J. Robert Smith
Arizona's new law clamping down on illegals has given Barack Obama and the left an opening to unlimber their big guns. The incoming fire has been brutal. The rounds landing have been charges of racism. But conservatives, Republicans, and all pro-law Americans need to get out of their foxholes and return fire. Better yet, pro-law forces need to outflank Mr. Obama's army. A battle plan follows. The key to end-running Mr. Obama is to factually assert that he's failing his oath of office. The president of the United States is firing off charges of racism because he doesn't want to do anything substantive to seal the nation's borders, staunch the flow of illegals, and send illegals on American soil packing. His partisan agenda to legalize illegals and harvest their votes trumps American national security interests. Mr. Obama aims to keep the illegals pipeline open between Mexico and the United States. A steady supply of new Democratic voters is a very good thing for Democrats.
Most Americans see the Democrats' harvest of illegals has a Harvest of Shame. To turn a blind eye to America's porous southern border makes a mockery of Mr. Obama's constitutional oath to protect and defend the United States. It flouts the nation's immigration laws, thereby undermining respect for law generally. It tells those immigrants and their American sponsors who are playing by the rules and jumping through every hoop to obtain and keep legal residence that they're awfully big suckers.
The charge of dereliction of duty against Mr. Obama needs to be made over and over again until it sticks like superglue. Is this a tough line of attack? You bet. But charging Americans as being racists because they simply want state and national laws against illegals upheld and enforced ain't exactly beanbag. When it comes to grabbing power and holding it, the left and Democrats never play beanbag.
Mr. Obama's abdication on southern border security is permitting an increasing number of ruthless drug dealers and other criminals (coyotes, mostly) to enter the United States. Crime along the Mexican-American border is high, rising, and moving north. The vicious Mexican Drug War, pitting cartels against one another and the Mexican government, has begun to spill over the American border.
Go asks citizens in Laredo, Brownsville, and El Paso about the Mexican Drug War and the impact on their communities. Ask especially the citizens of El Paso, who live across the Rio Grande, a stone's throw from Ciudad Juarez, where drug gangs routinely murder Juarez police, engage in combat with elite federal troops, and kill Americans, and where they forced Juarez's public safety secretary, Roberto Orduna Cruz, to forfeit his office under threat that gangs would kill police officers every forty-eight hours until he resigned.
Ask any American who lives along or near the I-35 corridor, which runs out of Mexico into Texas and north into the nation's heartland, about the criminals that are traveling that route north. Ask the family, friends, and neighbors of the Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, who was murdered by a suspected Mexican drug smuggler, about the criminals that are infesting the country.
In fact, conservatives and Republicans need to go to America's southern border communities to harvest testimonies from Anglo-Americans and Mexican-Americans about the heartbreak of having loved ones kidnapped, assaulted, and murdered; having daughters, sisters, and wives raped and abducted; and having to live in fear for property and lives.
It's time for conservatives and pro-law Americans to humanize and broadcast the violence being done to American citizens, regardless of race, by the criminal element coming north from Mexico. Make Americans from Bangor, Maine to Portland, Oregon, from Georgia's piney woods to Alaska's snowy mountains, uneasily familiar with the names and faces of the victims of border crime. Let them know that that crime is coming their way, if it hasn't touched their communities already.
Short-term, Mr. Obama and his handlers are trying to leverage the new Arizona law to gin up Hispanic votes this November. In states with larger concentrations of Hispanic voters, Mr. Obama and his handlers wish to more than offset an expected surge in voters disgruntled with Mr. Obama's big-government raw deal.
Perhaps Mr. Obama's ploy will work, but it's guaranteed to work if conservatives and Republicans fail to contest Mr. Obama in Hispanic communities. Despite the left's propaganda, there is an abundance of Hispanic Americans who are offended by and worried about the violations of law that illegals present. Hispanics see and fear the disruptions that illegals -- especially the criminal element -- are bringing to their neighborhoods.
To paraphrase the late Barry Goldwater, in their hearts, many Hispanics know that conservatives are right about illegal immigration. Hispanic-Americans need to be encouraged to vote their hearts in the secrecy of voting booths. Conservatives and the GOP may be nicely surprised by the outcome.
Finally, no American who favors the rule of law can permit President Obama to pay mere lip service to stronger border security, nor can Mr. Obama be permitted to cite his scant efforts along the border as proof positive of his commitment to tighter security. The counter is simple: Each fresh failure along the nation's southern border, each new crime, needs to be publicized and made Mr. Obama's responsibility. Mr. Obama may not favor an ownership society, but he darned well needs to be an ownership president, and that goes for every failure along the Mexican-American border.
The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is do Washington conservatives -- moreover, Republicans -- have the guts to make a tough fight against Mr. Obama and the left on the terms outlined? Or will quaking conservative and Republican establishmentarians continue to huddle in foxholes, hoping to avoid a battering on charges of racism?
Who said that victory belongs to the stout of heart, to those willing to brave enemy fire and audaciously take the fight to the enemy? It doesn't really matter, on second thought. What matters is the doing of it.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/retaking_the_offensive_in_the.html at April 30, 2010 - 12:49:18 AM CDT
Friday, April 30, 2010
PA official: Obama to act if Mideast talks derailed
Palestinian official says US envoy George Mitchell handed President Abbas letter containing US commitment to take steps against Israel, PA if either side undermines indirect peace talks
AFP
YNET News
US President Barack Obama has vowed to take action against Israel or the Palestinians if either undermines indirect peace talks, a senior Palestinian official said on Thursday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that, in a letter handed to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas by US envoy George Mitchell during a meeting last week, Obama pledged to hold both parties accountable.
"Obama called on president Abbas to return to the negotiations, pledging that if (either) party hinders them or takes provocative steps during the indirect negotiations, there is an American commitment to take steps against it and there will be a re-evaluation of the US administration's policy towards it," the official said.
During the meeting with Abbas, Mitchell "confirmed that the American administration was pledged and committed to taking (such) steps, including revising and reviewing US policy towards Israel," the official added.
Those steps could include Washington refraining from using its permanent veto to protect Israel if the Palestinians were to seek a UN Security Council ruling against continued settlement activity, the official said.
The official said Mitchell told Abbas Israel had pledged not to undertake any work on settlements during the talks and to halt a controversial project to build 1,600 settler homes in east Jerusalem.
A US embassy spokesman declined to comment on the report.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat confirmed that Abbas had received a letter from Obama that said he "remains committed to the two-state solution and is prepared to exert every effort to give it the opportunity to succeed."
The Palestinians were to meet with Arab foreign ministers on Saturday to discuss whether to hold US-brokered indirect talks with Israel, and Abbas said earlier this week he hoped for a "positive response."
In March, the Palestinians, with Arab backing, grudgingly agreed to indirect talks but the initiative collapsed days later when Israel announced the east Jerusalem plans during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden.
That announcement drew a sharp rebuke from Washington, which has been struggling for months to relaunch peace negotiations last suspended after the December 2008 outbreak of the Gaza war.
Comment: So much for his previous statement regrding not the right of any nation to tell another how to run its business. On one hand you have a functioning democratic government, with all of the necessary infrastructre required to operate as a nation. On the other hand you have rogue group located in three disputed territories according to international law , the Gaya group run by terrorists, no infrastructe to function as a nation. The Fatah group in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria dozens of billions of dollars in aid from the West during the past 40 yrears and still has no infra-structure to speak of-they have no functional governing group, they produce nothing, they do not have the minimum standards for operating as anything more than looslely organized group of corrupt officials. The wisdom of those who support unilateral announcement of a state is to be found nothing less than amusing and irresponsible.
J'lem fears UN may recognize PA state
DAVID HOROVITZ AND KHALED ABU TOAMEH
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=174366
30/04/2010 02:40
As proximity talks near, Israeli officials wary of Abbas's intentions.
While Israel and the Palestinian Authority are finally expected to begin US-mediated indirect “proximity” talks in the very near future, concern is growing among some in the Israeli government that the PA is planning to marginalize the diplomatic process and instead unilaterally seek UN recognition for a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines. There is a rising conviction among some in the Netanyahu government, The Jerusalem Post has learned, that the PA is aiming to secure a new UN Security Council Resolution, updating 1967’s Resolution 242, providing for the establishment of Palestine and fudging the refugee issue.
The idea of such a move, runs the bleak assessment, would be to establish a state not at peace with Israel, but rather to continue the conflict with Israel.
Not all senior figures share this assessment, it is stressed, although it is very widely doubted within the coalition’s senior decision-making echelon that PA President Mahmoud Abbas is prepared to negotiate viable terms for peace with Israel.
By contrast, the US administration, in its contacts with Israel, is said to have conveyed the assessment that Abbas is ready for a negotiated peace, and President Shimon Peres is said to have made clear his belief that Abbas does not intend to seek to flood Israel with refugees under the demand for a “right of return.”
In an interview with Channel 2 this week, Abbas denied plans for a unilateral declaration of statehood or any other unilateral acts, and noted that the Arab League peace initiative provided for a “just and agreed” solution on the refugee issue – a solution, that is, that would have to be acceptable to Israel.
In February, the Post reported that a paper prepared by chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat on the status of the peace talks recommended that the Palestinians try to secure a UN Security Council resolution that recognized the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital, as well as a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue in accordance with UN Resolution 194.
The Erekat paper, entitled “The Political Situation in Light of Developments with the US Administration and Israeli Government and Hamas’s Continued Coup D’etat,” recommended that the Palestinians consider the possibility of abandoning the two-state solution in favor of a one-state solution if the peace process did not move forward.
Within the Netanyahu government, the Post understands, there is a growing awareness of the rising level of international support for Palestinian statehood, and of the reduced international empathy for Israeli concerns and reservations.
Central to those trends, it is recognized, is the credibility of PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who has impressed international figures, including many of the most firmly pro-Israel American political leaders, with his commitment to building credible institutions of statehood in the West Bank.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has essentially partnered the PA and Fayyad via his “economic peace” moves over the past year, dismantling roadblocks, reducing checkpoints and easing freedom of movement to help the PA toward an estimated 10-percent-plus growth in gross domestic product over the past 12 months. But some in the prime minister’s inner circle nonetheless have profound reservations about Fayyad’s strategy.
It is noted, for instance, that the “Program of the Thirteenth Government” issued by Fayyad last August, and entitled “Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State,” contains no direct, unambiguous reference to making peace with Israel.
At the same time, it describes the establishment of a Palestinian state within two years as “not only possible,” but “essential.”
The fact that the PA refused to resume direct talks with Israel after Netanyahu took office last year, and sought to impose preconditions that contributed to the repeated postponement of even the indirect “proximity” talks, has reinforced the sense of many senior figures in the Netanyahu government that the PA is not urgently seeking progress via the negotiating process, and instead intends to take the UN route.
According to international law expert Ruth Lapidot, recognition of statehood is usually done by fellow states, but the Security Council could recommend that member states recognize a new state of Palestine. Lapidot said Thursday it was unclear if a veto power would apply in such a case; this would depend on the whether the issue were deemed to be of a procedural nature or a substantive nature.
In the case of Kosovo, Lapidot noted, the Security Council recommended establishing the state, but it did not impose that solution.
The council’s mandate says that it can solve disputes, but does not define the exact powers. To date, said Lapidot, the Security Council has not established the borders of any state. Still, she elaborated, in the case of Kuwait after the first Gulf War, it established an arbitration commission, which then set the borders of the state.
Regarding the issue of admittance to the UN, Lapidot said, the Palestinians would need the approval of both the Security Council and the General Assembly. For this kind of resolution, veto power would apply, she said.
