RUTHFULLY YOURS

According to Burkhard Freier, the director of domestic intelligence for North Rhine-Westphalia, German Salafists are increasingly inclined to use violence to achieve their aims, and many have travelled to Iraq or Syria to obtain combat training.

“The intention of these people is to provoke and intimidate and force their ideology upon others. We will not permit this.” — Wuppertal Mayor Peter Jung.

“In Germany, German law is determinative, not Sharia law.” — Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician Volker Kauder.

Salafist ideology posits that Sharia law is superior to all secular laws because it emanates from Allah, the only legitimate lawgiver, and thus is legally binding for all of humanity. According to the Salafist worldview, democracy is an effort to elevate the will of human beings above the will of Allah.

Muslim radicals have begun enforcing Islamic Sharia law on the streets of Wuppertal, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, the state with the largest Muslim population in Germany.

In what government officials say is a blatant challenge to the rule of law and the democratic order in Germany, groups of young bearded Islamists — some wearing orange traffic safety vests emblazoned with the words “Sharia Police” — have declared parts of downtown Wuppertal to be a “Sharia Controlled Zone.”

The self-appointed guardians of public morals have been distributing yellow leaflets that explain the Islamist code of conduct in the city’s Sharia zones. They have urged both Muslim and non-Muslim passersby to listen to Salafist sermons and to refrain from alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling, listening to music, pornography or prostitution.

A seven-minute propaganda video in German, entitled “Sharia Police: Coming Soon to Your City,” shows a group of men led by a German convert to Islam, Sven Lau, roaming the streets of Wuppertal at night and pressing wayward youth to embrace radical Islam. In some instances, the men physically attempted to prevent young people from entering bars, casinos and discotheques; those who resisted were pursued and intimidated.

The University of Memphis’ Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) program graduate Fatima Noor has been appointed special assistant in the Office of the Director for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security.

She majored in psychology with minors in Spanish and international relations. She recently completed a month-long research fellowship in psychology hosted by Carnegie-Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh; her research will be ongoing for this program. Noor was a leader in many honor societies at the U of M. She has done volunteer work with World Relief Memphis and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Where was Congress? On recess!

“Okay, smart-a___, what is your strategy?”
In a [rather large] nutshell; here are the tactics which when pulled together make up a grand strategy:
Domestic
Make an “America is back!” speech from the Oval Office in the White House modeled on Harry Truman’s “Doctrine” speech of 1947. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/harrystrumantrumandoctrine.html Its principal theme would be recognition that the U.S. and its allies are launched in an extended war — and still from being won — against the Islamic jihadists.
Immediately ask Congress for emergency lifting of all Sequestration applying to the Department of Defense, the CIA and other security agencies for five years. Halt and reverse with continuing extension and recruitment the personnel cutbacks now decimating the American armed forces.
Reverse energy policies to provide the U.S. economy and our allies with a noninflationay stimulus of cheaper fuel, simultaneously directly providing hundreds of thousands of new jobs, by:
Administratively, opening up all federal lands [including offshore Virginia, etc.] to fracking,
Administratively, waiving all EPA regs on fracking for five years.
Administratively, fast-track applications for the dozen or so outstanding applications for liquefied natural gas export facilities, putting on hold any Environmental Protection Agency regulations concerning them for a five-year period.
Ask Congress to lift all oil and gas export restrictions, including a waiver on EPA fossil fuel export regs for five years. [These exports would begin to supply allies in Europe and Asia and simultaneously help mend the balance of payments hemorrhage against the dollar.]
Immediately okay the XL Keystone Pipeline and other Canadian applications for pipelines into the U.S. directed at Houston refineries and their export facilities.
Cooperate with Detroit and foreign-owned auto companies to organize and subsidize a national network of filling stations for an expanded production and use of LNG-fueled vehicles.

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/156748

This is the 75th anniverary of the non-aggression pact between the Hitler and Stalin, the latter becoming (after Hitler attacked Stalin on June 22, 1941) the member of the “Big Three” known as “Uncle Joe.” In the commemorative essays discussing the twin dictators’ earlier alliance of August 23, 1939, which would be followed by Hitler and Stalin’s conquest of Poland the following month, the pact’s secret protocol that divided the nations of central and Eastern Europe between them is also mentioned. I have yet to see, however, any discussion of how that secret protocol became known to the public.

