Displaying posts published in

2016

Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters By Janet Levy

Today, institutional slavery conjures images of pre-Civil War Southern ownership of African slaves. However, slavery is an ancient practice dating from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as early Amer-Indian empires in Mexico and Central America. It was also well established and ideologically sanctioned in the Muslim world from the days of Mohammed.

Concurrently with African enslavement in the Americas, a flourishing slave trade existed from 1500 to 1800 of white Christian Europeans by the Muslims of North Africa’s Barbary Coast. In his book Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters, Ohio State history professor Robert Davis takes a close look at this rarely discussed aspect of modern history.

Originating from the life of the Prophet Mohammed, slavery is deeply embedded in Islamic law and tradition. Muslims are required to follow the teachings of Mohammed, who was a slave owner and trader. Further, a large part of the sharia – in the Sunna of Mohammed and the Koran – is dedicated to the practice of slavery. Muslim caliphs typically had harems of hundreds of slave girls captured from Christian, Hindu, and African lands. Slavery is still practiced today in several Muslim countries and glorified by present-day jihadist groups.

In Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters, Davis describes how, from 1500 to 1800, Muslim corsairs from the Barbary Coast systematically enslaved white Christians from Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Iceland, Great Britain, Ireland, and Greece. The Muslims raided ships at sea and attacked coastal villages in an activity called “Christian stealing.” During that time, Davis explains, the Mediterranean had a reputation as the sea where people vanished: fisherman or sailors on board boats, shepherds tending flocks, farmers toiling near the shore, and townspeople, including women and children, living in coastal communities. Coastal dwellers and those who traveled by ship constantly risked capture, violence, and exploitation at the hands of Barbary Coast Muslims.

As part of this jihad against Christianity begun in 1500, piracy and slaving were the main instruments used to deprive infidel communities of useful, productive citizens and to acquire booty. Davis estimates that during three centuries of Muslim predation, as many as 1.25 million Europeans were permanently and stealthily removed from their families and communities.

Bill Clinton Says Hillary Faints Frequently, CBS Helpfully Edits Remark By Debra Heine

Bill Clinton said during a CBS interview with Charlies Rose on Monday that Hillary Clinton “frequently” faints because of dehydration, but quickly corrected himself to use more Clintonian phrasing: “rarely, but on more than one occasion over the last many, many years.”

Whether the former president made a very revealing Freudian slip or a just a clumsy verbal gaffe is a question those who watched the broadcast last night wouldn’t know to ask because CBS edited out the word “frequently.” In a longer version of the interview that was broadcast on CBS This Morning Tuesday, the word “frequently” was not removed.

Via the Washington Free Beacon:

Rose got straight to the point with the former president during the interview, asking how Hillary was doing after she fainted Sunday at a 9/11 memorial event and confessed that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday. Clinton said that his wife was doing fine but added that she frequently faints because of dehydration.

“When you look at the collapse, that video that was taken, you wonder if it’s not more serious than dehydration,” Rose said to Clinton.

“No, no. She’s been—well, if it is, it’s a mystery to me and all of her doctors. ‘Cause frequently—not frequently, that’s not—rarely, but on more than on occasion over the last many, many years, the same sort of thing has happened to her when she just got severely dehydrated,” Clinton said.

In the edited version of the interview that initially aired, Clinton is only heard saying: “Well, if it is, it’s a mystery to me and all of her doctors. Rarely, but on more than one occasion over the last many, many years, the same sort of thing has happened to her when she just got severely dehydrated.”

Watch the video on the next page. CONTINUE AT SITE

ISIS Guide Tells Jihadists to Use ‘Accessible’ Yet ‘Brutal’ Poisonous Plants By Bridget Johnson

A new guide being circulated among ISIS supporters online directs lone jihadists to construct explosives from “simple things” like rat poison and use poisonous plants to inflict casualties.

The guide says it’s from the Nashir Media Foundation, which last month circulated different terror plot suggestions including creating hazardous driving conditions. This month, after the assassination of ISIS’ No. 2 Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, the Nashir Media Foundation issued a statement to jihadists “specifically in France” to “delete anything related to the Islamic state from your devices” to avoid detection and “hurry in your operations before it becomes too late.”