On a related matter, meanwhile, it is understood that the prime minister and some of those closest to him firmly oppose the notion, reported in parts of the Hebrew media earlier this month, of negotiating with the Palestinians for a state with temporary borders – an idea that Abbas has also rejected.
Support for such an idea is said to come from more dovish elements in the coalition, who believe that once the Palestinians have a state of some kind, even if its borders are not finalized, the international tide of delegitimization of Israel will turn.
Figures closer to Netanyahu, however, note that even an agreement on a state with temporary borders would require Abbas to address such critical issues as demilitarization and Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
If Abbas were capable of taking viable positions on those issues, runs the argument, it would be far better to have him do so in the cause of a permanent rather than a temporary accord.
Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.
Netanyahu wins Likud internal vote
REBECCA ANNA STOIL AND JPOST.COM STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=174253
29/04/2010 09:27
Opponents complain mobile voting booths gave him unfair advantage.)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu triumphed overwhelmingly Thursday in a contest that had turned into a power struggle for the future of his Likud party. As final votes were counted close to midnight, officials said he had secured 76 percent support in the central committee for his proposal to delay internal party elections by more than a year Netanyahu had branded success in the vote as crucial to his capacity to pursue “a responsible peace process.”
MKs and activists who had opposed Netanyahu’s proposal – including rival and Jewish Leadership movement leader Moshe Feiglin – complained of irregularities in Thursday’s voting, but said it was unlikely that they would challenge the results. As final votes were being counted, Feiglin complained that the elections had been “stolen.”
When polling closed at 10 p.m., turnout figures had reached 81 percent of all Likud central committee members – a much higher number than was predicted even 24 hours before polling began. Netanyahu supporters had predicted that if voter turnout exceeded 60%, the prime minister was likely to carry the vote.
Netanyahu arrived early in the morning at the Tel Aviv headquarters of the Likud Movement in order to cast his vote in favor of amending the party’s constitution. Smiling before the cameras, the premier called yet again on members of the 2,500-strong central committee to go to the polls and vote in favor of delaying the vote for the party’s internal offices.
“We are a national movement started by [former prime minister] Menachem Begin; we are for the state and for the IDF and for true peace, and that is what we have to focus on,” Netanyahu said. “If the vote does not go as I want it to, we will have to dedicate months to an internal process in the Likud, and now is not the time to do that.”
Netanyahu added that “there is wide agreement with and support for this proposal among Likud members.”
The prime minister had worked hard in recent days to encourage committee members to vote in favor of the change, which would effectively delay internal party elections by 20 months. Formally, the vote was to determine whether or not the Likud constitution would be changed to allow the party to hold internal elections up to three years following general elections.
Such an amendment to the constitution required the support of a two-thirds majority of central committee members.
In addition to the 28 voting booths situated throughout the country, late Wednesday night, the party’s elections committee chairman, Judge Yehoshua Gross, okayed the use of four mobile voting booths in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and Beersheba to pay home visits to disabled central committee members.
But the use of the mobile voting booths was one of the factors that led Netanyahu’s opponents to cry foul, and Feiglin accused the prime minister of “stealing this election.”
In an Israel Radio interview, Feiglin asked, “Have you ever heard of elections without observers? With traveling voting booths?”
Members of the party’s right wing said they had been forced to argue throughout the day in order to get the mobile booths to visit homebound committee members known as hard-liners on foreign policy. Likud members in Acre, considered a stronghold of the party’s right wing, complained of a series of irregularities, including defective ballot envelopes, and even the transfer of their polling place to Nahariya.
Feiglin and many party right-wingers expressed concern that a Netanyahu victory would allow the prime minister to pursue a left-leaning foreign policy.
“It seems that Netanyahu thinks that a true Likudnik would split up Jerusalem,” Feiglin said. “This vote is about Jerusalem; not Feiglin, not Netanyahu.”
He added that “if, God forbid, his proposal passes, there is nothing to stop Netanyahu from doing what [former prime minister Ariel] Sharon did, only not in Gush Katif, but in Jerusalem.”
Feiglin’s supporters constitute slightly below one-quarter of the central committee, but are known for their efficient mobilization at the polls.
Likud MK Danny Danon, who has been one of the most vocal in-party opponents of Netanyahu’s plan, said that “the prime minister has been drawn into an unnecessary move because he doesn’t want the Likud to be an active movement that could restrict him on diplomatic topics, including the settlement moratorium and the proximity talks with the Palestinians.”
Danon, however, said that even if Netanyahu’s delay of the internal vote passed, party right-wingers would remobilize to continue the fight.
“Netanyahu enlisted all of his power for the technical process of delaying the council by 20 months,” continued Danon. “If he is victorious, we will begin a quick recruitment of new members in which I and additional MKs from the right wing will call on ideological people from the national front to join. Meanwhile, other forces will try to water down that side.”
No elections have been held for the central committee or for the party’s other governing body since 2002, in spite of a provision in its constitution mandating that such a vote be held among all the party’s 100,000 members once every four years. Netanyahu supporters dominate the highest ranks of the party’s official positions, all of which will be up for grabs whenever the Likud council is convened and internal elections are held.
Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.
EXCLUSIVE: U.N. Elects Iran to Commission on Women's Rights
Joseph Abrams
FOXNews.com
Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."
NEW YORK — Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest." Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women," according to its website.
Buried 2,000 words deep in a U.N. press release distributed Wednesday on the filling of "vacancies in subsidiary bodies," was the stark announcement: Iran, along with representatives from 10 other nations, was "elected by acclamation," meaning that no open vote was requested or required by any member states — including the United States.
The U.S. currently holds one of the 45 seats on the body, a position set to expire in 2012. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not return requests for comment on whether it actively opposed elevating Iran to the women's commission.
Iran's election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, a statement that created an international uproar — but little affected their bid to become an international arbiter of women's rights.
"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," said the respected cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi.
As word of Iran's intention to join the women's commission came out, a group of Iranian activists circulated a petition to the U.N. asking that member states oppose its election.
"Iran's discriminatory laws demonstrate that the Islamic Republic does not believe in gender equality," reads the letter, signed by 214 activists and endorsed by over a dozen human rights bodies.
The letter draws a dark picture of the status of women in Iran: "women lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women's admission at universities, and are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of such laws."
The Commission on the Status of Women is supposed to conduct review of nations that violate women's rights, issue reports detailing their failings, and monitor their success in improving women's equality.
Yet critics of Iran's human rights record say the country has taken "every conceivable step" to deter women's equality.
"In the past year, it has arrested and jailed mothers of peaceful civil rights protesters," wrote three prominent democracy and human rights activists in an op-ed published online Tuesday by Foreign Policy Magazine.
"It has charged women who were seeking equality in the social sphere — as wives, daughters and mothers — with threatening national security, subjecting many to hours of harrowing interrogation. Its prison guards have beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted and raped female and male civil rights protesters."
Iran's elevation to the commission comes as a black eye just days after the U.S. helped lead a successful effort to keep Iran off the Human Rights Council, which is already dominated by nations that are judged by human rights advocates as chronic violators of essential freedoms. The current membership of the women's commission is little different.
Though it touts itself as "the principal global policy-making body" on women's rights, the makeup of the commission is mostly determined by geography and its membership is a hodge-podge of some human rights advocates (including the U.S., Japan, and Germany) and other nations with stark histories of rights violations.
The number of seats on the commission is based on the number of countries in a region, no matter how small their populations or how scant their respect for rights. The commission is currently made up of 13 members from Africa, 11 from Asia, nine from Latin America and the Caribbean, eight from Western Europe and North America, and four from Eastern Europe.
During this round of "elections," which were not competitive and in which no real votes were cast, two seats opened up for the Asian bloc for the 2011-2015 period. Only two nations put forward candidates to fill empty spots — Iran and Thailand. As at most such commissions in the U.N., backroom deals determined who would gain new seats at the women's rights body.
The activists' letter sent to the U.N. Tuesday argued that it would be better if the Asian countries proffered only one candidate, instead of elevating Iran to the commission.
"We, a group of gender-equality activists, believe that for the sake of women's rights globally, an empty seat for the Asia group on (the commission) is much preferable to Iran's membership. We are writing to alert you to the highly negative ramifications of Iran’s membership in this international body."
A spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which oversees the commission, did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment.
When its term begins in 2011, Iran will be joined by 10 other countries: Belgium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Estonia, Georgia, Jamaica, Iran, Liberia, the Netherlands, Spain, Thailand and Zimbabwe.
Comment: Does this not speak to the UN´s fall from civility to absurb representation of human rights? Western states shouild cease their participation, the UN has simply become a political tool of those anti-West countries who are moving to destroy our will. CEase your funding now.
FOXNews.com
Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."
NEW YORK — Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest." Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women," according to its website.
Buried 2,000 words deep in a U.N. press release distributed Wednesday on the filling of "vacancies in subsidiary bodies," was the stark announcement: Iran, along with representatives from 10 other nations, was "elected by acclamation," meaning that no open vote was requested or required by any member states — including the United States.
The U.S. currently holds one of the 45 seats on the body, a position set to expire in 2012. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not return requests for comment on whether it actively opposed elevating Iran to the women's commission.
Iran's election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, a statement that created an international uproar — but little affected their bid to become an international arbiter of women's rights.
"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," said the respected cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi.
As word of Iran's intention to join the women's commission came out, a group of Iranian activists circulated a petition to the U.N. asking that member states oppose its election.
"Iran's discriminatory laws demonstrate that the Islamic Republic does not believe in gender equality," reads the letter, signed by 214 activists and endorsed by over a dozen human rights bodies.
The letter draws a dark picture of the status of women in Iran: "women lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women's admission at universities, and are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of such laws."
The Commission on the Status of Women is supposed to conduct review of nations that violate women's rights, issue reports detailing their failings, and monitor their success in improving women's equality.
Yet critics of Iran's human rights record say the country has taken "every conceivable step" to deter women's equality.
"In the past year, it has arrested and jailed mothers of peaceful civil rights protesters," wrote three prominent democracy and human rights activists in an op-ed published online Tuesday by Foreign Policy Magazine.
"It has charged women who were seeking equality in the social sphere — as wives, daughters and mothers — with threatening national security, subjecting many to hours of harrowing interrogation. Its prison guards have beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted and raped female and male civil rights protesters."
Iran's elevation to the commission comes as a black eye just days after the U.S. helped lead a successful effort to keep Iran off the Human Rights Council, which is already dominated by nations that are judged by human rights advocates as chronic violators of essential freedoms. The current membership of the women's commission is little different.
Though it touts itself as "the principal global policy-making body" on women's rights, the makeup of the commission is mostly determined by geography and its membership is a hodge-podge of some human rights advocates (including the U.S., Japan, and Germany) and other nations with stark histories of rights violations.
The number of seats on the commission is based on the number of countries in a region, no matter how small their populations or how scant their respect for rights. The commission is currently made up of 13 members from Africa, 11 from Asia, nine from Latin America and the Caribbean, eight from Western Europe and North America, and four from Eastern Europe.
During this round of "elections," which were not competitive and in which no real votes were cast, two seats opened up for the Asian bloc for the 2011-2015 period. Only two nations put forward candidates to fill empty spots — Iran and Thailand. As at most such commissions in the U.N., backroom deals determined who would gain new seats at the women's rights body.
The activists' letter sent to the U.N. Tuesday argued that it would be better if the Asian countries proffered only one candidate, instead of elevating Iran to the commission.
"We, a group of gender-equality activists, believe that for the sake of women's rights globally, an empty seat for the Asia group on (the commission) is much preferable to Iran's membership. We are writing to alert you to the highly negative ramifications of Iran’s membership in this international body."
A spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which oversees the commission, did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment.
