Proposed 1.4% pay raise for military draws fire: "Military servicemembers are fighting what would be their lowest pay raise in decades as the nation wages two wars.
"
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Proposed 1.4% pay raise for military draws fire
from USATODAY.com News
Proposed 1.4% pay raise for military draws fire: "Military servicemembers are fighting what would be their lowest pay raise in decades as the nation wages two wars.
"
Proposed 1.4% pay raise for military draws fire: "Military servicemembers are fighting what would be their lowest pay raise in decades as the nation wages two wars.
"
IPCC's Doomsday Prediction of Rising Seas 'Was Wrong'
from JammieWearingFool
IPCC's Doomsday Prediction of Rising Seas 'Was Wrong': "Credibility washed awayRemember all that crazy talk about sea levels rising from nonexistent global warming? Well, it was all nonsense. Of course a lot of us said so at the time, but we were called deniers.Alarming predictions that global warming could cause sea levels to rise 6ft in the next century are wrong, it has emerged.The forecast made by the influential 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on"
IPCC's Doomsday Prediction of Rising Seas 'Was Wrong': "Credibility washed awayRemember all that crazy talk about sea levels rising from nonexistent global warming? Well, it was all nonsense. Of course a lot of us said so at the time, but we were called deniers.Alarming predictions that global warming could cause sea levels to rise 6ft in the next century are wrong, it has emerged.The forecast made by the influential 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on"
Dilma Rousseff - Brazil's Radical President Profiled
from New Zeal: Security Risk? More Evidence of Mary Jo Kilroy's ...
Dilma Rousseff - Brazil's Radical President Profiled: "
All Westerners should be alarmed at recent election results in one of the world's most powerful economies - Brazil.
The new president of Brazil, Dilma Roussseff is even more radical than her marxist predecessor and can in no way be seen as any sort of ally by Western governments - except perhaps the Obama Administration.
Dilma Rousseff was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1947. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father a political exile from Bulgaria where he had been active with the Communist Party.
During her high school years, Dilma became influenced by the writings of French political theorist Régis Debray and by a teacher and future comrade who taught her Marxism. In 1967 she joined a radical faction of the Brazilian Socialist Party.
Rousseff’ faction of the Brazilian Socialist Party, Política Operária (Worker’s Politics), split and they became part of a group that favored armed struggle against the dictatorship. It soon joined with other Marxist, anti-government militant groups to form COLINA. During this time Rousseff instructed her comrades on Marxist theory and wrote for an underground newspaper.
In 1967, the small COLINA group that Rousseff, then aged 19, was a member of in Belo Horizonte, carried out bank robberies, car thefts and a couple of bombings. In January 1969, the police invaded COLINA's house and the militants responded by using a machine gun, which killed two policemen and wounded another. Dilma went underground, later participating in the formation of the Revolutionary Armed Vanguard Palmares. After that group split , Dilma was sent to Sao Paolo, where she was charged with guarding the groups weapons - which she hid under her bed.
Rousseff later ended up in the clandestine Palmares Armed Revolutionary Vanguard. In the 1960s and 1970s, members of such organizations seized foreign diplomats for ransom: a U.S. ambassador was swapped for a dozen political prisoners; a German ambassador was exchanged for 40 militants; a Swiss envoy swapped for 70. They also shot alleged U.S. torture experts sent to train the generals’ death squads.
Around the time she became involved with COLINA, Rousseff met and fell in love with a man named Cláudio Galeno Linhares, an older comrade-in-arms. After a year of dating, the couple married. When police broke up their guerrilla faction, the couple parted ways, with Rousseff leaving for Rio de Janeiro where she would soon meet Carlos Araújo who also had been imprisoned as a militant. The two became lovers.
Rousseff was labeled one of Brazil's most wanted and beautiful fugitives. After three years underground, At the age of nineteen she was captured in 1970 by Brazil’s military police, in a “sting” operation and was considered a big enough catch that a military prosecutor labeled her the “Joan of Arc” of the guerrilla movement. She was submitted to several weeks of brutal torture while held in the Tiradentes prison.
Charged with subversion by the right-wing military government, she suffered through the disappearance and torture of her Marxist companions, some of whom died or were killed by the military. Rousseff was held in prison for three years, being released in 1972. The government forbade her to engage in political activities. However, as a fighter for Brazil’s left-wing guerrilla movement in 1969, she exchanged a wedding dress for fatigues and remained in the underground.
