Displaying posts published in

2016

Prisons: Harvard for Radicals by Denis MacEoin

“If they arrest me and put me in prison, I will carry on in prison. I will radicalize everyone in prison.” — Anjem Choudary, quoted by the Daily Mail.

One of the most troubling factors is the vulnerability of fresh converts to radicalisation. Starting out with minimal knowledge of their new faith, converts are easily lured into adopting strict forms of Islam, guided by existing radicals and by the extremist literature freely available in prisons.

“Political correctness in prisons is allowing extremism to flourish because guards are too afraid of confronting Muslims. …staff fear of being labeled racist” — The Telegraph, citing a report by Ian Acheson, a former British prison governor.

Said al-Shihri, after his release from Guantanamo Bay in 2007, completed and passed the Saudi deradicalisation program, then became deputy leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen, orchestrating the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Sana’a in 2008.

A Labour MP, Khalid Mahmood, pointed out that many of the mentors who are supposed to guide young people away from becoming radicalized are themselves non-violent radicals.

Great Britain is not short of irritating, scoundrelous, extremist figures. One thinks of today’s Labour party leader, the Trotskyite Jeremy Corbyn, a ‘friend’ of Hamas and Hizbullah; the anti-Semitic far-left former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, recently suspended from the same party for anti-Jewish remarks; or George Galloway, who defended and lobbied for Saddam Hussein and called on the Iraqi leader to conquer Israel and retake Jerusalem. We have had more than our share of self-vaunting and holier-than-thou religious figures, too, notably the string of Muslim hate preachers who tour our universities and mosques, radicalizing students and a host of other impressionable and easily-angered young people.

Massoud Day, September 9 America’s Best Ally in Afghanistan by A.J. Caschetta

Unfortunately, Afghanistan’s neighbors were not about to let a democratic government with Western influences flourish on their borders, so war broke out.

“[I]t was Massoud and his followers who struggled to uphold human rights, and his enemies who abused them.” — John Jennings, Associated Press.

In 1998, the same year Osama bin Laden released his Declaration of War Against Americans with its “ruling to kill the Americans,” Massoud wrote that Afghanistan had become “occupied by fanatics, extremists, terrorists, mercenaries, drug Mafias and professional murderers.” Citing a “duty to defend humanity against the scourge of intolerance, violence and fanaticism,” he pleaded for American assistance, to no avail.

In 2012, Afghanistan’s National Assembly declared September 9 “Massoud Day. It should be “Massoud Day” in America too.

Before the 15th commemoration of the 9/11 attacks this Sunday, America might also do well to pause on Friday, September 9, to reflect on the 15th anniversary of the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud, an Afghan of Tajik ancestry from the Panshjir Valley, who was our best ally in the fight against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Massoud’s detractors say he was just another warlord, but this is not correct. True, the Lion of the Panjshir, as he was known, was a commander of forces. But in a land of warlords, he stood out as a humanist who by all accounts practiced a tolerant, egalitarian version of Islam. He played chess, read poetry, and traveled with hundreds of books. Some called him the “warrior monk.”

Massoud opposed forced marriages, child marriages, and other kinds of widely-approved abuses of women. He signed and promoted the Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women. That alone makes him more than “just another warlord.”

John O’Sullivan Remains of the Dazed

The immediate reaction of those who fought and feared Brexit was entirely predictable: something much worse than the Seven Plagues of Egypt was about to descend. Wrong, as usual, all they succeeded in demonstrating was the habitual arrogance of the elites.
When we last spoke to each other, the struggling heroine was tied to the railway tracks, the bonds were holding firm, the locomotive was rushing towards her, and the end looked nigh. At the last minute, however, even as her obituaries were being written (“a sad end to a fine life with many great achievements to her credit”, but also “few will regret the demise of this imperious harridan” and “this is not so much a death as an absorption into a greater Oneness”), Britannia suddenly broke free from the bonds, leapt from the tracks, jumped nimbly onto the rushing locomotive, produced a small revolver hitherto secreted in her underwear, placed it against the temple of the surprised driver, and said: “Make straight for the open seas, Buster, and don’t tell me you don’t know the way.”

I refer, as you have guessed, to the decision of the British people by a 52-to-48 per cent referendum vote to leave the European Union and resume being an independent self-governing democracy. It is less than three months since the vote—and early judgments are always suspect—but the result looks today like a much bigger deal for Europe and the world as well as for Britain than even passionate Brexiteers like me guessed in advance. So far there have been three stages in reaction to it.

