

Even cases that appear to be honor killings, such as the Jan. 1, 2008 murder of two Irving, Texas, sisters that landed their father on the FBI’s most wanted list, cannot always be conclusively linked to a religious motivation. Without hard evidence, critics say, ascribing a religious motivation to crimes committed by Muslims demeans Islam. Yet, federal authorities believe they must be able to identify “honor” as a motive for violence and even murder if they are to address a growing cultural problem. [Emphasis added.]

Doesn’t alleging an Islamic motivation for any crime “demean” Islam?

The report, which estimated that 23-27 honor killings per year occur in the U.S., noted that 91 percent of victims in North America are murdered for being “too Westernized,” and in incidents involving daughters 18 years or younger, a father is almost always involved. And for every honor killing, there are many more instances of physical and emotional abuse, all in the name of fundamentalist Islam, say experts. [Emphasis added.]

America is slowly falling under the domination of Islam. Will the “Titanic effect” soothe us into believing that it can’t, and therefore won’t, happen in America? It’s

an aspect of human nature that denies the enormity of any disaster where death is imminent because the mantra of its impossibility was accepted and believed by all. Regarding the Titanic, it was touted as the largest and the safest ship ever built (true at that time) … it is unsinkable (false, nothing man builds is disaster free). When the mantra is believed by all, including the builders … the designers who did not provide adequate life boats … the passengers and crew whose minds denied acceptance of the reality of disaster and peril as incomprehensible. This denial continued even while the disaster was unfolding. They either would not or could not admit or acknowledge the imminence of their peril of floundering in the icy cold sea of the North Atlantic. [Emphasis added.]

It can happen in America, America is already moving in that direction and will arrive there unless we prevent it. Are American feminists working on the problems? Very few, at most.

Categories: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Feminists, Freedom of speech, Fundamentalist Islam, Heresy, Honor killings, Human rights, Islam and cruelty, Islam and women, Islamic honor, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic perversions, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamophobia, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Muslim assimilation, Obama and Islam, Reform Islam, U.S. Congress
Tags: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Feminists, freedom of speech, Fundamentalist Islam, Heresy, Honor killings, human rights, Islam and cruelty, Islam and women, Islamaic perversions, Islamic honor, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamophobia, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Muslim assimilation, Obama and Islam, Reform Islam, U.S. Congress

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Jihad: “All the Fault of the West!”

December 26, 2015

Jihad: “All the Fault of the West!” Gatestone Institute, Lars Hedegaard. December 26, 2015

♦ As long as we in the West are not prepared to take Muslims at their word when they claim to be waging bloody jihad because it is their religious obligation, we have no chance of repelling the current onslaught on the West.

♦ First to go will be the welfare states. Shrinking native populations cannot generate enough taxes to accommodate masses of immigrants with so few skills as to be effectively unemployable, or who do not want to contribute to “infidel” societies. Well before mid-century, the number of Muslims in Denmark will be large enough irreversibly to have changed the composition and character of the country.

♦ In the United States, a House of Representatives bill, H. Res. 569, has been sponsored that would censor one of the few countries left with freedom of speech. The bill, in accordance with the 10-year plan of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), would criminalize all criticism of Islam, worldwide.

♦ Will Muslim non-integration spell the end of the secular state as we have known it? Probably. Religion – or more accurately, Islamic ideology, which knows no distinction between religion and politics – is on the ascendant.

It was not supposed to have happened this way. In 1995 a number of EU member states signed the Schengen Agreement, integrated into European Union law in 1999. The signatory powers promised to abandon their internal border protection in exchange for a promise by the EU authorities that they would police Europe’s external borders. Then the EU authorities, while demanding that the Schengen states keep their borders open, spectacularly failed to honor their part of the agreement. There can be little doubt that the EU packed up, walked out and left its populations to their own devices.

Sadly, their policies have achieved the exact opposite of what they claimed to strive for. Instead of tolerance, we have witnessed division and irreconcilable enmity between cultures and ethnicities that often have nothing in common except a desire to squeeze as much out of the public coffers as they can. Instead of “inclusion,” Europeans have seen exclusion, low-intensity warfare, terror, no-go zones, rape epidemics, murder and mayhem.

Governments, parliamentary majorities and the stars of academia, the media and the commanding heights of culture cannot have failed to notice that their grand multicultural, Islamophile game did not produce the results they had promised their unsuspecting publics. Yet to this day, most of them persist in claiming that unfettered immigration from the Muslim world and Africa is an indisputable boon to Europe.

Recently, in the wake of the so-called “refugee crisis,” some of these notables have thrown out the script and are expressing concern that immigration is out of control. European governments are still allowing millions of so-called refugees to cross all borders and settle anyplace. According to the EU agency Frontex, charged with protecting Europe’s external borders, more than a million and a half illegals crossed Europe’s frontiers between January and November 2015.