That disturbing story of near-suppression takes us past the war to the trials of the Nazi high command in Nuremberg — widely hailed the model of international justice. But what a morally rotten exercise it was, as war criminals (Soviets) sat in judgment of war criminals (Nazis) while war crimes (British and US) were occurring all around (Operation Keelhaul, the little known British-US-enabled “repatriation” from the West of millions of Soviet-claimed persons to death/the Gulag, was in full swing).

There, in a Nuremberg prison yard, a German defense lawyer by chance overheard top Nazis (von RIbbentrop and Goering) discussing the contents of the still-secret protocol, which offered evidence of Stalin’s guilt in committing “conspiracy to wage aggressive war,” one of the key charges against the German high command. With Stalin trying to blot out his alliance with Hitler from the record — with full support of his British and American allies — how did the secret protocol ever come to the world’s attention?

Here is what happened at Nuremberg, as discussed in Chapter 2 of American Betrayal, pp. 54-58.

Not long after the recent Gaza war finally subsided, a familiar
contentious issue reemerged. Following an investigation lasting
several years Israel’s Civil Administration declared nearly one
thousand acres south of Jerusalem, within the cluster of communities
known as Gush Etzion, to be state land. This meant that new homes
could be built for Jews. Or, in the reflexive common parlance: Israel
was planning another “illegal settlement” on “Palestinian” land.

To the contrary. The Etzion bloc, located between Jerusalem and
Hebron, currently comprises 18 communities with nearly 40,000
residents. Its modern origins are traceable to 1927, when Yemenite
immigrants and ultra-Orthodox Jews established “Migdal Eder,” named
after the biblical site (mentioned in Genesis 35:21) where Jacob
pitched his tent after burying Rachel. Destroyed during the violent
Arab riots of 1929, when the ancient Jewish community in nearby Hebron
was also decimated, it was rebuilt between 1943 and 1947, only to be
demolished yet again by marauding Arabs on the eve of Israel’s
independence. More than 200 Jewish residents, who fought valiantly to
the bitter end, were massacred. By Knesset decree, the day Gush Etzion
fell became – and remains – the day of remembrance for Israeli
soldiers killed in military action.

To fully appreciate the meaning of interfaith dialogues with so-called “moderate” Muslims and friends, consider the apt Sears Optical commercial. “Mama,” Kitty’s myopic owner, fails to see without her glasses. She opens the door to let Kitty in to “snuggle with mama” but instead, a raccoon―known to carry rabies―runs in and jumps in with ‘mama’ on her cozy bed.

Consider this an analogy for a distressing drama in progress at Chautauqua Institution, a strikingly beautiful summer retreat in Chautauqua, N.Y. While enveloped by pastoral landscape, Lake Chautauqua, beautiful houses and gardens, and enriched by music, visual arts, ballet, opera, symphony, chamber music and much more, Chautauqua is opening its doors to another sort of rabid beast.

After toying with the idea for many years, Chautauqua’s religion department this summer announced plans to add a Cordoba House to the Institution’s “Abrahamic family,” to be led by the infamous Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a move it describes as “highly supported by Chautauqua Faith leaders.”

What’s the rush? Why now, when bands of Islamic brigands roam much of the Middle East and Africa, and Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers worldwide endanger Western civilization? Why at this moment, as Islamic jihadists slaughter Christians throughout the entireMiddleEast as well as elsewhere. After all, Chautauqua Institution was founded by Protestant Christians.

Rather than outrage over endemic tyrannical Islamic abuses of Christians, associate religion department director Maureen Rovegno expresses what an objective individual could at best describe as naiveté:

“The only way that this fear [of Islam] can be alleviated, or neutralized, is to get to know each other in a personal way.” As the Psalm goes: ‘How good is it, and how pleasant, when people dwell together in unity’.”

Thus, only this summer, Chautauqua featured five influential Muslim Brotherhood functionaries and apologists as guest speakers: Former Islamic Circle of North America president Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, Imam Rauf, DaliaMogahed, KarenArmstrong and John Esposito, a Georgetown University professor and head of its Prince Alwaeed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, eponymous for the Saudi royal who in 2005 donated $20 million to the center.

