http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/ That consistently pro-Israel newspaper, The Australian, carries an article by Ian Wilcock, a former Australian ambassador to Israel, explaining why antisemitism on the part of the Palestinians is an obstacle to peace: “An astonishing part of PA ideology is the constant use of the notoriously forged document of a century ago, the so-called Protocols […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/judges-now-get-to-decide-what-europeans-can-wear-at-work?f=must_reads In an open society, the state’s powers should be limited and contingent, the individual’s expansive and residual. To put it more prosaically, the government shouldn’t boss us around more than is absolutely necessary. It certainly shouldn’t tell us what to wear – as, for example, the Taliban and French regimes do (the one requiring […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/killing-osamas-body-nurturing-his-dream
Finding and bringing the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice by any and all legitimate means became the centerpiece of American national security policy after that fateful day in 2001. “Bring bin Laden to justice or bring justice to bin Laden” sat atop the list of US national security priorities irrespective of who was President, which party held sway in Congress, or which Hollywood actor might be opining at any given moment in time. “Finding bin Laden” wasn’t a political football. It was an obligation that superseded the economy, entitlements, the national debt, and unemployment rate in importance. The entire US defense complex, Intelligence and Homeland Security establishments were mobilized to find Osama bin Laden after 2001.
Eichmann eluded justice after 1945. It wasn’t the first Government of the State of Israel, but one that came decades later that apprehended the Nazi war criminal. Apprehending Eichmann was a permanent institutional objective. Law enforcement and justice agencies sometimes bring criminals to justice many years after they have committed their crimes. Such was the case with bin Laden. American intelligence located him and top decision makers authorized the operation to get him. It didn’t matter where he was. The American people wanted him brought to justice. The mandate to find, capture, or eliminate him wasn’t a privilege. It was an obligation delegated to the Chief Executive by the American people. Operational mechanics notwithstanding, there was one and only one option to choose from.
The Obama Administration is taking sole credit for this great achievement of the American people. They have made it the centerpiece of their partisan campaign platform. “Obama killed Osama” has been turned into a campaign slogan, as if Bush, Clinton, McCain or Romney would have done anything less. However, what is being camouflaged by the “I killed Osama” campaign is the realization in the American people that Osama’s dreams are thriving despite the fact that he is dead. Severing the head of al Qaeda is being brandished as the administration’s piece de résistance when in reality, the organization bin Laden created, and the movement and ideology that inspired it, are much closer to achieving the dreams of al Qaeda’s late founder. It is ironic that killing bin Laden is being hailed as the near-end of the war on terror while the Obama administration’s global and regional policies are facilitating Osama’s dream of the rise of emirates, and a restored Caliphate, at the hands of Islamists, Salafists and jihadists, even if in the early stages.
Is there a link between the administration’s policies and Islamists’ and Jihadists’ bold forward march? Critics might be dubious about the idea, citing the killing of bin Laden as prima facie evidence of an all-out war against the enemy of the United States. Killing Osama while allowing Islamists to overrun the Middle East is not victory, but abetting bin Laden’s vision and keeping his dream alive. Here’s why.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/report-card-on-the-911-commissions-recommendations-3
9/11 Families for a Secure America Foundation in conjunction with Family Security Matters has issued a report card on the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations. As family victims and friends of those murdered on 9/11 by Muslim terrorists, we have taken it upon ourselves to grade what progress we know has or has not been accomplished on the 9/11 Commission recommendations.
REPORT CARD ON THE 9/11 COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS OVERALL GRADE: D+
FOREWORD
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission), was an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002. It was chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for, and the immediate response to, the attacks. The Commission was also mandated to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks. Published in 2004, the bi-partisan 9/11 Commission Report outlined practical policy recommendations to protect Americans from future terror attacks. Today – seven years later – not all of these common sense steps have been implemented.
The terrorists who killed nearly 3,000 Americans did not use any secret weapons, clandestine codes, or any special access.The terrorists exploited obvious – and very well known – weaknesses in American policies and procedures. Credible NGO’s (non government agencies) and individual experts identified these weaknesses – before and after the attacks – but ten years later, the American public remembers only the “9/11 Commission”.
The 9/11 Commission was made up of seasoned political insiders, chosen from both major political parties. Commission members – by their temperaments and their backgrounds – were all predisposed to avoid direct finger-pointing. Commission members were all comfortable working within large bureaucracies. This shaped their recommendations, i.e., large, slow, cumbersome agency responses vs. radical “bottom up” transformations or the use of small rapid response teams.