The first was an almost universal surprise, since it was a truism that Leavers were a tiny handful of fruitcakes. A defeat for Remain was thus unthinkable. In fact there had always been widespread opposition to the EU among voters at all social levels, even though political parties, the media, and most national institutions had treated the idea with contempt and its adherents as eccentric at best. Suddenly the referendum rules meant that Leavers were on television making the case for Brexit nightly and, contrary to their caricature, they seemed quite reasonable. They persuaded some voters to switch to Leave, and Leave voters to be more confident of their own opinions. As the campaign developed, the polls swung towards Leave and many late polls showed the two sides as neck-and-neck. A Leave victory, though by no means inevitable, should have been seen as pretty likely.

In fact the reaction that followed surprise was a set of variations on horror, outrage, indignation, anguish and a desire for revenge. That was on the Remain side; the Leave side was pleased but not extravagantly so. For a while it simply pocketed its unexpected success and watched, bemused, from the wings while Remainers rioted angrily stage-centre. They plainly wanted the referendum result annulled but they were never quite able to explain why. Obviously they couldn’t say simply that they wanted a different result. So they had to invent a series of specious reasons that in their eyes cast doubt on its validity—that the Leave campaign was xenophobic and racist, that its voters (though not Remain voters) had not understood what they were voting for, that it had “told lies” (uniquely so in political campaigns, apparently), and so on and so forth. But the argument advanced with most passion by Remainers and repeated most often in the left-wing press ran as follows: because old uneducated people supporting Leave had outvoted young people with degrees voting Remain, these miserable old geezers had “robbed the young of their future” and, well, it wasn’t right.

No, it wasn’t right—on any number of grounds. First, the argument assumes what has to be proved: if the future outside the EU turns out to be better than inside it, then those who voted Leave will have bequeathed the young a better future. You’re welcome. Second, neither young nor old people voted as blocs; large percentages of both groups deviated from their respective majorities; and because of differential turnout, more older people than younger voted to Remain! Third, the argument that young people with degrees in particular were outvoted by old uneducated ones is a piece of vulgar intellectual snobbery. Happily, it is also false because (a) it confuses education (and, by implication) intelligence with possession of a degree, and (b) it assumes that the value of a degree is stable over time. However, according to a House of Commons Library study of educational changes in Britain: “Overall participation in higher education increased from 3.4% in 1950, to 8.4% in 1970, 19.3% in 1990 and 33% in 2000.” It has hovered around the 50 per cent mark for the last few years.

Peter Smith Islam’s Neck-to-Ankle Concealment

The burkini is rather more than a peculiar bathing costume, being both a test of the Western freedom to dress as one wishes and part of the Islamic campaign to make the misogynist manifestations of sharia law both commonplace and unremarkable
Public nudity or near nudity and outrageously lewd behaviour on Main Street in the cold light of day might bring the constabulary into play. Of course all kinds of questions arise as to how nude or lewd you are allowed to be. These are questions that Western societies have wrestled with for a long time, and it is true to say that what you can get away with now would have shocked our forbears.

On the other side of the coin, I doubt whether in the history of mankind there has ever been a mandate to restrict the extent to which people can cover up when in purely public places. Widow’s weeds never caused a stir. And quite right too, you might concur. In the normal course of daily life the law has no business telling anybody to partially disrobe.

Here’s the rub. If society brings the law into play to restrict the extent to which people can cover up in public it has to be derivative of other broader laws put in place to protect society from serious harm. Overdress laws cannot pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Not in our tolerant and free Western societies they can’t. Thus Nice and other French towns which are attempting to ban the so-called burkini predictably find it tough going.

The argument is made that Muslim women must be protected from a medieval patriarchal oppression which forces them to cover up. Unfortunately, if asked, that Muslim woman on the beach in Nice, forced to partially disrobe by the police, would say that her choice of garb that day was hers and hers alone. Without the benefit of mind-reading how can we insist otherwise?

Of course oppression can be insidious, working its way into the minds of the oppressed so that they come to regard their subservient status as normal. We might believe that this has happened to many women in Islamic societies. If so, little can be done about it short of Muslim women rising up like latter-day suffragettes. There are already laws on the books preventing one person from harassing and threatening another.

By the way, the woman on the beach would also deny that she is a small part of the Islamic campaign to push sharia law; and, in this case, in the very place in July where 86 people were killed and many more injured in the name of Islam. It is shameful on its face, but she would deny having a political motive. Common sense tells us otherwise, but that doesn’t help.

