A Terrorist’s World View Signals What Our World View Should be
by Barry Rubin
A dozen words spoken at his trial by Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square would-be bomber, are worth studying very carefully. When asked why he targeted American civilians in the streets of New York, Shahzad replied:
“Well, the [American] people select the government. We consider them all the same.”
On one level, this is a standard terrorist position, used against countries from India to Israel and beyond. Significantly, it can only be applied only against democratic countries. Everyone is a legitimate target precisely because the country is a free one. Of course, the terrorist is attacking on the basis of a totalitarian ideology which he wants to impose everywhere possible. In this case, in the statement, “We consider them all the same,” the word “all” refers to the people.
But that’s not the main point I want to make.
The word “all” also refers to the governments they elect. In this case, the government the American people elected is that of Barack Hussain Obama, a president determined to prove to Muslims that he is their friend no matter what that costs.
No doubt, some are so convinced. According to public opinion polls, however, the change in the views of those in Muslim-majority countries has been—despite his efforts—pretty small…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
It’s Time to Open Impeachment File
Exclusive: Tom Tancredo sees need for probe into bribery, possibly treason
Yes, yes, I know. An impeachment investigation will never be started while Nancy Pelosi is speaker of the House. The good news is that this obstacle to impeachment will likely be removed by January.
It goes without saying that the impeachment process should never be a political weapon used to pursue partisan political advantage. But neither should an impeachment investigation be obstructed for political reasons.
Impeachment is a constitutional remedy to be used for serious offenses identified in the Constitution. So, we must ask this question: Has Barack Obama crossed the line that separates political differences from the serious offenses that warrant impeachment?
[…]
I believe there is a growing body of evidence of impeachable offenses sufficient to warrant a formal impeachment resolution in the House, followed by a trial in the Senate.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
G20 Protesters Tried to Interrupt Ceremony for Fallen Soldier
Yesterday, the usual collection of Trotskyites and Anarchists with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and all their new chums from out of town massed at the Allan Gardens between Gerrard and Carleton, east of Jarvis. OCAP have engaged in serious goonery before over the last 20 years and attracts those who like the ‘cutting edge’ of protest. Well, actually, the heavy stick of protest is more their style — all for ‘the People’ of course, whoever they are.
The Coroner’s office is in my neighbourhood of the last nine years, and I attend almost all the repatriations. Waiting for the motorcade yesterday, I noticed a few unusual types with bikes and cellphones skinning by as the police prepared for the final arrival of Sgt Macneil, but didn’t think the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty would sink so low as to try to disrupt the repatriation of one of our war dead.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Man With Astonishing Array of Weapons Including Crossbow and Chainsaw is Arrested Near G20 Summit in Toronto
This is the chilling array of weapons that were found in a car just a block from where David Cameron is meeting with world leaders including Barack Obama at tomorrow’s G20 summit in Toronto.
The car was loaded down with dangerous tools ranging from a chainsaw, crossbow, baseball bat, petrol containers, a sledgehammer and a hatchet.
A pet dog was also found in the battered silver sedan.
Its owner, a 53-year-old man, was arrested last night. Police said he had ‘no reasonable explanation for the weapons that we observed were in physical plain view’.
However — despite him being pulled over just a block from where tall steel fences have been erected to protect Mr Cameron and the other leaders — it was later decided that the incident did not present a danger to the summit.
‘We do not believe it is G20-related,’ G8/G20 spokeswoman Catherine Martin said last night.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Scientific Academies: In the Best Company
The grandfather of scientific national academies is staging major celebrations this week for its 350th birthday. But, like similar elite groups around the world, Britain’s Royal Society has had to work hard to stay relevant and influential, reports Colin Macilwain.
One thing that scientists have learned since the seventeenth century is how to throw a party. This week, the Queen is set to celebrate with hundreds of Britain’s most brilliant minds, kicking off a summer of festivities to mark the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge.
The public will be invited to partake in a carnival of celebrity lectures, debates, live TV shows and exhibits to showcase science and the Royal Society’s role in it. The choice of the South Bank — London’s main arts centre and a major tourist bazaar — for the ten-day extravaganza signals the society’s hunger to be seen as up to date, inclusive and important, not exclusive and aloof.
National academies of science in more than 100 nations are aiming for the same goal, with varying success. Many were born in an era when a few select individuals practiced science, and those groups evolved to offer behind-the-scenes advice to governments. Now, the academies represent much more diverse communities, and they must take their messages not only to governments but also directly to the public.
