COP: Does the Declaration of Independence Still Matter?

Matthew Spalding, Ph.D.

July 4, 2012 

The Declaration of Independence was partly intended as a list of grievances against a distant monarch. And both George III and the colonists who disagreed with his rule are long dead. But so are many of those who’ve argued that the Declaration is obsolete. In fact, this is exactly what those who called themselves “progressives” were saying a century ago.

Woodrow Wilson, one of the most famous early progressives, argued during the 1912 presidential campaign that “all that Progressives ask or desire is permission…to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle,” meaning that it should promote an ever-expanding set of powers for an ever-expanding government. The problem, he declared, was that pesky Declaration of Independence: “Some citizens of this country have never got beyond the Declaration of Independence,” he remarked. “The Declaration of Independence did not mention the questions of our day.”

But in fact the Declaration is more than a litany of complaints. Its greater meaning is as a statement of the conditions of legitimate political authority and the proper ends of government. It proclaimed that political rule would, from then on, reside in the sovereignty of the people. “If the American Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of Independence,” wrote the great historian Samuel Eliot Morrison, “it would have been worthwhile.”

Roberts, Blankenhorn And The Power Of Liberal Intimidation

DENNIS PRAGER

• Given how many more Americans define themselves as conservative rather than as liberal, let alone than as left, how does one explain the success of left-wing policies?

 

 

One answer is the appeal of entitlements and a desire to be taken care of. It takes a strong-willed citizen to vote against receiving free benefits.

But an even greater explanation is the saturation of Western society by left-wing hate directed at the right. The left's demonization, personal vilification, and mockery of its opponents have been the most powerful tools in the left-wing arsenal for a century.

Since Stalin labeled Leon Trotsky — the man who was the father of Russian Bolshevism! — a "fascist," the Left has labeled its ideological opponents evil. And when you control nearly all of the news media and schools, that labeling works.

The liberal media even succeeded in blaming the right wing for the assassination of President Kennedy even though his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a pro-Soviet, pro-Castro communist.

Whatever Happened to Occupy Wall Street

 Sultan Knish

Yesterday I took a walk down to the oldest part of New York City, where the Dutch landed and planted their flag near the current location of the Staten Island Ferry, where George Washington stood his officers rounds at Fraunces Tavern, now filled with Wall Street types, and where a bunch of smelly hippies stirred by an Anti-Semitic Canadian magazine decided to squat a public park in order to make a statement about their own need for attention.

Zuccotti Park has returned to its original function as a place where secretaries, construction workers and off-duty cops go to eat quick lunches bought from local fast food places or disease-ridden Halal Mafia food carts. The few plants wave in a breeze that blows between the narrow lanes of the financial district, which has some of the oldest and narrowest streets in the city. An information desk for OWS is the only sign of the occupation, with taped-together cardboard signs denouncing the NYPD and sarcastically informing the Indian and Russian tourists taking snapshots of the under-construction Freedom Tower; "And to think these 'People' are the 'Heroes' of '911'... Right."

Occupy Wall Street has gone east, one block east. It no longer occupies Wall Street, instead it has transformed into Occupy Trinity Church. The media, which served as the unofficial PR corps for OWS, is not too enthusiastic about reporting that a movement which they hailed is busy trying to seize land from a historic Episcopalian church that dates back to 1697, in whose cemetery lie several signers of the Declaration of Independence and several delegates to the Continental Congress, not to mention several Revolutionary War generals and a fellow by the name of Alexander Hamilton.

An Inconvenient Truth: The Myths of Pinkwashing

by Arthur Slepian

I am a gay man, an American, and a Jew. I am passionate about Israel, devoted to its well-being, and I want to see a resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that will enable both to live in peace and security. My love for Israel and my commitment to LGBT equality led me to create A Wider Bridge, an organization dedicated to strengthening the bonds between the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities in Israel and America. I believe LGBT Jews have been a transformative force for good in the Jewish world, and that LGBT Israelis have been and will continue to be a vital force in creating a stronger and better Israel.

According to a group of activists who have gained a national megaphone, our work is “pinkwashing,” part of a conspiracy orchestrated by the Israeli government and many American Jewish groups to use Israel’s progressive record on LGBT rights to divert attention away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some suggest that visits by Israeli LGBT leaders, including some of our programs, should be boycotted.

Recent events, including the Equality Forum’s annual Global LGBT Summit in Philadelphia in May, which selected Israel as this year’s “featured nation,” and Tel Aviv’s fourteenth annual Gay Pride Parade in June, have brought forth new rounds of pinkwashing accusations. In May, Tikkun published “Boycotting Equality Forum’s Israeli Sponsorship,” an article by Columbia law professor Katherine Franke and Rabbi Rebecca Alpert.

Extra! Extra! World Agrees on How to Solve Syrian Civil War!

By Barry Rubin

"The early bird might catch the worm but the early cat catches the bird."  --Me

Here it is at last. The perfect case study of the "international community's" diplomacy on the Middle East, as quoted from a Wall Street Journal article describing efforts to resolve the Syria conflict:

And the article has the perfect headline, too!"

"World Powers Reach Syria Compromise"

So the problem is solved, right? Scroll down for the stunning solution.

"‎An international meeting in Geneva on Saturday on Syria's crisis agreed, with support from Russia, to support a political transition. However, officials at the meeting said any chance for a political transition to succeed rests on the willingness of the Syrian regime to cooperate."

Obama Turns His Back on Israel at the U.N.

By Anne Bayefsky

Today, at the United Nations, the Obama administration is turning its back on Israel. For the very first time, the U.N. Security Council has invited the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to “brief” the Council specifically on the subject of Israel and the commissioner’s list of trumped-up sins. 

Though the U.S. is a veto-holding power, the extraordinary move has full American approval, despite the fact that the global soapbox will be handed to Navi Pillay, a notorious anti-Israel partisan.

