20081130

'UN - prosecute inciters of suicide-terror-on-civilians as war criminals' - Holocaust-sentinel, Marvin Hier

"The world has never experienced such a plague of darkness as Islamic fundamentalism"- Rabbi Marvin Hier at tribute to victims of Islamic terror


"The world should be very clear- achieving martyrdom by killing innocent civilians is an abomination. It's a concept that desecrates all religions, denegrates humankind and defames G-d.

It is not only the terrorists who bear responsibility ... it is the religious leaders who programmed them, who inspired them, who sent them - who are equally culpable and are never mentioned.

Joseph Goebels and Julius Streicher never killed a human being - but they were named as major war criminals in Nurenberg because on a daily basis they poisoned the minds of tens of millions of Germans. That is exactly what the Imams of the Islamic fundamentalists do - and nobody does anything about it. The world must not remain silent. We have the tools to do something.

The United Nations must make suicide terror a priority. Why is it that the General Assembly of the United Nations can call special sessions - listen to the subjects (all of them important): drug cartels, AIDS, disarmament, apartheid, what is missing?

They have never called a special session to deal with the greatest crime of the 21st century - suicide terror! Why not??"
...

One final word to the supporters of terrorists, wherever you are. Your concept may be new but we've seen your prototype before... You're not the first to threaten our humanity.  For 3500 years we've seen your likes. During the pogroms, the Inquisition, and the Holocaust - and we've never changed our belief.

To use a metaphor that is appropriate from the upcoming fesival of Chanukah:
That one cruise of light that emanated from the Chabad House in Mumbai has contributed more to humanity than your whole ideology and your whole way of life.  And the Jewish people whom you seek to destroy will still be here long after you and your haters have been deposited in the dustbins of history - where you belong.

20081128

Islamic-supmemacists slay 6 innocent Jews to prove 'Holy War' essence of terror crusade, despite MSM denials

Jihadist terrorists (including 7 born and raised in Great Britain) massacre 6 innocent western Jews among 150 slain in Mumbai, 327 wounded.

Why? Jihad Watch answers:
Because they see their jihad in India as just one part of the larger jihad against America, Britain, and the West, and against Israel. And because the Qur'an says that "strongest among men in enmity to the believers you will find the Jews..." (5:82).
How many more such outrages, how many more wanton murders of innocent people, will the non-Muslim world endure before it wakes up? How many more iterations of "it's only a tiny minority of extremists," and "what about the Crusades?" and "speaking about Jihad violence is Islamophobia and bigotry" must we endure before the mainstream media (liberal and conservative) begins to talk about this issue seriously?
Here are more links providing different perspectives on the Jihad Terrorism in Bombay (Mumbai) India:

Six bodies removed from Jewish centre in Mumbai The Age (Australia)
Six people, including a rabbi and his wife, were killed at a Jewish centre in Mumbai, Israeli officials said - one of 10 sites besieged by suspected Muslim militants in a spectacular assault on India's commercial capital.

The orthodox Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch organization reported earlier from its New York headquarters that the victims included its emissary to Mumbai, Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, who ran the centre, and his wife, Rivkah. The couple's toddler son, Moshe, 2, survived the assault and escaped the building with a centre employee on Thursday.

The organisation identified two other victims as Rabbi Leibish Teitlebaum ( son-in-law of the head of the Toldos Avraham Yitzhak Chassidic sect from Brooklyn) and Ben Tzion Chroman, his Israeli co-worker with dual US citizenship. An unidentified second Israeli woman was also killed, it said.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry later said the body of an unidentified third woman was also found inside the five-story building.
The motivation behind Mumbai jihadi terror:

Dr. Andrew Bostom, author of The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism provides historical context on The Legacy of Jihad in India, published in The American Thinker in 2005. Click link to read.

Today Dr. Bostom updates the news: The ethos of the Mumbai Jihad on Chabad Jewish family: “Whenever a Jew is killed it is for the benefit of Islam.”
This tragedy within a much larger tragedy reminded me of the Indian Sufi “inspiration” for The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, Ahmad Sirhindi. Nearing completion of my first book compendium, The Legacy of Jihad, in early 2005, specifically the section about jihad on the Indian subcontinent, I came across a remarkable comment by the Indian Sufi theologian Sirhindi (d. 1624). Typical of the mainstream Muslim clerics of his era, Sirhindi was viscerally opposed to the reforms which characterized the latter ecumenical phase of Akbar’s 16th century reign (when Akbar became almost a Muslim-Hindu syncretist), particularly the abolition of the humiliating jizya (Koranic poll tax, as per Koran 9:29) upon the subjugated infidel Hindus. In the midst of an anti-Hindu tract Sirhindi wrote, motivated by Akbar’s pro-Hindu reforms, he observes, “Whenever a Jew is killed, it is for the benefit of Islam.”

