Posted on 12/17/2006 4:03:30 PM PST by DAVEY CROCKETT
North Korea has Enough Plutonium for 4-8 Nuclear Warheads (back)
February 22, 2007
North Korea has enough plutonium to build an estimated four to eight crude nuclear warheads that could potentially be mounted on medium-range missiles, a Washington-based think tank said.
The amount of radioactive material in the communist nation is key to monitoring its compliance with a Feb. 13 agreement to disarm, under which the North is required to declare all nuclear programs and material to international inspectors.
The Institute for Science and International Security said in a report released Tuesday that as of this month North Korea had between 101 and 141 pounds of plutonium, of which between 62 and 110 pounds is estimated to be usable for weapons - enough to make four to eight crude warheads.
It said most of the separated plutonium for bombs - possibly as much as 99 percent - was produced since late 2002, when the latest nuclear crisis with North Korea began after the U.S. accused it of running a secret uranium enrichment program.
The alleged uranium program wasn’t addressed in the report, which the ISIS said was based on scientific estimates and other publicly available information, along with visits to the actual facilities by ISIS experts.
The report said North Korea had likely obtained designs for a nuclear warhead from the nuclear black market run by Pakistan ’s A.Q. Khan. Such a bomb could possibly be mounted on North Korea ’s Nodong missile, which has an estimated range of about 620 miles, it said.
No confirmed information is available about the North’s arsenal given its refusal to disclose such information publicly.
The ISIS report speculated about North Korea ’s possible nuclear strategy in the event of a crisis, saying it would first likely conduct another nuclear test in an attempt to head off a further escalation. After that, the North could detonate a warhead over the ocean or explode one on a ship as a further warning, it said.
If war broke out, North Korea would be expected to use nuclear weapons against South Korea or Japan and possibly even keep bombs inside the country to be detonated when enemy forces arrive, the institute said.
After more than three years of talks, North Korea agreed earlier this month with the U.S. and other regional powers to take its first steps toward disarming since the latest nuclear standoff began. Under the pact it is required to shut down its main nuclear reactor by mid-April and eventually would receive the equivalent of 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil for disarming.
Source: http://news.bostonherald.com/international/asiaPacific/ view.bg?articleid=184157
[This is the end of the article]
Not so many years earlier, when President Boris Yeltsin was up for reelection, President Bill Clinton told his main Soviet adviser, Strobe Talbott, that 'I want this guy to win so bad it hurts.' Never mind that inside Russia , Yeltsin was already associated with massive theft and economic chaos, or that his regime was perceived internally as corrupt and nepotistic: The American president went out of his way to visit Moscow during the campaign, just to make sure Yeltsin won.
It is, if you think about it, an odd phenomenon. After all, American presidents generally don't campaign on behalf of their French counterparts or look deep into the eyes of German chancellors in order to divine their true natures. While at times very friendly, neither Clinton nor Bush seems to have felt a mystical connection to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Yet Russian politicians still seem to make American politicians grow starry-eyed and lose their bearings. Perhaps it's a secret longing for the glamour of those Cold War summits, for the days when it seemed as if the personal relations between superpower statesmen could ward off the destruction of the entire planet. Or perhaps they put something in the vodka -- sorry, mineral water -- at those elegant Kremlin lunches.
Either way, it's time to kick the habit. True, it is perfectly possible that whoever leads Russia after Putin steps down ( if Putin steps down) will be a nicer, friendlier person. It is perfectly possible that we will find areas of cooperation with him, just as we sometimes do with Putin. But however friendly and cooperative, however much a 'democrat' he appears to be, I hope we'll avoid the instant professions of eternal friendship. At the very least, we'll avoid being unpleasantly surprised, yet again, if things turn out otherwise.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2007/02/19/AR2007021901172.html
Tougher Tactics Deter Migrants at U.S. Border (back)
February 21, 2007
by James C. McKinley Jr.
For 10 years, Eduardo Valenzuela has been crossing the border illegally near Yuma , Ariz. , trekking over desert scrub and hopping a freight train to get back to his job with a construction company in Phoenix . The clandestine trip has become an annual ritual for him, as he goes home each winter to see his children.
But on a recent afternoon he and four travel companions from his hometown, Los Mochis , plopped down on a bench in a park in the border town of San Luis Río Colorado , exhausted and dispirited. They were beat. Border Patrol agents had caught them twice over three days, hounding them with helicopters and four-wheel-drive trucks.
