RUTHFULLY YOURS

Is YouTube a training site for terrorists? Gordon Rayner, political editor for the UK Daily Telegraph has discovered that British “counter-terrorism officers secretly recorded an alleged ISIL-inspired terror cell . . . discussing how to use YouTube to plot a van and knife attack in London.”

In June 2017, Ruthie Blum at Gatestone Institute asserts that both “YouTube and Google, are effectively being accessories to murder. They are also inviting class-action lawsuits from families and individuals victimized by terrorism. They need to be held criminally liable for aiding and abetting mass murder.” And while Google announced that it would “fight terrorism online,” Blum asserts that Google and YouTube are “getting away with promoting jihad for a profit while disingenuously hiding behind the banner of free speech.”

In 2015, The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) “researched and flagged YouTube videos of support for jihadi fighters and ‘martyrs’ and ‘martyrdom,’ to test the platform’s ‘Promotes Terrorism’ flaggng feature.” As a result of the research, “by mid March 2017, major companies began halting or reducing advertising deals with YouTube owner Google because Google had allowed their brands to become intertwined with terrorist and extremist content on YouTube. These companies have, so far, included AT&T, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, the car rental company Enterprise Holdings, and drug manufacturer GSK. According to media reports, ordinary ads have been appearing alongside user-uploaded YouTube videos promoting hatred and extremism.” Nonetheless, Steve Stalinsky, Executive Director of MEMRI explains that “You Tube’s removal of jihadi content is spotty” and inconsistent. In fact, “. . . , 69 out of 115 videos remain active, highlighting the failure of YouTube’s flagging system.”

In 2016, npr.org asserted that “Zuckerberg didn’t sign up to head a media company — . . . that has to make editorial judgments.” Thus, “[h]e and his team have made a very complex set of contradictory rules — a bias toward restricted speech for regular users, and toward free speech for ‘news’ (real or fake).”

At Foreign Policy, author Nanjala Nyabola in October 2016 maintained that “. . . there’s a dark side to [Facebook’s] Free Basics that has the potential to do more harm than good [.] The app is . . . a version of the internet that gives Facebook — and by extension the corporations and governments that partner with Facebook — total control over what its users can access.” It is important to note that “in many African countries, traditional media has been co-opted by the state [.]” Thus, Nyabola asserts that “this record of collaborating with governments should make us wary of Free Basics. The app is only worth the gamble if one believes that governments where it’s been rolled out have the best interests of their citizens at heart — a presumption that is unwarranted in much of Africa.”

In November 2016 Aaron M. Renn wrote that “[i]t’s long been known that social-media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (owned by Google) delete significant amounts of user-posted content. Some of what gets removed is in clear violation of legitimate standards governing pornography and pirated content. But a lot of what gets pulled down is neither offensive nor illegal. Rather, it is content whose message these platforms disagree with.”

To allay fears inspired in Americans by what he called a “right-wing caricature” of Islamic jurisprudence, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf claimed, falsely, that it “does not presume to replace American law. It agrees with its underlying values and promotes them.” In fact, both founders of political Islam, Sayyed Qutb and Hassan al-Banna, openly explained that Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments.

A new problem seems to have sprung up: some disembodied entity at Google apparently decided, with a few swipes of a bear-paw, to censor all the contents from these historically accurate think-tank postings. What is Google trying to keep you from knowing? Material that would be more dangerous for you to know or more dangerous for you not to know? How considerate of Google to have made this decision for you!

American fear of sharia is anything but “silly.” It comes not a minute too soon.

In a recent op-ed in the New York Daily News, Kuwaiti American Sufi cleric and activist Feisal Abdul Rauf — who served more than 25 years as the imam of the Masjid al-Farah Mosque in New York City — argued that nobody in the United States should be worried about the incorporation of Islamic law, sharia, into the legal system or should be protesting it. To allay fears inspired in Americans by what he called a “right-wing caricature” of Islamic jurisprudence, Rauf claimed, falsely, that sharia “does not presume to replace American law. It agrees with its underlying values and promotes them.” In fact, both founders of political Islam, Sayyed Qutb[1] and Hassan al-Banna, openly explained that Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments.