The biographical information I could glean about Sirhindi provided, among other things, no evidence he was ever in direct contact with Jews, so his very hateful remark suggested to me that the attitudes it reflected must have a theological basis in Islam—contra the prevailing, widely accepted “wisdom” that Islam, unlike Christianity was devoid of such theological Antisemitism. Having originally intended to introduce, edit, and compile a broader compendium on dhimmitude in follow-up to The Legacy of Jihad, this stunning observation inspired me instead to change course and focus on the interplay between Islamic Antisemitism, and the intimately related phenomenon of jihad imposed dhimmitude for Jews, specifically.
Arab news agencies ignore Muslim terror massacre in India (ANSAmed)
Pan-Arab satellite programs and their main internet sites have paid modest attention to the attacks in Mumbai which caused more than 100 deaths, while 'jihadist' sites limited themselves to scant comments of celebration. The Qatar broadcast al-Jazeera has had several link-ups with its correspondent there but without following events with a special broadcast. Al-Arabiya, the More.. TV channel broadcasting from Dubai and financed by the Royal Saudi house, also reported the events in Mumbai using its journalists on the scene, but broadcast as part of the usual daily news. On its website Alarabiya.net, the attacks in India are in fourth place, after news on Lebanon, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Another important London-based Saudi news website, Elaph, opens with the Mumbai attacks but along with other photo news on Iraq, sport and medicine. Al-Jazeera has the attacks in India and Afghanistan as its headlines for 'home in movement'. Islamic extremist forums also give it a low profile, in a 'posting' by some subscriber who adds laconically: "Allahu Akbar" (allah is Great).

20081127

MSMedia hides Islamist identity & motives of Mumbai attackers against Westerners & Jews

Election of Obama fails to appease jihadist quest for Muslim domination (and neither will a Palestinian state). The issue is political Islamist imperialism.

Global affairs analyst, Micah Halpern, of The Micah Report, author of the book, "Thugs," expresses how America's foreign affairs will suffer as a result of the naivete of such a rookie president-elect.



I'm Predicting:

For an idea of what future terrorist attacks will look like, look no further than last night's horrific terror attack in India.

Islamic terrorists like multiple, simultaneous, coordinated, attacks against Western targets especially when target is civilian.

All of the sites of yesterday's attacks are civilian sites. The terrorists and their handlers were trying to kill as many Westerners as possible.

The terrorists actually shouted out that they were looking for UK and America passport holders only.

Traveling abroad and having assets abroad comes with a huge responsibility. Learning to act safely so as to protect ourselves and our property when we travel is imperative.

Make no mistake about it: US citizens and US interests abroad are terrorist targets.

20081125

Enlightening documentary, "The Third Jihad" - the complete, 70-minute film

The complete 70 minute version of the educational documentary "The Third Jihad" now appears on Google Video.

The latest documentary from "Obsession" producers, Clarion Fund, The Third Jihad, illustrates the Islamist quest for global social, cultural, and political dominance in historic perspective.

ex-US Navy physician, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser explains how political-Islamists are hijacking control over America's moderate Muslims, its schools and Mosques. He explains the cultural jihad to exploit liberal, democratic processes to overthrow the native culture in pursuit of Islamism's own theocratic goals of establishing a global Islamist state.



Leaders and experts featured in the film include: American Muslim Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of NYC, CIA Director Jim Woolsey, NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Senator Joe Lieberman, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former terrorist group member Tawfik Hamid, Bernard Lewis, and Muslim minority-rights icon, Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

20081124

'Holy Land Foundation? American front-group for financing jihad terror,' Texas jury finds


A Dallas jury convicted five former officials at the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) on all counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

The men, Shukri Abu-Baker, Ghassan Elashi, Mohamed El-Mezain, Mufid Abdulqader and Abdelrahman Odeh, could face life in prison for their convictions on conspiracy counts, including conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. The verdicts, read Monday afternoon, ended a two-year saga in what is considered the largest terror financing case since the 9/11 attacks.