When its term begins in 2011, Iran will be joined by 10 other countries: Belgium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Estonia, Georgia, Jamaica, Iran, Liberia, the Netherlands, Spain, Thailand and Zimbabwe.
Comment: Does this not speak to the UN´s fall from civility to absurb representation of human rights? Western states shouild cease their participation, the UN has simply become a political tool of those anti-West countries who are moving to destroy our will. CEase your funding now.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Obama Administration Escalates Response to Gulf Oil Spill
JARED A. FAVOLE And ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON
WSJ
WASHINGTON—The White House escalated its response Thursday to the growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as administration officials said that the disaster could prompt a rethink of President Barack Obama's recently announced proposal to allow expanded offshore oil and gas drilling.
In an afternoon appearance in the Rose Garden, Mr. Obama promised to use "every single available resource" of government to help with the spill. Federal officials said that the slick is spreading and could make landfall as early as Friday evening. The prospects for slowing the spread of the oil appear dim.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, speaking at a White House briefing, said that the slick "is crossing different regions" and that the federal government would set up a second command center in Mobile, Ala., in addition to an existing command center in Louisiana. The leaking well took 90 days to drill and it could take another 90 days for a relief valve, intended to stop the leak, to be put in, said Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes.
The spill, which could be one of the biggest in U.S. history, threatens to cause significant environmental damage and disruption to business along the Gulf Coast. It also could change the dynamics of an energy-policy debate in the U.S. Capitol.
White House energy czar Carol Browner said the spill will be a factor as the administration evaluates future offshore drilling proposals. Ms. Browner said the spill will become a "point of debate" if Congress discusses climate legislation containing proposals to allow more offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, a plan that has been opposed by environmental groups and some Florida political leaders.
Crude oil released into the Gulf of Mexico after an oil rig explosion last week is now threatening the Louisiana shore. WSJ reporter Angel Gonzalez takes a look at the damage from the air, where oil sheen seems to extend to the horizon.
More
* Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard
* Obama Aides Seek Advice From Oil Executives
* Oil Spill Estimates Raised Fivefold
* Vote: Has the oil spill changed your view on offshore drilling?
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that the future of President Obama's proposal to allow expanded oil drilling could depend on the cause of the spill.
"The president's announcement [allowing expanded drilling] was the beginning not the end of a process. We don't know what caused this. Could that possibility change the president's view point on drilling? Of course," Mr. Gibbs said.
Administration officials said it appears that the well, damaged after a rig hired by BP PLC exploded and sank last week, is leaking 5,000 barrels of oil a day, five times the rate thought earlier this week. But officials said that figure may be revised.
The officials wouldn't detail the exact size of the oil spill but "are prepared for the worst case" scenario, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Sally Brice O'Hare said.
View Full Image
OILSPILL
Associated Press
A worker looks over an oil boom as it collects oil from the leaking Deepwater Horizon pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico.
OILSPILL
OILSPILL
Ms. Napolitano said she will designate the oil spill of "national significance," which will allow the federal government to put more people and material on the effort to stop and clean up the oil leaking from an undersea well.
The Interior Department said it has assembled a "swat team" of inspectors to review safety at offshore drilling rigs across the U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency said separately that it has launched a network of monitor systems to evaluate air quality amid concerns that plans to burn off the oil slick in a controlled process could pollute the air.
Officials emphasized that BP will be legally responsible for the cost of the cleanup, and said the U.S. demands the strongest response possible from the company.
They declined to provide a price estimate for the costs. BP has already said that it is spending $6 million a day to combat the oil spill. It is unclear what the cost, including federal support, will total.
The oil rig, which was owned an operated by Transocean Ltd., went into operation in January, Mr. Hayes said.
He said it is subject to monthly inspection and was last inspected "less than two weeks" before the incident. When asked if he felt the incident shows that inspections don't work, he defended the process by saying, "No, we don't think so."
—Siobhan Hughes and Ian Talley contributed to this article.
My Peace Plan: An Israeli Victory
Daniel Pipes
National Post
April 29, 2010
http://www.meforum.org/pipes/8309/my-peace-plan-an-israeli-victory
This month, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak declared that Israel must withdraw from Palestinian territories. "The world isn't willing to accept — and we won't change that in 2010 — the expectation that Israel will rule another people for decades more," he said. "It's something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world." Is he right? Is peace even possible? And if so, what form should a final agreement take? Those are the questions we asked National Post writers in our series "What's Your Peace Plan?"
Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister.
My peace plan is simple: Israel defeats its enemies.
Victory uniquely creates circumstances conducive to peace. Wars end, the historical record confirms, when one side concedes defeat and the other wins. This makes intuitive sense, for so long as both sides aspire to achieve their ambitions, fighting continues or it potentially can resume.
The goal of victory is not exactly something novel. Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist, advised that in war, "Let your great object be victory." Raimondo Montecuccoli, a seventeenth-century Austrian, said that "The objective in war is victory." Carl von Clausewitz, a nineteenth-century Prussian, added that "War is an act of violence to compel the enemy to fulfill our will." Winston Churchill told the British people: "You ask: what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory - victory - at all costs, victory, in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be." Dwight D. Eisenhower observed that "In war, there is no substitute for victory." These insights from prior eras still hold, for however much weaponry changes, human nature remains the same.
Victory means imposing one's will on the enemy, compelling him to abandon his war goals. Germans, forced to surrender in World War I, retained the goal of dominating Europe and a few years later looked to Hitler to achieve this goal. Signed pieces of paper matter only if one side has cried "Uncle": The Vietnam War ostensibly concluded through diplomacy in 1973 but both sides continued to seek their war aims until the North won ultimate victory in 1975.
Willpower is the key: shooting down planes, destroying tanks, exhausting munitions, making soldiers flee, and seizing land are not decisive in themselves but must be accompanied by a psychological collapse. North Korea's loss in 1953, Saddam Hussein's in 1991, and the Iraqi Sunni loss in 2003 did not translate into despair. Conversely, the French gave up in Algeria in 1962, despite out-manning and out-gunning their foes, as did the Americans in Vietnam in 1975 and the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1989. The Cold War ended without a fatality. In all these cases, the losers maintained large arsenals, armies, and functioning economies. But they ran out of will.
Likewise, the Arab-Israeli conflict will be resolved only when one side gives up.
Until now, through round after round of war, both sides have retained their goals. Israel fights to win acceptance by its enemies, while those enemies fight to eliminate Israel. Those goals are raw, unchanging, and mutually contradictory. Israel's acceptance or elimination are the only states of peace. Each observer must opt for one solution or the other. A civilized person will want Israel to win, for its goal is defensive, to protect an existing and flourishing country. Its enemies' goal of destruction amounts to pure barbarism.
For nearly 60 years, Arab rejectionists, now joined by Iranian and leftist counterparts, have tried to eliminate Israel through multiple strategies: they work to undermine its legitimacy intellectually, overwhelm it demographically, isolate it economically, restrain its defenses diplomatically, fight it conventionally, demoralize it with terror, and threaten to destroy it with WMDs. While the enemies of Israel have pursued their goals with energy and will, they have met few successes.
Ironically, Israelis over time responded to the incessant assault on their country by losing sight of the need to win. The right developed schemes to finesse victory, the center experimented with appeasement and unilateralism, and the left wallowed in guilt and self-recrimination. Exceedingly few Israelis understand the unfinished business of victory, of crushing the enemy's will and getting him to accept the permanence of the Jewish state.
Fortunately for Israel, it need only defeat the Palestinians, and not the entire Arab or Muslim population, which eventually will follow the Palestinian lead in accepting Israel. Fortunately too, although the Palestinians have built an awesome reputation for endurance, they can be beaten. If the Germans and Japanese could be forced to give up in 1945 and the Americans in 1975, how can Palestinians be exempt from defeat?
The United Nations Security Council, one factor extending the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Of course, Israel faces obstacles in achieving victory. The country is hemmed in generally by international expectations (from the United Nations Security Council, for example) and specifically by the policies of its main ally, the U.S. government. Therefore, if Jerusalem is to win, that starts with a change in policy in the United States and in other Western countries. Those governments should urge Israel to seek victory by convincing the Palestinians that they have lost.
This means undoing the perceptions of Israel's weakness that grew during the Oslo process (1993-2000) and then the twin withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza (2000-05). Jerusalem appeared back on track during Ariel Sharon's first three years as prime minister, 2001-03 and his tough stance then marked real progress in Israel's war effort. Only when it became clear in late 2004 that Sharon really did plan to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza did the Palestinian mood revive and Israel stopped winning. Ehud Olmert's debilitating prime ministry has been only partially remedied by Binyamin Netanyahu over the past year.
Ironically, an Israeli victory would bring yet greater benefits to the Palestinians than to Israel. Israelis would benefit by being rid of an atavistic war, to be sure, but their country is a functioning, modern society. For Palestinians, in contrast, abandoning the fetid irredentist dream of eliminating their neighbor would finally offer them a chance to tend their own misbegotten garden, to develop their deeply deficient polity, economy, society, and culture.
Thus does my peace plan both end the war and bring unique benefits to all directly involved.
Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
National Post
April 29, 2010
http://www.meforum.org/pipes/8309/my-peace-plan-an-israeli-victory
This month, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak declared that Israel must withdraw from Palestinian territories. "The world isn't willing to accept — and we won't change that in 2010 — the expectation that Israel will rule another people for decades more," he said. "It's something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world." Is he right? Is peace even possible? And if so, what form should a final agreement take? Those are the questions we asked National Post writers in our series "What's Your Peace Plan?"
Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister.
My peace plan is simple: Israel defeats its enemies.
Victory uniquely creates circumstances conducive to peace. Wars end, the historical record confirms, when one side concedes defeat and the other wins. This makes intuitive sense, for so long as both sides aspire to achieve their ambitions, fighting continues or it potentially can resume.
The goal of victory is not exactly something novel. Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist, advised that in war, "Let your great object be victory." Raimondo Montecuccoli, a seventeenth-century Austrian, said that "The objective in war is victory." Carl von Clausewitz, a nineteenth-century Prussian, added that "War is an act of violence to compel the enemy to fulfill our will." Winston Churchill told the British people: "You ask: what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory - victory - at all costs, victory, in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be." Dwight D. Eisenhower observed that "In war, there is no substitute for victory." These insights from prior eras still hold, for however much weaponry changes, human nature remains the same.
Victory means imposing one's will on the enemy, compelling him to abandon his war goals. Germans, forced to surrender in World War I, retained the goal of dominating Europe and a few years later looked to Hitler to achieve this goal. Signed pieces of paper matter only if one side has cried "Uncle": The Vietnam War ostensibly concluded through diplomacy in 1973 but both sides continued to seek their war aims until the North won ultimate victory in 1975.
Willpower is the key: shooting down planes, destroying tanks, exhausting munitions, making soldiers flee, and seizing land are not decisive in themselves but must be accompanied by a psychological collapse. North Korea's loss in 1953, Saddam Hussein's in 1991, and the Iraqi Sunni loss in 2003 did not translate into despair. Conversely, the French gave up in Algeria in 1962, despite out-manning and out-gunning their foes, as did the Americans in Vietnam in 1975 and the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1989. The Cold War ended without a fatality. In all these cases, the losers maintained large arsenals, armies, and functioning economies. But they ran out of will.
Likewise, the Arab-Israeli conflict will be resolved only when one side gives up.
Until now, through round after round of war, both sides have retained their goals. Israel fights to win acceptance by its enemies, while those enemies fight to eliminate Israel. Those goals are raw, unchanging, and mutually contradictory. Israel's acceptance or elimination are the only states of peace. Each observer must opt for one solution or the other. A civilized person will want Israel to win, for its goal is defensive, to protect an existing and flourishing country. Its enemies' goal of destruction amounts to pure barbarism.