Moreover, the American-backed action exposes President Obama’s profound weakness on the international stage. It turns out that the deal to sponsor an Israel-bashing session at the highest levels was a trade-off for having the high commissioner brief the Council on the subject of Syria. 

The Security Council has not acted on Syria since an April 21, 2012, resolution, which sent unarmed observers over to watch the bloodshed. France wanted a high commissioner briefing on Syria to generate more noise. Council member Pakistan said no, unless Israel was on the chopping block, too. The Russians also said no, unless Libya was on the table. Russia seeks to use the mess in that country to obstruct stronger measures on Syria.

MyRightWord



Reported in Hebrew (English later in the day but here's the gist):-

Superior Court Judge retired, Edmond Levy, who heads the Committee to examine the state of construction in Judea and Samaria, ruled yesterday the findings of the committee's report that "under international law, Israelis possess the legal right to settle in Judea and Samaria, and at the least in the areas under Israel's control by virtue of agreements with the PA and therefore the establishment of settlements in itself does not suffer from illegality".

In the findings of the report, transmitted to the Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, wrote Levi that "after examining the work of the Committee and considering all things heard and learned, the fundamental conclusion is that from the perspective of international law, the laws of 'occupation' do not apply, due to historical circumstances and legal details, to the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria for decades . In addition, the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding the transfer of population does not apply and was not intended to apply for settlement such as that of Israel and Judea and Samaria ".

...From now on, to proponents of the settlement and political level, it should be clear that they had ordered only act within the law, and its institutions are obligated to act future determination to enforce the law. "

Among the recommendations: The government must clarify its policy on the question of Israeli settlement in Judea and Samaria to prevent an interpretation of its decisions; new communities will be established only after the government or ministerial committee had been authorized and so decided; and expansion of settlement outside of the jurisdiction requires a decision of the Minister of Defense or the Ministerial Committee settlement, with the knowledge of Prime Minister.

Al Jazeera’s Arafat Polonium Story Around Since At Least 2006

Challah Hu Akbar

Today, Al-Jazeera announced the results of a 9 month investigation of the death of Yasir Arafat. Al Jazeera says that their investigation has discovered “rare, radioactive polonium on [Arafat’s] final belongings.”

It was a scene that riveted the world for weeks: The ailing Yasser Arafat, first besieged by Israeli tanks in his Ramallah compound, then shuttled to Paris, where he spent his final days undergoing a barrage of medical tests in a French military hospital.

 

Eight years after his death, it remains a mystery exactly what killed the longtime Palestinian leader. Tests conducted in Paris found no obvious traces of poison in Arafat’s system. Rumors abound about what might have killed him – cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, even allegations that he was infected with HIV. A nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera has revealed that none of those rumors were true: Arafat was in good health until he suddenly fell ill on October 12, 2004. 

"Egypt"

It has been revealed that at the time Mohamed Morsi was to be sworn in as president of Egypt, PM Netanyahu's envoy, Yitzhak Molho (pictured), was in Egypt.  There he met with General Murad Muwafi, the director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate and with Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the commander-in-chief of Egypt’s Armed Forces.