The Royal Society and its kindred academies have had to evolve in their own unique ways to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. They try to offer sober advice on some of the most divisive issues — such as climate change, reproductive biology and genetically modified food — without offending their patrons or members. They must be seen to be independent of government, despite considerable reliance on public funding. And they need to reflect the growing ethnic and gender diversity of the scientific community, while still selecting members on the basis of their scientific reputations.
Ever more nations are establishing academies of their own. They range from the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences in Addis Ababa, which opened for business two months ago, to the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in Washington DC, which employs 1,100 full-time staff members to turn out 200 reports each year for the government.
“The academy’s function is to provide the consensus view of the scientific community,” says Bruce Alberts, former president of the NAS. Given the range of topics that it handles and the diversity of views within that community, he says, “it is very difficult to do”.
The Royal Society and the NAS are two of the largest independent scientific academies in the world (see ‘Two elites’), and illustrate two principal models of operation. The Royal Society is a self-constituted club with no formal, official role in government; the NAS is chartered to provide advice at the behest of the US Congress. (A different type of academy, of which the Chinese Academy of Sciences is an example, is effectively part of the state and runs many of the government science programmes in several communist and formerly communist countries.)…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: KFC Forced to Ditch Halal-Only Menus After Disappointing Sales
KFC has scrapped its policy of serving halal food only in some of its takeaways, following customer protests.
One hundred of the fast food chain’s restaurants removed non-halal items from their menus last year in an attempt to attract Muslim customers.
But thousands of regular customers complained, including Alan Phillips, who was furious when the Burton-on-Trent branch refused to serve him his favourite Big Daddy chicken burger with bacon and cheese topping.
He was told it was forbidden to keep bacon on the same premises as halal meat and he would have to travel five miles to the nearest non-halal restaurant.
Now KFC has admitted five of its outlets — including Burton — are reverting to standard menus following poor sales.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Informant Risks Deportation
Shin Bet agent breaks cover to implore U.S. not to deport Hamas spy
WASHINGTON — The Israeli handler of a Palestinian informant revealed his identity Wednesday night to plead for US authorities not to deport the former spy on Hamas.
Gonen Ben-Itzhak, a Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) agent who for 10 years worked with Mosab Hassan Yousef, appeared before cameras for the first time at a dinner honoring Yousef and other recipients of the Endowment for Middle East Truth’s Rays of Light in the Darkness award.
Ben-Itzhak, who was previously referred to by the media only as “G” and had his face obscured on camera, said he traveled to America to testify on Yousef’s behalf at an immigration hearing scheduled for the end of the month in San Diego.
Yousef, son of Hamas leader Sheik Hassan Yousef, is credited by Israel with helping thwart countless terror attacks. He is now being threatened with deportation after the US turned down his request for asylum, since statements in his autobiography about working for Hamas are being interpreted as providing material support to the US-designated terrorist organization, despite his explanation that they were intended to undermine the group.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Cancels Plan to Send Ship to Gaza
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will not be sending a blockade-busting ship to Gaza in defiance of Israeli warnings, an Iranian lawmaker said Saturday, citing Israeli “restrictions.”
Mahmoud Ahmadi Bighash told the semiofficial ISNA news agency that instead of sending a ship, an Iranian delegation of lawmakers would travel to Lebanon and sail on one of the aid ships expected to head to Gaza from there.
The Iranian ship called “Infants of Gaza” had been expected to sail Sunday for Gaza carrying 1,100 tons of relief supplies and 10 pro-Palestinian activists but plans were canceled “due to restrictions imposed by the occupying Zionist regime,” Bighash said.
Iran made the announcement Tuesday prompting Israel to warn its archenemy to drop the plan.
Israel considers Iran a threat because of its suspect nuclear program, its long-range missiles and its support for Lebanese and Gaza militants.
Israeli security officials said the prospect of an Iranian boat headed for Gaza had Israel deeply worried, and that naval commandos were training for the possibility of taking on a vessel with a suicide bomber on board.
After an international outcry over the killing of nine Turkish activists in a May 31 raid on another aid ship, Israel eased its land blockade of Gaza but insisted on maintaining a naval blockade it says is necessary to keep weapons shipments out of the hands of Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
Israel imposed the blockade after Hamas overran the Palestinian territory in June 2007.
In Lebanon, organizers of the ship, “Julia,” said they plan to sail in the next few days but said they had nothing to with Iran. A second ship will only be transporting women, while a third ship will include parliamentarians from the Middle East and Europe. It is not clear when that ship will sail.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Exclusive: Anatomy of a Taliban Ambush
Terrorists exploit rules of engagement to attack Marine patrol returning to base
In Afghanistan’s volatile Helmand province this morning, a Marine squad headed into one of the Marja district’s many villages looking to make friends. Taliban opens fire while Miguel Marquez was on patrol with troops in Afghanistan
“With us out here, it lets the locals know we are on their side,” said Sgt. Travis Dawson, squad leader of the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines. “We can help them.”