The “important” new guide, as touted by one ISIS supporter who tweeted the cheat sheet, pulls together past suggestions of poison and bombmaking recipes into a comprehensive guide to “fight back” against “the infidel West.” It was distributed with an image of a howling wolf against a forest backdrop.

One bomb recipe includes, in part, sulfuric acid, rat poison and screws, with the detonator needing a small bulb bought in a “kids toy or an electrical shop,” a car battery and a length of wire. Ingredient swap suggestions include “preferably sharp” nails and bolts to inflict greater harm. Jihadists are advised to encase the device in plaster, leaving the wires feeding out, and detonate the device in a place with traffic.

Other bomb ingredients discussed include fertilizer, Vaseline, citric acid, potassium chloride and sodium bicarbonate. Even hair dye containing ammonium hydroxide is discussed as a bomb ingredient, as well as acetone in nail-polish remover, hydrogen peroxide, coal powder, phosphorus insecticides, glycerin in skin moisturizers and sulfur powder found “in stores that sell agricultural materials.”

They also suggest jihadists try the garden for effective weapons, such as the castor seeds that harbor ricin. The guide underscores that children especially have “weak resistance” to the naturally occurring poison. They discuss extraction methods once the jihadists are able to obtain seeds.

But the botanical advice doesn’t stop there — lone jihadists are advised to explore the wide range of toxic plants that are “accessible to everyone.”

That includes Atropa belladonna, also known as deadly nightshade, with a note that jihadists can commonly find it in home gardens because of its “beautiful shape.” Solanum dulcamara, or bitter nightshade, which is native to Europe and Asia and invasive in North America, is recommended for its “troublesome properties” — but the ISIS guide notes it’s “a rare reason of death.”

Jihadists are also advised to be on the watch — or sniff the wind — for Hyoscyamus niger, known as henbane or stinking nightshade. “The entire plant is extremely toxic… used sometimes in the commission of crimes,” states the guide. Laburnum anagyroides, or the golden chain tree, is another recommended botanical poison, as well as the native British Taxus baccata, or English yew.

The guide doesn’t give jihadists many suggestions on how to poison people with poisonous plants, but rounds up their list with extraction techniques for the Strychnos Nux-vomica, or strychnine tree. They warn that “even 1% of the killer in a glass of water” can be detected due to strychnine’s bitter taste, but laud it as “one of the most brutal kinds of poison.”

The guide was distributed on file-sharing sites and through social media. One ISIS member who tweeted the list Tuesday was suspended from Twitter the same day, though some others seen promoting the guide remained on the site.

European Leaders Discuss Plan for European Army “We are going to move towards an EU army much faster than people believe.” by Soeren Kern

Critics say that the creation of a European army, a long-held goal of European federalists, would entail an unprecedented transfer of sovereignty from European nation states to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, the de facto capital of the EU.

Others say that efforts to move forward on European defense integration show that European leaders have learned little from Brexit, and are determined to continue their quest to build a European superstate regardless of opposition from large segments of the European public.

“Those of us who have always warned about Europe’s defense ambitions have always been told not to worry… We’re always told not to worry about the next integration and then it happens. We’ve been too often conned before and we must not be conned again.” — Liam Fox, former British defense secretary.

“[C]reation of EU defense structures, separate from NATO, will only lead to division between transatlantic partners at a time when solidarity is needed in the face of many difficult and dangerous threats to the democracies.” — Geoffrey Van Orden, UK Conservative Party defense spokesman.

European leaders are discussing “far-reaching proposals” to build a pan-European military, according to a French defense ministry document leaked to the German newspaper, the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

The efforts are part of plans to relaunch the European Union at celebrations in Rome next March marking the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Community.

The document confirms rumors that European officials are rushing ahead with defense integration now that Britain — the leading military power in Europe — will be exiting the 28-member European Union.