Their “Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorists Attacks Upon the United States” devotes ELEVEN chapters to what happened, and just TWO chapters to prevention. 9/11 Commission recommendations were – at best – limited, mild bureaucratic steps and they focused far too much on Intelligence reform.
In 2009, five years after release of the 9/11 Report, former Co-Chair Tom Kean said:
“I’m worried that 20 percent [of the recommendations] haven’t been addressed. I’m also worried that among the 80 percent, things aren’t fully done.”
Among the failings he cited:
Failure to enforce national standards for state driver’s licenses and other IDs which the 9/11 Commission said are as important to terrorists as weapons;
• Lack of an Entry-Exit system to determine if visitors leave our country after they have entered it;
• Failure to secure our borders, thus enabling terrorists to enter our country and commit future terrorist acts;
• Lack of the ability of police, firefighters and others to communicate in emergencies;
• No reform of a system that places oversight of DHS into the hands of 80 congressional committees and subcommittees, sapping the department’s time and energies.
Despite many acts of violence committed against Americans throughout the 1980′s and ’90′s, Presidents (Republican and Democrat) failed to respond with effective, obvious measures that would have prevented the 9/11 terrorists from gaining entry to our country; prevented them from hiding in plain sight while they planned, rehearsed, financed and carried out their attacks; failed to enact measures that would have denied them the authentic American driver’s licenses that were critical to the success of their plot.
Commission member Jamie Gorelick, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States during the Clinton administration, has been acknowledged to be one of the major promoters of strengthening “the Wall” that kept the CIA from communicating with the FBI, and FBI counter intelligence from communicating with the FBI criminal division. That wall is one of the reasons the “dots” were not connected and the 9/11 plot could succeed as well as it did. Instead of being in the dock as a witness who was in part responsible for 9/11, Gorelick was made a member of the investigative team.
9/11 family members heard Commission members and even FBI Director Robert Mueller say “we are not here to point fingers.” So in the end, not surprisingly, the Commission concluded that no one in the American government was really at fault, it was all just “a failure of imagination.”
Consequently, although the ex-Commissioners have themselves recently issued a report card on the implementation of their recommendations, as family victims and friends of those murdered on 9/11 by Muslim terrorists, we have taken it upon ourselves to grade what progress we know has or has not been accomplished on the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Our report card below, addressing 26 of the 41 recommendations, is the result.
THE AUTHORS OF THIS REPORT ARE:
Prior to his retirement in 2005, Patrick Dunleavy was in law enforcement with the New York State Criminal Justice System for over 26 years as a part of an elite team of investigators. During his career, he worked undercover infiltrating criminal enterprises and contract murder conspiracies. He also worked as a hostage negotiator, and was key in the design and implementation of a data system used to gather intelligence on criminal activity involving drug trafficking, money laundering, fugitive apprehension and terrorism.
Following September 11, 2001, Dunleavy was appointed the Deputy Inspector General of the Criminal Intelligence Unit. At the request of various agencies Mr. Dunleavy was a speaker to, and worked for many ensuing years, with organizations such as the FBI, CIA, Scotland Yard and Canadian Intelligence Services on the topic of terrorist recruitment. He was a key figure in Operation Hades, an investigation that probed the radical Islamic recruitment movement for jihad from both inside and outside prison walls. As such, Dunleavy maintains contact with active members of the intelligence and counterterrorism field and congressional oversight committees which has enabled him to research just how much of the recommendations have actually taken place and, if not, why. Dunleavy is a contributing editor to FamilySecurityMatters.org.
Peter Gadiel has a J.D. from Case Western Reserve Law School. Until 9/11 he was in private business. His twenty-three year old son, James, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center North Tower, 103rd floor, and was murdered along with thousands of other innocents on September 11, 2001.
Since 2002, Gadiel has worked to end illegal immigration, to enforce immigration law and to secure America’s borders. His testimony (entitled “The Role of Non-enforcement of Immigration Law in Permitting the Terrorist Acts of September 11″) is part of the official record of the 9/11 Independent Commission. It can be found online here (pdf document):
He has spoken at rallies in almost twenty states; testified at numerous Congressional and State legislative hearings; he has also been interviewed on most of the cable and broadcast networks. His commentary has appeared in USA Today, CNN.com and other publications, including online web sites and blogs.
REPORT CARD ON THE 9/11 COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS
Note: The 9/11 Commission did not actually apply numbers to their recommendations. The following are their recommendations verbatim, in the same order as they appear in the Report, Chapters 12 and 13, pages 365 through 428.