Jurors in this trial saw three exhibits Israeli military officials seized from the Palestinian Authority which showed the PA also considered HLF to be a Hamas funder and that an HLF-supported charity committee was controlled by Hamas.

The unanimous verdicts are a complete victory for the government, which streamlined its case and worked hard to carefully educate jurors on the complex, massive evidence presented in the trial. Guilty verdicts were read on 108 separate charges.

The prosecution victory is also a major one for the lame duck administration of President George Bush, whose efforts at fighting terrorism financing in court have been troubled, even though the flow of funds seems to be effectively shut down.

The Justice Department is likely to claim victory not only with the verdicts, but by trumpeting the shutdown of what prosecutors say was a robust and unsettling American network of terrorist funding. Holy Land, regardless of the verdict, is defunct. And other international terrorism financing pipelines have been interrupted.

“The government has achieved an awful lot of success here,” said Dennis Lormel, who created the FBI’s Terrorist Financing Operations Section after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and is now a security consultant.

“A lot of people will only look at the win/lose of the jury verdict,” said Mr. Lormel, of IPSA International Inc. “I’m looking at it from the perspective of the flow of funding through charities to terrorists. There’s been an incredible amount written and attention put out on this. That’s a deterrent to those who want to fund terrorism.”


The case revealed this Muslim Brotherhood memo exposing the agenda of the jihadist, Muslim Brotherhood and their affiliated organizations in North America as of 1991. Excerpted points:

In order for Islam and its Movement to become "a part of the homeland" in which it lives, "stable" in its land, "rooted" in the spirits and minds of its people, "enabled" in the live [sic] of its society and has firmly-established "organizations" on which the Islamic structure is built and with which the testimony of civilization is achieved, the Movement must plan and struggle to obtain "the keys" and the tools of this process in carry [sic] out this grand mission as a "Civilization Jihadist" responsibility which lies on the shoulders of Muslims and – on top of them – the Muslim Brotherhood in this country.

The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands- until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal.

20081117

US House to Palestinians - 'Change Fatah Charter from 'liberating Israel' via terror. ZOA to Abbas: Fulfill Oslo promises to prove state-worthiness

76 members of the US House of Representatives co-sponsored a resolution (H.Res.758) “urging Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is also Chairman of his Fatah party, to officially abrogate the 10 articles in the Fatah Constitution that call for Israel 's destruction and terrorism against Israel , oppose any political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and label Zionism as racism.”

The offending articles are:

(1) `Article (4): The Palestinian struggle is part and parcel of the world-wide struggle against Zionism, colonialism and international imperialism.';

(2) `Article (7): The Zionist Movement is racial, colonial and aggressive in ideology, goals, organization and method.';

(3) `Article (8): The Israeli existence in Palestine is a Zionist invasion with a colonial expansive base, and it is a natural ally to colonialism and international imperialism.';

(4) `Article (12): Complete liberation of Palestine , and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.';

(5) `Article (17): Armed public revolution is the inevitable method to liberating Palestine. ';

(6) `Article (19): Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic, and the Palestinian Arab People's armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.';

(7) `Article (22): Opposing any political solution offered as an alternative to demolishing the Zionist occupation in Palestine, as well as any project intended to liquidate the Palestinian case or impose any international mandate on its people.';

(8) `Article (23): Maintaining relations with Arab countries . . . with the provision that the armed struggle is not negatively affected.';

(9) `Article (24): Maintaining relations with all liberal forces supporting our just struggle in order to resist together Zionism and imperialism.'; and

(10) `Article (25): Convincing concerned countries in the world to prevent Jewish immigration to Palestine as a method of solving the problem.'

The resolution also “condemns the continuing existence of these articles as part of the Fatah Constitution.” The measure now has a total of 76 co-sponsors from both parties: 21 Democrats and 55 Republicans.

Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein said: “This Fatah Constitution is one that the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would proudly support. Why should Israel make concessions to the ruling Fatah when Fatah’s own Constitution calls for its destruction? If Abbas fails to condemn the Fatah Constitution or abrogate its clauses, then it will be crystal clear that he and Fatah are not the peace-desiring moderates they claim to be.

Concomitantly, Abbas must fulfill the Palestinians’ commitments under the signed Oslo and Roadmap agreements -- including arresting terrorists, confiscating terrorist weapons, and ending the incitement of hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools, and youth camps.