British leaders have repeatedly blocked efforts to create a European army because of concerns that it would undermine the NATO alliance, the primary defense structure in Europe since 1949.

Proponents of European defense integration argue that it is needed to counter growing security threats and would save billions of euros in duplication between countries.

Critics say that the creation of a European army, a long-held goal (see Appendix below) of European federalists, would entail an unprecedented transfer of sovereignty from European nation states to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, the de facto capital of the EU.

Others say that efforts to move forward on European defense integration show that European leaders have learned little from Brexit — the June 23 decision by British voters to leave the EU — and are determined to continue their quest to build a European superstate regardless of opposition from large segments of the European public.

American Law? Or Christian Law, Muslim Law, Jewish Law? by Johanna Markind

“[A] basic American legal principle [is]: American courts apply American law, rather than one rule for Muslims, one rule for Christians, one rule for Jews, and so on.” — Eugene Volokh, First Amendment law professor at UCLA.

Allowing Islamic shariah law to substitute for state law regarding inheritance and related matters would undercut the values of equal protection of the laws and equality before the law, and in many instances, would violate American law.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has rejected an argument that would essentially have required a lower court to divide the proceeds of a wrongful-death suit under shariah (Islamic law) rules governing inheritance. The decision was based on technical grounds, leaving open the question of whether a state court would apply shariah in the future.

Nadir Ibrahim Ombabi, a 57-year-old taxi driver, was killed October 29, 2012, in a car accident outside Minneapolis. Ombabi was a native of Sudan, where he was a family doctor, and was working on becoming certified as a medical doctor in the U.S. when he died. He was active in Minnesota’s Sudanese community.

Ombabi left behind a wife, mother, brother, and sisters. He married Nariman Sirag Elsayed Khalil in Sudan, under Islamic law. Reportedly, she was still living in Africa when Ombabi died, and he would “often send back money to help his family.” His brother was living in California and a sister in Canada.

Ombabi’s next of kin brought a wrongful-death claim, which was settled for $183,000. Minnesota law requires the proceeds of a wrongful-death suit to be given to “the surviving spouse and next of kin, proportionate to the pecuniary loss severally suffered by the death.”

Next of kin are basically everyone who qualifies as a potential heir under the state’s intestacy law. States have laws governing how to distribute property when a person dies without leaving a will. In Minnesota, if the decedent has no children (as seems true of Ombabi), or if all of his children are also children of his widow, the widow inherits the entire estate. If, and only if, the decedent leaves neither spouse nor children, the estate passes to his parents. If he leaves no parents either, it goes to his brothers and/or sisters.

The district court found “no credible evidence to prove Mr. Ombabi’s mother, brother, or sisters experienced a pecuniary loss, or more importantly what that pecuniary loss is, because of Mr. Ombabi’s passing.” It ordered that all of the proceeds (less expenses) be given to Ombabi’s widow, Khalil.

Ombabi’s brother objected that the court should have divided the proceeds under Islamic law, giving the widow only 25%, Ombabi’s mother’s estate 16.7%, and the balance distributed among Ombabi’s siblings, with the brother receiving twice as much as each sister. He based this on the claim that “the law of all parties (the decedent, his widow and decedent’s next of kin) is the Islamic Law and they are all Muslims and follow the specifics of the religion.”

The court rejected that argument, on the grounds that it was unsupported by legal authority or argument, and that it was unclear whether it had been raised in the lower court. As a general rule, new issues may not be raised for the first time on appeal.

The court did not prohibit application of shariah to wrongful death suits or other cases. It only held that it found no legal or factual support that would justify applying it to Ombabi’s case.

Venezuela’s “Death Spiral” by Susan Warner

The question of whether Socialism can be an effective economic system was famously raised when Margaret Thatcher said of the British Labor Party, “I think they’ve made the biggest financial mess that any government’s ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything.”

There are dire reports of people waiting in supermarket lines all day, only to discover that expected food deliveries never arrived and the shelves are empty.

There are horrific tales of desperate people slaughtering zoo animals to provide their only meal of the day. Even household pets are targeted as a much-needed source for food.