Recommendation 2
If Musharraf stands for enlightened moderation in a fight for his life and for the life of his country, the United States should be willing to make hard choices too, and make the difficult long-term commitment to the future of Pakistan. Sustaining the current scale of aid to Pakistan, the United States should support Pakistan’s government in its struggle against extremists with a comprehensive effort that extends from military aid to support for better education, so long as Pakistan’s leaders remain willing to make difficult choices of their own.
Grade: C –
Since the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation on this, the United States taxpayer has provided billions of dollars to the Pakistani government, with the bulk of the money going to the military and intelligence. Little if any effort has been put forth to reduce the number of extremist-linked madrassas by re-education. The benefits of this vast monetary investment have been few.
While an effort was made to stop the freedom of movement of both Taliban and foreign Mujahideen across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the ISI (Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency) has made select exemptions to certain high profile groups like the Hagganis and Lashkar-e-Taiba, as well as to individuals. In cities like Lahore, Peshawar, and the mountainous border region of Waziristan, they have also not been able to prevent American terrorist recruits from traveling there to meet with Islamic terrorist organizations to receive training and funding. Three examples are Bryant Neal Vinas, Faisal Shahzad and Najibullah Zazi.
In May of this year, Osama bin Ladin was killed by US Special Forces in Abbottabad. Subsequent investigation reveals he had been living in that city for over 5 years, his house a stone’s throw away from the prestigious Pakistani Military academy also known as PMA or Kakul. This is a glaring example that the financial support given by the US has not eradicated pockets of Taliban sympathizers within the Pakistani Intelligence Services.
Further evidence of continued ISI support of the Taliban was the arrest of CIA operative Raymond Davis by Pakistani authorities at the behest of the ISI for killing two suspected terrorists in the city of Lahore.
Recommendation 4
The problems in the U.S.-Saudi relationship must be confronted, openly. The United States and Saudi Arabia must determine if they can build a relationship that political leaders on both sides are prepared to defend publicly – a relationship about more than oil. It should include a shared commitment to political and economic reform, as Saudis make common cause with the outside world. It should include a shared interest in greater tolerance and cultural respect, translating into a commitment to fight the violent extremists who foment hatred.
Grade: F
In suggesting that Saudi Arabia would “share a commitment to political and economic reform” the Commissioners were naive. To the contrary, since 9/11, the Saudis have remained committed to Islamic beliefs which are diametrically opposed to Western Civilization’s ideals of individual liberty and equality; such as their absolute bans on practice of other religions, subjugation of women and other minorities, and total suppression of free speech.
The Saudis have continued their richly-funded campaign of undermining Western values in an attempt to inflict their concepts of government on the West and to deceive Westerners about the nature of Saudi rule. Part of this campaign includes purchasing influence in American academia, and this has increased since 2001.
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal gave $20 million each to Harvard and Georgetown to establish centers named after him. Director of the Georgetown Alaweed Center is John Esposito, a propagandist who denies the violence endemic in Islam and nations dominated by Islam. Saudis funded similar institutes at: Berkeley, Harvard’s School of Middle Eastern Studies, and the University of Arkansas, among others.
The alleged purpose of these centers is the promotion of “Muslim-Christian understanding.” Since the practice of Christianity is strictly forbidden and harshly punished in Saudi Arabia, manifestly the “understanding” promoted by these Centers is solely for the purpose of gaining acceptance for Islam in the West. “Tolerance” that is not mutual is not tolerance but surrender.
Martin Kramer of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy says of Saudi influence in American academia: “This is great for Saudi Arabia. It’s not at all great for the American public, which seeks objective assessments of the Saudi kingdom.”
Saudis fund other U.S.-based propaganda organizations. Example: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), linked – according to the FBI – to Hamas, has received large donations from Prince Alaweed bin Talal, from Prince Abdullah bin Mosa’ad, from the Saudi-basedInternational Islamic Relief Organization and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
Saudis frequently offer employment (with generous salaries in Saudi-funded think tanks) to former U.S officials such as members of Congress and State Department officials (including former ambassadors to Saudi Arabia). Thus U.S. officials are made aware of how they may profit after retirement by using their current positions to benefit the Saudi government. In addition, former Presidents Carter, both Bushes, and Clinton have all accepted large speaking fees from Saudis.
9/11 FSA and Family Security Matters recommend that as a condition for holding elected, appointed or civil service positions in the U.S. government, that individuals be prohibited for a period of ten years after their government employment ends from accepting any employment, fees, gifts or any other benefit from any foreign government or entity, whether directly or through a U.S.- based entity which is funded in part by foreign governments or non-U.S. citizens.