It is clear that any Israeli concessions must come after, and in response to, these fundamental changes in Fatah, not the other way around.

Fatah is openly and doctrinally committed to terrorism and the destruction of Israel. The effort by so much of the media and diplomatic corps to present Fatah as 'moderate' shows a very troubling eagerness to ignore terrorist acts, public statements and even Fatah's own governing document in an attempt to continue a so-called 'peace process' with Palestinian entities that have no interest in peace.”

We urge the Bush administration and the incoming Obama administration to discontinue granting $700 million a year to the Palestinians in US taxpayer funds while this constitution exists and while their other peace agreement obligations remain unfulfilled. Abbas has consistently failed to implement long-standing Palestinian obligations under the Oslo agreements and the Roadmap peace plan to arrest and jail terrorists, close the bomb factories and end the incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps that feeds terrorism.

“As ZOA made clear in our full page NY Times ad on this issue: ‘President Bush said that we need to end terrorist states. We dare not create a new one in the Middle East'."

20081114

Flying hundreds of cultural, political, and religious pilgrims to Israel this week, El Al chiefs explain their unique mission

The annual United Jewish Communities' General Assembly in Jerusalem beginning this Sunda includes speakers: Israeli President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Head of Opposition Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen Gabi Ashkenazi, and El Al's Prof. Israel Borovich.

The annual United Jewish Communities' General Assembly will transport some 2,500 Jews from North America flying to Israel, many being flown on El Al Israel Airlines.
Flying large numbers in pilgrimages and missions to the Holy Land is just one of the unique aspects of El Al. The owners of Israel's domestic carrier, Arkia Israel Airlines, became the largest shareholders in El Al upon privatization in 2003. Prof. Izzy Borovich, of Knafaim-Arkia Holdings, has combined civic and profit-making responsibilities as Chairman of El Al.
Here he and Mr. Offer Gat, Chief Executive, North America, relate how El Al's uniqueness as the flagship carrier of Israel provides global travelers a special travel experience.
El Al has a colorful history beyond commercial aviation, it's also a 'magic carpet' which rescues Jews in peril around the world in times of crisis, e.g., historic airlifts from Yemen and Ethiopia, and recently in the Republic of Georgia.

'When you fly with El Al,' Prof Borovich proclaims, 'you're flying with Israel!'
He explains why he came to head the privitized national carrier, and discusses some of the company's related commercial endeavors which prospective shareholders may find interesting. 30-minute total-running-time original video).

Mr. Gat gives some insight into how he manages El Al's extraordinary North American operation (including special charters for Zionist missions) from New York. Prof. Borovich will retire his chairmanship at the end of November, but maintain his seat on El Al's Board of Directors.

20081110

Kristallnacht: 70-year reminder to heed antisemitism's portending of threats to society

Popular consciousness (or denial) of society's unwillingness to recognize Jew-hatred as a portending of general evil this 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht in Austria and Germany is marked with 2 new pair of related stories.

Israeli journalist discovers ransacked Kristallnacht Judaica near Berlin
Israeli journalist, Yaron Svoray, says he has found what could be a dump site used for the debris from Kristallnacht, the night 70 years ago in 1938 that the Nazis unleashed a wave of destruction & murder on Jews throughout Austria and Germany.




Failure to heed the warnings Kristallnacht portended, resulted in the deaths of 50 million Europeans in World War II. Proof was highlighted this weekend in Germany's Bild newspaper:

"Original plans for the Auschwitz death camps have been discovered in Germany."

"Original plans for the construction of the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz, including a gas chamber and crematorium, have been found in a Berlin apartment, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The daily Bild published copies of some of the 28 plans, which the head of Germany’s federal archives, Hans-Dieter Krekamp, called “authentic proof of the systematically planned genocide of the Jews of Europe.”



There are dates on the plans: It said they were dated between 1941 and 1943 and stamped, “Waffen-SS and Police Construction Directorate.” Some were signed by senior SS officials and one initialed by the head of the Nazi ideological corps, Heinrich Himmler.

Kreikamp told the newspaper the documents were “extraordinarily important.”

One plan, drawn by a detainee as early as November 1941, when experiments in eliminating prisoners were already under way, had a gas chamber clearly labeled, Bild said.

Another showed a crematorium with places for ovens marked, and storage space for bodies."

SS chief Heinrich Himmler, who oversaw the Nazi extermination program, appears to have marked his initials on one of the pages, in green ink.