For nearly 60 years, Arab rejectionists, now joined by Iranian and leftist counterparts, have tried to eliminate Israel through multiple strategies: they work to undermine its legitimacy intellectually, overwhelm it demographically, isolate it economically, restrain its defenses diplomatically, fight it conventionally, demoralize it with terror, and threaten to destroy it with WMDs. While the enemies of Israel have pursued their goals with energy and will, they have met few successes.
Ironically, Israelis over time responded to the incessant assault on their country by losing sight of the need to win. The right developed schemes to finesse victory, the center experimented with appeasement and unilateralism, and the left wallowed in guilt and self-recrimination. Exceedingly few Israelis understand the unfinished business of victory, of crushing the enemy's will and getting him to accept the permanence of the Jewish state.
Fortunately for Israel, it need only defeat the Palestinians, and not the entire Arab or Muslim population, which eventually will follow the Palestinian lead in accepting Israel. Fortunately too, although the Palestinians have built an awesome reputation for endurance, they can be beaten. If the Germans and Japanese could be forced to give up in 1945 and the Americans in 1975, how can Palestinians be exempt from defeat?
The United Nations Security Council, one factor extending the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Of course, Israel faces obstacles in achieving victory. The country is hemmed in generally by international expectations (from the United Nations Security Council, for example) and specifically by the policies of its main ally, the U.S. government. Therefore, if Jerusalem is to win, that starts with a change in policy in the United States and in other Western countries. Those governments should urge Israel to seek victory by convincing the Palestinians that they have lost.
This means undoing the perceptions of Israel's weakness that grew during the Oslo process (1993-2000) and then the twin withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza (2000-05). Jerusalem appeared back on track during Ariel Sharon's first three years as prime minister, 2001-03 and his tough stance then marked real progress in Israel's war effort. Only when it became clear in late 2004 that Sharon really did plan to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza did the Palestinian mood revive and Israel stopped winning. Ehud Olmert's debilitating prime ministry has been only partially remedied by Binyamin Netanyahu over the past year.
Ironically, an Israeli victory would bring yet greater benefits to the Palestinians than to Israel. Israelis would benefit by being rid of an atavistic war, to be sure, but their country is a functioning, modern society. For Palestinians, in contrast, abandoning the fetid irredentist dream of eliminating their neighbor would finally offer them a chance to tend their own misbegotten garden, to develop their deeply deficient polity, economy, society, and culture.
Thus does my peace plan both end the war and bring unique benefits to all directly involved.
Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
Gen. Casey Strikes Out
G. Murphy Donovan
Where did Gen. Casey get the notion that diversity is more important than national security or the safety of the troops?
As Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) threaten to subpoena the Justice Department and the Department of Defense for information on a domestic terrorist, we might want to review the bidding on Maj. Hasan and the brass at the Pentagon to date Army Gen. George Casey set a new standard for flag officer pandering while making excuses for domestic terror on the Sunday talk circuit last November. On three separate networks, Casey seemed to be more concerned with “diversity” than troop safety. Casey, you may recall, was the field commander in Iraq who, like William Westmoreland before him, was kicked upstairs, in the middle of a war, to be Army Chief of Staff. On that Sunday, Casey was seconded by the White House when the administration cautioned “against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.” So let’s look at those “facts” about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan before we jump.
Hasan is an American citizen of Palestinian descent. He received all of his higher education at taxpayer expense in exchange for a limited tour of duty with the U.S. Army. He is now a middle-aged field grade officer, a doctor, and psychiatrist. He spent most of his military career at the notorious Walter Reed Medical Center, in Washington, D.C., counseling combat veterans. He likes to argue with patients, proselytize them, and passes out copies of the Koran. Off duty, he is fond of donning Islamic garb and patronizing a radical mosque five miles from the capital. He is an outspoken critic of the “war on terror” which he preferred to call the war on Islam – contradicting his commander-in-chief. He is known to have publicly asserted that his first loyalty was to Islam, not America. He, or his namesake, posted defenses of suicide bombers on radical Islamic web sites. He attempted and possibly contacted an iman, a jihad recruiter, linked to al Qaeda. His automobile sported a bumper sticker “Allah is Love!” His bizarre behavior was reported to his superiors to no avail. Other colleagues say they kept silent out of fears that any criticism of Hasan would violate unwritten Army rules of political correctness.
Army brass “kicked the can” and transferred Hasan to Fort Hood, Texas where he received orders for his first overseas deployment. In protest, he claimed that he could not kill other Muslims; yet, he apparently had no problem murdering kaffirs (unbelievers). On November 5th,he shot and killed 13 unarmed fellow soldiers, including a pregnant mother, and wounded 31 – shouting “Allahu Akbar” in Arabic (God is great) as the massacre progressed.
Consider those facts; but let’s not jump to any conclusions. While you’re at it, consider the litany of false narratives that have followed yet another mass killing in the name of “Allah.” First was the characterization of Hasan as a victim; a victim of trash talk and having his automobile keyed, surely a racist slur. Then there was the post traumatic stress defense (PTSD). When it was revealed that Hasan had never been deployed anywhere near combat; apologists suggested he was stressed by the stress of his patients, stress by association if you will. And then the “lone wolf” defense appeared where solo actors apparently have immunity from being characterized as terrorists.
Consider also the facts in the unclassified Global Terrorism Database (GTD) maintained under federal contract at the University of Maryland which now contains the gory details of over 80,000 terrorist “incidents;” yes that number is 80,000 worldwide since 1970. Also consider the unclassified data base maintained by U.S. State Department, Country Reports on Terrorism, which tracks annual casualty figures from terror. Those casualties have grown by a factor of 15 since tracking began. In 2008 alone nearly 60,000 were kidnapped, killed, or injured worldwide.
And before we jump to any conclusions, we, like Sens. Lieberman and Collins, need the answers to some questions. How did Casey get to be a general? Where did he get the notion that diversity is more important than national security or the safety of the troops? How did Nadal Malik Hasan get a commission in the U.S. Army? Who thought he should be promoted to a field grade? How does the Army get to play “kick the can” or “pass the buck” with dangerous incompetents? And finally, how much longer do we ignore what Islamists and terrorists so obviously have in common?
Consider all of this before you come to any conclusions. And then add the Fort Hood slaughter to the data bases, those reservoirs of facts we are so keen to keep – and ignore. And then make the number of atrocities we are willing to tolerate, or excuse, eighty thousand and one.
Gen. George Casey repeated a mantra as he made the rounds last November; “If our diversity becomes a casualty (of the Fort Hood massacre) then that’s worse.” Worse than what, General? We want to know what in the warped world of political correctness is worse than putting a bullet through an innocent pregnant girl and 43 of her innocent fellow soldiers.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor G. Murphy Donovan is a former Intelligence officer, former senior research fellow at RAND Corp, and former Director Research and Russian Studies, ACS/I, HQ USAF. His work has appeared in numerous strategic and Intelligence journals. He frequently writes about journalistic agnotology at Jenkins Hill on Blogspot. He is a veteran with 25 years of military service.
COP: The Climategate Investigation
Dexter Wright
Last month, while the American media were distracted by the health care vote in Congress, the British Parliament published the results of its investigation into East Anglia University's Climate Research Unit (CRU) that has been at the center of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) controversy. It seems that many were hoping that no one would read this report, at least not beyond the milquetoast executive summary. Buried deep within the report is a compelling piece of evidence. In volume two, there is a memorandum submitted as evidence from Lord Lawson of Blaby, chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which was in response to four very significant questions from the investigating committee. This memo confirms the claims by many global warming skeptics that the scientists at CRU were trying to hide data and silence the skeptics. The questions asked by the investigative committee are as follows:
(i) Have the CRU scientists been manipulating the raw surface temperature data in a way that is less than wholly objective and dispassionate?
(ii) Have they refused dissenting scientists and/or other outsiders with a bona fide interest in global warming access to the raw data, contrary to the proper canons of scientific research and to the demands of scientific integrity?
(iii) Have they been improperly seeking to avoid answering Freedom of information Act requests?
(iv) Have they actively sought to prevent papers by dissenting scientists, statisticians, or other informed commentators from being peer-reviewed and/or published, again contrary to the proper canons of scientific research and to the demands of scientific integrity?
Lord Lawson's response to these questions is damning:
We believe that there is compelling evidence both independent of the leaked email exchanges and arising from those emails to suggest that the answers to (ii), (iii) and (iv) above are clearly 'yes'.
However, Lord Lawson chooses his words more carefully in answering the smoking-gun question at the top of the list:
Moreover, we are disturbed by the CRU scientists' treatment of the so-called divergence problem. That is the fact that, for that period of time where both a proxy global temperature series and a recorded global temperature series are available, the two series markedly diverge. This clearly suggests either that the proxy series is unreliable or that the recorded series is unreliable (or possibly both: the point is that they cannot both be true). The CRU scientists' attempt to hide the problem by concealing the divergence demonstrates, we believe, a lack of integrity.
Integrity is at the very heart of the AGW debate -- not just the integrity of the discredited scientists involved, but also the integrity of the data used by the CRU. For many years, the global warming skeptics have been citing that the differing data sets are not in agreement and have asked the simple question "why?" Their assertion has always been that until a scientific explanation for the differences is found, there can be no definitive conclusion concerning AGW. This question was always avoided by the now-discredited Dr. Jones, who headed up the CRU. But finally, some light has been shed onto the question of integrity of the data. In this same memo, Lord Lawson clarifies some of the confusion concerning the differing data sets:
[T]here are, in fact, four (not two) other international data sets, all based in the United States. Two of them - NASA and NOAA - are neither wholly independent of each other (unsurprisingly, since they are both US Government agencies) nor wholly independent of the CRU set, as indeed some of the leaked emails indicates. The third, and fourth, which -- unlike CRU, NASA and NOAA - use not surface weather stations but satellite observations, are compiled by the University of Alabama at Hunstville (UAH) and Remote Sensing Systems (RSS). They are entirely independent of the CRU. They use the same satellite data as each other but different methodology and produce similar results to each other, which differ from those of the CRU.
It seems that the only reliable data sets are satellite-derived data. However, those data were not used in the Nobel Prize-winning U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). So the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to a report which was compiled by discredited scientists using discredited data. Does this discredit the Nobel Committee?
In recent years, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has made an error by awarding a medal to an athlete who was found to have cheated, the IOC demands that the medal be returned. This is to assure that the integrity of the games is not tarnished.
Such an action has never been demanded of the Nobel Committee. When it was ruled by the Supreme Court that Nikola Tesla, not Guglielmo Marconi, had invented the radio, Marconi was not asked to return the Nobel Prize for physics. It is unlikely that the Nobel Committee will recall the Peace Prize from the IPCC. It is also just as unlikely that the integrity of the Nobel Committee can be restored.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_climategate_investigation.html at April 29, 2010 - 10:26:46 AM CDT
Last month, while the American media were distracted by the health care vote in Congress, the British Parliament published the results of its investigation into East Anglia University's Climate Research Unit (CRU) that has been at the center of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) controversy. It seems that many were hoping that no one would read this report, at least not beyond the milquetoast executive summary. Buried deep within the report is a compelling piece of evidence. In volume two, there is a memorandum submitted as evidence from Lord Lawson of Blaby, chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which was in response to four very significant questions from the investigating committee. This memo confirms the claims by many global warming skeptics that the scientists at CRU were trying to hide data and silence the skeptics. The questions asked by the investigative committee are as follows:
(i) Have the CRU scientists been manipulating the raw surface temperature data in a way that is less than wholly objective and dispassionate?