Following her release, Rousseff moved to Porto Alegre, where Araújo was from and where he was imprisoned until 1974. Rousseff returned to studying economics, graduating in 1977. In 1976, she gave birth to her only child, Paula Rousseff Araújo. Around this time, her former husband Galeno returned from political exile, and with his new partner, lived in the same house as Araújo and Rousseff. Rousseff lost her first job because of her subversive past and returned to university to pursue a master’s degree.
In the early 1980s, as the generals loosened their grip on the country, Rousseff and Araújo became active in the Democratic Labour Party of Brazil (PDT), led by Leonel Brizola, brother-in-law of João Goulart, overthrown in the 1964 coup. The PDT won elections and Rousseff held a series of jobs as an adviser and bureaucrat at the local and state level. In 1993, the state governor of Rio Grande do Sul appointed her Energy secretary. She left that post the next year, as well as her relationship with Araújo after discovering another woman was pregnant with his child. They reconciled two years later but broke up again in 2000.
When PDT leader, Leonel Brizola, pressed members of the party who were ministers in the state government to step down, Rousseff left the PDT and in 2001 joined the Workers' Party of Brazil, led by pro-Cuban Marxist Lula da Silva. Rousseff temporarily left her government position in 2002 to work on Lula’s successful campaign for president. Once in office as president of Brazil, he named her minister of Mines and Energy. Then in 2005, Rousseff took on the role of Lula's chief of staff. It was around this time that speculation began that Rousseff would be Lula's choice to succeed him as president.
In 2009, Rousseff was diagnosed with lymphoma, and subsequently treated with chemotherapy which was successful.
When her campaign for presidency kicked off in February 2009, the campaign presented her as the one to continue Lula’s largely market friendly policies and social welfare programs. She told voters that she was 'going to follow Lula’s path.' In March 2009, following a meeting with Barack Obama in the United States, Obama promptly asked his campaign strategists to reject a request by Brazil’s Social Democrats (PSDB) and to instead advise Dilma’s campaign.
The significance of this move cannot be overstated. president Obama used his authority to transfer Democratic Party support from a comparatively moderate, leftist party, to a full blown ally of the Communist Party of Brazil. Lula's Workers’ Party, which includes major communist and Trotskyist factions, has been openly allied to the Communist Party since 1989.
Communist Party of Brazil members have held posts in the “Lula” Government since 2003.
Although Rousseff had little name recognition or experience as a candidate, she enjoyed a smooth ride to presidency. Then-president Lula da Silva used his 80-percent approval ratings to campaign incessantly for Rousseff, his former chief-of-staff and political protégé. In March 2010, the Communist Party of Brazil endorsed Dilma Rousseff’s candidacy. Rousseff breezed into power with 56% of the vote to 44% for Jose Serra of the centrist Social Democratic Party of Brazil, and the candidate of a right-center coalition.
The Communist Party USA predictably, welcomed Rousseff's victory, almost as enthusiastically as they welcomed their 'friend' Barack Obama in 2008. The American communists stated that Rousseff's election would result in Latin American economies becoming 'less dependent on their relationships with the United States.'
The revolutionary governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador also welcomed the new president.
At least Barack Obama now has one reliable ally in Latin America.
"
Dilma Rousseff - Brazil's Radical President Profiled: "
 |
| 22yr-old Dilma Rousseff, 1970 |
The new president of Brazil, Dilma Roussseff is even more radical than her marxist predecessor and can in no way be seen as any sort of ally by Western governments - except perhaps the Obama Administration.
Dilma Rousseff was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1947. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father a political exile from Bulgaria where he had been active with the Communist Party.
During her high school years, Dilma became influenced by the writings of French political theorist Régis Debray and by a teacher and future comrade who taught her Marxism. In 1967 she joined a radical faction of the Brazilian Socialist Party.
Rousseff’ faction of the Brazilian Socialist Party, Política Operária (Worker’s Politics), split and they became part of a group that favored armed struggle against the dictatorship. It soon joined with other Marxist, anti-government militant groups to form COLINA. During this time Rousseff instructed her comrades on Marxist theory and wrote for an underground newspaper.