'It’s become much more difficult,' Mr. Valenzuela said, echoing the comments of dozens of other migrants. 'Before, you just arrived here and then you walked a little and got the train. You used to see a border patrol agent every 10 kilometers. Now you see four of them where there was one. Think of it.'
All along the border, there are signs that the measures the Border Patrol and other federal agencies have taken over the last year, from erecting new barriers to posting 6,000 National Guardsmen as armed sentinels, are beginning to slow the flow of illegal immigrants.
The only available barometer of the decline is how many migrants are caught. In the last four months, the number has dropped 27 percent compared with the same period last year, the biggest drop since a crackdown immediately after 9/11. In two sections around Yuma and near Del Rio , Tex. , the numbers have fallen by nearly two-thirds, Homeland Security officials say.
'We are comfortable that this actually reflects a change in momentum,' Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, said in an interview last week during his first official visit to Mexico City. 'I’m always quick to say it doesn’t mean we can declare victory. To some degree, I expect the criminal organizations or smugglers are pulling back a little, watching to see if we lose interest.'
Some immigration experts said it was too early to tell if the enforcement efforts had caused a permanent downturn. In the past, tougher enforcement has only caused smugglers to seek new routes.
'It’s the squeeze the balloon phenomenon,' said Roberto Suro, the director of the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington . 'Sometimes you can’t tell where the bubble will come when you squeeze until later.'
Nor can they rule out other factors, like a relatively cold winter on the border and Mexico ’s solid economic growth last year.
Border Patrol commanders say they see no explanation for the drop-off across the entire 2,000-mile border other than stiffer enforcement deterring migrants. The slackening flow, they argue, belies the conventional wisdom that it is impossible to stem illegal migration. Many veteran officers in the force are now beginning to believe it can be controlled with enough resources.
The new measures range from simply putting more officers out on patrol to erecting stadium lights, secondary fences and barriers of thick steel poles to stop smugglers from racing across the desert in all-wheel-drive trucks. The Border Patrol has deployed hundreds of new guards to watch rivers, monitor surveillance cameras and guard fences.
In the Yuma headquarters of the Border Patrol, for instance, Chief Ronald Colburn said that with the help of the National Guard the patrol had doubled the agents in his sector to about 900, extended the primary steel wall eight miles past the end of the Mexican town of San Luis Río Colorado, and constructed a vehicle barrier six miles beyond that. 'It’s the right mix, the right recipe,' he said.
The federal government has also begun punishing migrants with prison time from the first time they enter illegally in some areas. For instance, along the 210 miles of border covered by the Del Rio office of the Border Patrol, everyone caught crossing illegally is charged in federal court and, if convicted, sentenced to at least two weeks in prison.
That is an enormous break with past practice, when most Mexican migrants were simply taken back to the border and let go. People from Central American countries were given a court date and released on their own recognizance. Few ever showed up.
In San Luis Río Colorado , the effects of the stepped-up patrols are apparent. A year ago, migrants thronged the town park and cheap motels, where guides, known as 'coyotes' or 'polleros' offered their services. Now the park is nearly empty. The smugglers are telling their charges to take a bus to a spot called El Sahuaro about 50 miles east of town. From there the migrants make a dangerous two-day walk through rocky canyons and barren desert to reach Interstate 8.
On the other side, Border Patrol agents say they are picking up about 100 people a day, rather than the 500 a day they handled a year ago. A year ago, the processing center in Yuma , where migrants are fingerprinted then shipped to the border, was mobbed. Now it is nearly empty most of the time.
Several migrants waiting their chance in San Luis cursed under their breath in Spanish when asked about the soldiers and beefed-up patrols. Some are indignant that the United States would treat them like enemies or criminals.
'It’s harder and harder, and that’s the reason why people are dying in the desert,' said Miguel Pérez, a 24-year-old migrant from Guerrero State . 'It makes no sense.'
A year ago, a flood of immigrants from Central America was also overwhelming the border patrol in Del Rio and Eagle Pass , two small Texas towns on the Rio Grande . The migrants were taking advantage of a lack of detention space, which had led to the policy of giving them a hearing date and letting them remain in the country.
The result was bizarre: Central Americans would cross the river in droves in broad daylight, run up to Border Patrol agents and line up to be arrested, knowing they would be released and could then continue on their journey. More than 200 a day were arrested in Eagle Pass alone.
Agents at the processing center, never intended as a jail, were so busy feeding and fingerprinting migrants they had little time for patrolling, said Randy Clark, the agent in charge of Eagle Pass Border Patrol office.