(ii) Have they refused dissenting scientists and/or other outsiders with a bona fide interest in global warming access to the raw data, contrary to the proper canons of scientific research and to the demands of scientific integrity?
(iii) Have they been improperly seeking to avoid answering Freedom of information Act requests?
(iv) Have they actively sought to prevent papers by dissenting scientists, statisticians, or other informed commentators from being peer-reviewed and/or published, again contrary to the proper canons of scientific research and to the demands of scientific integrity?
Lord Lawson's response to these questions is damning:
We believe that there is compelling evidence both independent of the leaked email exchanges and arising from those emails to suggest that the answers to (ii), (iii) and (iv) above are clearly 'yes'.
However, Lord Lawson chooses his words more carefully in answering the smoking-gun question at the top of the list:
Moreover, we are disturbed by the CRU scientists' treatment of the so-called divergence problem. That is the fact that, for that period of time where both a proxy global temperature series and a recorded global temperature series are available, the two series markedly diverge. This clearly suggests either that the proxy series is unreliable or that the recorded series is unreliable (or possibly both: the point is that they cannot both be true). The CRU scientists' attempt to hide the problem by concealing the divergence demonstrates, we believe, a lack of integrity.
Integrity is at the very heart of the AGW debate -- not just the integrity of the discredited scientists involved, but also the integrity of the data used by the CRU. For many years, the global warming skeptics have been citing that the differing data sets are not in agreement and have asked the simple question "why?" Their assertion has always been that until a scientific explanation for the differences is found, there can be no definitive conclusion concerning AGW. This question was always avoided by the now-discredited Dr. Jones, who headed up the CRU. But finally, some light has been shed onto the question of integrity of the data. In this same memo, Lord Lawson clarifies some of the confusion concerning the differing data sets:
[T]here are, in fact, four (not two) other international data sets, all based in the United States. Two of them - NASA and NOAA - are neither wholly independent of each other (unsurprisingly, since they are both US Government agencies) nor wholly independent of the CRU set, as indeed some of the leaked emails indicates. The third, and fourth, which -- unlike CRU, NASA and NOAA - use not surface weather stations but satellite observations, are compiled by the University of Alabama at Hunstville (UAH) and Remote Sensing Systems (RSS). They are entirely independent of the CRU. They use the same satellite data as each other but different methodology and produce similar results to each other, which differ from those of the CRU.
It seems that the only reliable data sets are satellite-derived data. However, those data were not used in the Nobel Prize-winning U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). So the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to a report which was compiled by discredited scientists using discredited data. Does this discredit the Nobel Committee?
In recent years, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has made an error by awarding a medal to an athlete who was found to have cheated, the IOC demands that the medal be returned. This is to assure that the integrity of the games is not tarnished.
Such an action has never been demanded of the Nobel Committee. When it was ruled by the Supreme Court that Nikola Tesla, not Guglielmo Marconi, had invented the radio, Marconi was not asked to return the Nobel Prize for physics. It is unlikely that the Nobel Committee will recall the Peace Prize from the IPCC. It is also just as unlikely that the integrity of the Nobel Committee can be restored.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_climategate_investigation.html at April 29, 2010 - 10:26:46 AM CDT
The Ahmadinejad Victory Tour
Hewritage Foundation
Yesterday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had submitted an application for a visa to attend the United Nations nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty conference in New York next month. Since Crowley also confirmed that Ahmadinejad is likely to be awarded the visa, the Iranian President can now look forward to witnessing first hand the failure of President Barack Obama's Iran policy.
At first the White House believed that President Barack Obama's sheer power of personality and persuasion would be enough to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear program. So the President gave a conciliatory speech in Cairo, sent a direct message to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and opened up direct talks with the Iranian regime. The results have been crystal clear: the Iranian regime has only accelerated its nuclear program, accelerated its ballistic missile program, and further crushed internal dissent, all while the Obama administration remained silent as the Green Revolution was brutally crushed.
Now the Obama administration is seeking "crippling" sanctions on Iran through the U.N. Security Council. This is another Obama fantasy that plays right into Iran's "cheat, retreat, and delay" nuclear strategy. Whatever goodwill the Obama administration hoped to get from Russia by caving into their New START demands has not paid off. With help from Turkey, China and now Egypt, Iran's rope-a-dope U.N. diplomacy will render any U.N. sanctions regime completely toothless.
All these Ahmadinejad victories over President Obama would not be so alarming if the Obama administration were not actively undermining our nation's ability to deter and defend against Iranian nuclear attack. First there was President Obama's decision to cancel missile defense installations in Eastern Europe. The Obama administration claimed that their alternative system, called the Phased Adaptive Approach, could defend U.S. allies by 2020. But a recent Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report warns Iran may be able to reach the United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by 2015. This means President Obama has created a new "window of vulnerability" for our enemies to exploit.
And then there is President Obama's New START agreement which limits U.S. conventional, nuclear and missile defense options. Former director of the Missile Defense Agency, Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, noted in The Washington Times this week: "Strangely, New START may actually rest on what Russia permits the United States to do to defend Americans and our allies from such a missile attack. This equation is both bizarre and unsafe."
"Bizarre and unsafe" is a generous assessment of the Obama administration's efforts to protect America from Iran's nuclear ambitions so far. The Obama administration must change course. The United States should impose and enforce the strongest possible sanctions, even if doing so requires action outside of the U.N. framework, and step up public diplomacy efforts to discredit the regime’s legitimacy and offer support to opposition groups, such as the Green Movement. Most importantly the Obama administration must make the commitment to create and sustain a layered missile defense system, designed to counter every range of Iranian missiles in all stages of flight, including those that threaten the territory of the United States and its allies. This would include scrapping New START, returning missile defense installations to Eastern Europe and fully funding missile defense. For more, see 33 Minutes.
Yesterday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had submitted an application for a visa to attend the United Nations nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty conference in New York next month. Since Crowley also confirmed that Ahmadinejad is likely to be awarded the visa, the Iranian President can now look forward to witnessing first hand the failure of President Barack Obama's Iran policy.
At first the White House believed that President Barack Obama's sheer power of personality and persuasion would be enough to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear program. So the President gave a conciliatory speech in Cairo, sent a direct message to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and opened up direct talks with the Iranian regime. The results have been crystal clear: the Iranian regime has only accelerated its nuclear program, accelerated its ballistic missile program, and further crushed internal dissent, all while the Obama administration remained silent as the Green Revolution was brutally crushed.
Now the Obama administration is seeking "crippling" sanctions on Iran through the U.N. Security Council. This is another Obama fantasy that plays right into Iran's "cheat, retreat, and delay" nuclear strategy. Whatever goodwill the Obama administration hoped to get from Russia by caving into their New START demands has not paid off. With help from Turkey, China and now Egypt, Iran's rope-a-dope U.N. diplomacy will render any U.N. sanctions regime completely toothless.
All these Ahmadinejad victories over President Obama would not be so alarming if the Obama administration were not actively undermining our nation's ability to deter and defend against Iranian nuclear attack. First there was President Obama's decision to cancel missile defense installations in Eastern Europe. The Obama administration claimed that their alternative system, called the Phased Adaptive Approach, could defend U.S. allies by 2020. But a recent Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report warns Iran may be able to reach the United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by 2015. This means President Obama has created a new "window of vulnerability" for our enemies to exploit.
And then there is President Obama's New START agreement which limits U.S. conventional, nuclear and missile defense options. Former director of the Missile Defense Agency, Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, noted in The Washington Times this week: "Strangely, New START may actually rest on what Russia permits the United States to do to defend Americans and our allies from such a missile attack. This equation is both bizarre and unsafe."
"Bizarre and unsafe" is a generous assessment of the Obama administration's efforts to protect America from Iran's nuclear ambitions so far. The Obama administration must change course. The United States should impose and enforce the strongest possible sanctions, even if doing so requires action outside of the U.N. framework, and step up public diplomacy efforts to discredit the regime’s legitimacy and offer support to opposition groups, such as the Green Movement. Most importantly the Obama administration must make the commitment to create and sustain a layered missile defense system, designed to counter every range of Iranian missiles in all stages of flight, including those that threaten the territory of the United States and its allies. This would include scrapping New START, returning missile defense installations to Eastern Europe and fully funding missile defense. For more, see 33 Minutes.
The Opening Round on Immigration
Sultan Knish
When Arizona passed a law enforcing a Federal statute, Liberals across America reacted with their usual calm and rational approach of invoking the Nazis, boycotting anything with Arizona in its name including products that are not actually made in Arizona, and threatening a barrage of civil suits and protests to counter a law that the majority of Arizonians and Americans support. The irony is that only a few weeks after the media was busy warning us ominously about all the hate and extremist anti-government rhetoric in the Tea Party movement, it has done a Full 180 and is now itself indulging in hateful anti-government rhetoric. Soon enough the very same reporters who spoke out on the dangers of people protesting on behalf of their Constitutional rights, will be speaking out on how wonderful it is to have illegal aliens protesting for their rights in major cities.
The objections to the bill aren't about fairness toward individuals. After all this Congress and this Administration just passed a law compelling everyone to buy health insurance on the suspicion that one of them might get into an accident and cost the government money. At least that was the rationalization that Obama himself used in an interview. But the liberal hypocrisy on preventative policing allows them to call for preventative policing of factories because they might possibly pollute, opposition protests because they might possibly get out of hand and individuals because they might possibly not pay for their own health care-- while vocally opposing preventative policing in Arizona. Because it's fair to fine law abiding citizens hundreds of dollars for just breathing, but it's unfair for police to enforce an existing law.
This isn't about Federalism either. Liberals have cheered on states and sanctuary cities that refused to cooperate with immigration authorities. Because just like anti-government rhetoric, state governments defying the Federal authorities is one of those things that's right when it's progressive and wrong when it's conservative. But while that sort of ideological moral compass whose needle always points left may be fine for those already on the left, most Americans aren't buying it. And that is because they don't see illegal immigration as a political issue, but as a problem that needs solving.
Where Democrats and some Republicans see a potential voting base, most Americans just see an unregulated workforce in a time of high unemployment and a drain on social services. And they see most politicians being more eager to cover their asses than to do something about. Which is why they support the Governor of Arizona, and not the little man with the big ears in the White House. While the latter has leveraged his power to create a nanny state, the former actually took steps to solve what most residents consider to be a problem.
The current immigration mess is a volatile situation that liberals created for their own benefit, and are outraged at the thought that their agenda might be thwarted. The Democratic party's "gut liberal" reaction was as usual a mistake. And no amount of MSNBC goosestepping rhetoric will change that. The "gut liberal" reaction plays really well in 1 percent of the country and falls flat everywhere else. And Obama's aggressive push against Arizona will just serve to remind voters again that his centrism was an election day glaze covering up a hard left center.
Arizona's action not only cuts off the Obama Administration at the pass for its Amnesty plans, but takes the populist position at a time when Democratic politicians are already terrified of the upcoming midterm elections. Obama and Congress thought that they could decide when to launch their amnesty campaign at their own leisure. But now their hand has been forced, and the polls are stacked against them. Naturally they will retaliate in the usual community organizer way, through the press, through political intimidation, and through their own rights organizations which will "monitor the situation" searching for an incident they can exploit. But it is now an uphill battle.
And Arizona's actions have wider implications beyond immigration. Under Barack Hussein Obama, the government has badly neglected its core functions of protecting Americans from external threats, in favor of its round of socialist charades. Now Washington D.C. has been put on notice that the states will act, even if Washington D.C. does not. And in the Federal government will not enforce the law, there are state governments that will. Immigration is not the end of it. The War on Terror remains an obvious area where the government has neglected its responsibilities in order to curry favor with Islam. And the next time an Islamic terrorist kills civilians in a more independent minded state, its residents may also decide that serious enforcement is needed.
