Seymour Hersh: Bin Laden Raid “One Big Lie”

Pulitzer-prize wining journalist slams “pathetic” US media for failing to challenge White House
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh says that the raid which killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011 is “one big lie” and that “not one word” of the Obama administration’s narrative on what happened is true.

Image: President Obama.

In a wide-ranging interview published today by the Guardian, Hersh savages the US media for failing to challenge the White House on a whole host of issues, from NSA spying, to drone attacks, to aggression against Syria.

On the subject of the Navy Seal raid that supposedly resulted in the death of the Al-Qaeda terror leader, Hersh remarked, “Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true.”

Hersh added that the Obama administration habitually lies but they continue to do so because the press allows them to get away with it.

“It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama],” Hersh told the Guardian.

The raid that supposedly led to Bin Laden’s death has been shrouded in mystery for over two years. Speculation that the Obama administration may have embellished or outright lied about the true account of what happened has persisted, mainly because the White House has refused to publicly release images of Bin Laden’s body.

Syrian rebels face growing threat from foreign jihadists

Benjamin Weinthal

FoxNews.com

• 
  An estimated 500,000 Syrian refugees have fled to camps in Turkey. (AFP)

JARABULUS, Syria –  The man’s face was badly mangled and he was unconscious when fellow Syrian rebels brought him on a gurney from the outskirts of this small village across the border to the neighboring Turkish town Karkamis.
His name and prognosis were not clear, but what was known was that he was a casualty of his own comrades - a victim of the infighting among Syrian rebel groups which is also taking a bloody toll on refugees displaced by the more than two-year-old civil war. Freedom-minded Syrian rebels point their fingers at Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, known by the acronym ISIS, which earlier this month announced a campaign of “cleansing evil” directed at moderate pro-Western opposition groups.

“We are with the moderate fighters and Free Syrian Army."

- Amer, a 22-year old refugee living in the Kilis Syrian refugee camp

“We are with the moderate fighters and Free Syrian Army," Amer, a 22-year old refugee living in the Kilis Syrian refugee camp on the Turkish-Syrian border, told FoxNews.com. "We are not with the extremists.”

Ibrahim, a truck driver in Syria before fleeing the fighting, said the foreign fighters, initially welcomed in the quest to topple Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, have changed the focus to Islamicization of the war-torn country.

THE SHADOW COMMANDER

BY DEXTER FILKINS

Last February, some of Iran’s most influential leaders gathered at the Amir al-Momenin Mosque, in northeast Tehran, inside a gated community reserved for officers of the Revolutionary Guard. They had come to pay their last respects to a fallen comrade. Hassan Shateri, a veteran of Iran’s covert wars throughout the Middle East and South Asia, was a senior commander in a powerful, élite branch of the Revolutionary Guard called the Quds Force. The force is the sharp instrument of Iranian foreign policy, roughly analogous to a combined C.I.A. and Special Forces; its name comes from the Persian word for Jerusalem, which its fighters have promised to liberate. Since 1979, its goal has been to subvert Iran’s enemies and extend the country’s influence across the Middle East. Shateri had spent much of his career abroad, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, where the Quds Force helped Shiite militias kill American soldiers.

A Brief History of the Transatlantic Counterjihad, Part III(b)

Gates of Vienna
 

This is the fourth of an eight-part history of the Transatlantic Counterjihad. Links to the first three parts are at the bottom of this post. The section on Counterjihad participation at OSCE “Human Dimension” meetings had to be split into two posts, and this is the second of those posts.

A debt of gratitude is owed to the Counterjihad Collective for its efforts in this project.


A Brief History of the Transatlantic Counterjihad
by the Counterjihad Collective

III. The Transatlantic Counterjihad at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (continued)

Speaking in plenary sessions:

Session I:

From Commitments to Implementation: Freedom of Religion or Belief in the OSCE Area

At the beginning of the main session, speakers representing several NGOs made reference to a recent murder in Dresden, Germany, in which a woman of Egyptian descent had been stabbed by a Russian immigrant. They voiced the opinion that OSCE participant countries should be much more assertive in countering any form of racism or anti-Islamic activities. The representative of COJEP (originally rooted in Millî Görüs) reiterated the call for governments to stop racism and anti-Islamic activities everywhere.