Credit: YNet

Discussions were held on cooperation in fighting terrorism in the Sinai and preventing smuggling of arms from the Sinai into Gaza.  Molcho re-stated Israel's position: that the peace treaty, as spelled out in the  1979 Camp David Accords, must be maintained.
At the same time he delivered a personal letter from Netanyahu to Morsi, which emphasized that “the peace treaty is in the interest of both countries and contributes to regional stability.”
~~~~~~~~~~
It truly is in Egypt's best interest to maintain peace with Israel: Fiscally, the country is teetering on the brink of disaster  Already a very poor country prior to the uprising, Egypt was set back seriously by the unrest, which drove away both tourists and investors.  With increasing deficits and dwindling foreign currency reserves, Morsi faces huge challenges.

Given these parameters, the prospects of war against Israel are just about non-existent.

Radical Islam Spreading in Spain

Soeren Kern
July 3, 2012 

The report, which examines some of the main Islamist groups operating in Spain, shows that the common thread linking all the groups together is their mutual desire to establish an Islamic Caliphate.

Two Islamists have been arrested in Spain on charges of torturing and murdering two fellow Muslims for "abandoning radical Islam."

The arrests came just days after Spanish newspapers reported that jihadists in Spain are travelling to Syria to help overthrow the government there.

Spanish authorities say the incidents -- on top of many others in recent months -- point to the accelerating spread in the country of radical Salafi Islam, which Spain's National Intelligence Center, the CNI, in a leaked secret report -- corroborated by the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies, an organization tied to the Spanish Ministry of Defense, in its own recently published a 43-page report entitled, "Islamist Movements in Spain" -- states is increasingly posing the greatest threat to national security.

Final Battle

Muslim apocalyptic movements like al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other jihadi groups are winning an information war that the West barely recognizes exists

By Richard Landes

Unholy Anger

One of Obama’s top advisers on Afghanistan reviews two new books on Osama Bin Laden and the U.S. approach to al-Qaida that put Israel at the center of the conflict 

 

By Bruce Riedel

Yet the major players in our public sphere—the news media, pundits, academic experts, and even strategic policy thinkers—have systematically folded when faced with an aggressive assault from radical Islam. A number of factors can help us understand how this startling reversal came about—post-colonial guilt, moral relativism and narcissism, intimidation and cowardice, radical agendas, media malfeasance—but all of them profit from being understood in terms of a larger millennial framework.

Essentially, an apocalyptic millennial movement has declared war on the West and been able to conduct cognitive warfare on our home turf—partly because we don’t recognize the nature of the foe, partly because we are so committed to the rules and values of civil society that we have difficulty even acknowledging that a state of war exists. Most of us are too secular to appreciate the beliefs involved. And as a result of this ignorance, we misidentify and badly analyze the phenomenon in question.
***
Western purveyors of news are, of course, a strategic target for jihadi cognitive warriors: Journalists are the main shapers of Western public opinion, and, it turns out, they are highly susceptible to intimidation and manipulation. As a result, the mainstream news media have, surely unwittingly but nonetheless consistently, played a crucial role in mainstreaming jihadi themes in the Western public sphere, even as they disguise the source and nature of these themes. A study of perhaps the single most powerful attack in the cognitive war of global jihad and its aftermath offers a detailed insight into the ways in which this has occurred. It illustrates the weaknesses of our media, as well as the critical but obscured relationship between jihad and the so-called Israel problem.

Democracy or Jew-Hatred? More Evidence of Anti-Semitism at the Egypt Protests

There is massive evidence to be found in the Western media of anti-Semitism and “anti-Zionism” at the Egypt protests. But images in the flickr streams of amateur local photographers are even more shocking and unambiguous. 

 

by
John Rosenthal

 

 

In response to my PJM article documenting anti-Semitic imagery at the Egyptian protests, I’ve received several comments — both in public and in private — suggesting that, nevertheless, anti-Semitic and/or “anti-Zionist” sentiment among the protestors has played only a marginal role. The assurances to this effect are typically based on the first-hand accounts of Western observers or English-speaking participants with Western contacts. These accounts are supposed somehow to trump the clear pictorial evidence to the contrary.

The appearance of anti-Semitic and/or “anti-Zionist” motifs in the photos and videos of the protests is, however, simply too widespread and systematic for such assurances to reassure. Such images are to be found in video and photographic material from virtually every major Western news organization present in Egypt. This fact is all the more significant when one considers that the reports published or broadcast by these very same news organizations have as a rule outright ignored any anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli sentiment among the protestors. Indeed, as will be seen below, even more outrageous images figure prominently in the flickr streams of amateur local photographers.

Herewith further evidence.

The Energy Revolution and Its Discontents

Lachlan Markay

July 3, 2012

With all the gloomy economic news coming out of late, one bright spot flew under the radar last week: the United States is poised to be the proverbial center of the energy universe.
A recent study by Harvard Research Fellow Leonardo Maugeri found that the United States’ incredible shale reserves represent “the most important revolution in the oil sector in decades.”

Thanks to the technological revolution brought about by the combined use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. is now exploiting its huge and virtually untouched shale and tight oil fields, whose production – although still in its infancy – is already skyrocketing in North Dakota and Texas.

Few Americans are more cognizant of this energy revolution’s possibilities than those who live in the towns sitting above the nation’s largest shale formations. The Heritage Foundation traveled to Willison, North Dakota, above the massive Bakken shale, to hear first-hand how the oil boom there has improved residents’ lives.

But there are forces looking to undermine North Dakota’s oil boom. “The area that we worry the most about would be the federal government and regulations,” explained Willison Mayor Ward Koeser, “specifically the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Islamists Have the Keys to the Arab World

Giulio Meotti
 on Jul 3rd, 2012 

 

It’s possible that in the coming years the Arab masses will revolt against their new Islamic rulers. But today, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, the Wahhabis and all the other followers of the Koran have the keys of the Arab world.
The new president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, is a pious revolutionary whose message has always been very simple: “Islam is the solution.” The real Egyptian people were not the secularists described by hypocritical Western journalists based in Tahrir Square. Instead, they are the people revealed in a recent Pew poll: 54% believe men and women should be segregated in the workplace; 82% believe adulterers should be stoned; 84% believe apostates from Islam should face the death penalty; 77% believe thieves should be flogged or have their hands cut off. That’s why the new Islamic rulers will try to impose the veil on women, ban alcohol and attack the cold peace with Israel. That’s why the most important Arab country will move toward a theocratic anti-Western scenario.