The fundamental gap between the worldview of the left, in which government manages the lives of the people under its authority, and that of ordinary Americans, in which government protects the people against overriding external threats, has opened up in Arizona. But not just in Arizona. Because with the left in the driver's seat in D.C., there is no one to look out for American interests either globally or locally. To the left, a Mexican illegal alien is no different than a US citizen, because they don't recognize nations as valid entities. And for all that Obama wraps himself in the flag when convenient, over the last year his actions have begun to speak louder than words.
Obama not only does not believe in American Exceptionalism, though he summons that too in his speeches when convenient, but he does not see himself as an American leader, only as the head of an authority that governs the people in his jurisdiction, regardless of legal status. America to him is just Chicago writ large. And that's the way he governs. His national politics are no different than his local politics. Just louder and with a bigger impact, and more money to take in and spread around. Washington D.C. is nothing but the new base of his political machine. And like his colleagues on the left, he sees what is going on in Arizona in terms of class and racial warfare, a mindset that leaves him unable to sympathize with the valid concerns of the people of Arizona.
To the current regime, there are no Americans... only people who happen to live in America. Warm bodies who are capable of providing resources for the government, and consuming resources to be repaid with loyalty. The populations of countries are to them like game pieces on a Risk board, objects on a map to be moved around in order to claim voting districts. And so the Democrats have been moving Third World immigrants into America, for the same reasons that Labor moved Muslim immigrants into Europe. Power. Political power. That is what it comes down to in the end.
The Democrats' tone deafness on immigration originates from the extent to which they have tied their own political fortunes to the demographic transformation of America. And to their disconnection from the idea of America as anything but a logo and a flag, more akin to a sports team than anything of substance. They don't see why anyone would object to pieces being moved around the board, after all it's just pieces, which means in their minds the only objection has to be to their color. Because when you engage in class and racial warfare, you assume that everyone else is too, and that you are only acting in self-defense. And thus follow the accusations of Nazism, Fascism and Racism. When in fact the majority of Latinos in Arizona support the law, precisely because they have the most to lose from the collapse of social services and the export of Mexico's Cartel Culture into the United States.
Not that the Republicans don't own their fair share of the blame. The Republican party has taken too much money from the US Chamber of Commerce (which is rather liberal on immigration) and numerous corporations that directly or indirectly profit from illegal aliens to ever do more than talk tough about it. Add on a few Republican politicians afraid of losing their limited portion of the Latino vote by opening themselves up to liberal accusations of racism, and other Republicans politicians who shamelessly "farm" the illegal immigration issue, but have absolutely no interest in seeing anything done about it-- and there's plenty of reasons for the GOP's general inaction.
And so all too we often we have Republican Presidents and Senators who push a softer line. We have Republican congressmen who say the right things, but know that too many of their donors are running plants filled with illegals, and that either enforcement or amnesty would hurt them badly. (And what's more the Democrats know it too, which is what gives them their boldness on an issue that in theory should be an easy populist home run for the GOP.) Finally of course there are the firebrand Republican politicians who seem all fired up about illegal immigration, and are willing to campaign on the issue, but run the other way when an actual measure is passed that might make a dent in the situation. And that's because they want to exploit the problem, not solve it.
But the current economic crisis and its accompanying unemployment have mobilized public hostility to any idea of legalization, and strengthened a push for enforcement. Arizona is moving with the public sentiment, the Democrats are swimming against it, because they've once again forgotten about the same economic crisis that they exploited to leverage themselves into power. The Republican party right now is being powered by populism, because its leading figures have no ideas, just conferences, those of them that aren't jockeying for a 2012 run. And the smart populist money says enforcement.
This is still only the opening round on immigration. Arizona has forced Obama's hand. The Democrats hope to find a silver lining by exploiting the issue in order to bring out Latino and minority voters out of a generally moribund midterm election turnout. But they might not be counting on how many other voters they will bring out as well. It's doubtful that even the Democrats think they have a winning hand on the issue, but they're also depending on changing the demographics of the electorate in order to play the long game. And just as with health care, they might be prepared to accept short term defeat in 2010 and even in 2012, in order to achieve long term political gains. Because they're counting on a Republican party too timid to reverse their policies once it's in power. And nationally they may be right. Which is why it be up to the states to do the right thing, after all.
Why Israeli-Arabs Don’t Want to Live in a PA State
Hillel Fendel
A7 News
Accounts of a two-week-long arrest under cruel conditions and humiliating tax collection practices are indications of the “quality of life” in the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has issued a condemnation of two recent major human-rights abuses in the Palestinian Authority. One, a relatively minor incident, involved the sudden arrest and interrogation of a writer named Walid Ibrahim al-Hodali, 50, in Ramallah; he was interrogated about his political affiliations for an hour, but his computer was confiscated and not returned.
The second case involved the arrest of journalist Muhannad Salahat, a resident of both Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, on charges that were never explained to him. The representative of the Palestinian Society for Human Rights (RASED) in Jordan, Salahat said afterwards that his interrogators concentrated on a newspaper report he had prepared in 2007 "on the state of lawlessness and chaos in the West Bank and also Gaza following the Hamas takeover." He also said he was abused for criticizing the PA.
The conditions of his detention included, at various times, interrogations until the early morning hours, threats and insults, and not being allowed to wash or go to the bathroom, as well as no contact at all with a lawyer or family members. He was abruptly released after two weeks, only to find that information had been disseminated to the effect that his arrest was not of a political nature, but rather on criminal charges. Three days after his release, his computer was returned to him, with much information deleted, and he was prevented from traveling to Jordan.
PFLP: Hamas is Too Harsh
At the same time, in a separate incident, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), long notorious for its decades of terrorism and murder in its bid to achieve Arab independence in Israel – now complains that the Hamas government is too strict, levies unfairly high taxes, and acts in "baseless and humiliating ways."
Specifically, the PA’s Ma'an news agency reports that the PFLP condemns the Hamas-Gaza government’s harsh collection of unfair taxes. It accuses the Hamas government of seizing the homes and apartments of those living abroad and giving them to Hamas security officers.
The PFLP also said that despite all the hardships caused by the war of last winter – which Hamas often cites as a “humanitarian crisis” caused by Israel - falafel vendors and taxi drivers are being overcharged to keep their businesses running, and a new 60% tax on cigarettes has been imposed.
In addition, civilians are interrogated in "baseless and humiliating ways" regarding their incomes and taxes, and “strange taxes" have been imposed on the scales in vegetable and meat shops.
Majority of Israeli-Arabs Prefer Israel
A December 2007 survey showed that a majority (62%) of Arab citizens of Israel would prefer to remain Israeli citizens rather than become citizens of a future Palestinian state. Similarly, a poll conducted by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in June 2008 found that 77% of Israeli-Arabs would rather remain in their native land as Israeli citizens than in any other country in the world. (IsraelNationalNews.com)
Islamic Influence in U.S. Prisons
Hillel Fendel
A7 News
Douglas J.Hagmann, Director of the Northeast Intelligence Network, has written of “extensive” Islamic infiltration into American prison systems. Excerpts from his most recent article on the topic: “Most recent statistics available show that one out of three African-American inmates in U.S. prisons convert to Islam while incarcerated.The type of Islam to which they convert teaches the same ideology as the 9/11 hijackers, which is the ‘Wahhabi’ or ‘Salafi’ form of Islam that originated in and is continually being exported from Saudi Arabia… [T]he ideology behind this ‘fundamentalist’ form of Islam is completely incompatible with the culture, politics, and social fabric of the West. Nonetheless, it is being embraced by numerous groups, agencies and individuals inside the United States.
“The high rate of conversion of inmates to Islam, and specifically the Wahhabi brand of Islam is no accident. The lack of oversight of teaching materials brought in to prisons to facilitate their conversion is no accident. The influx of Wahhabi chaplains into our prison system and military is no accident. The entire process is by design, and consists of a sophisticated combination of personnel placement, funding, and an active support structure of numerous interrelated entities and individuals.
“The indoctrination of American inmates is a well known strategy detailed in al Qaeda training manuals. The manuals state that non-Muslim prisoners should be eyed for conversion to ‘religious jihad’ as they are likely to be ‘disenchanted with their country’s policies’ and feel disenfranchised from society. They also can make perfect operational assets for Islamic terrorist groups because of their ability to more easily blend into American society.”
In 2003, when Muslims comprised well under 1% of the American population, it was estimated that 17-20% of the prison population was Muslim. An oft-quoted statistic states that 80% of the prisoners who "find faith" in prison convert to Islam.
This month, this phenomenon led to violence. A man who converted to Islam in a U.S. prison before he was freed has confessed to killing his wife and three others in Chicago because she refused to wear Muslim garb and adopt his new-found faith.
The confessed murderer is James A. Larry, 31, who confessed to the crime and expressed no remorse. During his most recent prison term, between 2002 and 2007, he began receiving visits by imams through the Islamic prison outreach program. “He became increasingly radicalized with orthodox Islamic beliefs," a detective on the case said, "ultimately demanding compliance to fundamentalist Islam by his wife and family. He [allegedly] killed his wife because she would not wear Muslim attire, and would not follow his beliefs. It was an honor killing, pure and simple…”
In addition to shooting his 19-year-old pregnant wife to death, Larry also stands accused of murdering three other relatives, all aged 16 and under, as well as injuring his mother and nephew and shooting at his niece.
"Prisons are Recruiting Grounds for Islamic Fundamentalism"
“This didn’t have to happen,” the detective said. “But it did, and it will probably happen again in another community, to another family. The reason it happened here and the reason it will happen again is that we’ve allowed our prisons to become recruiting grounds for Islamic fundamentalism that teaches this twisted [expletive deleted]. And our system has become too lenient, too ‘PC,’ and too afraid to confront this problem, so now we have nearly an entire family murdered by a guy quoting Allah and the Qur’an.”
In a 2004 report, the Justice Department faulted the prison system for failing to protect against “infiltration by [Muslim] extremists.
Idioms' Talk...Ponder!
By Nurit Greenger
I find it amazing how much nothing changed in the world and how much of the wisdom of then applies today.
How much we have not learned from the past that paved the presence. How much of the mistakes of the past we are willing to reaped in the present even though we are told not to.
Let us play the idioms' game. We all know that 'Mountain to mountain do not meet…people do!' But when people meet, doesn't it feel as if they are as apart as the mountain that never meet?
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."—Albert Einstein, and here I thought that creativity comes from within.
'If Liberty means anything, it is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.' Most people do not want to hear the truth, thus do not really cherish liberty.
"MONEY never starts an IDEA; it is always the IDEA that starts the MONEY."—Forbes, March 24, 1997. What really comes first, the idea or the money!?
They say that "If you do not ask, the answer is always NO."—Forbes, April 21, 1997. It appears that most people do not ask, thus prefer to live in the 'NO' world.
"What luck for rulers that men do not think."—Adolph Hitler...Yet men still do not think and allow rulers like Adolf Hitler [Nazi Germany], Kim Jong Ill [North Korea], Hugo Rafael Chávez [Venezuela], Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [Iran], Fidel Alejandro Castro [Cuba], even Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin [Russia] and Barack Hussein Obama govern over them.
They say that 'Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me,' yet, nowadays, words and cartoons insult and hurt the Moslems and to retaliate they will throw stones at you and beat you to break your bones.
Passivity and apathy: At the height of the American Revolution Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Given the state of current events around the world, these words are just as true today. The world is passive and drown in apathy while evil is triumphing everywhere.
"Never argue with an idiot; they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." So we do not argue with politicians and they get away with ruining our lives.
"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.“--Eleanor Roosevelt, yet, we repeat those mistakes over and over again and then when we leave the world, the mess remains behind but we hope that others will fix it.