More on-topic, several speakers commented on the increase in vandalism against Jewish and Christian buildings, in particular the destruction of some 150 Christian buildings in Kosovo.

Benjamin Bull of the Alliance Defence Fund raised several issues for Christian organisations:

The misapplication of hate speech laws to stifle any religious expression.

The misapplication of anti-discrimination laws to force religious organisations to hire staff with beliefs and viewpoints contrary to that of the organisation.

Revoking tax benefits on basis of the above, or banning Christian organisations from university campuses, thus severely hampering the activities of these organisations.

ICLA fought for — and won — the opportunity to make this comment:

A Burqa at the Beach

Deborah C. Tyler

Not too long ago, I spent a few days at an oceanfront resort hotel.  While I was there, an Islamic group of about a hundred people checked in for a few days.


My stay at the beach provided an unforeseen opportunity to observe their psychosocial process.  I got to watch a group of jeans-clad teenagers plot to escape their parents.  I watched a father grab and swat his son, who was running up and down a broad, carpeted staircase (good luck keeping that one down on the farm).


One evening, a woman in a full black burqa walked into the lobby.  At first, I felt a shiver of horror in reaction to her macabre attire.  This was followed by a sense of pity that she is forced to dress in such a manner, her skin deprived of the evening breeze, her eyes directed away from the moon over the ocean.  But as I sat there watching this apparently young woman for about half an hour, questions came to my mind.

Iceland to Get its First Mosque

Soeren Kern

The Muslim Association of Iceland now admits that foreign donors will be paying for the mosque's construction costs. The former mayor of Reykjavik says he believes it is outrageous for the city to give Muslims a site at no cost at a great location in the center of the city, and asks why political and feminist groups are so tolerant of a religion that he says degrades women.

The Reykjavík City Council has approved a building permit for the construction of the first mosque in Iceland.

The mosque will be built in Sogamýri, an upscale district near downtown Reykjavík on a highly desirable plot of land that was granted to Muslims free of charge, courtesy of Icelandic taxpayers.

Members of the city council -- which is led by Reykjavík Mayor Jón Gnarr, who identifies himself as an anarchist -- say they hope the prime location will make the mosque a prominent landmark in the city.

Critics of the mosque, however, say the project is being financed by donors in the Middle East who are seeking to exert control over -- and radicalize -- the growing Muslim community in Iceland.

Although reliable statistics do not exist, the Muslim population of Iceland is estimated to be approximately 1,200, or 0.4% of the total Icelandic population of 320,000. Most Muslims in Iceland live in the capital Reykjavík, where they make up about 1% of the total population of 120,000.

The Muslim community in Iceland may be small in comparison to other European countries, but its rate of growth has been exponential: Since 1990, when there were fewer than a dozen Muslims in the country, their number has increased by nearly 10,000%.

Hamas Threatens Egypt, Israel And Palestinian Authority

Khaled Abu Toameh

If the leaders of Hamas believe that the Egyptians are determined to undermine or topple their regime, they will not hesitate to initiate a new military confrontation against Israel. Hamas would never dare to initiate one against the Egyptian army. It is easier to fire rockets at Israel.

As Egypt steps up security restrictions along its border with the Gaza Strip, Hamas and some Palestinian terror groups have been holding "military parades" in a bid to show that they are prepared for war.

The parades, which saw hundreds of heavily armed militiamen march through the streets, are mainly intended to send a message of warning to Egypt's new rulers against any attempt to launch a military offensive inside the Gaza Strip.

A Hamas military parade.

Some Hamas leaders are convinced that the Egyptians are preparing to launch a military strike against the Gaza Strip under the pretext of combatting terror in Sinai.

Prelude to the Boston Bombings

Dawn Perlmutter
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2013, pp. 67-77

http://www.meforum.org/3618/boston-bombings-prelude

On September 11, 2011, three lifelong friends—Brendan Mess, age 25, Erik Weissman, 31, and Raphael Teken, 37—were brutally murdered in Mess's apartment in Waltham, Massachusetts. The graphic crime scene was discovered in the early afternoon of September 12, 2011, by Mess's girlfriend, who ran screaming from the apartment. The victims had been dragged to three different rooms and killed there. Their bodies had multiple stab wounds; their throats were slit from ear to ear with such force that they were nearly decapitated, and their mutilated corpses were covered with drugs and money. In addition to the seven pounds of marijuana found on their bodies, $5,000 in cash was left at the scene. Two of the three victims were Jewish, and several sources have identified all three victims as such.[1]

Muslim Persecution of Christians: July, 2013

Raymond Ibrahim
Gatestone Institute

http://www.meforum.org/3616/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2013

About this Series

Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching pandemic proportions, "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:

1) To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
2) To show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.

Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish with death those who "offend" Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like dhimmis, or second-class, "tolerated" citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination.

Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to India in the East, and throughout the West wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.


On July 4^th, the day after the Egyptian military liberated the nation of Muslim Brotherhood rule, Christian Copts were immediately scapegoated and targeted. All Islamist leaders—from Brotherhood supreme leader Muhammad Badi, to Egyptian-born al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri, to top Sunni cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi—made it a point to single out Egypt's Copts as being especially instrumental in the ousting of former Islamist president Morsi, ushering in a month of pogroms against the nation's Christian minority.

How to Turn a Campus Into an Indoctrination Center

Barry Rubin

If you want to understand how the far left controls campuses, consider this story.

There is no university more supportive of the Arab nationalist (historically), Islamist, and anti-Israel line in the United States than Georgetown's programs on Middle East studies. Every conference it holds on the Middle East is ridiculously one-sided. The university has received millions of dollars in funds from Arab states, and it houses the most important center in the United States that has advocated support for a pro-Islamist policy.

One day in 1975, not long before he died, the great Professor Carroll Quigley walked up to me when I was sitting in the Georgetown University library. Everyone was in awe of this brilliant lecturer (remind me to write him a tribute explaining why he was so great). 

I thought he might have remembered me from my extended explanation of why I was late for class one day because I had rescued a sparrow and taken it to a veterinarian (true).   I vividly recall that detail, because I couldn't think otherwise why he would want to talk to such a lowly person.

Op-Ed: Abbas is a War Criminal: The Evidence

To whom is Israel relinquishing a Jewish town?

Giulio Meotti

The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary. He is at work on a book about the Vatican and Israel.

Not only no word of condemnation has come from any Palestinian Arab leader for the lynching and killing of two Israeli soldiers two days apart by Palestinian Arabs. But Mahmoud Abbas and his group of terrorists are responsible for the latest round of Jew murdering.

These days Palestinian Arab groups are meeting in Ramallah to campaign for an intifada against Israel. Terrorists, Mahmoud Abbas loyalists from Fatah, are marching in the PA capital calling for new violence against the Jews. Fatah’s armed wing, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, are claiming responsibility for the slaughtering of the two IDF soldiers in Kalkilya and Hevron. After the killing of the soldier in the City of the Patriarchs, Abbas’ group claimed that “when Fatah says, it does. When Fatah promises, it fulfills”.

As far back as the 1970s, international law expert Yoram Dinstein argued that according to UN definitions, terrorism and incitement against Israelis constitute genocide. That is why the Palestinian Authority’s Chairman Abbas should be tried for crimes against humanity.

Briefing on iran‏

 

Mitchell Bard via email

 

Begin forwarded message:

From: "White House Press Office" 

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

For Immediate Release        September 27, 2013

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

BY A SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL

ON IRAN

Via Conference Call

4:34 P.M. EDT

     MS. HAYDEN:  Hi, everyone.  Happy Friday afternoon.  Thanks for joining us on this call.  We just wanted to talk to you a bit about the announcement the President made earlier, his phone call with President Rouhani of Iran.  We have a senior administration official, so this call is on background.  There’s no embargo.  This call is attributable to a senior administration official.

     And with that, I'll turn it over to our senior administration official.

     SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks, everybody.  We just wanted to give you some background on today’s phone call between President Obama and President Rouhani.  First of all, I'd note that today we had two significant developments underway in terms of our foreign policy -- frankly, neither of which could have been foreseen a month ago, and both of which hold out the prospect of significant progress on issues that are hugely important to the United States and the international community.

     The first, of course, is our efforts to reach an agreement on a U.N. Security Council resolution, the significant breakthrough that was made last night with Russia, and the opportunity that we now have to have a strong binding U.N. Security Council resolution that puts Syrian chemical weapons under international control and ultimately destroys them. 

     This would, frankly, go beyond achieving the objective that we were contemplating with military action, which was to deter the use of chemical weapons, by achieving the destruction of those chemical weapons stockpiles within Syria through a process of transfer to international control and ultimately destruction.