In 1967, the small COLINA group that Rousseff, then aged 19, was a member of in Belo Horizonte, carried out bank robberies, car thefts and a couple of bombings. In January 1969, the police invaded COLINA's house and the militants responded by using a machine gun, which killed two policemen and wounded another. Dilma went underground, later participating in the formation of the Revolutionary Armed Vanguard Palmares. After that group split , Dilma was sent to Sao Paolo, where she was charged with guarding the groups weapons - which she hid under her bed.
Rousseff later ended up in the clandestine Palmares Armed Revolutionary Vanguard. In the 1960s and 1970s, members of such organizations seized foreign diplomats for ransom: a U.S. ambassador was swapped for a dozen political prisoners; a German ambassador was exchanged for 40 militants; a Swiss envoy swapped for 70. They also shot alleged U.S. torture experts sent to train the generals’ death squads.
Around the time she became involved with COLINA, Rousseff met and fell in love with a man named Cláudio Galeno Linhares, an older comrade-in-arms. After a year of dating, the couple married. When police broke up their guerrilla faction, the couple parted ways, with Rousseff leaving for Rio de Janeiro where she would soon meet Carlos Araújo who also had been imprisoned as a militant. The two became lovers.
Rousseff was labeled one of Brazil's most wanted and beautiful fugitives. After three years underground, At the age of nineteen she was captured in 1970 by Brazil’s military police, in a “sting” operation and was considered a big enough catch that a military prosecutor labeled her the “Joan of Arc” of the guerrilla movement. She was submitted to several weeks of brutal torture while held in the Tiradentes prison.
Charged with subversion by the right-wing military government, she suffered through the disappearance and torture of her Marxist companions, some of whom died or were killed by the military. Rousseff was held in prison for three years, being released in 1972. The government forbade her to engage in political activities. However, as a fighter for Brazil’s left-wing guerrilla movement in 1969, she exchanged a wedding dress for fatigues and remained in the underground.
 |
| 63-yr old Dilma Rousseff, 2010 |
In the early 1980s, as the generals loosened their grip on the country, Rousseff and Araújo became active in the Democratic Labour Party of Brazil (PDT), led by Leonel Brizola, brother-in-law of João Goulart, overthrown in the 1964 coup. The PDT won elections and Rousseff held a series of jobs as an adviser and bureaucrat at the local and state level. In 1993, the state governor of Rio Grande do Sul appointed her Energy secretary. She left that post the next year, as well as her relationship with Araújo after discovering another woman was pregnant with his child. They reconciled two years later but broke up again in 2000.
When PDT leader, Leonel Brizola, pressed members of the party who were ministers in the state government to step down, Rousseff left the PDT and in 2001 joined the Workers' Party of Brazil, led by pro-Cuban Marxist Lula da Silva. Rousseff temporarily left her government position in 2002 to work on Lula’s successful campaign for president. Once in office as president of Brazil, he named her minister of Mines and Energy. Then in 2005, Rousseff took on the role of Lula's chief of staff. It was around this time that speculation began that Rousseff would be Lula's choice to succeed him as president.
In 2009, Rousseff was diagnosed with lymphoma, and subsequently treated with chemotherapy which was successful.
 |
| 'Lula', Dilma Rousseff, meet Barack Obama |
The significance of this move cannot be overstated. president Obama used his authority to transfer Democratic Party support from a comparatively moderate, leftist party, to a full blown ally of the Communist Party of Brazil. Lula's Workers’ Party, which includes major communist and Trotskyist factions, has been openly allied to the Communist Party since 1989.
Communist Party of Brazil members have held posts in the “Lula” Government since 2003.
Although Rousseff had little name recognition or experience as a candidate, she enjoyed a smooth ride to presidency. Then-president Lula da Silva used his 80-percent approval ratings to campaign incessantly for Rousseff, his former chief-of-staff and political protégé. In March 2010, the Communist Party of Brazil endorsed Dilma Rousseff’s candidacy. Rousseff breezed into power with 56% of the vote to 44% for Jose Serra of the centrist Social Democratic Party of Brazil, and the candidate of a right-center coalition.
The Communist Party USA predictably, welcomed Rousseff's victory, almost as enthusiastically as they welcomed their 'friend' Barack Obama in 2008. The American communists stated that Rousseff's election would result in Latin American economies becoming 'less dependent on their relationships with the United States.'
