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Obama's biggest character flaw James Lewis The President of these United States recently expressed his love for "the Urdu poets," a piece of inspired BS that nobody in their right minds believed for a second. But then the P was narrowcasting to Pakistan, he thought, and Americans weren't supposed to be listening. Yet character is revealed in those little snippets of Obama's mind -- his glorious fantasy life, his everlasting hope that somebody will fall for another piece of schtick, and his essential fraudulence as a human being. Obama's biggest audience is himself, and no doubt he preened and pranced...

The President of these United States recently expressed his love for "the Urdu poets," a piece of inspired BS that nobody in their right minds believed for a second. But then the P was narrowcasting to Pakistan, he thought, and Americans weren't supposed to be listening. Yet character is revealed in those little snippets of Obama's mind -- his glorious fantasy life, his everlasting hope that somebody will fall for another piece of schtick, and his essential fraudulence as a human being. Obama's biggest audience is himself, and no doubt he preened and pranced in his mind's eye when he...

If you want to make high-brow small talk at one of President Barack Obama’s cocktail parties, don’t bother brushing up your Shakespeare. Try reading Urdu poetry. As POLITICO’s Ben Smith points out in his blog, Obama showed off his intellectual flair by evoking a standard of Pakistani culture in a recent interview with Dawn, a popular English-language newspaper in Pakistan. “‘I would love to visit. As you know, I had Pakistani roommates in college who were very close friends of mine. I went to visit them when I was still in college; was in Karachi and went to Hyderabad. Their...

The fact that President Obama had good Pakistani friends at (struck out) Columbia (end strikeout) in college was one that was basically kept out of his campaign on the theory that anything with any connection to Islam would feed a viral rumor the campaign was trying to kill. Now, though, it's another useful diplomatic tool, as in his interview with Dawn this weekend: ‘Any plan to visit Pakistan in the near future?’ ‘I would love to visit. As you know, I had Pakistani roommates in college who were very close friends of mine. I went to visit them when I...

Indiana University's programme for India studies, aimed at training high school students in Hindi and Urdu, has received about $120 million from the Obama administration. The money has been granted to the University under the 'STARTALK Program' of the US government, which was started by the previous administration of George W Bush, to increase the foreign language proficiency of Americans in Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Persian, Turkish, Swahili and Urdu. "Our goals are for the participating students to acquire the linguistic and cultural competence to communicate successfully in the language and obtain various learning strategies and skills," said Sungok Hong, a...

SNIPPET: "The CIA is attempting to recruit more spies by advertising on the internet, radio and television, and by holding meetings with American Muslims to make up a severe shortage of Arabic speakers.... Leon Panetta, the new CIA director, will meet Muslim groups in cities such as Detroit to spearhead personally the new drive to recruit Arabic speakers. He recently lamented the fact that only 13 per cent of CIA officers speak a foreign language, and just 22 per cent come from minorities. "In order to accomplish our vital intelligence mission we want to market our employment opportunities to speakers...

Indian officials suspect the Islamic terrorists in Mumbai may have British links after examining BlackBerry phones they used to monitor news reports. Key figures in the terrorist gang were equipped with the devices that meant they were able to monitor British news, even when the authorities turned off power. A senior officer in the country's elite Black Cat commando unit told the Telegraph, the gunmen were able to trawl the internet for information once they lost cable television feeds to the two luxury hotels and office block. The men looked beyond the instant updates of the Indian media to find...

For over a year, we have been waging a relentless, nearly solitary battle in apprising the Congress and the American public about a billion dollar boondoggle and scandal: the lack of credible Arabic translators for our national security and intelligence agencies. As a result hundreds have been killed in Iraq from infiltration of our military and civilian intelligence agencies by agents of Islamist terrorists. Our FBI and CIA have been infiltrated by Muslim linguists who have successfully evaded polygraph tests and been able to pass on vital information to terror groups in the Middle East such as Hezbollah. Tens of...

A teenage schoolgirl was arrested by police for racism after refusing to sit with a group of Asian students because some of them did not speak English. Codie Stott's family claim she was forced to spend three-and-a-half hours in a police cell after she was reported by her teachers. Yesterday the 14-year-old - who was released without charge - said it had been a simple matter of common sense and accused the school and police of an over-the-top reaction. The incident happened in the same local education authority where a ten-year-old boy was prosecuted earlier this year for calling a...

The recent train bombings in India have intensified the scrutiny of the Pakistan-based, al Qaeda affiliated terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. In particular, one key question is being asked: What role does LET play in the war against Islamofascists and their allies? The al Qaeda-linked Wahhabi group, formed in 1989, has been blamed for a number of attacks on Indian officials and civilians. It was added to the U.S. terrorist list in December 2001. LET’s agenda, as announced in one of their pamphlets and detailed by MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, is to wage jihad with the goal of imposing their narrow version...

HADITHA DAM, Iraq (July 27, 2005) -- As the Marines with 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment continue their fight in the Global War on Terrorism, most of them think of it as business and not personal. However, for some Marines who are of the Islamic faith, the war in Iraq hits a personal note. Cpl. Mohammed N. Rahman, who is a Sunni Muslim, fights not only to free the people of Iraq from the insurgents grip and to protect his country (America), but also to redeem his beloved religion. “This is a personal offense, not only to me but others...

The Associated Press NAPLES, Italy Jan. 31 — Police arrested 28 Pakistanis found in possession of explosives, hundreds of forged documents and maps of the Naples area with "sensitive targets" circled, authorities said Friday.In a statement, police said they had uncovered an "al-Qaida terrorist cell," but gave no further details on the Pakistanis' alleged involvement with al-Qaida or any other international terrorist group.A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said late Friday officers "might have gotten ahead of themselves" in announcing an al-Qaida link in the headline of their news release.The official also dismissed Italian news reports that the...

Drop French, say heads and teach Urdu instead By Macer Hall, Education Correspondent (Filed: 02/06/2002) Head teachers will this week call for schools to teach African and Asian languages instead of French and German in a reform designed to reflect the "ethnic mix" of the British population. At its annual conference in Torquay, the National Association of Head Teachers will discuss giving African languages, including Somali and Hausa, the same importance as the main European tongues. The head teachers also suggest that Albanian, Punjabi and Urdu be added to the curriculum. They say that expanding the teaching of such languages...