Both founders of political Islam, Sayyed Qutb (right) and Hassan al-Banna (left), openly explained that Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments. (Images source: Wikimedia Commons)

Hmm, a new problem seems to have sprung up: some disembodied entity at Google apparently decided, with a few swipes of a bear-paw, to censor all the contents from these historically accurate think-tank postings. What is Google trying to keep you from knowing? Material that would be more dangerous for you to know or more dangerous for you not to know? How considerate of Google to have made this decision for you!

Anyhow, Rauf then goes on to say that sharia courts would never be sanctioned in the U.S. “The First Amendment, which prevents government establishment of religion, forbids it,” he writes, incorrectly.

The First Amendment, in its entirety, reads as follows:

Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Rauf then proceeds to defend sharia against its detractors.

“Sharia is not about amputations and stoning,” he assured readers, again incorrectly.

Rauf continues: “…Within the history of Islam, they have rarely occurred.” A short search in google belies that.

“What Islamic law does prescribe,” he goes on, in a breathtaking example of taqiyya [obfuscation] and kitman [dissimulation] — which are both permitted[2] in Islam under certain circumstances, such as to defend Islam — “are the same do’s [sic] and don’ts of the Ten Commandments — the social imperatives most of us recognize whatever our religion.”

Ironically, the Reuters photo selected by the Daily News op-ed editor to accompany the piece — a snapshot of a Muslim bride at her “sharia” wedding – provided inadvertent evidence of Rauf’s deceit. Sharia forbids taking, printing or disseminating photos except when required (such as to obtain a passport) or otherwise necessary. In addition, according to sharia, a female Muslim must cover her entire body, her hair and preferably her face — so as not to arouse sexual desire in men other than her husband. As it is written in the Quran (33:59):

“O Prophet! Tell your wives and daughters and the believing women that they should draw over themselves their jilbab (outer garments) (when in public); this will be more conducive to their being recognized (as decent women) and not harassed.”

North Korea’s murder of Otto Warmbier is yet another reminder that the United States needs a new approach to deal with the Pyongyang problem. Unfortunately, sanctions, threats, and diplomacy have failed to steer North Korea away from making America its primary nuclear target.

In his testimony to the House Armed Services Committee last week, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis accurately called North Korea a “most urgent and dangerous threat” to global security. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, speaking at the hearing, noted that “North Korea has been on a relentless path to field a nuclear-armed ICBM that can reach the United States.”

The sheer number and diversity of these recent tests have forced U.S. and South Korean planners to raise expectations of Pyongyang’s destructive capabilities. Keeping ahead of the North Korean threat requires addressing near-term gaps by building on recent achievements while investing in emerging technologies.

Though warning of the costs of having to fight “a war like nothing we have seen since 1953” if conflict broke out again on the Korean Peninsula, Mattis told the committee that the ground-based interceptors (GBIs) stationed in Alaska and California provide adequate protection despite North Korean and other missile threats: “It’s a worsening situation. . . . But we can buy the time right now.” These systems consist, first, of a multistage solid-fuel booster. It propels a “kill vehicle” that collides with a target in outer space, obliterating any warhead before it can even return to the atmosphere.

Matching the growing threat, the Pentagon has recently made ground-based mid-course defense exercises more demanding and operationally relevant. Last month, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) conducted its first comprehensive live-fire test to simulate shielding the United States against a higher, longer, and faster flying target akin to a North Korean (or Iranian) ICBM.

Following the successful interception, the Pentagon’s test oversight body reversed an earlier assessment that the system had low reliability. The new appraisal concludes that the GBIs have a “demonstrated capability to defend the U.S. homeland from a small number of intermediate-range or intercontinental missile threats” — precisely the kind of threat Pyongyang presents — “with simple countermeasures.”

Even so, the potential of the existing interceptors is limited. They were hurriedly deployed as advanced prototypes more than a dozen years ago to hedge against potential rogue missile threats. Despite modest upgrades, such as redesigned thruster engines, these systems are still based on decades-old technology. Each kill vehicle has thousands of components produced and refurbished at various times and places. They beg for comprehensive modernization.