Lies We Can Believe In

 Sultan Knish

Civil disobedience is the act of breaking the law and defying the authorities to do anything about it. So is tyranny. The difference between the two lies in which side of the power equation the breaker is on. When the law is broken, two things happen. Either the law is upheld or the authorities back away from a confrontation and find some way to save face.

The ObamaCare process involved breaking a long list of rules and laws and then defying the ragged remnants of the system to do anything about it. At every turn the United States was unable to stop a rogue chief executive and his ruling party from trampling the law. When the case finally reached the Supreme Court, the leading judicial body in the land sidestepped a confrontation by redefining what the action was, rather than rule on the law. It was a classic case of the authorities saving face.

Civil disobedience balances moral absolutes against legal principles. The Supreme Court exists to serve as the final bastion of the law against runaway moral absolutes. But just as in its showdown with FDR, the Court blinked, and our court, unlike that court, didn't even at least put up a good fight for the law before backing down. Obama didn't even have to threaten to pack the court with justices. All he had to do was make it clear that he wasn't going to follow the law, which forced the law to save face by following him instead.

Unsettling Lies about Israel

SALOMON BENZIMRA, P.E. July 3, 2012

Naomi Chazan was deputy speaker of the Knesset and the dean of the School of Government and Society at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo. Given her credentials, one would have thought that she would have a good grasp of politics and law. But in a recent article published in The Forward, she stated that "Israel's settlement enterprise...violate[s] international law" because "colonizing occupied land is illegal [based on] the Geneva Conventions," notwithstanding the contrary opinion expressed in "the contortions of a few right-wing legal scholars."

Well, I am no legal scholar but I'd rather be on the side of those right-wing "contortionists" than on Ms. Chazan's, whose sympathy for the "Palestinian cause"-lamely cloaked in "human rights"-is quicker than her comprehension. Here are a few legal scholars, including eminent ones, whom Ms. Chazan dismisses offhand, and whose so-called "contortions" strongly confirm the legality of the "settlements" and support the legitimate rights of Israel in Judea and Samaria:

• Stephen M. Schwebel, Professor of International Law at the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University (Washington), former Deputy Legal Advisor of the U.S. State Department and President of the International Court of Justice from 1997 to 2000: "Where the prior holder of territory [Jordan] had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense [Israel] has, against that prior holder, better title." 

Robert Fisk Demonizes Mideast's Persecuted Christians

Raymond Ibrahim
PJ Media

http://www.meforum.org/3279/robert-fisk-demonizes-christians

 

Robert Fisk, the Middle East correspondent for the U.K.'s widely-read Independent, recently showed why it is that Islamic jihadists and terrorists, including the late Osama bin Laden, strongly recommend his propaganda to Western readers.

In a recent article, Fisk goes out of his way to demonize the abused Christian minorities of the Middle East for supporting those secularist leaders most likely to preserve their freedoms and dignity. For instance, after portraying the Middle East's "old guard" in the worst possible terms, he complains that "Ahmed Shafiq, the Mubarak loyalist, has the support of the Christian Copts, and Assad has the support of the Syrian Christians. The Christians support the dictators. Not much of a line, is it?"

In Fisk's way of thinking, Christians of Egypt and Syria are unpatriotic freedom-haters because they support secularists, whereas the Sharia-pushing Islamists are patriotic freedom-lovers for not.

"Not much of a line, is it?"—especially from someone who supposedly lives and travels in the Middle East and is deemed an authority on the region. Completely missing from his narrative is why Christians are supporting Shafiq and Assad: because the alternatives, the Islamists, have been making their lives a living hell.

Nawar Shora takes battle for Arab and Muslim rights inside the TSA

Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writer

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Nawar Shora, the legal director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, has sparred with the federal government over what he saw as security abuses against minorities. Now, he is joining the Transportation Security Administration as a senior adviser for its office of civil rights and liberties.

This Story

• From fighter to insider
• Nawar Shora
• Q&A, Transcript: Arab-American activist finds new role with TSA

Shora, 33, said the move next month to the Department of Homeland Security will back up what he has been telling summer interns for a decade as he urged them to enter federal service.
"I'm finally practicing what I preach," said Shora, a self-described "Arab country boy" who was born in Syria and raised in Huntington, W.Va. "It's about time I cross over to the government and start working within the system. That's the beauty of our society: Anybody can work with the government."

The move by Shora, who started with the ADC as an intern in 1999 after graduating from Marshall University and the West Virginia University College of Law, comes at a challenging time for the TSA and other security agencies.

U.S. law enforcement agencies have confronted a growing number of incidents since 2009 involving violent "homegrown" extremists and cases in which overseas terrorist groups have recruited and trained Americans. Separately, vulnerabilities in international aviation security were exposed in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, an alleged al-Qaeda operative from Nigeria charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day.

In January, the TSA heightened security measures for travelers who are from -- or traveling through -- 13 predominantly Muslim countries, plus Cuba. Those procedures drew criticism from Arab, Muslim and South Asian civil liberties groups, which said the measures were too broad.

"Complaints are going to come in fast and furious" from Americans visiting those countries during the upcoming peak summer travel months, said James Zogby, founder of the Arab-American Institute and a longtime Washington civil rights advocate. "I know no one better equipped to handle them than Nawar."

"All of a sudden, people are labeled as being related to terrorism just because of the nation they are from," Shora said this winter, calling the TSA move "extreme and very dangerous."
Federal civil rights offices have for decades tapped a pipeline of talented young lawyers from private organizations. Shora also has built a decade-long track record of trying to bridge the differences between law enforcement and Muslim and Arab Americans.

Shortly after the 2001 attacks, Shora became a founding member of an Arab, Muslim and Sikh advisory council set up by the former head of the FBI's Washington field office, Joseph Persichini Jr. The council aired concerns about hate crimes, the USA Patriot Act, FBI investigations and other sensitive topics.