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Thousands of migrants cross illegally into Slovenia on foot, in this screenshot from YouTube video filmed in October 2015.

Right now there is an ever-widening gap between the people and their rulers. In a conference recently organized by the Danish Free Press Society to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the famous Muhammed cartoons, the British political analyst, Douglas Murray, noted that the European populations are reacting to decades of lies and deception by voting for political parties which, just a few years ago, were vilified as “racist” and “fascist.” Marine Le Pen, of the National Front party, has emerged as a strong candidate in France’s 2017 presidential election.

Perhaps the most momentous political earthquake in Europe was the recent 180-degree about-face by the Danish Social Democratic Party. Only a few years ago, it was a staunch proponent of Muslim immigration, and hammered away at anyone daring to deny the “cultural enrichment” brought about by the spread of Islam.

The leader of Denmark’s Social Democratic parliamentary group, Henrik Sass Larsen MP, on December 18 wrote:

“The massive migration and stream of refugees now coming to Europe and Denmark are of a magnitude that challenges the fundamental premises of our society in the near future… According to our analysis, the stark economic consequences of the current number of refugees and immigrants will consume all room for maneuver in public finance within a few years. Non-Western immigrants have historically been difficult to integrate into the labor market; the same applies to the Syrians that are now arriving. The more, the harder, the more expensive… Finally, it is our analysis that given our previous experience with integrating non-Western people into our society, we are facing a social catastrophe when it comes to handling many tens of thousands that are soon to be channeled into society. Every bit of progress in terms of integration will be put back to zero. … Therefore our conclusion is clear: We will do all we can to limit the number of non-Western refugees and immigrants coming to the country. That is why we have gone far — and much farther than we had dreamed of going… We are doing this because we will not sacrifice our welfare society in the name of humanitarianism. For the welfare society … is the political project of the Social Democratic Party. It is a society built on the principles of liberty, equality and solidarity. Mass immigration — as we have seen in, for example, Sweden — will undermine … our welfare society.”

Clearly, the Danish Social Democratic Party — the architect of Denmark as we have known it — has understood that there is political capital to be defended. It seems finally to have realized that it cannot persist in whittling away its accomplishments if it wants to keep its dwindling share of the votes.

One may speculate that if the Social Democratic Party means what it says, it might have an impact among Social Democratic and Socialist parties in other European countries.

However, as Douglas Murray also pointed out, Westerners suffer from the notion that regardless of how many jihadis, murderers and terrorists claim that their actions are motivated by their love of Allah, they cannot possibly mean it. There must be some other underlying “root cause” that the men of violence are not aware of, but which well-meaning Westerners are keen to tell them about: old Western imperialism, centuries of humiliation, racism, Israel, the Crusades, poverty, exclusion, the Muhammad cartoons, etc. And, of course, that it is all the fault of the West!

As long as we in the West are not prepared to take Muslims at their word when they claim to be waging bloody jihad because it is their religious obligation, we have no chance of repelling the current onslaught on the West. The latest sighting of this shift was just this week, in the form of a U.S. House of Representatives bill, H. Res. 569, to censor one of the few countries left with free speech. The bill, in accordance with the 10-year plan of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to implement UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18, would criminalize, worldwide, all criticism of Islam. [1]

As long as the authorities are unwilling to protect their own populations from being overrun by foreigners, many of whom seem prepared to do them harm, we are likely to see the natives take protection into their own hands. On December 16, for instance, there was a violent protest in the small Dutch city of Geldermalsen, as the local authorities were trying to set up an asylum center behind the backs of the local population. No doubt the authorities were taken aback by the activism.

Western societies are based on an implied contract between the sovereign and the people: The sovereign — the king, the president, the government — promises to uphold law and order, protect his people from violence and foreign encroachment and apprehend and punish criminals. In exchange, the citizens promise not to take the law into their own hands. It follows that if the state fails to uphold its part of this social bargain, then the right — indeed the obligation — to protect oneself, one’s family, neighbors and the community, returns to the citizens.

There was also the recent spate of asylum-house burnings in Sweden. According to the Danish-Swedish website, Snaphanen, there have been 40 occasions during the past six months in which buildings intended to house asylum seekers have mysteriously burned to the ground — without anyone being hurt or killed. None of the perpetrators has been caught; no one has claimed responsibility. It all appears organized quite well.

Will citizen activism save Europe? Probably not. Vast areas are too far gone to be saved. Sweden is a broken country, as pointed out by Ingrid Carlqvist in several articles at Gatestone. By 2020, Germany may have 20 million Muslim residents.