President Maduro is doubling down on the proven failed policies and philosophies of “Bolivarian Socialism,” while diverting attention away from the crisis — pointing fingers at so-called “enemies” of Venezuela such as the United States, Saudi Arabia and others.

A dozen eggs was last reported to cost $150, and the International Monetary Fund “predicts that inflation in Venezuela will hit 720% this year.

For many Venezuelans, by every economic, social and political measure, their nation is unravelling at breakneck speed.

Severe shortages of food, clean water, electricity, medicines and hospital supplies punctuate a dire scenario of crime-ridden streets in the impoverished neighborhoods of this nearly failed OPEC state, which at one time claimed to be the most prosperous nation in Latin America.

Iran Threatened to Shoot Down U.S. Surveillance Planes U.S. aircraft challenged as they flew over the Strait of Hormuz on routine patrols, U.S. officials said By Gordon Lubold

WASHINGTON—Two American surveillance aircraft flying in what U.S. officials said was international airspace near Iran were threatened by Iranian air defense stations over the weekend, and were told by the Iranians to alter their course or face fire.

The two U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft were challenged by Iranian military officials on Sept. 10 as they flew over the Strait of Hormuz on routine patrols, U.S. officials said.

Using ground-to-air communications, officials at the Iranian air defense station told the crews they were flying near Iranian airspace and that if they didn’t change their course quickly they risked being fired upon, according to a spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain, Cmdr. Bill Urban.

“We will fire Iranian missile,” was one of the transmissions from the ground, he said. Both the American planes were threatened in three separate radio calls, Cmdr. Urban said in a statement.

U.S. aircraft replied that they were coalition aircraft conducting routine operations in international airspace and they continued their mission.

Iranian government spokesman Mohammad-Bagher Nobakht said Tuesday that he wasn’t aware of the incident, but that it was Iran’s policy to protect its borders and warn against any potential intrusion.

“As soon as any flying object wants to come close, warnings are given,” he said.

Officials at Iran’s U.N. mission didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The military said the interaction with the Iranians was considered unprofessional because of the threat the officials made, but it wasn’t considered unsafe because the surface-to-air weapons that would have been used by the Iranians couldn’t have reached either plane, Cmdr. Urban said. CONTINUE AT SITE

Unsettled: A Global Study of Settlements in Occupied Territories Eugene Kontorovich

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2835908

Abstract:
This Article provides the first comprehensive, global examination of state and international practice bearing on Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which provides that an “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” This provision is a staple of legal and diplomatic international discussions of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and serves as the basis for criticism of Israeli settlement policy.

Despite its frequent invocation in the Israeli context, scholars have never examined – or even considered – how the norm has been interpreted and applied in any other occupation context in the post-WWII era. For example, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC) influential Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law lists 107 instances of national practice and UN practice applying or interpreting the prohibition, and all but two relate to Israel. Many questions exist about the scope and application of Art. 49(6)’s prohibition on “transfer,” but they have generally been answered on purely theoretically.

To better understand what Art. 49(6) does in fact demand, this Article closely examines its application in all other cases in which it could apply. Many of the settlement enterprises studied in this Article have never been discussed or documented. All of these situations involved the movement of settlers into the occupied territory, in numbers ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands. Indeed, perhaps every prolonged occupation of contiguous habitable territory has resulted in significant settlement activity.

Clear patterns emerge from this systematic study of state practice. Strikingly, the state practice paints a picture that is significantly inconsistent with the prior conventional wisdom concerning Art. 49(6). First, the migration of people into occupied territory is a near-ubiquitous feature of extended belligerent occupations. Second, no occupying power has ever taken any measures to discourage or prevent such settlement activity, nor has any occupying power ever expressed opinio juris suggesting that it is bound to do so. Third, and perhaps most strikingly, in none of these situations have the international community or international organizations described the migration of persons into the occupied territory as a violation of Art. 49(6). Even in the rare cases in which such policies have met with international criticism, it has not been in legal terms. This suggests that the level of direct state involvement in “transfer” required to constitute an Art. 49(6) violation may be significantly greater than previously thought. Finally, neither international political bodies nor the new governments of previously occupied territories have ever embraced the removal of illegally transferred civilian settlers as an appropriate remedy.