These documents invalidate revisionist historians and Holocaust-minimizers, according to web-publisher Meryl Yourish:
This evidence contradicts directly MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan’s claims that it was the intervention of Britain that caused the Germans to start murdering the Jews.

That Hitler was a rabid anti-Semite is undeniable. “Mein Kampf” is saturated in anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws confirm it. But for the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust.

Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the Final Solution was on the table.

That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable. Then the trains began to roll.

And why did Hitler invade Russia? This writer quotes Hitler 10 times as saying that only by knocking out Russia could he convince Britain it could not win and must end the war.

In our 2006 article, "Never Again or Ever Again?" in 2006, we illustrated the world's malfeasance to recognize the appearance of violent Jihad shooting for global domination in the intentional downplaying the 1990 assasination of Rabbi Meir Kahane as merely an act of anti-Semitism. DemoCast wrote:
Had the government pursued the inciters behind El Nosair, in addition to averting the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, they could also have deported Imam Gulshair Shukrijumah (averting the September 11 2001 World Trade Center destruction in NYC). This would have averted his son, Adnan's, ability to implement al-Qaeda's "American Hiroshima," which today threatens the entire world.

Today's example of ignoring the warning signs- the media's disparaged Israeli strike on Syria's nuclear weapons facility (ostensibly aimed at the Jewish nation) Israel National News' Maayana Miskin reports that
investigators for the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have found traces of uranium contamination at the site of an Israeli air strike in Syria, diplomats told Reuters and German media sources on Monday. The report is the first sign of a “smoking gun” proving that Syria was in fact building a secret nuclear reactor on the site, as Israel and the United States have insisted.

And the result of ignoring the action towards the Jews is revealed in the global Jihad and its facilitators in the Obama administration:

Several sources report that President-elect Barack Obama lied about divesting his team of Robert Malley as his Middle-East foreign policy advisor, and has in fact sent him to Syria to tip-them-off to the incoming, contradictory, U.S. Middle-East agenda- more pro-Arab, and less-supportive of Israel. Egypt's Daily Star Newspaper reports:
It emerged that Obama had sent his senior foreign policy advisor Robert Malley to both Cairo and Damascus these past few weeks to outline the president-elect’s plans for the region, which indicates a willingness to further strengthen ties with staunch US ally Egypt and begin boosting relations with Syria.
Israel National News reports:
"The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests," an aide to Malley was quoted as saying. The aide said Obama plans to launch a U.S. diplomatic initiative toward Syria. Malley met both Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad "to explain Obama's agenda for the Middle East."
The Jerusalem Post reports that subsequently:
Syrian President Bashar Assad accused Israel on Sunday of not being genuine in its professed desire for peace with its Arab neighbors and criticized a proposed US-Iraqi security agreement that would keep American troops in Iraq for three more years. In a speech to Arab parliamentarians in Damascus, Assad said Israel must prove it desires peace by offering to withdraw from all territories captured during the Six Day War.

"Until this moment, we still see that the peace slogan is used as part of an internal political game in Israel and as a major factor in external political maneuvers," the Syrian president said.
History has shown that examples of enmity towards the Jewish people (or the Jewish state) have served as reliable indicators of tyrannical threats to the world - if you heed them in time.

20081106

Ayaan Hirsi Ali lauded by rights group as example of living the "courage of her convictions"

Outspoken critic raises public awareness of civil-rights concerns about Islamic orthodoxy.

Former Dutch parliamentarian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is presented the inaugural, "Ziegler Prize for Courage of Convictions," from Community Advocates human-rights group, led by David A. Lehrer in Los Angeles. Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan introduced and presented Ms. Ali with the award.

Ms. Ali describes her courageous transformation from a repressed woman under Islamic culture, to a Western freedom-icon. For exposing the repressiveness of orthodox Islam (including oppressing women, subjugating non-Muslims, and hatred towards Jews), she has been forced to live under constant fear of murder for perceived apostasy. She gives an acceptance speech in this video (runs about 20 minutes):
(Please note that the stage-microphone kicks-in at around 10:55 & adjusts to normal volume at 14:22).