     But to focus on the call with the Iranian President, I'll say a few words to open and then take your questions.  You, no doubt, saw the President’s comments.

     The call between the two leaders took place this afternoon at roughly 2:30 p.m.  The length of the call was roughly 15 minutes.  President Obama opened by congratulating President Rouhani on his election as President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  He noted the history of mistrust between our two nations, but also noted the constructive statements that President Rouhani had made since his election, including over the last several days in New York.

Jihad without borders

The West closed its eyes and allowed Islamic terrorism to spread • The Middle East and Africa are the main victims • Jihadists are recruiting militants from Europe and the U.S. • The world responds leniently and gives legitimacy to supporters of terror.

Boaz Bismuth

Terrorism strikes Nigeria this week | Photo credit: AP

<< 1 2 3 >>

This week was a particularly violent one, with terror rearing its ugly head throughout the world.

In Kenya, a Somalia-based, al-Qaida-linked rebel group, al-Shabab, burst into Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall and murdered dozens of victims in cold blood, not before calling on fellow Muslims to run away.

Elsewhere on the continent, in Nigeria, at least 160 people were massacred in two attacks by the radical Islamist organization Boko Haram.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, a terrorist blew himself up outside a church in the city of Peshawar, killing at least 60 members of Pakistan's Christian minority.

Here in Israel, terror struck as well. Over the Sukkot holiday, two soldiers paid with their lives. On Sunday, Sgt. Gal (Gavriel) Kobi took a single lethal bullet to his neck in Hebron. Forty-eight hours earlier, Sgt. Tomer Hazan had been murdered by his Palestinian host, Nidal Amar.

This was the same week during which Iran, a country that supports and finances terrorism, sent their president to the U.N. General Assembly as if he were a beacon of peace.

Obama to Israel: Suicide Is Security

P. David Hornik

“Friends of Israel, including the United States,” President Obama said in his speech to the UN on Tuesday, “must recognize that Israel’s security as a Jewish and democratic state depends upon the realization of a Palestinian state….”

Particularly because of its timing, the statement left most Israelis rubbing their eyes.

Transportation Minister Israel Katz of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party called Obama’s words “one of the worst statements by an American president in history. Israel’s existence does not depend on anything, especially not the Palestinians….”

Imagine carving out about one-fourth of the U.S. and making it a separate country bordering Washington and a few miles from New York. This country is populated by people who systematically teach their children that the United States has no right to exist and must be destroyed, and name schools, public squares, and summer camps after terrorists who have inflicted mass-casualty attacks on the U.S.

No one in his right mind would call that a way to ensure America’s security.
There are, though, more specific reasons to marvel at (while not being surprised by) Obama’s words.

Abbas at the UN: Decoding the Babble

Arlene Kushner

Mahmoud Abbas – putative president of the Palestinian Authority – addressed the UN General Assembly on Thursday, focusing on the negotiations between the PA and Israel. How eminently reasonable was the tone he attempted to project.  There he stood on the dais, expressing his intention to work hard for peace, even pleading for peace.
 
“Our quest is supportive of the path of peace,” he assured those assembled.

I affirm before you that… we shall continue [the negotiations] in good faith and with open minds, strong determination and an insistence on success…we shall …foster the most conducive atmosphere for the continuation of these negotiations…”
Ah! That he should truly be what he would have us believe he is. But an even cursory look at his words tells us that he is not.  The leopard has not changed his spots.
We might start with that bit about fostering “the most conducive atmosphere…” Khaled Abu Toameh has just described the atmosphere that Abbas fosters:

CNN Rouhani Interview Lost in Translation?

Lisa Barron

inShare

CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour is hitting back at claims that the network mistranslated her interview with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

The Wall Street Journal claims that Rouhani did not make conciliatory remarks about the Holocaust as CNN claimed. But Amanpour — who is herself half-Iranian — went on a Twitter tirade on Wednesday to defend her employers.

According to CNN's translation, Rouhani, who was interviewed in New York where he was attending the United Nations General Council, said "whatever criminality [the Nazis] committed against the Jews, we condemn." That was in stark contrast to his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who infamously called the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews a myth.



But the Journal insisted CNN had gotten it wrong, quoting Iran's semi-official news agency Fars as saying he did not say any such thing.