Esposito has long espoused views consistent with Brotherhood doctrine and during the 1990′s was known to claim that Islamic fundamentalism, in fact, was democratic and posed no threat to the U.S. Esposito has also served with global Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusef Qaradawi―since 1999 banned for his terror support from entry to the U.S.―at both the Institue of Islamic Political Thought and the Circle of Tradition and Progress as well as the United Association For Studies and Research (USAR), part of the Hamas’ U.S. Muslim Brotherhood support infrastructure.

The EU is on life-support, and the doctors are clueless

Europe’s heart has stopped. It has ground to a halt, with zero growth in the second quarter. In Italy it is worse: the economy effectively has not grown since it joined the euro. The cure is obvious, but the Eurocrats only care about themselves

The problem with being ruled by the unelected is not just that they do not necessarily rule in the interests of the people they serve, but that they have no incentive to find out what those interests are.

Another opportunity to do something about the appalling economic condition of Europe was missed at the recent meeting of the European Central Bank (ECB). Mario Draghi, ECB president, announced a

couple of ineffective measures to be introduced at an unspecified date and said that individual countries had to introduce reforms.

Yes, yes, yes. He’s right: many countries, in particular in southern Europe, need to change; to open up their markets, tackle vested interests. We hear repeatedly of individual horror stories such as that headache pills are twenty times the price in Italy as in England, because the Pharmacy lobby prevents them being sold in supermarkets and operates an illegal minimum pricing rule.

But if someone’s heart has stopped, yes, he needs to lose weight; yes he needs to give up smoking; yes he needs to take more exercise, but what he needs right now is a shot of adrenalin.

Eurostat, the EU statistics office, has now confirmed that Europe’s heart has stopped. It has ground to a halt, with zero growth in the second quarter. In Italy it is worse: the economy effectively has not grown since it joined the euro.

The figure of one in eight unemployed masks the fact that in parts of the south there are towns and villages with hardly anyone in work except for needless hand-out jobs from the local government. More than half of young working age people can find nothing to do.

Inflation in Italy is -1.6 percent. Negative. Who will buy a new washing machine or car if they think it is going to cost less next year? And the deflation makes it harder to reduce debt: in real terms the debtor country – and Italy owes €2 trillion – has to pay back more. Real interest rates are high. With the debt increasing in real terms Renzi must make more cuts to keep within his eurozone imposed 3 percent ceiling.

New poll shows “unprecedented” surge in Palestinian support for Hamas and its methods

Latest Palestinian poll shows Hamas would win presidential and parliamentary elections, with majority in West Bank wanting to emulate Hamas’s “armed struggle” against Israelis

In a new opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has produced a set of findings indicating sharply increased popularity among ordinary Palestinians for Hamas and its strategies that will cause deep concern to moderate Palestinian factions, Israel, and the international community.

The poll was conducted among a representative sample of 1,270 adults with a margin of error of plus/minus three percent from 26-30 August 2014, in the wake of the eruption of the latest bloody conflict in Gaza.

Summarising the findings, details of which are below, PSR said:

“It is worth noting that the size of the change in favor of Hamas is unprecedented since 2006. Indeed, if presidential elections were to take place today, [Hamas Prime Minister] Ismail Haniyeh would easily win over [Palestinian Authority President] Abbas and Hamas would win the largest percentage of the popular vote in parliamentary elections….

“…Indeed, an overwhelming majority of West Bankers [70%] wants to transfer “Hamas’ way” to the West Bank and rejects the demand to disarm the Islamist group or to disband the other Gazan armed groups. Findings also indicate that the public see Iran, Turkey, and Qatar as the most instrumental in supporting Hamas…”

It is also noteworthy for any resumption of the peace process that Hamas is now more popular in the West Bank than Abbas’s Fatah. Also, the largest single group of Palestinians questioned (32%) believe that it was Israel that carried out the kidnapping and killing of the three Israelis that sparked the current round of hostilities.