In describing the message Ms. Ali conveys through her auto-biography, "Infidel," Pulitzer-prize winning author, Anne Applebaum wrote in The Washington Post:
Ms. Ali (also) describes how horrified she felt as an adult after Sept. 11, 2001, reaching for the Koran to find out whether some of Osama bin Laden's more blood-curdling statements -- "when you meet the unbelievers, strike them in the neck" -- were direct quotations.
"I hated to do it," she wrote, "because I knew that I would find bin Laden's quotations in there." And there were consequences: "The little shutter at the back of my mind, where I pushed all my dissonant thoughts, snapped open after the 9/11 attacks, and it refused to close again.
I found myself thinking that the Quran is not a holy document. It is a historical record, written by humans. . . . And it is a very tribal and Arab version of events. It spreads a culture that is brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women, and harsh in war."

That moment led Hirsi Ali to her most profound conclusion: that the mistreatment of women is not an incidental problem in the Muslim world, a side issue that can be dealt with once the more important political problems are out of the way.

Rather, she believes that the enslavement of women lies at the heart of all of the most fanatical interpretations of Islam, creating "a culture that generates more backwardness with every generation."


Ultimately, it led to her most controversial conclusion too: that Islam is in a period of transition, that the religion as it is currently practiced is often incompatible with modernity and democracy and must radically transform itself in order to become so.

"We in the West," she writes, "would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily, by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life."

That sentiment, when first expressed in Holland, infuriated not only Hirsi Ali's compatriots but also Dutch intellectuals uneasy about criticizing the immigrants in their midst, particularly because both Hirsi Ali and Theo van Gogh went further than the usual criticism of radical, political Islam: Both believed that even "ordinary" forms of Islam, such as those practiced in Hirsi Ali's Somalia, contain elements of discrimination against women that should not be tolerated in the West.

Thanks to this belief in female equality, Hirsi Ali now requires permanent bodyguards. But having "moved from the world of faith to the world of reason," Hirsi Ali now says she cannot go back.

20081104

How has cultural liberalism of journalists, editors influenced Americans' voting priorities?

Dr. Herbert London, president of the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based conservative think-tank, is a noted social critic and author of America's Secular Challenge: The Rise of a New Religion.



The British news editor, Harold Evans, former editor of the Times of London and the Sunday Times, and author of The American Century, expressed his dismay at the US media bias in, Mad about The One, published in The Guardian's OpEd, Comment is Free:
In this 2008 race, it's the American media that have voted very early and often. They long ago elected the star graduate of Chicago's Democratic machine, Barack Obama.
I am not talking of editorials in newspapers, though Obama has the preponderance of the endorsements over John McCain. Obama certainly deserves the credit for recruiting impressive advisers and running a more efficient campaign machine than any one in the US's political history.
What's troubling to anyone old-fashioned enough to care about standards in journalism is the news coverage in mainstream media. Forget the old notions of objectivity, fairness, thoroughness, and so on. The nastiest rumours on both sides haven't been published, but the coverage has been slavishly on the side of "the one".
Researchers at the Project for Excellence in Journalism report that in the six weeks since the Republican convention, McCain, once the darling of the media, got four times as many negative stories as positive ones. Meanwhile, Obama got twice as many positive stories as McCain. The website Politico has also acknowledged that it had loaded the dice against McCain: 100 stories were more favourable to Obama than McCain; just 69 were the opposite.
The young and affluent liberals have been captivated by Obama's charisma, the unstated notion that electing a black man will be absolution for the years of discrimination and prejudice, and the expectation that Obama's undoubted appeal to the outside world will repair America's image. All understandable, but these emotions have been allowed to swamp the commonplace imperatives of journalism: curiosity and skepticism.
All the mainstream national outlets were extraordinarily slow to check Obama's background. And until it became inescapable because of a video rant, they wouldn't investigate the Reverend Jeremiah Wright connection for fear of being accused of racism. They wouldn't explore Obama's dealing with the corrupt, now convicted, Chicago businessman Tony Rezko. They haven't investigated Obama's pledge to get rid of the secret ballot in trade union affairs. After years of inveighing against "money in politics", they've tolerated his breach of the pledge to restrict himself to public financing as McCain has done (to his cost). Now the LA Times refuses to release a possibly compromising video, which shows Obama praising Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi at a 2003 banquet, saying its promises to its source prevent it from doing so.

The British press is notorious for political distortions, which more or less balance out. But the American press likes to think of itself as more superior and detached than it actually is. In 2000, the mainstream media did a great deal to elect George Bush by portraying Al Gore as a boastful liar.

Let's hope the consequences of electing "the one" will be as wondrous as the press has led the voters to believe.