"Our independent translation of Mr. Rouhani's comments confirms that Fars, not CNN, got the Farsi right," the Journal reported.

Canada: Jihad mass murder plotter says there is no moderate or radical Islam — "there is only one Islam"

"Esseghaier is also quoted saying that there is no such thing as moderate or radical Islam — that 'there is only one Islam' and only one God." In response to this, self-proclaimed "moderate" groups in Canada and the U.S. will not challenge or refute Esseghaier's understanding of Islam, but will instead denounce as "Islamophobes" anyone who asks them to do so.
"Train terror suspect: 9-11 was a 'tap on the cheek,'" from The Canadian Press, September 26 (thanks to Kenneth):

One of the Via terror suspects has called the 9-11 attacks a "tap on the cheek" compared to the violence committed by the West. Chiheb Esseghaier is quoted telling La Presse in a prison interview that the Iraq embargo, Afghanistan conflict and support for Israel are examples of the West "plunging a knife into the body" of the Muslim world, by comparison.
La Presse says that, over the course of two interviews, Esseghaier never denied the charges against him. He is one of two people accused of plotting to cause a train disaster in the Niagara region.
According to the newspaper the Tunisian-born scientist also appeared to offer a vaguely worded hint that he is far from unique: "I am only a drop of water in the sea. A detail," he is quoted as having repeated multiple times.
Esseghaier is also quoted saying that there is no such thing as moderate or radical Islam — that "there is only one Islam" and only one God.

Iran declares victory over Obama, says U.S. "reached this conclusion that they can't challenge the powerful Iran"

Jihad Watch

Can't? Won't, as long as Obama and those who think like him are in the White House. "Iran Declares Victory Over Obama," by Adam Kredo for the Washington Free Beacon, September 26:

A senior Iranian military leader said that his country’s “power and resistance” has forced the United States and President Barack Obama to kowtow to Tehran, according to reports in Iran’s state-run media. The senior military aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said that Iran has strong-armed Obama into accepting its nuclear rights.
“The Americans have sensibly chosen a type of flexibility and withdrawal vis a vis Iran,” Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi was quoted as saying on Wednesday by the Fars News Agency.
The United States “reached this conclusion that they can’t challenge the powerful Iran,” Safavi was quoted as saying.

Iran and the Nuclear Chicken

Ali Salim

The use of weapons of mass destruction to kill civilians in Syria is merely the preview for the main event, which, as soon as Iran's nuclear project is completed, will be, in the name of Allah, the destruction of entire nations -- especially those with oil -- as the Saudis see better than anyone. For stability in the region, the Iranian bomb must be eliminated -- while it is still a chicken.

Assad's use of chemical weapons against his own people is both a catastrophe and a crime against humanity, but also an object lesson for the West. A chemical weapons attack, Sarin gas if the UN report is credible, carried out at a time when he felt threatened, illustrates both how decisions are made in the Middle East and the logic Islamist leaders use to solve problems and resolve conflicts. It is also an opportunity for Western leaders, with their tragic difficulty in understanding Arab and Islamic social and religious norms, to get a glimpse of what it might cost the people of the free world if mistaken perceptions lead to serious errors in judgment.

To understand how Assad, considered the Father of the Syrian People, could kill his own civilians, one has to know that in our part of the world, an angry Arab father will behead his own daughter, whom he held as an infant and watched grow up, if she has been accused of immodest or immoral behavior.

Opinion: The danger of marginalizing regional partners in Syria

Yousef Al-Dayni

Anyone who has been following the Russian–American agreement must think that the Syrian crisis is on the brink of a political settlement. But that is not an accurate picture of the situation, as all the Russians could do was buy more time so that all partners would eventually get lost in a diplomatic and media maze. The Russians’ aim was to prevent a possible strike against the Assad regime.

Such a strike is not really desired by the Americans, who retain the phobias they developed during the Iraq war. But the US does want to exhaust and weaken all sides in the Syrian struggle, and the US media has been telling us this quite clearly. The point would be that then the winner, whomever it may be, would not be in a position to threaten Israel’s security.

Russia is not really in a good negotiating position, but that does not matter because America is so fragile in dealing with the Syrian crisis despite all what has been written by media representatives and analysts about Russia restoring its political standing through its most prominent—and only remaining—ally.