The revolutionary governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador also welcomed the new president.
At least Barack Obama now has one reliable ally in Latin America.
"Hallelujah"
from New Zeal: Security Risk? More Evidence of Mary Jo Kilroy's ...
"Hallelujah": "High art in a Canadian shopping mall.
"
"Hallelujah": "High art in a Canadian shopping mall.
Obama Pledged Cooperation With Brazil's Marxist Leader
from New Zeal: Security Risk? More Evidence of Mary Jo Kilroy's ...
Obama Pledged Cooperation With Brazil's Marxist Leader: "
Here's the official November 1 2010, press release on President Barack Obama's message to newly elected President of Brazil and former Marxist-Leninist terrorist Dilma Rousseff.
"
Obama Pledged Cooperation With Brazil's Marxist Leader: "
Here's the official November 1 2010, press release on President Barack Obama's message to newly elected President of Brazil and former Marxist-Leninist terrorist Dilma Rousseff.
Earlier this afternoon, President Obama called Dilma Rousseff, President-elect of Brazil, to congratulate her on her historic victory in yesterday’s election. He commended the people of Brazil for their faith and commitment to democracy. He also underscored the excellent working relationship between the United States and Brazil, and his commitment to deepening this cooperation and exploring new areas of collaboration.Rouseff also spoke to Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, leftist Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Mexico's Felipe Calderon, the same day.
President Obama told President-elect Rousseff that he looks forward to meeting with her soon, and working more closely on areas such as clean energy, global growth, reconstruction assistance for Haiti, collaborative development efforts, and other issues of global importance.
Van Jones: Potential nightmare scenario coming – recipe for a battleground
from The Right Scoop
Van Jones: Potential nightmare scenario coming – recipe for a battleground: "via Sharp Elbows. It sounds like he’s predicting social unrest as he tells this audience that what is coming is a recipe for a battleground. After saying this he proceeds to demonize his ‘opponents’ (I guess that’s the Tea Party) as if to mobilize those in the audience. I’ve just got one question. Van Jones [...]"
Van Jones: Potential nightmare scenario coming – recipe for a battleground: "via Sharp Elbows. It sounds like he’s predicting social unrest as he tells this audience that what is coming is a recipe for a battleground. After saying this he proceeds to demonize his ‘opponents’ (I guess that’s the Tea Party) as if to mobilize those in the audience. I’ve just got one question. Van Jones [...]"
Obama jokes with McCartney, gushes over Oprah for Kennedy Center Honors
from TheHill.com
Obama jokes with McCartney, gushes over Oprah for Kennedy Center Honors: "
Obama jokes with McCartney, gushes over Oprah for Kennedy Center Honors: "
Obama saluted Paul McCartney, Oprah Winfrey and Merle Haggard, along with three others, for their contributions to American arts.
Video: Pelosi again repeats lie that paying people not to work (ie - unemployment) creates jobs
from theblogprof
Video: Pelosi again repeats lie that paying people not to work (ie - unemployment) creates jobs: "As the liberal theory goes, an unemployment check gets spent immediately increasing demand of products and services that the unemployed consume. The fallacy is that 1) the unemployed will spend a lot less had they been employed which should be priority #1, so that 2) the demand created by unemployment spending is far less than employed spending, and 3) the money comes from another part of the private sector depressing it. Simple facts are beyond Pelosi's comprehension:
The one plus of her speech? She has stumbled upon the right-hand rule famous in electromagnetic theory, dynamics and fluid mechanics:
If she only had the brain capacity beyond holding her fingers correctly. But back to the issue at, err... hand. Just a few days ago, another Democrat trumpeted Pelosi: Video of Sherrod Brown (D-OH): Tax Cuts Don't Create Jobs, Unemployment Benefits Do
In July, our own Sen Stabenow went pretty much the way of Brown: Video of Stabenow: Unemployment compensation is so awesome that everyone ought to be unemployed to stimulate the economy
And Stabenow seems to see unemployment the same way Pelosi sees it: Video: Pelosi says 'Unemployment benefits are creating jobs faster than practically any other program!'
And that, dear readers, is called a full circle of stupidity as predicted by idiot theory via the right hand rule.