'It was a madhouse, literally a madhouse,' he said, as he walked through the processing center, its empty cells covered in graffiti. 'It’s like night and day. Night and day.'
Agent Clark and his colleagues attribute the reversal to two changes. First, the Justice Department gave Border Patrol agents the ability to deport most of the Central Americans more quickly, without a hearing before a judge.
Then, in December 2005, the federal government started prosecuting everyone the Border Patrol picked up for illegal entry, a misdemeanor that carries a penalty of up to six months in county, state and federal jails for a first offense.
On a recent morning, 78 immigrants shuffled into the federal courtroom of Judge Victor Roberto Garcia. The migrants were shackled around the feet and hands as if they were dangerous criminals.
Once in court, the judge conducted an unusual mass hearing in which all the migrants — represented by a single lawyer — agreed to waive their right to a trial and pleaded guilty to illegal entry. The judge gave the first-timers 15 days in jail, but he handed out sentences of 120 or 180 days to those who had been deported in the past.
One Honduran woman, Gloria Machado-Lara, had been deported just a month before, but tried to slip in again with her husband, Freddy Rosales Díaz, in early February. The judge looked dumbfounded.
'Just last month they sent you back?' he said. 'You understand that’s why you have to go to jail.'
Head lowered, she said, 'Forgive me.' He gave her and her husband 120 days.
Though it seems cruel to many migrants, the zero-tolerance policy appears to be working, Border Patrol commanders say. Along the river the Del Rio sector patrols, arrests are a third of what they were a year ago, only about 35 a day. In the meantime, drug seizures have doubled, as more agents have been freed up to patrol.
'Word is getting around out there that if you cross in this area and get apprehended you are probably going to go to jail, and that is a deterrent,' Sector Chief Randy Hill said.
Yet across the river in Ciudad Acuña, where migrants arrive bewildered and penniless every afternoon after serving their prison sentences, several said they had no idea they ran the risk of jail. The smugglers they hired never told them.
One of the migrants was a 51-year-old plumber from Acámbaro, Guanajuato, who asked that his name not be used because he was ashamed of the criminal conviction. He said he was trying to get to San Antonio , where a friend had promised to get him a job at a water park.
He needed more money, he said, to pay his son’s college tuition. He had never set foot in a jail before.
But he acknowledged that the stint in jail had persuaded him not to try again, even if his son must drop out. 'No way,' he said, shaking his head.
Source: No url
Attorney General to Inspect Supermax Prison (back)
February 20, 2007
by Peter Roper
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will visit the federal Supermax prison complex at Florence on Wednesday, four months after a federal inspection report cited a staff shortage as the reason for security and supervision problems there.
Gonzales will tour the prison complex with Colorado Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar, who urged him to visit the nation's highest security federal prison after a Justice Department inspector general's report found a list of security problems. The most glaring was that the mail and telephone calls for convicted terrorists being held at the prison were not always being monitored.
Allard, a Republican, and Salazar, a Democrat, both met with Gonzales earlier this year and were told that Bureau of Prisons officials had added staff to Supermax, which holds 400 of the most dangerous prisoners in the federal prison system, such as Ramzi Yousef, who led the first bomb attack on the World Trade Center .
Supermax officially is known as the U.S. Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum (ADX). According to a CNN broadcast last November, the inspector general's investigation was begun when Spanish police found letters from a Supermax inmate, Mohammed Salameh, were sent to a terror cell with links to the train bombings in Madrid .
The Justice Department report found that staffing at the prison had become so short that there were times when inmate mail and telephone calls were unmonitored. Also, there were times when there were no guards available to be in some cellblocks for an entire shift - although the cellblock was still staffed at the perimeter.
Other Supermax inmates have been accused of sending messages to prisoners in other states, ordering racial attacks and other criminal acts.
According to officers with the guards' union, Supermax is supposed to have 240 guards but has been functioning with fewer than 200.
Federal BOP officials said in January they were adding 18 additional guards to the staff.
Source: http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1171958665/1
Connecticut: Public Safety Leader Tapped (back)
February 20, 2007
Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Monday she is nominating veteran federal prosecutor John A. Danaher III to be commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, the agency that oversees the state police.
Danaher, 56, the son of an FBI agent, has helped direct high-profile cases as a supervisory federal prosecutor, among them the prosecutions of former Waterbury Mayor Philip Giordano and former Bridgeport Mayor Joseph P. Ganim.