20081103

Wall St. Journal's Pulitzer-prize-winner slams mainstream press' subjective scrutiny of candidates as 'not journalism, but show-biz'


Political cartoonist, Michael Ramirez, characterizes the lack of journalistic integrity demonstrated by much of the mainstream media during this presidential campaign.

Despite numerous questionable associations, foibles, and imbroglios of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Joe Biden, mainstream news editors have chosen to mainly ignore them to hyper-criticize Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin's candidacy.

Pulitzer-prize winning, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member, Dorothy Rabinowitz, comments on the level of intellectual capacity the TV networks attempt to pass-off as broadcast journalism.




Ms. Rabinowitz refers to CNN-anchor Campbell Brown as
"One of the least informed people I have ever met holding forth on television."
Ms. Rabinowitz claims that this explains why she believes Ms. Brown has been so nasty towards Republican vice-presidential candidate, Gov. Sarah Palin: "She sees her own."

Election eve special: 'Who we are as a nation - is the root of the real culture war,' Dorothy Rabinowitz video exclusive

In "News Flash, The Media Back Obama," (The Wall St. Journal Oct. 9, 2008) Editorial Board member Dorothy Rabinowitz argues that the media's "activist role has been the single constant in this eternal election."  The editorial is excerpted below. Ms. Rabinowitz made these remarks exclusively to Democracy Broadcasting the week of its publishing:

The single constant in the eternal election remains the media, whose activist role no one will seriously dispute. To point out the prevailing (with honorable exceptions) double standard of reporting so favorable to Mr. Obama by now feels superfluous -- much like talking about the weather. The same holds true for all those reports pointing to Mr. Obama's heroic status outside the United States -- not to mention the cascade of press analyses warning that if he fails to win election, the cause will surely be racism.
... CNN's Christiane Amanpour would go on to raise the theme so central to the Obama campaign, and held, as revealed truth, by the politically progressive everywhere -- that the U.S., fallen low in the eyes of the world, is now in dire need of moral salvation. Everywhere she went in America, Ms. Amanpour declared, she found "desperate Americans" -- desperate, that is, about the low esteem in which the country was held, desperate to have a president who would lift America up.

Mr. Obama could not have said it better himself. He is the leading exponent of the idea that our lost nation requires rehabilitation in the eyes of the world -- and it is the most telling difference between him and Mr. McCain. When asked, in one of the earliest debates of the primary, his first priority should he become president, his answer was clear. He would go abroad immediately to make amends, and assure allies and others in the world America had alienated, that we were prepared to do all necessary to gain back their respect.

It is impossible to imagine those words coming from Mr. McCain. Mr. Obama has uttered them repeatedly one way or another and no wonder. They are in his bones, this impossible-to-conceal belief that we've lost face among the nations of the world -- presumably our moral superiors. He is here to reform the fallen America and make us worthy again of respect. It is not in him, this thoughtful, civilized academic, to grasp the identification with country that Mr. McCain has in his bones -- his knowledge that we are far from perfect, but not ready, never ready, to take up the vision of us advanced by our enemies. That identification, the understanding of its importance and of the dangers in its absence -- is the magnet that has above all else drawn voters to Mr. McCain.

These sharp differences between the candidates as to who we are as a nation may not seem, now, as potent an issue for voters as the economy, but they should not be underestimated. This clash -- not the ones on abortion or gay marriage -- is the root of the real culture war to play out in November.

20081101

N.Y. Post, denied access by Obama, can only speculate about "changes" in "Obama 2012: His Triumphs Abroad"

by Ralph Peters, New York Post, November 1, 2008

Looking back on the four years of his first administration, President Obama can be proud: He made the US welcome among the family of nations again; he reduced our reliance on military force; and he gave us peace by reaching sensible accommodations with our enemies.

The lies told about him in the 2008 election were exposed as sheer bigotry. Far from being "soft on radical Islam," President Obama was the first world leader to welcome Jewish refugees after Iran's nuclear destruction of Israel's major cities (his only caveat - a fair one - was the refusal to accept Zionist military officers and their families, in light of Israel's excessive retaliation).

He also demonstrated his resolve in the face of extremism when he overruled the obstructionist advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and ordered our military to cross the border into Pakistan in force. The subsequent debacle, as Pakistan cut off supply routes to Afghanistan and threatened a nuclear response, was entirely the fault of our generals on the ground, not of the administration.