But on the streets, they were met with an icy reception. As Dawson spoke to ABC News, a villager slammed a door shut and loudly bolted the lock. Another told the Marines that everyone was at work, and then he rushed off.
Locals that did accept help from the Americans seemed fearful. Children hesitantly took stuffed animals that were handed to them, and an old man rolled away a blanket that was given to him, afraid to accept anything.
The Marines noticed a man down the road watching them, and two residents quietly and almost secretively indicated that the Taliban were watching.
[…]
In a counterinsurgency fight, the rules of engagement for Marines are restrictive, and the Taliban knows it.
“They have to shoot at us first,” Dawson said as he walked.
Just a few steps later, shots rang out.
“Where’s that coming from?” shouted a Marine. “Is that direct north or northeast?”
“Oh s**t. F***,” said another. “Looks like it’s coming from both sides.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Headless Bodies, Believed to be Killed by Taliban, Found in Afghanistan During War’s Deadliest Month
The U.S. military command isn’t the only thing in Afghanistan undergoing turmoil.
The war has taken an increasingly violent turn: 11 bodies, some headless, have been found littered in the southern part of the country.
Mohammed Khan, deputy police chief in the Uruzgan Province, said a villager found the bodies in a field and called police.
“They were killed because the Taliban said they were spying for the government, working for the government,” Khan said.
Khudia Rahim, the acting Uruzgan governor, said five or six of the 11 victims were beheaded.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
N.Y. Mayor Pushes Immigration Bill
NEW YORK | Chief executives of several major corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, Boeing, Disney and News Corp., on Thursday joined New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to form a coalition advocating for immigration reform — including a path to legal status for all undocumented immigrants in the United States.
The group includes several other big-city mayors and calls itself the Partnership for a New American Economy. Amid signs an immigration overhaul bill faces a steep climb in Congress, the group seeks to reframe immigration reform as the solution to repairing and stimulating the economy.
Mr. Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp., appeared together Thursday on Fox News network to discuss the effort.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Defying Opposition From Within the Coalition, Tories to Shut the Open Door for Migrants
Theresa May will unveil the country’s first ever cap on migrant workers on Monday — finally ending Labour’s open door immigration policy.
Despite opposition within the coalition Cabinet, the Home Secretary will impose a strict limit on the number of non-EU work permits that can be handed out.
Eventually, it is expected to lead to a sharp reduction in the more than 100,000 migrants and their family members who are told they can work here each year.
The cap is being forced through despite protests from some Tory Cabinet ministers, who claim it could stifle UK business and universities.
But Mrs May has ruled the Government must implement her party’s popular election policy.
The level of the final cap, due to be introduced next April, will be hammered out in talks with business leaders and economic advisers.
However, an immediate interim cap — lasting nine months — will be introduced to stop workers flocking here while the limit is being finalised in a bid to beat the crackdown.
A Whitehall source said: ‘We want to make sure there cannot be a rush in applications by people wanting to get in.’
No legislation is needed and the move can be implemented immediately. Initially, it will cut the number of work permits given to skilled workers by around 5 per cent, or 1,300. However, in the long-term, far more dramatic cuts are expected.
That is because the interim cap does not apply to migrants already here, or so-called inter-company transfers where big companies send staff from overseas for a fixed period. The final measures will include these categories.
Insiders say the interim cap shows how serious they are about delivering on David Cameron’s promise to reduce net migration — currently 176,000 — to the low tens of thousands.
It is also considered crucial to get British workers off benefits and into work, given the dire state of the nation’s finances. Under Labour, half of all new jobs went to workers who required permits.
Education Secretary Michael Gove and higher education minister David Willetts are understood to have argued the cap could be harmful.
During a meeting of a Cabinet committee — chaired by LibDem leader Nick Clegg, whose party supports uncontrolled immigration — they argued that too low a ceiling could hurt British businesses and universities by stopping the entry of talented foreigners.
But Mrs May is unwavering in her view that immigration — one of the public’s two top concerns, alongside the economy — must be brought firmly under control.
She recently said immigration ‘was out of control under Labour’ and that Gordon Brown’s ‘British Jobs for British workers’ campaign had been ‘dishonest’.
Labour stubbornly refused to introduce a cap despite huge public concern over the record levels of migrants entering the UK.