Danaher currently is senior litigation counsel in the U.S. attorney's office in New Haven . If confirmed by the General Assembly as commissioner, he would replace Len Boyle, another former supervisory federal prosecutor.
Boyle privately expressed a desire to resign several months ago and is expected to begin work soon in Washington , D.C. , investigating terror threats in conjunction with the FBI and federal Department of Homeland Security.
'I am extremely pleased to have an experienced and able federal prosecutor like John move into this critical and challenging position,' Rell said. 'As we continue to implement cultural changes at the Department of Public Safety, we need a leader who commands respect and knows how to work with all of the interested parties to get things done. I have every confidence in John's abilities to meet those demands.
'My goals are simple: ensuring the public safety and maintaining the highest possible standards for the operations of the department. I know that John believes in these objectives as well. Along with his record of success as an attorney and prosecutor, he brings new energy and new perspective to the task.'
Rell's remarks about cultural changes and standards allude to one of the state police problems Danaher stands to inherit - a problem that predates Boyle's appointment in 2004.
A recently completed report revealed a long-term breakdown in the department's internal affairs and disciplinary functions that resulted in failure to adequately respond to trooper misbehavior including drunken driving, domestic violence and larceny.
Last week, a state commission studying the state police internal affairs function promised sweeping changes to rules that govern trooper conduct.
As commissioner of public safety, Danaher would supervise the Division of State Police; the Division of Fire, Emergency and Building Services; and the Division of Scientific Services, which conducts forensic investigations. The state police division, organized in 1903, is the oldest law enforcement agency of its type in the nation.
Danaher has had a number of senior positions in the U.S. attorney's office, including interim U.S. attorney from May 2001 to November 2002. In addition, he supervised the U.S. attorney's office in Hartford from January 1994 to April 2000 and was deputy U.S. attorney from April 2000 to May 2001. He has been senior litigation counsel since January 2003.
Early in his career, Danaher helped prosecute members of Los Macheteros, a band of violent Puerto Rican independence advocates who robbed more than $7 million from a Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford in 1983. In 2001, just days after the terror attacks of 9/11, he was involved in the investigation of the anthrax death of Ottilie Lundgren, a 94-year-old Oxford woman.
Danaher said he is 'deeply honored to have been nominated by Gov. Rell to fill the role of commissioner of the Department of Public Safety. I have worked with many members of the department during my time as a prosecutor and have always considered it a privilege to do so. I look forward to being associated with the men and women who have dedicated their lives to protecting and serving the people of Connecticut .'
Danaher's nomination seems to have caught the influential state police union off guard; his name was not among those circulating as potential candidates in recent days. Union President Steven Rief said he is pleased that the governor has nominated a new commissioner before Boyle leaves the position. The state police were without a colonel for more than a month until Thomas Davoren was appointed Feb. 1.
'The department is in need of some good leadership,' Rief said. 'I look forward to working with him.'
Danaher is a 1972 graduate of Fairfield University . He received a master's degree in English from the University of Hartford in 1977 and a law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1980. He worked in the Hartford law offices of Day, Berry & Howard from 1981 to 1986 and joined the U.S. attorney's office in July 1986.
His family has a history of public service. His father is a retired FBI agent and his grandfather was a U.S. senator from Connecticut from 1939 to 1945 who also served as Connecticut 's secretary of the state from 1933 to 1935. His great-grandfather was state labor commissioner from 1938 to 1944.
Danaher and his wife live in West Hartford with their four children. His appointment is effective March 5.
Source: http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-commish0220.artf eb20,0,142655.story?coll=hc-headlines-local
New Intelligence Director sets Goals for Fighting Terrorism (back)
February 22, 2007
Retired Vice Adm. John McConnell, sworn in yesterday as the second director of national intelligence, said that new technologies and capabilities are needed to collect and analyze intelligence 'because today's threats move at increasing speeds.'
'The time needed to develop a terrorist plot, communicate it around the globe and put it into motion has been drastically reduced,' he said at his swearing-in ceremony. 'The timeline is no longer a calendar - it is a watch.'
McConnell becomes President Bush's chief intelligence adviser and manager of the 16 agencies and about 100,000 people making up the U.S. intelligence community.
Bush described McConnell's job 'one of the most difficult and important positions in our government in this time of war - and we are a nation at war.'
Although Bush and his advisers have been criticized for ignoring prewar intelligence about the dangers in Iraq , Bush said yesterday, 'He'll find that I value the intelligence product.'