Shora made nearly 50 appearances before FBI agents to increase cultural awareness of Arab and Muslim Americans; appeared in training videos for the Justice Department Community Relations Service and the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in 2003 and 2007; and joined a group organized by the American Society for Industrial Security International dedicated to security issues for religious groups including Jews, Muslims and Mormons and other Christians.
"As a devout Muslim, my mother always taught me you must be a good Jew and a good Christian," too, said Shora, who met his wife, a French Catholic exchange student, at law school in West Virginia. "That lesson stayed with me over the years."

Shora also has written a book, "The Arab American Handbook," which is billed as a "non-politicized, fun . . . quick read."

On Friday, Shora will be honored by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, receiving the director's Community Leadership Award, for his role in creating the FBI's Future Agents in Training program, which began as "a cross between Space Camp and Boys State" aimed at South and Central Asian youths and has since become a week-long program introducing the bureau to 40 high school juniors selected from across the country.

"In his position at ADC, Mr. Shora has consistently advocated on behalf of the community's concerns," TSA Special Counselor Kimberly Walton said in a statement. "He . . . will bring a wealth of experience in community outreach, training and civil rights and civil liberties law."

Shora said he worked with, not for, the FBI, and never on investigations. Still, he acknowledges that increasing communication and understanding between two camps can be a "lose-lose" proposition, with some Muslim activists labeling him a "collaborator" and some law enforcement agents suspicious of an Arab or a Muslim working alongside them.

"The trust a number of us have worked so hard to build since 9/11 has unfortunately had a few notches against it the past few months," Shora said, referring to tensions that flared over such matters as allegations that the FBI infiltrated mosques in California and elsewhere and the death of a Detroit imam shot 20 times in an FBI sting operation involving stolen goods.

"We need to reenergize that trust-building," he said. "The big-picture issues are too important for us to get off track."

Era of Absurdity

Nurit Greenger

In 2008, Ari B., a unwavering, stanch pro-Israel activist, presented an idea to the Kadima party that was at that time engaged is spending millions of Shekels on then, foreign minister and prime minister in waiting, Tzipi Livni's plan to brand Israel.  The branding was so "successful" that today Israel is seen as the origin of all the evil and sins in the world.  Since then a new term was added to our vocabulary trove: delegitimization [of Israel] and this type of branding is a grim reminder of the infamous number that was tattooing on the arms of concentration camps Jewish prisoners during the Holocaust.

Assessing Iraq's Oil Industry

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
GLORIA

http://www.meforum.org/3277/iraq-oil-industry

 

INTRODUCTION

Contributing 60 percent of GDP, 99 percent of exports, and over 90 percent of government revenue, the oil industry is by far the most vital sector of the Iraqi economy, with proven petroleum reserves of 143 billion barrels and a potential to recover and refine a further 200 billion barrels.[1] The existence of substantial oil reserves in the area of Mesopotamia has been known since at least the end of the nineteenth century, with the monopoly of oil exploration and production originally lying in the hands of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), which was owned by a consortium of foreign oil companies until the Ba'th government completely nationalized the IPC in 1972. It should be emphasized that since that time, the oil industry has remained a state-run enterprise in Iraq.

In the run-up to and in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion in March 2003, a common theory among critics of the war has been that the coalition forces invaded the country to take over its oil reserves. This speculation was fuelled in 2011 by a report in the Independent on UK government memos that had been obtained through a Freedom of Information request. According to this report, in October 2002, the petroleum firms BP, Shell, and BG had a meeting with Baroness Symons, who was Trade Minister in the British government at the time, and agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf.[2]

Obama Turns His Back on Israel at the U.N.

By Anne Bayefsky

July 2, 2012

Today, at the United Nations, the Obama administration is turning its back on Israel. For the very first time, the U.N. Security Council has invited the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to “brief” the Council specifically on the subject of Israel and the commissioner’s list of trumped-up sins. Though the U.S. is a veto-holding power, the extraordinary move has full American approval, despite the fact that the global soapbox will be handed to Navi Pillay, a notorious anti-Israel partisan.

Moreover, the American-backed action exposes President Obama’s profound weakness on the international stage. It turns out that the deal to sponsor an Israel-bashing session at the highest levels was a trade-off for having the high commissioner brief the Council on the subject of Syria.

The Security Council has not acted on Syria since an April 21, 2012, resolution, which sent unarmed observers over to watch the bloodshed. France wanted a high commissioner briefing on Syria to generate more noise. Council member Pakistan said no, unless Israel was on the chopping block, too. The Russians also said no, unless Libya was on the table. Russia seeks to use the mess in that country to obstruct stronger measures on Syria.

The Subversive Hebrew Language

Sultan Knish

Alice Walker has joined fellow Hamas flotilla writers, Henning Mankell and Iain Banks in boycotting the Hebrew language and banning their books from being translated into the 4,000-year-old Zionist language. This move has gotten more attention, because, unlike Henning Mankell and Iain Banks, people have actually heard of Walker, if only because they were forced to read her in school.

As punishments go, preventing Israelis from reading The Color Purple seems more like a blessing than a curse. If only Amos Oz and David Grossman could be similarly convinced to follow through on their politics and begin boycotting the Hebrew language, the national IQ would be better for it.

Walker, Mankell and Banks (possibly the world's worst law firm) have every right to pick up their placards and boycott one of the world's oldest languages. When Wagner directed the work of Jewish composers, he reportedly immediately discarded the gloves that he wore during the onerous task. Perhaps Walker and the Gaza gang could do likewise, allowing the translation only so long as the laptop and printers that actually transform their words into the cursed Hebraic are swiftly thrown out afterward.

Muslim Persecution of Christians: May, 2012

Raymond Ibrahim  on Jul 2nd, 2012 

Originally published by the Gatestone Institute.

Unlike those nations, such as Saudi Arabia, that have eliminated Christianity altogether, Muslim countries with significant Christian minorities saw much persecution during the month of May: in Egypt, Christians were openly discriminated against in law courts, even as some accused the nation’s new president of declaring that he will “achieve the Islamic conquest of Egypt for the second time, and make all Christians convert to Islam”; in Indonesia, Muslims threw bags of urine on Christians during worship; in Kashmir and Zanzibar, churches were set aflame; and in Mali Christianity “faces being eradicated.”
Elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa—in Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, the Ivory Coast—wherever Islam and Christianity meet, Christians are being killed, slaughtered, beheaded and even crucified.

Categorized by theme, May’s assemblage of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity.  Note: Because Pakistan had the lion’s share of persecuted Christians last month, it has its own section below, covering the entire gamut of persecution—from apostasy and blasphemy to rape and forced conversions.

Church Attacks
Indonesia saw several church-related attacks:

• A mob of 600 Muslims threw bags of urine, stones, and rotten eggs at the congregation of a Protestant church at the start of Ascension Day service, while shouting profanity and threatening to kill the pastor.  No arrests were made. The church had applied for a permit to construct its house of worship five years ago. Pressured by local Muslims, the local administration ordered the church to shut down in December 2009, though the Supreme Court recently overruled its decision, saying the church is eligible for a permit.  Regardless, local Muslims and officials demand that the church shut down.

Muslim Brotherhood Preaching Israel Destruction after Election

STEVE EMERSON 

"Every Muslim will be asked about the Zionists' usurpation of al-Aqsa Mosque. Why did he not seek to recover it, and wage Jihad in His way? Did he not care about the fatwa of the ulema [scholars] of the Muslims, 'Jihad of self and money to recover al Aqsa is a duty on every Muslim?'" asked Mohamed Badie, General Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, in a June 14^th speech translated exclusively by the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

The speech from the Brotherhood's Ikhwan Online website is evidence that the group has not moderated its position even an iota, despite assurances to Western audiences.

"How happy would be the Muslims if all Muslim rulers made the Palestinian cause a pivotal issue, around which Muslims, rulers and the ruled, would line up," he stated. According to Badie, they would ally to make "the sole goal for all of them the recovery of al Aqsa Mosque, freeing it from the filth of the Zionists, and imposing Muslim rule throughout beloved Palestine."

"The Lord of Glory has threatened these murdering Zionists criminals with a penalty of a kind which operates in this world before the Hereafter, he said, before referencing a Quranic quote calling Jews "apes, despised."

The Liars Have Triumphed

ALAN CARUBA 

The Supreme Court decision on Obamacare confirmed that lies have triumphed over the Constitution.

It also is a reminder that the Supreme Court is a political entity and a human one. Only the Justices who dissented from the majority decision on Obamacare were willing to take the heat. The majority ruled that the individual mandate under the commerce clause was unconstitutional, but gave Obamacare life as a tax.

It was always a tax, but President Obama repeatedly told Americans that it was not until his administration's lawyers went before the Supreme Court and admitted and argued that it was a tax. The lawyers on the Court agreed, the majority in effect saying that there is no limit to the ability of Congress to tax Americans.

As Politico.com reported: On the losing end of a 5-4 decision, Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said that the entire health care reform law should have been struck down.

COP: Too Many Broken Promises in Obamacare

Alyene Senger

July 2, 2012

Yesterday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) almost called Obamacare’s individual mandate a tax, stopping mid-word to call it a “penalty”. White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew and other spokespersons echoed this talking point. This is in spite of last week’s Supreme Court ruling that deemed the mandate unconstitutional under both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause, but ruled that it could stand as part of Congress’s authority to “lay and collect taxes.”
Dubbing the individual mandate a tax saved the President’s health care law, but it’s a concept that President Obama himself has strongly denied. In a 2009 interview, President Obama argued that his individual mandate was not a tax increase, stating, “I absolutely reject that notion.”

But after last week, President Obama must now admit it’s a tax or admit the mandate is unconstitutional. It’s can only be one or the other.

Who Rules Egypt? It's Still an Open Question But Probably Not for Long

Barry Rubin
 

It is impossible for the moment to say what’s going to happen in Egypt. But there are two basic scenarios:

--The armed forces, which have declared martial law, will continue to control the real power and use the Muslim Brotherhood leader who has become president, Muhammad al-Mursi, as a figurehead.

--The armed forces will impose a sweet deal on al-Mursi letting him do pretty much what he wants as long as he doesn’t touch the military’s economic wealth and the army as an institution. The armed forces will determine who becomes defense minister and set their own budget. Perhaps the generals will also insist al-Mursi doesn’t go too far in threatening Israel or antagonizing the United States (placing U.S. aid to the military in jeopardy).

I suspect the second alternative may be more likely but am awaiting further evidence. The details of any such deal are all-important. Is the military only saying "hands-off" toward its economic empire and autonomy, or will it also effectively restrain the Muslim Brotherhood from possibly provoking war with Israel? Since presumably it will take at least six months to elect a new parliament and another six months to write a constitution, the nature of Egypt's new regime will only gradually become clear.

The other political forces in the country are more openly tipping their hands. The radical Salafists will try to outflank the Brotherhood in militancy but are likely to cooperate with it on lots of things; many of the moderate "liberals" are also supporting the Brotherhood.

Attacking Israel Online

Ben Cohen — July 2012

Throughout the greater Middle East, opposition to the concept and existence of a Jewish state is an idée fixe for hundreds of millions of Arab and non-Arab Muslims. A hatred of Jewish political sovereignty that frequently dovetails with more traditional anti-Semitism animates café discussions and street protests as surely as it prohibits regional political progress. Yet the strand of anti-Zionism that has lately come to attract the most attention in the West is the one articulated by a tiny minority of left-wing Jews at a handful of websites.

Full-time antagonists of Israel such as M.J. Rosenberg, Max Blumenthal, Philip Weiss, and Peter Beinart have accumulated an influence that vastly exceeds their single-digit numbers. This is in part due to the financial sponsorship of successful and well-established media institutions. Until March 2012, Rosenberg was employed by Media Matters for America (MMfA) at a salary of some $130,000 per annum. Weiss was supported for years by the Nation magazine’s Nation Institute. Peter Beinart’s new Open Zion blog is hosted by the Daily Beast, an online publication jointly owned by the Harman family and the Internet media giant IAC.

"He Said No"

Former prime minister of Israel Yitzhak Shamir passed away yesterday at the age of 96. 

 

Credit: Tributes.com

 

A feisty man of few words who held on to his fiercely nationalist, Zionist convictions, he was noted for his integrity, his humility and his courage.

 

David Bedein, in a tribute to Shamir, recalls this from an interview:

There Ain't No More Middle-Ground

Sultan Knish

"There is no more neutrality in the world," said Black Panther leader, civil rights activist and fun-loving rapist; Eldridge Cleaver. "You either have to be part of the solution, or you're going to be part of the problem-- there ain't no more middle ground."