"
Video: Pelosi again repeats lie that paying people not to work (ie - unemployment) creates jobs: "As the liberal theory goes, an unemployment check gets spent immediately increasing demand of products and services that the unemployed consume. The fallacy is that 1) the unemployed will spend a lot less had they been employed which should be priority #1, so that 2) the demand created by unemployment spending is far less than employed spending, and 3) the money comes from another part of the private sector depressing it. Simple facts are beyond Pelosi's comprehension:
The one plus of her speech? She has stumbled upon the right-hand rule famous in electromagnetic theory, dynamics and fluid mechanics:
In July, our own Sen Stabenow went pretty much the way of Brown: Video of Stabenow: Unemployment compensation is so awesome that everyone ought to be unemployed to stimulate the economy
And Stabenow seems to see unemployment the same way Pelosi sees it: Video: Pelosi says 'Unemployment benefits are creating jobs faster than practically any other program!'
And that, dear readers, is called a full circle of stupidity as predicted by idiot theory via the right hand rule.
Ethics May Not Be Done With Charlie Rangel
from YID With LID
Ethics May Not Be Done With Charlie Rangel: "
"
Ethics May Not Be Done With Charlie Rangel: "
Please email me at yidwithlid@aol.com to be put onto my mailing list.
Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com
Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com
"
Ten Case Studies of Radical Islamists Infiltrating the U.S. Government: Where's the Shock and Response?
from YID With LID
Ten Case Studies of Radical Islamists Infiltrating the U.S. Government: Where's the Shock and Response?: "
There is a very important—one might say, life-and-death—distinction that should be made in considering U.S. counterterrorism policy. Certainly, U.S. forces have had many successes in stopping intended terrorist attacks against the United States. Yet there have also been a number of failures in the war against terrorism or al-Qaida or whatever you want to call it. How to distinguish what made the difference?
Successes in the post-September 11 era have come when the techniques of police work or intelligence-gathering were used against full-time terrorists (or the authorities got a lucky tip-off). When it comes to organizations planning attacks this works very well. But when the threat involves individuals or small groups being radicalized and perhaps joining or supporting terrorist groups the record is much worse.
The weakness is in analysis, profiling, decision-making, and understanding the nature of the enemy ideology. As a result, there have been a number of smaller attacks, including some not counted at all by a government that wants to keep its batting average high, and some near-misses averted more due to luck than to skill.
In addition a huge amount of money has been wasted and effort misdirected, as many are coming to see regarding the current methods of airport security.
In understanding these vital issues one can read no better work than Patrick Poole’s, “Failures of the U.S. Government on the Domestic Islamist Threat.” He provides ten case studies, each of which is hair-raising and none of which, arguably, has led to major corrective action. At the root of each one is a failure or refusal to comprehend revolutionary Islamism or the bureaucratic fear of taking on the enemy. Moreover, some cases show how the other side has even gained political influence in America.
Consider Abdulrahman Alamoudi, who Poole rightly calls, “The most prominent Islamic activist leader in America at the time, he had infiltrated the highest levels of political power.” He was the Muslim leader most frequently in the Clinton White House, asked:
“by the Defense Department to establish the military’s Muslim chaplain corps, and appointed by the State Department to serve as a civilian ambassador, taking six taxpayer-funded trips to the Middle East….. Just days after the 9/11 attacks, he appeared with President Bush and other Muslim leaders at a press conference at the Islamic Center of Washington D.C. despite his public comments a year earlier at a rally just steps from the White House identifying himself as a supporter of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations.”
But “in July 2005 the Treasury Department revealed that Alamoudi had been: 'one of Al-Qaeda’s top fundraisers.”
Go back and reread the last two paragraphs. Shouldn’t this experience create great skepticism about proclaiming Muslim leaders as moderate without critically examining their record? Instead, the opposite has happened.
Then there was Ali Mohamed, a man who trained American soldiers on Arab culture and worked in the U.S. army’s training program for intelligence officers in the Middle East while simultaneously teaching Islamist militants in the United States—including the cell that carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing—how to shoot and blow things up. Later, he became al-Qaida’s chief military expert.
How might the army have known to distrust this man? Well, he had been expelled from the Egyptian army because of his terrorist sympathies and Egypt warned the United States about him.