Bush also paid tribute to McConnell's predecessor, Ambassador John Negroponte, who has moved back to the State Department as deputy secretary, saying that he served with 'with talent and distinction.' Nevertheless, Bush said that many elements of improving the intelligence community remain, including information sharing and the hiring of employees with the right language and cultural skills.
McConnell repeated yesterday a plan he disclosed to Congress at his confirmation hearing: that he will change security rules to make it easier for intelligence agencies to hire first- and second-generation Arabic-speaking Americans for sensitive jobs.
Another of McConnell's priorities will be finding a deputy DNI, a position that has been vacant since Gen. Michael Hayden moved to the CIA last year. He told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that his preference would be someone on the civilian side who is working on terrorism.
Source: http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ %2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid= 1149193306230&path=!nationworld&s=1037645509161
The Infidel Revolution (back)
February 21, 2007
by Jamie Glazov
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Bill Warner, the director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI). CSPI’s goal is to teach the doctrine of political Islam through its books and it has produced a series on its focus. Mr. Warner did not write the CSPI series, but he acts as the agent for a group of scholars who are the authors.
FP: Mr. Warner, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.
In our last interview, you did a powerful job in crystallizing the mortal danger that Political Islam poses to all non-Islamic societies. I think that interview set the stage for a new mandatory discussion: What should we do to protect ourselves from the threat? Yes, we need to understand Political Islam. But once we understand it, what do we do about it? Or is there anything we can really do?
Mr. Warner, let’s begin with a general question. What has marked our resistance so far?
Warner: Our resistance so far has been the first stage: to know the enemy and to develop a strategy. We are now coming to the end of it.
Since 9/11 we have had intellectual warriors who have studied Political Islam, built websites, blogged and written books. We now know the entire scope of Islamic doctrine and the biggest elements of a repressed and denied history of the dhimmitude, and annihilation of cultures. To repeat, we now know the doctrine and history of Political Islam at a strategic level. We now know the enemy and this is a mark of our success.
FP: Just for the sake of our readers, define 'dhimmi' please.
Warner: A dhimmi is a second class citizen of an Islamic state. They can remain Christian or Jew, but pay a special tax and have very few legal rights. They are forbidden to study the Koran. Hence, today a dhimmi who defers to Political Islam is ignorant of the doctrine of Islam and never challenges it. Dhimmitude is the state of mind of a dhimmi. We are all in debt to Bat Yeor for her research and books on the dhimmi.
FP: Crystallize for us who the enemy is.
Warner: Our enemy is the civilization of dualism. The ultimate nature of Islamic civilization is duality. Dualistic Islamic ethics and politics propose one behavior for Muslims and another behavior for the unbelievers (kafirs). Islam has declared that the civilization of dualism must annihilate that civilization which is based upon a unitary view of humanity—ours. It is logically impossible for a civilization based upon a unitary view of humanity to co-exist with a civilization based upon duality.
History confirms that becoming Islamic means that every aspect of the targeted civilization must cease to exist. And it works 100% of the time. There is no such thing as a culture that is only partially Islamic. The evidence is exquisitely clear.
So for a people who have been raised with an ignorance of Political Islam we have made incredible strides. Remember we had only apologies from those who should have been our first line of defense—our artists, intellectuals, media and the educational system. In a sense we have started at less than zero.
We should all stop, take a deep breath, look at what we have done and congratulate ourselves for completing the first stage: Know the Enemy. Then we need take another deep breath and get back to work: Strategy.
FP: So what should our strategy be?
Warner: Our strategy must be the salvation of our precious civilization. We must save our very selves.
All of this cannot be accomplished without the Mind of War. There is a psychology of war that puts everything in a different perspective. We are rich, fat, dumb and happy living in the land that everyone wants to emigrate to. It is easy to turn on the Super Bowl, plan the bar mitzvah, work for a promotion and just let Political Islam have its way. The Mind of War sees that all of what we have is an illusion, that the cancer has started to metastasize. Until we develop the Mind of War, we are doomed. We must have that emergency reserve that war brings out.
Without this state of mind, we will lose all we have. The great civilization of Coptic Egypt of the Pharaohs that lasted 5000 years is gone, a corpse buried beneath Political Islam. Liberal democracy is only 200 years old. Political Islam is 1400 years old and exploding in power. Without the Mind of War, our civilization will become extinct under the impact of the civilization of duality.