Germany Sees Welfare Benefit Costs More Than Double Asylum seekers received nearly $5.91 billion in welfare benefits in 2015By Ruth Bender

BERLIN—Asylum seekers in Germany received nearly €5.3 billion ($5.91 billion) in welfare benefits last year, more than double the cost in 2014, statistics showed Monday, highlighting the scale of the country’s refugee challenge.

Some 975,000 asylum seekers received benefits last year, more than double the number in 2014, the Federal Statistical Office said. In total, Germany paid asylum seekers €5.27 billion in support, ranging from lodging to food and medical treatments, up from €2.4 billion in 2014.

This is just part of the total amount the German state spent on helping migrants last year since the statistics only include asylum seekers–including rejected applicants who cannot be deported–and not recognized refugees, most of whom are eligible for income support. Only a minute fraction of the roughly 1 million migrants who entered Germany last year have found work.

The statistics are a stark reminder of the financial burden Germany has taken on when it opened its borders to refugees from the Middle-East, Asia and Africa last year. Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended the country’s liberal refugee policy in the face of mounting discontent, particularly among conservative backers of her Christian Democratic Union.

On Sunday, the upstart anti-immigrant party beat Ms. Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats for the first time in the latest sign of public disapproval of the chancellor’s refugee policy.

The majority of asylum seekers receiving benefits last year were from Asia, with 308,021 from Syria and 114,543 from Afghanistan, the data showed. Some 67% were men with an average age of 25 years, the statistics show. Some 30% of those receiving aid were minors. CONTINUE AT SITE

Clinton Suggests Russian Government Using Cyberattacks to Influence Election Democratic presidential candidate compares hacks to an electronic version of Watergate By Laura Meckler

HAMPTON, Ill.–Democrat Hillary Clinton strongly suggested Monday that the Russian government and President Vladimir Putin are using cyberattacks to try to tilt the race for her opponent, Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Mrs. Clinton cited what she described as official assessments that Russian intelligence services are behind the recent hack of computers at the Democratic National Committee. Thousands of stolen emails were released publicly this summer on the eve of the Democratic Party convention, in some cases embarrassing Democratic officials. The Democratic nominee compared the hacks to an electronic version of Watergate, when Republican operatives sent burglars to break into the DNC offices in the early 1970s.

Mrs. Clinton also pointed to Mr. Trump’s comments in late July urging the Russians to find emails that her office deleted, remarks his campaign later said were misconstrued. And she cited his warm words for Mr. Putin, and noted places where his positions that line up with Russian interests, such as pulling back the U.S. commitment to NATO members.

“We’ve never had a foreign adversarial power be already involved in our electoral process with the DNC hacks,” she said. “We’ve never had the nominee of one of our major parties urging the Russians to hack more. So I am grateful that this is being taken seriously and I want everyone—Democrat, Republican, independent—to understand the real threat that this represents.”

Representatives for the Trump campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Mrs. Clinton’s comments came during a 25-minute question-and-answer session aboard her new campaign plane, which for the first time this year accommodates both the candidate and her traveling press corps.

It has been months since Mrs. Clinton gave a full-fledged news conference, so there was considerable pressure on her to engage an extended back-and-forth like she did on the plane. She last took questions from reporters on July 31, but that was a more brief exchange that covered fewer serious topics. CONTINUE AT SITE

More Records Releases Loom for Hillary Clinton Lawsuits are being heard in federal courts as the presidential campaign hits its final stretch: Byron Tau

Thousands of pages of Hillary Clinton’s official records are set to be released in coming weeks, testing the Democratic presidential candidate as she looks to maintain her advantage in the final two months of the campaign.

On the heels of recently released Federal Bureau of Investigation documents on Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email account at the State Department, the coming disclosures are likely to provide fodder for Republican Donald Trump. While Mrs. Clinton has held a durable if narrower lead over her rival in polls, there are signs that recent records releases have raised issues of trust with voters.

Dozens of lawsuits, mostly brought by conservative groups and Republican operatives against the State Department, are being heard in federal courts. Many of the documents still to come are expected to involve correspondence between Mrs. Clinton, her aides and employees at her family’s charitable foundation.

Similar releases over the summer generated days of news coverage about the relationship between Mrs. Clinton and the foundation’s corporate, foreign and individual donors. In September alone, government agencies are expected to hand over thousands of pages of records from Mrs. Clinton’s time in office.

The two candidates, meanwhile, spent Labor Day hopscotching around the battleground of Ohio, as did both of their vice-presidential picks. Mrs. Clinton, speaking to reporters on her new campaign plane, strongly suggested that the Russian government was trying to tilt the race for Mr. Trump.