We’ve heard a lot lately about al-Qaida’s new star, Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been behind many of the recent terrorist attacks on America. But did you know, as Poole writes:
“Despite being subject to a FBI investigation initiated in 1999, and having been interviewed by the FBI at least four times after 9/11 for his contacts with two of the hijackers, Al-Awlaki was leading prayers for congressional Muslim staffers inside the U.S. Capitol…. al-Awlaki was also feted at a luncheon inside the still-smoldering Pentagon following the 9/11 attacks….”
Then there’s still “Anwar Hajjaj, a local Islamic cleric who still leads prayers for the Congressional Muslim Staff Association. Hajjaj headed the Taibah International Aid Association, which was designated a global terrorist organization by the Treasury Department in May 2004.”
Or what about lobbyist Faisal Gill, “a former aide to Al-Qaeda fundraiser
Abdurahman Alamoudi” appointed to a senior post in the Department of Homeland Security. Gill “had omitted his previous employment as director of government relations for Alamoudi’s American Muslim Council on the Standard Form 86 required for Gill’s security clearance. Gill had been at the forefront of AMC’s political efforts to end the use of secret evidence in terrorism deportation proceedings. In his position in the Homeland Security Intelligence division, he had access to a wide range of top-secret information, including vulnerabilities of national critical infrastructure.”
He was investigated and cleared at the time, despite the fact that he had lied.
Hesham Islam has been an especially powerful figure, senior advisor for international affairs for Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and the Pentagon’s point-man for Muslim outreach. When one officer wrote a good study of revolutionary Islamist ideology, Islam campaigned to get him fired Other officials told me that Islam tried to push them out also.
Islam’s autobiography on a Defense Department site contained clear contradictions and omissions while his own academic work was rather shockingly radical. His father had worked for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, while Islam claimed that he had survived a ship sinking that apparently never happened
This study doesn’t include many other cases, most notably that of Nidal Hassan, the Fort Hood terrorist, where the army’s negligence was responsible for the tragedy. At the time, I called Hassan the first terrorist to give an academic lecture with Power Point—to an army audience—explaining his intention to commit a terrorist attack. Since then, things haven’t improved, including the army’s report that didn’t even dare to talk about jihad.
This is the kind of thing that’s been happening. Let’s be clear. There should be no witch-hunt of people because they are Muslim, yet there should be the same kind of scrutiny that applies to anyone else. The truth is that bureaucrats are afraid to follow clear leads and point out obvious problems lest their careers be injured by accusations of Islamophobia.
During the 1930s, it was regarded as impolite to look into whether there were Soviet agents in the U.S. government. Despite the lies and exaggerations of certain people later, there was a very serious Communist infiltration that damaged U.S. interests.
There is clearly a parallel effort—no matter how uncoordinated and individual in nature—today. Read Poole’s study, watch his lecture about it and then demand better media coverage and government response to this problem.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan), Conflict and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle Eastand editor of the (seventh edition) (Viking-Penguin), The Israel-Arab Reader the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria(Palgrave-Macmillan), A Chronological History of Terrorism (Sharpe), and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
"
Ten Case Studies of Radical Islamists Infiltrating the U.S. Government: Where's the Shock and Response?: "
There is a very important—one might say, life-and-death—distinction that should be made in considering U.S. counterterrorism policy. Certainly, U.S. forces have had many successes in stopping intended terrorist attacks against the United States. Yet there have also been a number of failures in the war against terrorism or al-Qaida or whatever you want to call it. How to distinguish what made the difference?
Successes in the post-September 11 era have come when the techniques of police work or intelligence-gathering were used against full-time terrorists (or the authorities got a lucky tip-off). When it comes to organizations planning attacks this works very well. But when the threat involves individuals or small groups being radicalized and perhaps joining or supporting terrorist groups the record is much worse.
The weakness is in analysis, profiling, decision-making, and understanding the nature of the enemy ideology. As a result, there have been a number of smaller attacks, including some not counted at all by a government that wants to keep its batting average high, and some near-misses averted more due to luck than to skill.
In addition a huge amount of money has been wasted and effort misdirected, as many are coming to see regarding the current methods of airport security.
In understanding these vital issues one can read no better work than Patrick Poole’s, “Failures of the U.S. Government on the Domestic Islamist Threat.” He provides ten case studies, each of which is hair-raising and none of which, arguably, has led to major corrective action. At the root of each one is a failure or refusal to comprehend revolutionary Islamism or the bureaucratic fear of taking on the enemy. Moreover, some cases show how the other side has even gained political influence in America.