The last Government insisted the supposedly ‘tough’ points-based system would be sufficient to bring the number of economic migrants under control. However, analysis of the points system reveals it actually led to huge increases in the number of foreign workers and students cleared to live here.
The number of non-EU migrants given work permits, or permission to carry on working in Britain, rose by 20 per cent, from 159,535 in 2007 — the year before points were introduced — to 190,640 last year. The total includes dependents.
The number of student approvals increased by 31 per cent, from 208,800 to 273,445 a year later.
More than 1.1million jobs — half the total created under Labour — were taken by non-EU immigrants requiring work permits.
The total outstripped the number of new jobs gained by British workers by two to one, according to the independent House of Commons Library.
In October 1997, British-born workers made up 92.5 per cent of the workforce. By the same period in 2009, this had fallen to 87.1 per cent. Meanwhile, the proportion of jobs held by foreign-born workers rocketed from 7.5 per cent to 12.9 per cent, almost one in seven.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Iraqi Asylum Cheat Who Got £700,000 in Benefits, Three Houses and Private School for Her Son
An asylum seeker bought three homes and sent her son to a fee-paying school by illegally claiming more than £700,000 in benefits, a court heard.
Mahira Rustam Al-Azawi, 49, used a series of false identities to milk Britain’s lax benefit system over eight years.
Although she never worked, she was able to purchase three properties — two of which she rented out — worth in excess of £1million.
Her 18-year-old son was educated at Colfe’s School, in South-East London, where fees are currently £4,164 a term.
The fraud was uncovered only when Al-Azawi, from Iraq, successfully applied for a student loan to study civil engineering at Greenwich University.
When police raided her £800,000 detached home in Bromley, they found an ‘Aladdin’s cave’ of false documents, including a selection of passports, identity papers and driving licences.
She had converted the garage into an office and described herself to neighbours as an ‘internet entrepreneur’.
During her trial at Croydon Crown Court, it emerged that she had claimed for income support, housing and council tax benefits in her own name, as well as those of her cousin and mother.
She also obtained two mortgages by claiming she was a self-employed businesswoman.
Judge Stephen Waller jailed Al-Azawi for three years after she was found guilty of 13 offences of benefit fraud, forgery and theft.
Critics say the case highlights the welfare profligacy that grew unchecked under Labour. The new Government has promised to crack down on Britain’s ‘out of control’ benefits bill.
During last week’s emergency Budget, George Osborne announced that he would be taking tough decisions on welfare spending in an effort to save £4billion a year.
The court heard that Al-Azawi first came to Britain as a student, and went back to Iraq once she graduated.
She later returned to Britain to claim asylum, and was given income support and housed by Lambeth council in south London.
She travelled to Ireland for a brief period and claimed asylum under a different name, and was also given Irish nationality, as was her son.
In 1999, while still living in her Lambeth council home, she bought a property in Bromley.
Four years later, she purchased her council residence under the right-to-buy scheme, and in 2005 she added another Bromley home to her growing portfolio.
She was arrested in 2008 following a joint investigation between Bromley and Lambeth councils, the Metropolitan Police and the Department for Work and Pensions.
Sentencing Al-Azawi, Judge Waller said: ‘These offences were committed over a period of eight years between 1999 and 2008 and were carried out in a sophisticated manner using different names and addresses, and false letters were used to support dishonest claims.
‘It enabled you to become the owner of three properties and to send your son to a private school.’
Councillor Lydia Buttinger, vice-chairman of Bromley’s Audit Committee, said: ‘We feel that the jail sentence is appropriate given the scale of this fraud. We have to protect the taxpayer by stamping out benefit fraud.’
The Minister for Welfare Reform, Lord Freud, said: ‘At the root of this fraud was the disguise of a series of assets, alongside the use of duplicate identities.
‘Our goal of reconfiguring and simplifying the welfare system will help to make this kind of deception more difficult.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Book Review: Mainstream Media’s Plan to Squash Christianity
Any title that explores media views on religion has to be an absorbing read. But little did we know what a good job writer S.E. Cupp would do in “Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity.”
Cupp has presented a searing look at the liberal media that is woven into the very fabric of our nation, the ingrained bias that jettisons any type of journalistic ethics.
And the superb research and writing is only the tip of the iceberg, for Cupp … is a self-proclaimed atheist!
That’s right. Atheist. No hidden agenda here. She isn’t promoting a religion, jumping on a conspiracy theory or trying to convert anyone. She is out for the truth. That’s the beauty of her book. She has simply thrown down the gauntlet and proclaimed to the 78 percent of Americans who profess faith that it’s time to wake up before the mainstream media has us wondering why we can’t say the word God in public, except to take his name in vain.