Fortunately, President Obama's willingness to talk to our enemies rescued the situation. After laying down their arms, our troops were allowed to evacuate Pakistan and Afghanistan in peace. The Taliban's return to power in Kabul did not result in an excessive bloodbath, and al Qaeda is not permitted the unrestricted freedom it enjoyed in the country prior to 2001.

State Department surveys prove that the Afghan population welcomes Sharia law, the closure of girls' schools and other such cultural choices. Our reparations payments to Kabul (as with those to Havana) are only just. Opium production is, arguably, no worse than in the past.

We also have seen peace in Iraq. Claims that our troop withdrawal was responsible for the resurgence of al Qaeda and the subsequent civil war are nothing but Republican campaign propaganda. With the International Sunni Alliance in firm control of Iraq - after Israel's wanton destruction of Iran - order prevails in the streets. As for the Turkish and Arab suppression of the Kurds, our diplomats regard it as a small price to pay for regional stability. Biased reports of massacres and concentration camps remain unsubstantiated.

Our relations with the Muslim world have rarely, if ever, been better. The current $320 per barrel price of oil allows long-oppressed states to develop themselves without the yoke of neo-colonialism or invasive efforts to force democracy upon their populations. As UN Ambassador Ayers noted, "We can state with pride that the US not only respects, but embraces cultural differences."

Relations with Russia are also at a high unthinkable a mere four years ago. Moscow's legitimate concerns for the welfare of its citizens in the "near abroad," as well as for ethnic Russians persecuted by so-called free democracies, fully justified its peace-preservation military deployments into Ukraine and other regional states. The subsequent referendums on re-unification with Russia, while displaying a few inevitable irregularities, have been judged free and fair by the Jimmy Carter Memorial Foundation.

While the deployment of Russian forces into the NATO-member Baltic states to protect ethnic Russians proved controversial, President Obama's personal intervention kept us - and NATO - out of war. Partisan charges of "Finlandization" distort the generous terms of the neutrality guarantees Moscow provides for the former NATO members.

After the internationally brokered (with President Obama in the lead) demilitarization of eastern Poland, it's clear to all responsible parties that Russia's legitimate claims have been fully satisfied and we may expect peace in our time.

President Obama resisted yet another war trap as China lost patience and finally reclaimed its long-lost province, Taiwan. Furthermore, the reduction of the US military presence in Japan and South Korea has deflated strategic tensions in East Asia to the lowest level in over one hundred years. Again, President Obama gave us peace.

(The resulting peace dividend from our president's 25% cut in the defense budget has allowed our government, in a public/private partnership with the Chicago-based Rezko Foundation, to provide subsidized housing for almost six million new immigrant families from developing countries. No other administration policy has raised the world's esteem for us more profoundly than our "Global Balance" instant-citizenship immigration reforms.)

In our own hemisphere, President Obama has supported the cause of justice, human rights and trade unions, cutting off military aid to Colombia, killing the proposed free-trade agreement with that country, and expressing humane understanding for the long freedom struggle of the FARC and other liberation groups.

Preferring a sensible rapprochement with Venezuela to needless confrontation, our president went to Caracas and negotiated a regional division of labor with democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez. The end of our destructive trade embargo against Cuba, our formal apology for the deprivations we imposed, and our generous reparations payments have inaugurated a new era of friendship with our long-suffering neighbors to the south.

The only complaint Democratic Party cadres fairly may lodge against the Obama administration's foreign policy is that we still have not fully opened our border with Mexico. Resistance among right-wing fanatics in Washington and bigots around the country remains too strong for now.

As for Mexico's presidential contest, President Obama has made it clear that, while he would prefer that a reputed drug-cartel leader not be elected, the US will respect the will of the Mexican people and strive for good relations with any future Mexican government.

One can only ask how much higher our 16.2% unemployment rate - an obvious legacy of the Bush years - might be if President Obama had not restored America's standing in the world and re-negotiated unfair trade treaties imposed on American workers by previous administrations.

As our president remarked just the other day in a re-election campaign speech in Dearborn, Michigan: "Wealth redistribution isn't just an American issue - it's a global issue. Better that Americans should be a little poorer, if that means our brothers in Egypt and Bolivia can become a little richer."


Under President Obama, America's back!

Ralph Peters' most recent book is, "Barack Obama: Too Great To Be A Mere Messiah?" (Fairness Doctrine Press, Limited, Chicago, July 2012)