The more hawkish wing of the Republican party and the conservative movement prefers a can-do presidency, vigorous and dynamic not only on matters of foreign policy and military affairs but domestically as well. The can-do models are Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR, which is not to say that these conservatives necessarily admire Wilsonian progressivism or the New Deal (though Conrad Black makes a persuasive case for Roosevelt), but rather that they desire to have a president who acts energetically across a broad range of issues. Of course they claim Reagan for their own. When it comes to Founding Fathers, the can-dos like Madison and Washington. They see the Constitution’s description of the president as commander-in-chief and its investing the executive with a broad role in foreign affairs as a warrant for action. If they were British, they’d be Tories.

The characteristic can-do vice is a sneaking envy of strongmen, but while their critics accuse them of suffering from Putin envy, what they really long for is a Churchill, though they’d take a de Gaulle in a pinch. Their characteristic virtue is having been fundamentally correct about the nature of our enemies in Nazi Germany, the Communist bloc, and the Islamic world, though in the case of Iraq their remedy exemplified another vice: an excess of optimism.

In the opposite corner are the more libertarian-leaning partisans of the mustn’t-do presidency, cautious and finicky about foreign entanglements and deeply suspicious of executive power at home. The mustn’t-do models are Cleveland, Coolidge, and Senator Robert Taft, which is not to say that they universally are admirers of the gold standard or are tempted toward mugwumpery, but that they desire to have a president who has a narrower conception of his role rather than a broader one. Of course they claim Reagan for their own. When it comes to the Founding Fathers, the mustn’t-dos like Jefferson and Paine. They see the Constitution’s separation of powers, the Tenth Amendment, and the congressional role in treaties and war declarations as limitations on government generally and on the president particularly. If they were British, they’d be Whigs.

The characteristic mustn’t-do vice is passivity, but while their critics accuse them of being Pollyanna pacifists, what they really long for is Senator Taft, though in a pinch they’d take George W. Bush before he discovered the allure of nation-building. Their characteristic virtue is having been correct about the metastatic nature of what Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex and about the limited, uncertain prospects of the so-called democracy project in the Middle East, though in the case of Iraq their position exemplified another vice: a weakness for counterfactual just-so stories.

The main internal housekeeping project of the can-do wing is, at the moment, working to ensure that Senator Rand Paul, the most prominent mustn’t-doer on the scene, does not become the Republican nominee in 2016. They point to his not entirely consistent or coherent approach to Vladimir Putin and, especially, to the Islamic State as evidence that his mustn’t-doism would undermine the American position by failing to offer a credible political framework for American leadership in the world — the current absence of which they blame for the anarchic Middle East and resurgent Russian imperialism.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/stop-and-seize/

After the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the government called on police to become the eyes and ears of homeland security on America’s highways.

Local officers, county deputies and state troopers were encouraged to act more aggressively in searching for suspicious people, drugs and other contraband. The departments of Homeland Security and Justice spent millions on police training.

ABOVE: : Video images from YouTube, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and Seward County Sheriff’s Office.
The effort succeeded, but it had an impact that has been largely hidden from public view: the spread of an aggressive brand of policing that has spurred the seizure of hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from motorists and others not charged with crimes, a Washington Post investigation found. Thousands of people have been forced to fight legal battles that can last more than a year to get their money back.

Stop and Seize: In recent years, thousands of people have had cash confiscated by police without being charged with crimes. The Post looks at the police culture behind the seizures and the people who were forced to fight the government to get their money back.
Part 2: One training firm started a private intelligence-sharing network and helped shape law enforcement nationwide. (Coming Monday)
Part 3: Motorists caught up in the seizures talk about the experience and the legal battles that sometimes took more than a year. (Coming Tuesday)
Behind the rise in seizures is a little-known cottage industry of private police-training firms that teach the techniques of “highway interdiction” to departments across the country.

One of those firms created a private intelligence network known as Black Asphalt Electronic Networking & Notification System that enabled police nationwide to share detailed reports about American motorists — criminals and the innocent alike — including their Social Security numbers, addresses and identifying tattoos, as well as hunches about which drivers to stop.

Many of the reports have been funneled to federal agencies and fusion centers as part of the government’s burgeoning law enforcement intelligence systems — despite warnings from state and federal authorities that the information could violate privacy and constitutional protections.

A thriving subculture of road officers on the network now competes to see who can seize the most cash and contraband, describing their exploits in the network’s chat rooms and sharing “trophy shots” of money and drugs. Some police advocate highway interdiction as a way of raising revenue for cash-strapped municipalities.