Recommendation 5
The U.S. government must define what the message is, what it stands for. We should offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors. America and Muslim friends can agree on respect for human dignity and opportunity. To Muslim parents, terrorists like Bin Ladin have nothing to offer their children but visions of violence and death. America and its friends have a crucial advantage—we can offer these parents a vision that might give their children a better future. If we heed the views of thoughtful leaders in the Arab and Muslim world, a moderate consensus can be found. That vision of the future should stress life over death: individual educational and economic opportunity. This vision includes widespread political participation and contempt for indiscriminate violence. It includes respect for the rule of law, openness in discussing differences, and tolerance for opposing points of view.
http://weaselzippers.us/2011/03/11/texas-new-black-panther-leader-justifies-gang-rape-of-11-year-old-hispanic-girl/
CLEVELAND, Texas (Fox) — Racial divisions have surfaced in the town of Cleveland, 40 miles north of Houston, ever since last Thanksgiving’s alleged gang rape of an 11-year old Hispanic girl.
Most of the 17 suspects accused of sexually assaulting the preteen girl are black. And on Thursday night, community activist Quanell X hosted a rally there.
With some of the defendants’ parents standing next to him on stage, the activist took up a collection for their legal expenses from the largely African-American crowd.
While a few of those accused have admitted their guilt, he says others are probably innocent.
“She lives in another community,” Quanell X told the gathering. “You mean to tell me the only men that had sex with that girl were black men, locked up in that jail?”
The activist cast blame on the parents of the alleged victim, whom some describe as a willing participant in the sexual activity, at least initially.
He also took to task the elders in Cleveland’s black community for failing to guide the younger generation
On March 26, 2010 Newsmax published an article entitled, “Obama Snubs Netanyahu at White House.” For those of you with collective memory loss, if you remember, up to that point this was just the biggest of many snubs by the Obama Administration against the Israeli government. Obama Snubs Netanyahu at White House The President first […]
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/NI11Dg01.html
Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad by Melanie Kirkpatrick
Melanie Kirkpatrick tells one of the saddest stories I have ever read, about a North Korean family of four apprehended by the Chinese authorities after they had fled to China. Before theirrepatriation, a Chinese policeman took pity and ordered a Korean meal for them in jail.
The officer then said good night and went home. When he arrived at work the next morning and opened the door to the North Koreans’ cell, he found four corpses. The mother and children had been strangled; the father had hanged himself.
South Korean journalist Koo Bum-hoe, one of the first to report on starvation in North Korea and the refugee flood it caused, wrote of the incident: “It seemed as if the family had concluded that instead of going back to North Korea where they could be punished or even put to death for betraying their country that it would be better to die with a full stomach.”
The amount of human misery brought about by the Pyongyang regime challenges the imagination. Kirkpatrick quotes a 2005 Chinese police document estimating the number of North Korean refugees in China at more than 400,000. Many are caught and sent back to severe punishment, which often means death by starvation in a work camp. Female refugees routinely are sold as brides in rural areas. Some fail to find work or help and return to North Korea of their own volition, which perhaps is the saddest gauge of Chinese indifference.
George Orwell, who portrayed a dystopia of nagging poverty and perpetual war in Nineteen Eighty-Four, could not have envisaged a totalitarian system in which a significant portion of the people are condemned to death by starvation pour encourager les autres.
As a reporter and later an editor at The Wall Street Journal, Kirkpatrick has followed the plight of North Korean refugees for years. Her new book is not a litany of horrors, though, but rather a hopeful report on the efforts of Chinese, South Korean and American Christians to help the refugees. It is a moving document, and intended as an inspirational tale.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3338/american-israeli-affair After the brief euphoria of handshakes and congratulatory press releases, frustration sets in on the Potomac that the latest accords have not noticeably changed the situation in the region. Israel’s attempts to make peace have only raised expectations that are doomed to end in disappointment. The “Special Relationship” between America and Israel that trips […]
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3341/spain-meter-maids “It is unacceptable that in a free and democratic society, women are prevented from doing their job because they are women.” — Maite Silva, Spokesperson, UGT Labor Union Muslim immigrants in Palma de Mallorca, the capital of the Balearic Islands in Spain, have succeeded in forcing the expulsion of all female parking meter enforcement […]
http://pjmedia.com/blog/don%e2%80%99t-blame-the-messenger-%e2%80%94-obama-got-a-decent-convention-bounce/?print=1 The blogosphere is alive with conspiracy theories — that the pollsters, all aligned with the Obama campaign, or succumbing to pressure from its henchmen (e.g. David Axelrod), are spinning out poll results designed to dispirit conservatives and Republicans, and insure Obama’s election by depressing the turnout for Romney. I have seen many bad polls […]