We live in Eldridge Cleaver's world now, a world with no more middle ground. Where not doing anything does not mean you will be left alone. This is no longer a nation founded on the curious premise that the government should leave people alone unless they are causing problems.

That peculiar idea was held by a nation of farmers and merchants who fled religious persecution, and whose great contribution to human history was the notion that governments shouldn't be all-powerful and that everyone should mind their own business when it comes to other people's affairs. Our present-day rulers revile them as racist slave owners who only cared about money, but they also happen to be racist slave owners who only care about money, and they have far more of both.

The average American still holds the fanciful belief that, if he isn't annoying anyone, he should be left alone. To the people running his country, this is as bizarre and unworkable as Phrenology or the Geocentric theory or handing out universal health care without also compelling everyone to buy it.

Israeli-Arab Loyalty to Whom?

http://newsblaze.com/story/20120701070813nurg.nb/topstory.html

Nurit Greenger

A nation has an anthem, a nation has a flag and a nation  has an ethos.  When one decides to immigrate to a new country, one knows, in advance, that in order to become part of the host country's fabric, he or she will have to adapt to the host country, meaning, adopt the ethos, sing the anthem and salute the national flag. Become a true and loyal citizen.

The Land of Israel was an unlucky one. Since the Romans expelled the Jews from their homeland to all four corners of the world, it has seen nothing but foreign hands brush through its soil, leaving behind, as written in the pages of history, rivers of blood, chaos and desolation. While the Jews were yearning for their Jerusalem, foreign hands were mishandling their holy city.

Then, the Jews hit a lucky strike, when in 1922, they were given the Mandate for Palestine, the right to return to their ancient homeland and make the land their nation state again.

MB vs SCAF

Khalil al-Anani

Ahram Weekly

 

Mohamed Mursi's landmark victory, which has placed a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the highest political office, is an unprecedented turning point in the history of the organisation that was founded in 1928. It will be some time before we will see how this development will impact on the Muslim Brotherhood, but there is no doubt that we must begin to contemplate it in a new light and build assessments accordingly.

The Muslim Brotherhood is no longer in the opposition; it has become a major part of the new order. This was already apparent when its candidates won the largest share of the seats in the parliament that was elected after the revolution and that was recently dissolved. But Mursi's presidential victory, which carries both symbolic and political weight, crowned this reality. 

The Future Leaders of Palestinians: Terrorists

Hisham Jarallah

In Palestinian society, it is much more important if one graduates from an Israeli prison than from a university in the U.S. or Europe. Economic prosperity and the peace process with Israel are not going to convince most Palestinians to vote for people like Fayyad or Abbas.

The most recent public opinion poll in the Palestinian territories shows that Marwan Barghouti, the dominant Fatah leader who is serving five life terms in Israeli prison for his role in several terror attacks during the second intifada, would win the presidential election.

The poll, conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research also shows clear improvement in the standing of Hamas, while its rival secular Fatah faction has declined in popularity.

Palestinians prefer someone like Barghouti to lead them because he launched terror attacks on Israelis and is sitting in Israeli prison.

The fact that Barghouti's attacks resulted in the death of a number of Jews gives him leadership credentials. He is popular among Palestinians because he has Jewish blood on his hands and was involved in "armed resistance."

Sharia in America: New Disability Regulations to Admit Mini-Horses as Guide Animals, Dogs 'unclean' under Islam

 Caption reads: Mona Ramouni, who is blind, rides a bus to work with her guide horse in Lincoln Park, Mich. Growing up in Detroit, Ramouni could never get a dog because her devout Muslim family considered dogs unclean

 

Sharia law in America. The government will require businesses to admit mini-horses as guide animals, as an accommodation to the canine hatred under Islam.

This Muslim blind girl's parents denied her a guide dog throughout her childhood because it was "unclean." They preferred to see her struggle rather than get her a guide dog. What kind of people and warped values would do that to a blind child?
US Congressman Jason Chaffetz points out that the President of the Miniature Horse association explained that the mini-horses cannot replace guide dogs, and that they are unsuitable for this use. (hat tip Choi)

New Disability Regs Limit Slope of Mini Golf Holes, Require Businesses to Admit Mini Horses as Guide Animals CNS

(CNSNews.com) – [...]

Among the provisions in the "Revised ADA Standards for Accessible Design," which went into effect on March 15, is one requiring businesses to allow miniature horses on their premises as guide animals for the disabled. Another limits the height of slopes on miniature golf holes.

“The new standards, for the first time, include requirements for judicial facilities, detention and correctional facilities, and recreational facilities,” Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez said during a conference in Baltimore on June 7.

“We expect the implementation of these accessibility standards to open up doors for full participation in both the responsibilities, such as jury duty, and the benefits, such as playing at city parks, of civic life for people with disabilities,” he said.

“Miniature horses were suggested by some commenters as viable alternatives to dogs for individuals with allergies, or for those whose religious beliefs preclude the use of dogs,” the rules state.  Also mentioned as a reason to include the animals is the longer life span of miniature horses – providing approximately 25 years of service as opposed to seven years for dogs.

“Some individuals with disabilities have traveled by train and have flown commercially with their miniature horses,” the Justice Department notes.

“Similar to dogs, miniature horses can be trained through behavioral reinforcement to be ‘housebroken,’” it adds.

However, “Ponies and full-size horses are not covered.”

A business owner can deny admission to a miniature horse that is not housebroken, whose handler does not have sufficient control of the animal, or if the horse’s presence compromises “legitimate safety requirements.”

The miniature horse addition has come under the scrutiny of at least one member of Congress, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who offered an amendment that passed the House, banning funding to implement the provision. Chaffetz penned an editorial last month in opposition to the rule entitled, “Horses in the Dining Room?”

Horses in the dining room? by Jason Chaffetz Herald

(Jason Chaffetz represents Utah's 3rd U.S. Congressional District.)

Should a restaurant be required to allow horses in the dining room? Incredulously, a recent Justice Department ruling now says yes. In response, last week I proposed an amendment to the Commerce, Science, and Justice appropriations bill that would repeal this ridiculous mandate. Having passed the House, the proposal now awaits the Senate's unlikely approval.