"For if you keep silent at a time like this," what will happen? The silence will be deafening and very little maybe done to change what needs to be changed.
For all the religious fanatics...”I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.”--Gerry Spence, this should be the first page of the Koran.
The United States Constitution 2nd amendment tells us that "It is now the right of all the citizens to protect themselves from the legislator and government officials..." Look at what is shaping and is happening in our country today; how the tables have turned.
"We are not hated for who we are. We are hated for what we do. It is not our principles that have spawned pandemic hatred of America in the Islamic world. It is our policies.—Where the Right Went Wrong—Patrick J. Buchanan
"A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members."—David Coblitz. Isn't how our government and its members operate today?
'Islamophobia' is a term thrown around these days to condemn anyone who dares to tell the truth about the source of global terrorism. For example: The Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC) claims that it is "offensive," "irresponsible" and "insensitive" to describe the self-professed Muslim jihadists who kill in the name of Allah as Islamist fundamentalist extremists or Muslim terrorists. But that is exactly who they are. The Obama government is of the same mindset. This means that man is not allowed to think clear and he is required to lie to himself and think political correctness all the time. Isn't is debilitating?
When political correctness—meaning lying—is out the window the term Islamophobia becomes rather meaningless.
Many pundits keep on telling us that "Israel must have defensible borders, and Jerusalem must be united." Yet, by giving up Gaza, by restricting building in Judea and Samaria, which are land that legally belongs to Jews, and by even contemplating giving some of its own land to create an Arab state they want to call Palestine, Israel is not aiming to have defensible borders. And the fact that there is even a discussion of united or not united Jerusalem raising eye brows of what Israel's real intention is.
"Israel is His apple and He will protect her." While our scriptures must inspire us and we must have faith that He will protect us, isn't it the best to know that we can depend on ourselves to protect and defend us?
The play on words can go forever; the lessons of the past are right in front of our face to learn from, to grasp and to never repeat mistakes. The question is do we?
Remember, "Happiness is like a bank account you withdraw later on in life what you have deposited in it over the years..."
--
Shalom,
Nurit
email only
I find it amazing how much nothing changed in the world and how much of the wisdom of then applies today.
How much we have not learned from the past that paved the presence. How much of the mistakes of the past we are willing to reaped in the present even though we are told not to.
Let us play the idioms' game. We all know that 'Mountain to mountain do not meet…people do!' But when people meet, doesn't it feel as if they are as apart as the mountain that never meet?
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."—Albert Einstein, and here I thought that creativity comes from within.
'If Liberty means anything, it is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.' Most people do not want to hear the truth, thus do not really cherish liberty.
"MONEY never starts an IDEA; it is always the IDEA that starts the MONEY."—Forbes, March 24, 1997. What really comes first, the idea or the money!?
They say that "If you do not ask, the answer is always NO."—Forbes, April 21, 1997. It appears that most people do not ask, thus prefer to live in the 'NO' world.
"What luck for rulers that men do not think."—Adolph Hitler...Yet men still do not think and allow rulers like Adolf Hitler [Nazi Germany], Kim Jong Ill [North Korea], Hugo Rafael Chávez [Venezuela], Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [Iran], Fidel Alejandro Castro [Cuba], even Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin [Russia] and Barack Hussein Obama govern over them.
They say that 'Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me,' yet, nowadays, words and cartoons insult and hurt the Moslems and to retaliate they will throw stones at you and beat you to break your bones.
Passivity and apathy: At the height of the American Revolution Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Given the state of current events around the world, these words are just as true today. The world is passive and drown in apathy while evil is triumphing everywhere.
"Never argue with an idiot; they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." So we do not argue with politicians and they get away with ruining our lives.
"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.“--Eleanor Roosevelt, yet, we repeat those mistakes over and over again and then when we leave the world, the mess remains behind but we hope that others will fix it.
"For if you keep silent at a time like this," what will happen? The silence will be deafening and very little maybe done to change what needs to be changed.
For all the religious fanatics...”I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.”--Gerry Spence, this should be the first page of the Koran.
The United States Constitution 2nd amendment tells us that "It is now the right of all the citizens to protect themselves from the legislator and government officials..." Look at what is shaping and is happening in our country today; how the tables have turned.
"We are not hated for who we are. We are hated for what we do. It is not our principles that have spawned pandemic hatred of America in the Islamic world. It is our policies.—Where the Right Went Wrong—Patrick J. Buchanan
"A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members."—David Coblitz. Isn't how our government and its members operate today?
'Islamophobia' is a term thrown around these days to condemn anyone who dares to tell the truth about the source of global terrorism. For example: The Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC) claims that it is "offensive," "irresponsible" and "insensitive" to describe the self-professed Muslim jihadists who kill in the name of Allah as Islamist fundamentalist extremists or Muslim terrorists. But that is exactly who they are. The Obama government is of the same mindset. This means that man is not allowed to think clear and he is required to lie to himself and think political correctness all the time. Isn't is debilitating?
When political correctness—meaning lying—is out the window the term Islamophobia becomes rather meaningless.
Many pundits keep on telling us that "Israel must have defensible borders, and Jerusalem must be united." Yet, by giving up Gaza, by restricting building in Judea and Samaria, which are land that legally belongs to Jews, and by even contemplating giving some of its own land to create an Arab state they want to call Palestine, Israel is not aiming to have defensible borders. And the fact that there is even a discussion of united or not united Jerusalem raising eye brows of what Israel's real intention is.
"Israel is His apple and He will protect her." While our scriptures must inspire us and we must have faith that He will protect us, isn't it the best to know that we can depend on ourselves to protect and defend us?
The play on words can go forever; the lessons of the past are right in front of our face to learn from, to grasp and to never repeat mistakes. The question is do we?
Remember, "Happiness is like a bank account you withdraw later on in life what you have deposited in it over the years..."
--
Shalom,
Nurit
email only
Obama gets it wrong
Palestinians wholly disregard Obama, expect him to do all work for them
Eytan Gilboa
YNET News
Paradoxically, ever since US President Barak Obama entered the White House, the Palestinians are the ones refusing to renew negotiations with Israel while presenting pre-conditions. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu is the one seeking to resume the talks. However, the image created in the world, among other things because of Obama’s flawed and failed policy, is that Israel alone is responsible for the impasse, and that construction in Jerusalem is the only and main obstacle to securing an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Yet isn’t there a split among the Palestinians? Isn’t Hamas maintaining a rule of terror in Gaza? There are no Iran and no Syria and no weak Palestinian government whose interest in negotiations and an agreement is doubtful?
Somehow, no American policymaker or commentator is asking how Fatah, which cannot engage in talks with its Hamas “brethren” and secure a deal with them, can finalize an agreement with Israel.
Moreover, Obama started off by presenting requests and demands to Israel, the Palestinians, and pro-American Arab state for mutual gestures in order to renew the talks and improve the chances of concluding successfully. Netanyahu was the only leader who did something. In his Bar-Ilan speech he endorsed the two-state principle, and he even declared a construction freeze in the territories.
All the others rejected, some of them contemptuously, the American requests.
No attention to criticism
The crisis in US-Israel ties will not be over until talks between Israel and the Palestinians resume. The Obama Administration is pressing Israel, and only Israel, and will continue to do so until negotiations get underway. Obama is not exerting the necessary parallel pressure on the Palestinians because he has no tools for doing so.
The Palestinians wholly disregard Obama and expect him to do all the work for them and elicit unilateral concessions out of Israel.
Obama is unaffected by short-term political considerations such as the elections for Congress, to be held in a few months. He apparently also ignores the support letters for Israel recently sent by 76 Senators and 337 Congress members. There is no other issue in Washington today that can elicit such considerable and bipartisan support in Congress.
It is also doubtful whether Obama pays any attention to the criticism leveled at him via newspaper articles by well-known and influential figures such as Elie Wiesel and Ron Lauder. Under such circumstances, the Netanyahu government will need much initiative, sophistication, imagination, and boldness in order to overcome the crisis with Obama.
Prof. Eytan Gilboa is a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies and an expert on US-Israeli relations at Bar-Ilan University
Eytan Gilboa
YNET News
Paradoxically, ever since US President Barak Obama entered the White House, the Palestinians are the ones refusing to renew negotiations with Israel while presenting pre-conditions. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu is the one seeking to resume the talks. However, the image created in the world, among other things because of Obama’s flawed and failed policy, is that Israel alone is responsible for the impasse, and that construction in Jerusalem is the only and main obstacle to securing an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Yet isn’t there a split among the Palestinians? Isn’t Hamas maintaining a rule of terror in Gaza? There are no Iran and no Syria and no weak Palestinian government whose interest in negotiations and an agreement is doubtful?
Somehow, no American policymaker or commentator is asking how Fatah, which cannot engage in talks with its Hamas “brethren” and secure a deal with them, can finalize an agreement with Israel.
Moreover, Obama started off by presenting requests and demands to Israel, the Palestinians, and pro-American Arab state for mutual gestures in order to renew the talks and improve the chances of concluding successfully. Netanyahu was the only leader who did something. In his Bar-Ilan speech he endorsed the two-state principle, and he even declared a construction freeze in the territories.
All the others rejected, some of them contemptuously, the American requests.
No attention to criticism
The crisis in US-Israel ties will not be over until talks between Israel and the Palestinians resume. The Obama Administration is pressing Israel, and only Israel, and will continue to do so until negotiations get underway. Obama is not exerting the necessary parallel pressure on the Palestinians because he has no tools for doing so.
The Palestinians wholly disregard Obama and expect him to do all the work for them and elicit unilateral concessions out of Israel.
Obama is unaffected by short-term political considerations such as the elections for Congress, to be held in a few months. He apparently also ignores the support letters for Israel recently sent by 76 Senators and 337 Congress members. There is no other issue in Washington today that can elicit such considerable and bipartisan support in Congress.
It is also doubtful whether Obama pays any attention to the criticism leveled at him via newspaper articles by well-known and influential figures such as Elie Wiesel and Ron Lauder. Under such circumstances, the Netanyahu government will need much initiative, sophistication, imagination, and boldness in order to overcome the crisis with Obama.
Prof. Eytan Gilboa is a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies and an expert on US-Israeli relations at Bar-Ilan University
When Saudi Arabia goes nuclear
MICHAEL FREUND
29/04/2010 00:24
The Saudis realize that developing a nuclear industry may be good energy policy, but it is also good foreign policy.
Last week, a news item appeared which should send a shiver down the spine of anyone concerned about the future of the Middle East. In a story out of Riyadh, the official Saudi Press Agency announced that the kingdom has decided to go nuclear. That’s right. The same country which boycotts Israel, finances the spread of radical Islamist fundamentalism worldwide and, less than a decade ago, spawned 15 of the terrorists involved in the September 11 attacks, now plans to develop nuclear technology.
According to the report, the Saudi regime will open a new center, dubbed the King Abdullah City for Nuclear and Renewable Energy, ostensibly because of “sustained growth in demand for power and desalinated water due to high population growth and subsidized prices of water and power.”
In other words, the Saudis are insisting that their motivation is entirely peaceful.
But it’s hard to take such claims seriously. After all, according to the US Energy Information Administration, Saudi Arabia has some 264 billion barrels of oil reserves, which amounts to “around one-fifth of proven, conventional world oil reserves.” In addition, it maintains “the world’s largest crude oil production capacity,” estimated at some 11 to 12 million barrels a day.
So it is not as if Saudi citizens are in danger of having to dim the lights.
Clearly, Riyadh is casting a wary eye northward, watching nervously as Teheran sprints virtually unhindered toward the nuclear finish line.