This same majority of people are being told what to think, who to vote for, what to buy, who to like and how to be stylish and intelligent through sound bites that don’t resemble reporting. They are promoting. Promoting through creating, not covering stories. Cupp shines a light on advocacy journalism at its “best” (which means worst).
[…]
Cupp explains the media’s choice to “target Christian America is not a response to changing social mores. Rather it is a deliberate effort to change them.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
German Court: Ending Life Support Not Criminal
BERLIN — Germany’s top criminal court issued a landmark ruling Friday legalizing assisted suicide in cases where it is carried out based on a patient’s prior request.
The ruling came as the court overturned the conviction of a lawyer who had counseled his client in 2007 to stop tube feeding her mother, who had been in a non-responsive coma for five years. A lower court had convicted attorney Wolfgang Putz of attempted manslaughter and given him a nine-month suspended sentence.
The Federal Court of Justice said the 71-year-old woman had said in 2002 that she did not want to be kept alive under such circumstances before falling into the coma.
German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger welcomed the ruling as a major step toward respecting an individual’s wishes. “There can’t be forced treatment against a person’s will,” she said in a statement. “This is about the right of self-determination and therefore a question of a life in human dignity until the end.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
God, Socialism, And the Lowest Common Denominator
“Faith-based initiatives”, once anathema to the political left when promoted by President Bush in 2003, are now highly popular with the Obama administration. Not only do they embrace the once-reviled church-state relationship, Obama’s forces are now co-opting religious groups for the purpose of furthering their political and ideological goals. Former vociferous critics of this apparent infringement of church and state separation are amazingly silent. As TheocracyWatch.org stated in 2004, “Under the Bush administration, our country is experiencing a major transformation from a secular to a religious government.”
Now, Nancy Pelosi implores Catholic clergy to promote illegal immigrant amnesty from the pulpits and the EPA offers ministers “access to financing” for preaching the gospel of global warming.
Why are critics on the left silent? Because they understand that it is not Obama’s intention to transform “from a secular to a religious government”. It is to transform religion into a secular arm of the State to promote the tenets of socialism under the banner of “social justice”.
The radicalization of Islam is a prime example of the successful transformation of a religion into a government-controlled nightmare of evil. Could this happen to Christianity or Judaism? Absolutely, it has happened before. The Spanish Inquisition comes to mind. But are religious organizations and socialism natural partners? Is God a socialist? In a word, the answer is a resounding “NO”.
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Sweden: State ‘Child-Napping’ Escalates to International Court
Parents have been fighting 1 year for custody of son
The state-sponsored “child-napping” of a Swedish boy because his parents were homeschooling him is being escalated to the European Court of Human Rights, which is being asked to hear the case of Domenic Johansson.
The application has been filed by the Alliance Defense Fund and the Home School Legal Defense Association, international organizations monitoring the case in which Johansson was taken into custody by police one year ago on the orders of local social services agents.
“We are gravely concerned about this case because of the threat it represents to other homeschooling families,” said Mike Donnelly, staff attorney for HSLDA and one of nearly 1,700 attorneys in the ADF alliance. “In response to our inquiries, Swedish authorities have cited the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child to explain and defend their actions. If the U.S. were to ever ratify this treaty, as the White House and some members of Congress desire, then this sort of thing could occur here.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Leftist ‘Purification’ Movement
To the contemporary conservative, progressive ideology is often murky and incomprehensible. It is very difficult for some on the right to understand the apparently illogical and unrealistic machinations of the radical leftist mindset. Their political objectives, if achieved, inevitably lead to further demands for concessions toward an ever-greater ideological purity.
Something even darker and more malevolent is happening, however. The various radical leftist factions and special interest groups are rapidly coalescing into a global movement.
A comprehensive and enlightening treatise on this topic was recently published in Orbis, the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s journal of world affairs, written by University of Buffalo professor Ernest Sternberg. The article is titled, “Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For”. It will open your eyes and scare you to death.
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The purificationist dream is a world without borders, governed by a global network of NGO’s. Almost all current activist organizations containing the words “green”, “justice”, “peace”, or “solidarity” would find a position in the ruling structure. These NGO’s would gravitate toward forming a totalitarian regime since, as Steinberg points out, they are “unaccountable to an electorate and escape political checks and balances…”
Even more disturbing is the increasing coalition between progressivism and radical Islam. Steinberg’s piece includes a quote from George Galloway, a progressive British parliamentarian, when asked if Muslims and progressives could unite in a common cause:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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