Despite the difficulty (some would say impossibility) of housebreaking a horse, the Obama Justice Department ruled that "service" horses -- miniature horses used to accompany people with disabilities -- are no different than guide dogs under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). As a result, shops, restaurants, hotels and even airlines could be sued if they did not accommodate horses.

That regulation joins a long list of rules with which small businesses must comply. The New York Times recently reported on a particularly insidious scheme in which lawyers recruit disabled people, pay them a fee, and use them to file lawsuits against businesses that fail to comply with any one of hundreds of ADA rules. (Online ADAscam.notlong.com.) For small businesses, the cost of compliance with a law that designates 95 different standards for bathrooms alone is just the beginning. They must also pay attorneys' fees to the litigants in such cases, even though many businesses say they would have complied without a lawsuit.

Some 1.65 million lawsuits are filed each year over enforcement of federal regulations according to Berkeley law professor Sean Farhang, author of The Litigation State. Estimates by the Competitive Enterprise Institute suggest that regulation cost the economy $1.75 trillion in 2008. That's Trillion with a T. If you were to spend $1 million a day every day, it would take you nearly 3,000 years just to get to $1 trillion.

That's a massive drag on the US economy. With an average of nine new rules appearing in the Federal Register every day, small businesses with fewer resources struggle to keep up with an ever-changing regulatory environment. Some 65 percent of the nation's net new jobs are created by small businesses according to the Small Business Administration. Overregulation has direct affect on their ability to create jobs and compete in the marketplace.

In response, the House recently passed the REINS Act, intended to require Congress to hold an up-or-down vote on any regulation deemed to have an economic impact in excess of $100 million. But without approval from the Senate or the President, the bill has yet to become law. This law should be seen as a starting point. Congress must assert more authority in the rulemaking process. More importantly, we must recognize that one size does not fit all. What works in California may not be right for Utah. In many cases, regulatory authority can be returned to the states, where the leaders are closer and more accountable to the people who live with the consequences of their decisions.

While Congress is guilty of passing sweeping regulatory laws with broad and often undefined powers, another problem is the delegation of authority to executive branch agencies with virtually no accountability to the public. With the implementation of massive new regulatory regimes in healthcare and finance, federal bureaucrats are more empowered than ever to weigh down the economy with new rules.

Meanwhile, the federal workforce, many of whom are regulators, has increased. Since January 2009, the Obama Administration has added 144,700 new employees -- a net increase that excludes postal employees, uniform military and census workers. While the private sector has seen employment decrease 4.2 percent since January 2008, federal employment has jumped some 11.6% during that period. The expansion of government and the expansion of federal rules leads to the contraction of economic opportunity and freedom.

If we are serious about creating jobs and growing the economy, we have to reduce the regulatory burden on our most prolific job creators -- small businesses. Government cannot be all things to all people. We don't need a rule or regulation for everything that might possibly go wrong.

If a person wishes to bring a horse into an establishment, the request should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis -- not through a federal mandate. Ironically, even American Miniature Horse Association President Harry Elder does not condone the use of the animals as a replacement for guide dogs. "The American Miniature Horse can be readily trained to be lead or driven," he told Fox News, "but, in most cases, it would not make a suitable replacement for an animal such as a guide dog."

We have to give businesses regulatory certainty, give states more autonomy, and give federal regulators more direction from those who are actually accountable to the American people. The REINS Act is a great start. But it's not enough.

Jason Chaffetz represents Utah's 3rd U.S. Congressional District.

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Sharia law in "moderate" Jordan: Rape victim, 14, forced to marry rapist

Where are the phony feminists? The reality is that honor murder and rape under the sharia dictate leniency in the sentencing of honor crimes. Honor killings are halal under the sharia (Islamic law). And while murder is punishable by death in Jordan, for "honor killings" courts can commute or reduce sentences, and do.

Many moderate Muslim states, including Jordan and Syria, have relaxed penalties of honor killing, and Islamic clerics have resisted attempts to stiffen those penalties.

Under Islamic law, the emphasis is not so much on the crime of rape but on the shame that the woman has brought upon her family by her sexual immorality, even if it was forced. So that shame can be washed away by her marrying the rapist.

Islam's emphasis is wholly and completely upon women as having the responsibility not to tempt men. If they do, and the man rapes, it's the woman's fault. So this ruling is of a piece with the wearing of hijabs, burqas, etc.

Islam teaches that women are the possessions of men and places a high premium on virginity. This woman after the rape would be considered damaged goods. If the rapist had declined to marry her, her life would have been completely ruined, as no one else would marry her and she would be stigmatized.

Sisters In Islam, a Muslim reform group in Malaysia, has surveyed the plight of women in the Islamic world and estimates that as many as 75% of women in Pakistan who are in prison are there because they were raped. Islamic law requires 4 witnesses (male Muslim witnesses) who saw the act to establish it, so a woman's accusation can be self-incriminating if she doesn't have those witnesses.

The 4 witnesses rule comes from the Qur'an (24:4 and 24:13). It is based on an incident in which Muhammad's favorite wife, the child bride Aisha, was accused of adultery. Rather than see her stoned to death, Muhammad got a revelation that four witnesses were required (the accusers didn't have them). This exonerated Aisha, but Muslim women have suffered as a result of this law to this day.

Robert Spencer wrote, "It is no accident or coincidence that Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2). In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law."

Fury as victim, 14, forced to marry rapist News 24

Amman - The ordeal of a 14-year-old girl who was kidnapped and raped repeatedly for three days has infuriated Jordanians, especially when her attacker agreed to marry her to avoid going to jail.

In conservative Muslim societies like Jordan, rapists can walk free thanks to penal code Article 308, known as the "rape-law".

In April, the unidentified girl was shopping in the northern city of Zarqa when a 19-year-old man kidnapped her, took her to the desert where he had a pitched a tent and raped her for three consecutive days, judicial sources said.

Police found the girl during a routine patrol, drove her back to her family home and arrested the man.

Within days news emerged that the boy had agreed to marry the girl, while all charges against him have been dropped...

... But Israa Tawalbeh, the country's first woman coroner, sees "nothing wrong in Article 308 as such"....

... "Accepting marriage under Article 308 is better than leaving girls to be killed by their parents or relatives," she said.

"I think the law fits our society and reality. It protects the girls by forcing attackers to marry them."...