The Saudis realize that developing a nuclear industry may be good energy policy, but it is also good foreign policy, especially when Washington appears to be asleep at the switch.
IN THIS respect, the Saudis are not alone. Gulf Arab states, which traditionally view Iran with suspicion, are naturally terrified at the prospect of the ayatollahs having their finger on the button, so an increasing number have begun to plunge down the path toward nuclear know-how.
Earlier this month, oil-rich Kuwait signed a civilian nuclear cooperation deal with France. And last week, the United Arab Emirates’ Nuclear Energy Corporation announced that it has chosen a site to construct the country’s first nuclear power station, which will go on-line within seven years. Other Arab states, such as Egypt and Qatar, have also declared an interest in developing nuclear technology and infrastructure.
And at a conference in Paris last month, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Feisal Mekdad said Damascus is looking at “alternative energy sources, including nuclear energy.” He insisted that “the peaceful application of nuclear energy should not be monopolized by the few that own this technology but should be available to all.”
And so we have all the makings of a region-wide proliferation of nuclear know-how. Of course, all the countries involved have adamantly maintained that they are only seeking to split atoms for “peaceful purposes” and that they have no military aims in mind. But can we really rely on the assurances of an array of Middle Eastern dictators and despots?
I don’t know about you, but the thought of the Wahhabi regime in Saudi Arabia or the Kuwaiti royal family going nuclear just doesn’t help me sleep at night.
This dreadful scenario is a direct result of Washington’s mishandling of Iran’s atomic ambitions, first under George W. Bush and now under Barack Obama. By allowing Teheran to proceed apace across the nuclear threshold, Washington has unwittingly created the conditions for a nuclear arms race that will destabilize the entire Middle East.
The lack of American will to confront the ayatollahs and stop them in their tracks has given various Arab leaders plenty of incentive, as well as a good excuse, to proceed down the nuclear trail. Indeed, it may already be too late to prevent this trend from spreading, as contracts are signed and checks cashed.
But in any event, it is time that Washington realize the damage it is doing to its own interests, as well as to its allies, by allowing Iran to continue its mad dash to build nuclear weapons. If the Iranians aren’t stopped, and soon, we may wake up a few years from now to discover that Saudi Arabia and other unfriendly regimes have decided to upgrade their “civilian” nuclear programs into weapons-making industries.
Like it or not, the only way to prevent this is to remove the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. It should be clear to anyone who wishes to see: The sooner the tyrant of Teheran is stopped, the safer all of us will be.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=174191
29/04/2010 00:24
The Saudis realize that developing a nuclear industry may be good energy policy, but it is also good foreign policy.
Last week, a news item appeared which should send a shiver down the spine of anyone concerned about the future of the Middle East. In a story out of Riyadh, the official Saudi Press Agency announced that the kingdom has decided to go nuclear. That’s right. The same country which boycotts Israel, finances the spread of radical Islamist fundamentalism worldwide and, less than a decade ago, spawned 15 of the terrorists involved in the September 11 attacks, now plans to develop nuclear technology.
According to the report, the Saudi regime will open a new center, dubbed the King Abdullah City for Nuclear and Renewable Energy, ostensibly because of “sustained growth in demand for power and desalinated water due to high population growth and subsidized prices of water and power.”
In other words, the Saudis are insisting that their motivation is entirely peaceful.
But it’s hard to take such claims seriously. After all, according to the US Energy Information Administration, Saudi Arabia has some 264 billion barrels of oil reserves, which amounts to “around one-fifth of proven, conventional world oil reserves.” In addition, it maintains “the world’s largest crude oil production capacity,” estimated at some 11 to 12 million barrels a day.
So it is not as if Saudi citizens are in danger of having to dim the lights.
Clearly, Riyadh is casting a wary eye northward, watching nervously as Teheran sprints virtually unhindered toward the nuclear finish line.
The Saudis realize that developing a nuclear industry may be good energy policy, but it is also good foreign policy, especially when Washington appears to be asleep at the switch.
IN THIS respect, the Saudis are not alone. Gulf Arab states, which traditionally view Iran with suspicion, are naturally terrified at the prospect of the ayatollahs having their finger on the button, so an increasing number have begun to plunge down the path toward nuclear know-how.
Earlier this month, oil-rich Kuwait signed a civilian nuclear cooperation deal with France. And last week, the United Arab Emirates’ Nuclear Energy Corporation announced that it has chosen a site to construct the country’s first nuclear power station, which will go on-line within seven years. Other Arab states, such as Egypt and Qatar, have also declared an interest in developing nuclear technology and infrastructure.
And at a conference in Paris last month, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Feisal Mekdad said Damascus is looking at “alternative energy sources, including nuclear energy.” He insisted that “the peaceful application of nuclear energy should not be monopolized by the few that own this technology but should be available to all.”
And so we have all the makings of a region-wide proliferation of nuclear know-how. Of course, all the countries involved have adamantly maintained that they are only seeking to split atoms for “peaceful purposes” and that they have no military aims in mind. But can we really rely on the assurances of an array of Middle Eastern dictators and despots?
I don’t know about you, but the thought of the Wahhabi regime in Saudi Arabia or the Kuwaiti royal family going nuclear just doesn’t help me sleep at night.
This dreadful scenario is a direct result of Washington’s mishandling of Iran’s atomic ambitions, first under George W. Bush and now under Barack Obama. By allowing Teheran to proceed apace across the nuclear threshold, Washington has unwittingly created the conditions for a nuclear arms race that will destabilize the entire Middle East.
The lack of American will to confront the ayatollahs and stop them in their tracks has given various Arab leaders plenty of incentive, as well as a good excuse, to proceed down the nuclear trail. Indeed, it may already be too late to prevent this trend from spreading, as contracts are signed and checks cashed.
But in any event, it is time that Washington realize the damage it is doing to its own interests, as well as to its allies, by allowing Iran to continue its mad dash to build nuclear weapons. If the Iranians aren’t stopped, and soon, we may wake up a few years from now to discover that Saudi Arabia and other unfriendly regimes have decided to upgrade their “civilian” nuclear programs into weapons-making industries.
Like it or not, the only way to prevent this is to remove the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. It should be clear to anyone who wishes to see: The sooner the tyrant of Teheran is stopped, the safer all of us will be.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=174191
CAIR's Irresponsible Dismissal of the "South Park" Threat
IPT News
April 28, 2010
http://www.investigativeproject.org/1922/cairs-irresponsible-dismissal-of-the-south-park
In the wake of controversy surrounding a death threat against the creators of the animated comedy "South Park" for depicting the prophet Muhammad dressed as a bear, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has made clear that its renewed effort to combat extremism is limited to countering its pick of "credible" extremists. According to CAIR, RevolutionMuslim.com, the website on which the threat against South Park's co-creators was posted, and Zachary Chesser, a Muslim convert now known as Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, the individual who posted the threat, don't make the cut for dangerous influences.
CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper wrote off the RevolutionMuslim.com site as "an extreme fringe group that has absolutely no credibility within the Muslim community." "In fact, most Muslims suspect they were set up only to make Muslims look bad," Hooper added. "We just have very deep suspicions. They say such outrageous, irresponsible things that it almost seems like they're doing it to smear Islam."
Hooper is setting up a false choice. If RevolutionMuslim.com is a fringe group – and it most certainly is – then CAIR must be mainstream. That's not the case. CAIR is a Muslim Brotherhood-tied advocacy group that is implicated in a terror-financing scheme and has a demonstrated history of supporting and defending radical Islamists. It lacks the standing to judge who does and does not speak for American Muslims, though it claims the role for itself.
As writer Mark Tapson notes, CAIR's response falls far short of wholeheartedly defending free speech. The normally media savvy CAIR "is throwing away a golden opportunity to explain exactly how these 'crazies' have 'hijacked' the religion. This would be the perfect time to discredit their 'outrageous, irresponsible' distortions, wouldn't it? And to stand with the South Park creators in defense of free speech?"
Monday, CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab offered up a similar dismissal of the site's extremism, calling the group fraudulent. "The 'Muslims' in this case are a group of literally 5-10 people who are widely reviled by the mainstream community for their radical and confrontational style," Rehab wrote in an article for the Chicago Tribune. "Whether, true Muslim or agent provocateurs, the result is the same: they are five community outcasts."
Former Dutch Parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali challenged this "outcast" argument in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday asking, "How much harm can an Islamist fringe group do in a free society?" Plenty, as she knows first hand. Hirsi Ali wrote the screenplay for the film "Submission" with Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was murdered in 2004 for the film's critical nature of women's role in Islam.
In his online posting, Al-Amrikee threatened that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone would "probably end up like" Van Gogh. Ali reminds us that Van Gogh was murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim previously thought to have been a minor actor in radical circles. Ali uses this example to argue that fringe groups have the potential to do "a lot" of harm.
CAIR's attempt to minimize this radicalism becomes even harder to justify when also considering extremist materials posted to RevolutionMuslim.com and disturbing postings by Al-Amrikee. In March, Hooper recognized that:
"Young people are targeted by extremists on the Internet. They need access to mainstream views. The best way is at the chapter level. This is one of our top priorities nationwide."
RevolutionMuslim.com offers anything but what Hooper deems "mainstream" views for readers. For example, the web page direct readers to a YouTube video praising Osama bin Laden. In the video a Muslim leader says of bin Laden, "By Allah I bear witness that I could not find an equal to him in the whole of the Islamic world. So we ask to protect his religion and his wealth and to bless him in this life."
The site also links to a 2009 address by Osama bin Laden to the American people, a piece by Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, a release from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and writings by Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian ideologue Sayyid Qutb. Arabic documents are translated into English for easy accessibility by readers.
In March 2010, Al-Amrikee even criticized a CAIR press release which welcomed the alleged arrest of Al-Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn. Al-Amrikee wrote:
"To CAIR: Why don't you spend more time congratulating Muslims when they do something good? Also, why don't you guys ever condemn the United States when they blow up entire Muslim villages? Are those thirteen people whom Muj. Hassan sent to Hellfire better than the hundreds who are murdered weekly in Afghanistan? Go learn your religion."
Reader comments on Al-Amrikee's blog, themujahidblog.com, indicate that several individuals have gained an interest in becoming a mujahideen after reading his postings. Below his posting "How to Help the Mujahideen" one reader, zainab, comments "I wnt to becom muhajid?how can u help me?" Another comment by ismallianto reads, "I also want to be mujahideen…pls email me if u can help me" even providing an email address. Al-Amrikee cites the Qur'an throughout this article in which he states, "We have to actually go and fight against the disbelievers."
In December of 2009 CAIR announced its plan to launch a website as an online resource center for Muslims who are vulnerable to extremist ideologies. Executive Director Nihad Awad said the idea is to refute the misuse of verses from the Qur'an and hadiths "that are commonly misused by recruiters or young people who do not understand the depths and circumstances of revelations and just juxtapose superficial and disconnected meaning to justify their actions." Al-Amrikee is doing exactly what Awad vowed to combat, but CAIR isn't taking on the content of his message.
In another Al-Amrikee blog posting entitled "Open Source Jihad" (OSJ) he encourages individuals to perform jihad even if it is not organized. He writes, "Today the support for jihad is so great, al-hamdulillah, that someone who simply wants to please Allah, but has done little studying can be easily motivated to go and fight." He adds, "OSJ has even become a method used by the likes of Al-Qa'ida on a structural level. All of the various Al-Qa'idas out there are largely independent." He even supports Anwar al-Awlaki, calling him the "first westerner to pioneer the concept of open source jihad."
Considering the website's postings and CAIR's stated goals of countering such material, the organization's dismissal of the ability of Al-Amrikee and RevolutionMuslim.com to radicalize vulnerable individuals is disturbing.
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