To overcome these limitations, the MDA is researching revolutionary technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicle-borne lasers, but near-term breakthroughs are improbable. Even the new 2025 (rather than 2030) date for the proposed multi-object kill vehicle, which seeks to shoot down multiple targets in one flight, seems dangerously optimistic given all the problems with the rushed GBI deployments.

With North Korea likely to acquire nuclear-armed missiles capable of reaching American soil, developing more-reliable protection much sooner is imperative. My Hudson colleague Arthur Herman has thoughtfully laid out how a boost-phase intercept system employing unmanned aerial vehicles armed with conventional interceptor missiles could provide one near-term solution. Another important layer will be the redesigned kill vehicle (RKV), with improved homeland-defense interceptors, that the Pentagon aims to begin deploying and testing in the next few years.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s website was among several government sites in the state and elsewhere that were hacked Sunday by a group displaying a pro-Islamic State message.

At one point Sunday, the Republican governor’s official website and other Ohio sites showed a message that said, “You will be held accountable Trump, you and all your people for every drop of blood flowing in Muslim countries.”

The message, on an all-black background, also said, “I Love Islamic State,” and above it said “Hacked by Team System Dz.”

Tom Hoyt, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Administrative Services, said a total of 10 sites were hacked. He couldn’t confirm which group was responsible for the hacking but said the state is working with law enforcement to understand what happened.

“State of Ohio IT staff are working to restore computer systems that were impacted today,” Mr. Hoyt said. “All affected servers have been taken offline and we are investigating how these hackers were able deface these websites.”

The messages supporting the terrorist group were removed from the websites Sunday and replaced with a notice saying the sites were down for maintenance.

Brookhaven, N.Y., a town on Long Island with about half a million residents, also had its public website hacked Sunday. And the website for Howard County, Md., also appeared be targeted by the same attack, before officials took it down Sunday, said Andy Barth, a spokesman for the county.

Ed Romaine, town supervisor in Brookhaven, said no records were touched and that hackers had effectively added a page to the town’s website with the same message used on Ohio’s sites.

Mr. Romaine said the hack was concerning and he was puzzled as to why Brookhaven would be targeted.

He said the town will be cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security. But he said he hesitated to refer to the hacking as terrorism-related. While officials are taking the hacking seriously, he said, “I would tell you it seemed like a prank.”

Other sites in Ohio that were also hacked Sunday included those of Ohio’s first lady, Karen Kasich, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, Office of Workforce Transformation and the Casino Control Commission. CONTINUE AT SITE

Liberal opposition to missile defense has persisted since the 1980s, but the politics may be changing with technological progress and the rising threat from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons. Congress has an opportunity this summer to notch a rare bipartisan deal that enhances U.S. security.

Kim has already overseen more nuclear and missile tests than his father and grandfather combined, and the Defense Intelligence Agency warns that “if left on its current trajectory” Pyongyang will develop a capacity to hit Japan, Alaska, Hawaii or even the U.S. West Coast. The Trump Administration is pleading with China to stop the North, but Chinese leaders never seem to act and they’re even trying to block regional missile defenses in South Korea.

Meanwhile, the U.S. last month successfully tracked and shot down a mock intercontinental ballistic missile, akin to a bullet hitting a bullet. The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD)—first fielded in 2004 but untested since 2014—has a success rate of nine in 17 intercept trials. But even the failures show the GMD is increasingly effective.

Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan wants to build on this progress with an amendment that would fund a more integrated system, add new interceptors and sensors and increase research. The legislation has united conservatives such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and liberal Democrats such as Gary Peters and Brian Schatz, no small feat in the Trump era.

Systems like the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense at sea and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) on the ground can shoot down regional threats within earth’s atmosphere. Only the GMD can hit long-range threats targeting all 50 states, bringing the missiles down in space. All of these systems have separate radars, which have to be coordinated to get a complete picture of a target. The bill aims to create a better integrated system that provides what Mr. Sullivan calls “an unblinking eye.”