Consider Abdulrahman Alamoudi, who Poole rightly calls, “The most prominent Islamic activist leader in America at the time, he had infiltrated the highest levels of political power.” He was the Muslim leader most frequently in the Clinton White House, asked:
“by the Defense Department to establish the military’s Muslim chaplain corps, and appointed by the State Department to serve as a civilian ambassador, taking six taxpayer-funded trips to the Middle East….. Just days after the 9/11 attacks, he appeared with President Bush and other Muslim leaders at a press conference at the Islamic Center of Washington D.C. despite his public comments a year earlier at a rally just steps from the White House identifying himself as a supporter of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations.”
But “in July 2005 the Treasury Department revealed that Alamoudi had been: 'one of Al-Qaeda’s top fundraisers.”
Go back and reread the last two paragraphs. Shouldn’t this experience create great skepticism about proclaiming Muslim leaders as moderate without critically examining their record? Instead, the opposite has happened.
Then there was Ali Mohamed, a man who trained American soldiers on Arab culture and worked in the U.S. army’s training program for intelligence officers in the Middle East while simultaneously teaching Islamist militants in the United States—including the cell that carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing—how to shoot and blow things up. Later, he became al-Qaida’s chief military expert.
How might the army have known to distrust this man? Well, he had been expelled from the Egyptian army because of his terrorist sympathies and Egypt warned the United States about him.
We’ve heard a lot lately about al-Qaida’s new star, Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been behind many of the recent terrorist attacks on America. But did you know, as Poole writes:
“Despite being subject to a FBI investigation initiated in 1999, and having been interviewed by the FBI at least four times after 9/11 for his contacts with two of the hijackers, Al-Awlaki was leading prayers for congressional Muslim staffers inside the U.S. Capitol…. al-Awlaki was also feted at a luncheon inside the still-smoldering Pentagon following the 9/11 attacks….”
Then there’s still “Anwar Hajjaj, a local Islamic cleric who still leads prayers for the Congressional Muslim Staff Association. Hajjaj headed the Taibah International Aid Association, which was designated a global terrorist organization by the Treasury Department in May 2004.”
Or what about lobbyist Faisal Gill, “a former aide to Al-Qaeda fundraiser
Abdurahman Alamoudi” appointed to a senior post in the Department of Homeland Security. Gill “had omitted his previous employment as director of government relations for Alamoudi’s American Muslim Council on the Standard Form 86 required for Gill’s security clearance. Gill had been at the forefront of AMC’s political efforts to end the use of secret evidence in terrorism deportation proceedings. In his position in the Homeland Security Intelligence division, he had access to a wide range of top-secret information, including vulnerabilities of national critical infrastructure.”
He was investigated and cleared at the time, despite the fact that he had lied.
Hesham Islam has been an especially powerful figure, senior advisor for international affairs for Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and the Pentagon’s point-man for Muslim outreach. When one officer wrote a good study of revolutionary Islamist ideology, Islam campaigned to get him fired Other officials told me that Islam tried to push them out also.
Islam’s autobiography on a Defense Department site contained clear contradictions and omissions while his own academic work was rather shockingly radical. His father had worked for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, while Islam claimed that he had survived a ship sinking that apparently never happened
This study doesn’t include many other cases, most notably that of Nidal Hassan, the Fort Hood terrorist, where the army’s negligence was responsible for the tragedy. At the time, I called Hassan the first terrorist to give an academic lecture with Power Point—to an army audience—explaining his intention to commit a terrorist attack. Since then, things haven’t improved, including the army’s report that didn’t even dare to talk about jihad.
This is the kind of thing that’s been happening. Let’s be clear. There should be no witch-hunt of people because they are Muslim, yet there should be the same kind of scrutiny that applies to anyone else. The truth is that bureaucrats are afraid to follow clear leads and point out obvious problems lest their careers be injured by accusations of Islamophobia.
During the 1930s, it was regarded as impolite to look into whether there were Soviet agents in the U.S. government. Despite the lies and exaggerations of certain people later, there was a very serious Communist infiltration that damaged U.S. interests.