All the Lies: They’ve Turned Us Into a Rotting Banana Republic Jed Babbin

What makes us any different from Venezuela now?

It’s a matter or record. Americans now populate the largest, wealthiest and most powerful banana republic in the world. The differences between Obama’s America and Maduro’s Venezuela are defined only by degree.

The defining characteristics of banana republics are a matter of history. First, the law is not enforced against a chosen class in a banana republic, usually the allies of the autocrat in charge. Second, foreign policy is always performed in the autocrat’s interests and often in disregard of the nation’s actual interests. This describes how America functions in the era of President Obama.

The newly-released FBI documents on the investigation of Hillary Clinton make it clear beyond argument that the fix was in and that the FBI never had any intention of recommending that she should be prosecuted for her crimes.

That is very hard to write. I have had very good friends among the agents of the FBI, men of unshakeable dedication to the fair enforcement of the law. But that is no longer the FBI’s goal, as just a few references to the documents published last week reveal.

First, you had to notice that the FBI agreed that there would be no videotape of its interview of Clinton. Not only would there not be a videotape, but no court reporter would be present to record a transcript. That itself is highly unusual, but there is far more, and far worse.

Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, had to have participated in sending classified material to Clinton on her private and unsecured “clintonemail.com” email system. Yet when the FBI questioned Clinton, Mills was permitted to attend as one of Clinton’s lawyers. That is not only unethical under the Bar’s unenforced ethics standards, but obviously a huge violation of the most elementary of FBI procedures that requires witnesses — and possible suspects — to be questioned separately in isolation from one another.

Clinton told the FBI that she relied on others’ judgment in sending her sensitive information on the unsecured email system. She also claimed that as a result of a head injury she didn’t recall key events such as being trained by the State Department on handing classified information or retaining records in accordance with federal law.

ISLAM’S RAPE OF SWEDEN — ON THE GLAZOV GANG JAMIE GLAZOV

With Europe being overrun today with Muslim refugees, and therape of European women by the male migrants becoming a widespread phenomenon, the Glazov Gang is running it special episode joined by Ingrid Carlqvist, the Editor-in-Chief of Dispatch-International.com.

Ingrid discussed Islam’s Rape of Sweden, unveiling the Muslim terror that is maiming her country:http://jamieglazov.com/2016/09/05/islams-rape-of-sweden-on-the-glazov-gang-2/

Iran’s Secret War in Syria By P. David Hornik

Since the signing of the nuclear deal on July 14, 2015—now, it turns out, with major secret exemptions for Iran—Iran’s brazenness has only grown. The Obama administration, in its ongoing efforts to coddle and appease, has gone so far as to offer to buy Iran’s heavy water and sell Iran Boeings.

But the reason appeasement doesn’t work is that Iran harbors an intense enmity toward the West and particularly its (still) reigning superpower, America, which it wants to destroy. Anyone still not convinced of that should watch this propaganda video of young Iranians sinking American aircraft carriers.

Lately, with the lame-duck President Obama headed for the finish line as he tightly clutches his “legacy”—the nuclear deal—Iran has further stepped up the brazenness. It has harassed U.S. ships in international waters of the Persian Gulf, forcing one of them to fire warning shots. It has deployed the Russian-made S-300 missile-defense system—one of the most advanced in the world—at its Fordo uranium-enrichment site. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an address to Defense Ministry staff in Tehran, has said Iran must continue its offensive military buildup and “avoid negotiating with the U.S., [as] experience has proven that instead of understanding, the Americans are seeking to impose their will in negotiations.”

The Obama administration, for which the nuclear deal plays a role like the speed of light in Einsteinian relativity—an absolute, immutable principle—reacts to all this solely by expressing “concern.”

A major exposé in the Daily Mail now reveals that, for years, Iran’s military involvement in Syria has been much more extensive and dangerous than many believed.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an exiled opposition group, has passed information to MailOnline that was apparently leaked by senior figures in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Among other things, the activists say Iran now commands about 60,000 Shiite troops in Syria—vastly more than the 16,000 that Western analysts had estimated.

The NCRI, which in 2002 exposed Iran’s then-secret nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak, also says Iran operates a major headquarters near Damascus airport, nicknamed the Glasshouse. About a thousand people work there including Iran’s feared intelligence agencies, and there is also a basement for holding millions of dollars in cash.

The NCRI claims that the total amount Iran has spent on the Syrian war comes to an astounding $100 billion, much of it during years when Tehran was complaining loudly about the ravages of economic sanctions. Western analysts had gauged the sum at only $15 billion.