We are probably beyond the point where effective change can be obtained by politics in the old sense, for the simple reason that central authorities are not strong enough to make their writ run throughout their national territories. This will spell the end of Europe as we know it, and people who cannot leave, or who choose to stand and fight, will be left to their own devices — and quite possibly entirely new modes of social organization.

First to go will be the welfare states. Shrinking native populations cannot generate enough taxes to accommodate masses of immigrants with so few skills as to be effectively unemployable, or who do not want to contribute to “infidel” societies.

What might post-European Europe look like? Think of Northern Ireland in the time of the Troubles or of ex-Yugoslavia during the civil wars of the 1990s.

When states break down, people’s first concern will be security. Who can and will protect my family and me?

For a long time in Europe there has been talk of “parallel societies” — in which the state ceases to function as a unitary polity — due to the cultural, religious and politico-judicial separation of non-Muslims and Muslims into incompatible and antagonistic enclaves.

There appears to be a growing realization among Danish demographers that third-world immigrants and their descendants, with or without citizenship, will constitute the majority of the Danish population before the end of the century.[2] A sizable segment of this third-world population will be Muslim, and well before the middle of the century, the number of Muslims will be large enough irreversibly to have changed the composition and character of the country.

Will Muslim non-integration spell the end of the secular state as we have known it? Probably. Religion — or more accurately, Islamic ideology — which knows no distinction between religion and politics, is on the ascendant as the constitutive principle among Danish Muslims. As Muslim institutions grow stronger, the Islamic court, or “din,” is bound to become even more powerful as the organizing principle of the Muslim parallel societies.

How will the old Danish, and nominally Christian, population react to this metamorphosis? To a large extent, that will depend on what organizing principle will determine the character of the Danish parallel society. Two possibilities stand out: “Danishness” and “Christianity.” “Danishness” would probably entail a society founded on a nationalistic or ethnic myth, whereas “Christianity” might be more ethnically inclusive and stress society’s Judeo-Christian and humanistic roots.

In either event, it is difficult to see how the secular state could survive, because the parallel societies will not be free to define themselves or determine their political systems or modes of governance. They will constantly be forced to maneuver in response to “the other’s” long-term objectives and immediate actions — as has been seen, for example, in Bosnia, Kosovo, Lebanon, Northern Ireland and the Basque provinces.

Under these conditions, the modern system of sovereign territorial states is likely to break down. We can only guess at what will replace it.

Lars Hedegaard, a Danish historian, journalist and author, established the Danish Free Speech Society in 2004.

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[1] In accordance with the 10-year plan of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to implement U.N. Resolution 16/18 and criminalize all criticism of Islam worldwide, a group in the U.S. House of Representatives has sponsored H. Res. 569, in condemnation of violence, bigotry and “hateful rhetoric” toward Muslims in the U.S. This bill comes on the heels of Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s post-San Bernardino attack statement to the Muslim American community that she will prosecute anyone guilty of anti-Muslim speech. Passage of this legislation will be the death knell for the First Amendment and the end of any and all discourse and education about the threat posed by the global jihad.

[2] See, for example, the calculations of the Copenhagen University demographer Hans Oluf Hansen, Berlingske Tidende, August 21, 2005.

Categories: Europe, Freedom, Human rights, Islamic culture, Islamic invasion, Islamic jihad, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamophobia, Obama and Islam, Obama's America, U.S. Congress
Tags: Europe, Freedom, human rights, Islamaic jihad, Islamic culture, Islamic invasion, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamophobia, Obama and Islam, Obama's America, U.S. Congress

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Kerry Tells Iran Congress Visa Requirements will be Waived

December 21, 2015

Kerry Tells Iran Congress Visa Requirements will be Waived, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, December 21, 2015

kerry (1)

The Ayatollah and his terrorists needn’t worry, John Forbes Kerry and Barack Hussein Obama have their back.

The Obama administration, pushing to support international trade with Iran, has advised the country’s rulers not to worry about new U.S. legislation that clamps visa restrictions on people who have traveled to Iran.

Iranian officials have publicly complained the new U.S. rules will unfairly target travelers who visit Iran and could dampen investment interest in their country.

Secretary of State John Kerry wrote his Iranian counterpart on Saturday to assure him the visa changes approved by Congress last week won’t undermine business opportunities in Iran or violate the terms of the nuclear agreement between global powers and Tehran in July. Mr. Kerry said the administration was exploring ways to ensure visitors to Iran aren’t unfairly blocked from entering the U.S.

He specifically cited the State Department’s ability to expedite visa applications and to issue longer-term, multiple-entry travel documents. He also said the White House had the power to issue waivers to potentially exempt individuals from the new travel laws.