There is clearly a parallel effort—no matter how uncoordinated and individual in nature—today. Read Poole’s study, watch his lecture about it and then demand better media coverage and government response to this problem.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan), Conflict and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle Eastand editor of the (seventh edition) (Viking-Penguin), The Israel-Arab Reader the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria(Palgrave-Macmillan), A Chronological History of Terrorism (Sharpe), and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
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Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com
Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com
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Wikileak’s Founder Assange Will Release Encrypted Gitmo File If Site Is Shutdown
from The Gateway Pundit
Wikileak’s Founder Assange Will Release Encrypted Gitmo File If Site Is Shutdown: "
Wikileak’s Founder Assange Will Release Encrypted Gitmo File If Site Is Shutdown: "
Wikileak’s founder Julian Assange threatened the international community that he will release an encrypted “doomsday” file on Gitmo and BP if any country that tries to shut down his website.
The New York Post reported:
"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has circulated across the internet an encrypted “poison pill” cache of uncensored documents suspected to include files on BP and Guantanamo Bay.
One of the files identified this weekend by The (London) Sunday Times — called the “insurance” file — has been downloaded from the WikiLeaks website by tens of thousands of supporters, from America to Australia.
Assange warns that any government that tries to curtail his activities risks triggering a new deluge of state and commercial secrets.
The military papers on Guantanamo Bay, yet to be published, believed to have been supplied by Bradley Manning, who was arrested in May. Other documents that Assange is confirmed to possess include an aerial video of a US airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians, BP files and Bank of America documents.
Newt Gingrich: The Wikileaks Scandal Shows Obama Adminstration Is Shallow and Amateurish (Video)
from The Gateway Pundit
Newt Gingrich: The Wikileaks Scandal Shows Obama Adminstration Is Shallow and Amateurish (Video): "
Newt Gingrich: The Wikileaks Scandal Shows Obama Adminstration Is Shallow and Amateurish (Video): "
Newt Gingrich told Chris Wallace on FOX News Sunday that Julian Assange is engaged in warfare and terrorism and should be treated as an enemy combatant. Gingrich also blasted the administration’s inept handing of the security leak calling it shallow and amateurish.
Agreed.
Report: Al Qaeda Claims Responsibility For Deadly Israeli Fire
from The Gateway Pundit
Report: Al Qaeda Claims Responsibility For Deadly Israeli Fire: "
Report: Al Qaeda Claims Responsibility For Deadly Israeli Fire: "
Al Qaeda reportedly took responsibility for the deadly fires in Israel this week that claimed 41 lives.
Asia News reported, via Free Republic:
"The terrorist organization Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the fire that has devastated the forests of Mount Caramel, the most serious environmental disaster in the history of Israel. Although the local police authorities attribute the blaze to negligence and the prolonged drought that is affecting the region.
Today, a new terrorist group, which claims links to Al Qaeda, posted a video message on jihadist forums, the same used by Osama Bin Laden, declaring to be behind the fire. The group, which calls itself “Lions of the mujahideen in Palestine” claims to have set fire to the trees of Mount Carmel, triggering the inferno which is still raging. “The lions of the mujahideen in Palestine” say they carried out the arson attack on the night between Thursday and Friday – “performing a holy and heroic expedition within the territory of the usurpers on occupied Mount Caramel setting fire to its trees, causing the deaths of more than 40 people and wounding dozens, as recognized by the enemy itself”.
The terrorist group, whose credibility has not yet been independently confirmed, also thanked “the wind, which was one of the soldiers of Allah, for his help, by expanding the flames to where we never thought, so that the enemy was not able to subdue it and was forced to seek help from foreign forces. ” The message then points out that ” this blessed expedition is part of the series of expeditions undertaken against the Jewish occupier to avenge the blood of Muslims killed, first of all Muhamman al- Namnam and the brothers Islam and Muhammad Yasin and other Palestinian Salafi jihadist. The enemy knows that the children of monotheism are not asleep and are capable of teaching them a lesson. ” The reference is to the three members of the Palestinian jihadist group “Army of Islam”, an acronym related to al-Qaeda in theGaza Strip, killed in recent weeks, in two different Israeli air raids.
Global warming has halted: That's what happened to 'warmest year on record' | Mail Online
Found this interesting link on the Drudge Report:
Global warming has halted: That's what happened to 'warmest year on record' | Mail Online
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