The deeper understanding – based on a systematic survey of all available state practice – of the prohibition on settlements should inform legal discussions of the Arab-Israeli- conflict, including potential investigations into such activity by the International Criminal Court. More broadly, the new understanding of Art. 49(6) developed here can also shed significant light on the proper treatment of several ongoing occupations, from Western Sahara and Northern Cyprus, to the Russian occupations of Ukraine and Georgia, whose settlement policies this Article is the first to document.

At the U.N., Only Israel Is an ‘Occupying Power’ What about Russia in Crimea, Armenia in parts of Azerbaijan, or what Vietnam did in Cambodia? By Eugene Kontorovich and Penny Grunseid

Mr. Kontorovich, a professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, heads the international law department at the Kohelet Policy Forum, a think tank where Ms. Grunseid is a researcher.

The United Nations began its annual session this week, and Israel will be prominent on the agenda. Many fear the Security Council may consider a resolution setting definite territorial parameters, and a deadline, for the creation of a Palestinian state.

President Obama has hinted that in the final months of his term, he may reverse the traditional U.S. policy of vetoing such resolutions. The General Assembly, meanwhile, is likely to act as the chorus in this drama, reciting its yearly litany of resolutions criticizing Israel.

If Mr. Obama is seeking to leave his mark on the Israeli-Arab conflict—and outside the negotiated peace process that began in Oslo—there is no worse place to do it than the U.N. New research we have conducted shows that the U.N.’s focus on Israel not only undermines the organization’s legitimacy regarding the Jewish state. It also has apparently made the U.N. blind to the world’s many situations of occupation and settlements.

Our research shows that the U.N. uses an entirely different rhetoric and set of legal concepts when dealing with Israel compared with situations of occupation or settlements world-wide. For example, Israel is referred to as the “Occupying Power” 530 times in General Assembly resolutions. Yet in seven major instances of past or present prolonged military occupation—Indonesia in East Timor, Turkey in northern Cyprus, Russia in areas of Georgia, Morocco in Western Sahara, Vietnam in Cambodia, Armenia in areas of Azerbaijan, and Russia in Ukraine’s Crimea—the number is zero. The U.N. has not called any of these countries an “Occupying Power.” Not even once.

President Obama to Increase Refugees Admitted to U.S. by 30% Of the 110,000 goal, 40,000 refugees would be from the Near East/South Asia, which includes SyriaBy Miriam Jordan

The Obama administration plans to raise the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. to 110,000 in the 2017 fiscal year starting Oct. 1, from 85,000 this fiscal year, according to an annual refugee report to Congress obtained by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

President Barack Obama was widely expected to announce an increase in the U.S. commitment ahead of a summit on refugees that he is convening next week during the United Nations General Assembly meeting.

The 110,000 target for 2017 for individuals fleeing persecution and conflict around the world represents a nearly 30% increase over this fiscal year and an almost 60% increase over the 70,000 admitted in 2015.

The last year that the U.S. committed to resettling as many refugees was in 1995, when President Bill Clinton set the ceiling at 112,000.

Each year, the president makes a determination of how many refugees will be admitted into the U.S.

Secretary of State John Kerry presented the new target, outlined in the report to Congress, in a closed session to members of the House and Senate judiciary committees on Tuesday.

As he left the meeting, Mr. Kerry refused to provide details, saying he was “going to wait until the president releases it.”

A State Department official confirmed that Mr. Kerry had held the closed briefing regarding the president’s plan to admit refugees and said the official determination would be issued in coming weeks.

Following terrorist attacks in Paris and the U.S., the resettlement of Muslim refugees, particularly from Syria, has become a contested issue at the state level and in the presidential campaign.

Last year, Republican governors in roughly two dozen states voiced opposition to receiving Syrians, and some states tried to halt resettlement with lawsuits, which they lost.