Americans can’t get waivers, but enemies of the United States can always get waivers from Obama. Despite Iran’s latest weapons tests, Kerry wrote to Iran that…

Thanks for a constructive meeting yesterday. I wanted to get back to you in response to your inquiry about amendments to our Visa Waiver Program. First, I want to confirm to you that we remain fully committed to the sanctions lifting provided for under the JCPOA. We will adhere to the full measure of our commitments, per the agreement. Our team is working hard to be prepared and as soon as we reach implementation day we will lift appropriate sanctions.

I am also confident that the recent changes in visa requirements passed in Congress, which the Administration has the authority to waive, will not in any way prevent us from meeting our JCPOA commitments, and that we will implement them so as not to interfere with legitimate business interests of Iran. To this end, we have a number of potential tools available to us, including multiple entry ten-year business visas, programs for expediting business visas, and the waiver authority provided under the new legislation.

Now let’s frantically bend over backward for the terrorists.

Categories: Iran - sanctions relief, Iran scam, Kerry, U.S. Congress
Tags: Iran - sanctions relief, Iran Scam, Kerry, U.S. Congress

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Obama Admin: Congressional Crackdown on Terror Will Violate Iran Deal

December 21, 2015

Obama Admin: Congressional Crackdown on Terror Will Violate Iran Deal, Washington Free Beacon, Adam Kredo, December 21, 2015

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski met with outgoing United States Ambassador to Poland Stephen D. Mull. Ambassador have received state distinctions from President in Belweder Palace in Warsaw. | Warsaw, Poland, 07 July 2015 (Photo by Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto) *** Please Use Credit from Credit Field ***

Stephen Mull / AP

Senior Obama administration officials are expressing concern that congressional attempts to tighten laws preventing terrorists from entering the United States could violate the Iran nuclear agreement and prompt Tehran to walk away from the agreement.

Congress is considering measures that would tighten the Visa Waiver Program to make it harder for potential terrorists to legally enter the United States by increasing restrictions on individuals who have travelled to countries with prominent terrorist organizations from bypassing security checks upon entering the United States.

Iranian officials have in recent days repeatedly issued threatening statements to the Obama administration, saying that such moves would violate the nuclear agreement, and the Obama administration last week conveyed the Iranian anger to American lawmakers.

Stephen Mull, the State Department official in charge of implementing the Iran deal, warned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee late last week that these congressional efforts “could have a very negative impact on the deal.”

Under the revised law, which came in the week of a deadly terrorist attack in California, individuals who have travelled to Iran—a lead sponsor of global terrorism—would no longer be eligible to participate in the Visa Waiver Program, which permits individuals from 38 partner nations to more easily enter the United States.

Congress remains concerned that gaps in the program could prevent federal law enforcement officials from detecting terror-tied individuals before they are granted entrance to U.S. soil.

However, a portion of the Iran nuclear deal mandates that the United States not take any action that could harm Iran’s economic relationships with other countries. Iranian officials maintain that the new restrictions violate this passage of the deal.

Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, said last week that these tightened measures “are aimed at harassment” and that they “blatantly violate the nuclear agreement,” according to comments carried by the Iranian state-controlled press.

Larijani warned that this action will detonate the deal before it has even been implemented.

“If the Americans pursue the plan, they will destroy an achievement with their own hands since it is against the [nuclear deal] and it will trouble them,” he warned.

Rep. Patrick Murphy (D., Conn.) echoed these concerns last week when he questioned Mull during a Senate hearing.

Visa waiver reform efforts include “a naming of Iran such that individuals who have travelled to Iran will no loner be eligible for the visa waiver program,” Murphy said. “There has been a suggestion because there is an element of the agreement that obligates us to not to take steps that would stop economic relations between other nations and Iran that we could perhaps be in jeopardy of breaching the agreement.”

Mull agreed with this assessment.

“I have heard from very senior, and Secretary [of State John] Kerry has as well, from very senior officials of differing European allies of ours that it could have a very negative impact on the deal,” he said.

Sources working with Congress on the Iran deal criticized the Obama administration for attempting to stymie increased action on terrorism due to its desire to preserve the nuclear deal.

“According to the Obama administration’s latest interpretation, the nuclear deal allows Iran to test ballistic missiles in violation of international law, but does not allow Congress to prevent terrorists from coming into the United States,” Omri Ceren, the managing director of press and strategy at The Israel Project, a D.C.-based organization that works with journalists on Middle East issues, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Seyed Araqchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, also warned that Iran is prepared to “take action” against the United States for implementing visa restrictions.

Iran’s latest threat to break the deal comes amid numerous Iranian provocations, including multiple tests of advanced ballistic missiles, acts prohibited under United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The Obama administration repeatedly said that, while it does not agree with those launches, they do not violate the nuclear deal.

Categories: Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Islamic jihad, Obama and Iran, U.S. Congress
Tags: Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Islamic Jihad, Obama and Iran, U.S. Congress

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