FP: This strategy would seem difficult for us to attain because we appear to be very afraid to make comments about Political Islam in our own society, no?
Warner: It is our dhimmitude. It’s bizarre. We are afraid of Political Islam and its followers. They are not remotely afraid of us. Why is this? We are in a psychotic state of fear and shame caused by a past of 1400 years of dhimmitude and slavery. This psychosis is the state of the molested mind. The horror of Islamic politics produces a denial that the deaths, conquests, slavery, rape, humiliation, degradation, suffering and civilizational destruction ever happened. The molested mind denies the history and doctrine of Political Islam. That is the mind of dhimmitude.
Our civilization must acknowledge our status. We are still dhimmis. It has been 1400 years of servitude, slavery, dhimmitude, ignorance and a repressed and denied history. When we understand our history we will see exactly how repressed and in denial we are. The first mark of the dhimmi is ignorance of Political Islam.
We must acknowledge our suffering. We must decide that 270,000,000 of our ancestors did not die in vain. We must gain insight into why we know so little. There is a very deep reason in our collective psyche why we choose to remain ignorant. We are afraid to admit our dhimmitude and slavery to Political Islam. A million Europeans were captured and sold into Islamic slavery. If the history of slavery were completely told, whites and blacks could see each other in a new light.
In the past, this shame, ignorance and fear could be ignored. But now Political Islam is here and has us by the throat. Our future as a civilization depends upon realizing how close to annihilation we are. Only a revolution can save us. We must have a revolt of the dhimmis, a Dhimmi Revolution. After 1400, years it is time we faced our shame and fear with the Mind of War.
This common suffering must be acknowledged and told. The history and stories must be told within our groups and shared with the other groups. Once we know about the Tears of Jihad, we will be strong and courageous. Once we remember the suffering of dhimmitude, we can stop being afraid, have the Mind of War and be heroes in the war to save our civilization.
Luckily the cure for dhimmitude is very simple. Once you know the history and doctrine of Political Islam, you cease being a dhimmi. Knowledge is the key and the only key to freedom from shame and fear. We shall know the truth and the truth will make us free. Our future depends upon our facing the past.
FP: You refer to 270 million deaths at the hands of Political Islam. Can you shed light on that figure?
Warner: The figure of 270 million is a rough estimate of the death of non-Muslims by the political act of jihad. It is calculated as such:
Africans
Thomas Sowell estimates that eleven million slaves were shipped across the Atlantic and fourteen million were sent to the Islamic nations of North Africa and the Middle East . [1] David Livingstone estimated that for every slave who reached the plantation, five others died by being killed in the raid or died on the forced march from illness and privation. [2] So, for 25 million slaves delivered to the market, we have the collateral death of about 120 million people. Muslims ran all the wholesale slave trade in Africa . Death toll: 120 million Africans
Christians
The number of Christians martyred by Islam is nine million.[3] A rough estimate by Raphael Moore in History of Asia Minor is that another fifty million died in wars by jihad. So to account for the one million African Christians killed in the 20th century we have: 60 million Christians
Hindus
Koenard Elst in Negationism in India [4] gives an estimate of eighty million Hindus killed in the total jihad against India . The country of India today is only half the size of ancient India , due to jihad. Death toll: 80 million Hindus
Buddhists
Jihad killed the Buddhists in Turkey , Afghanistan , along the Silk Route , and in India . The total is roughly ten million. [5] Death toll: 10 million Buddhists
Jews
The jihad in Arabia was 100 percent effective but the numbers were in the thousands, not millions. After that the Jews submitted and became the dhimmis (servants and second class citizens) of Islam and did not have geographic political power.
This gives a rough estimate of 270 million killed by jihad.
FP: Thank you. Sounds like a holocaust to me – a holocaust that was never taught to me in school or in university.
So let’s get back to our enemy: Political and Ethical Dualism. But we also have another enemy in terms of the people in our own society who apologize for it, right?
Warner: Yes, Political and Ethical Dualism is the far enemy, the near enemy is its apologists. In the end we will win or lose depending on how we deal with our dhimmi leaders in the media, schools and politics. Once we win the Dhimmi Revolution, winning the war with Political Islam is possible. If we don’t win the revolution, our civilization will become extinct.
And what is the nature of the near enemy, the apologists? They want to maintain ignorance about Mohammed and Political Islam’s history. Our experience is that when an apologist learns the truth about the doctrine and history of Political Islam, the danger is revealed.
There are basically two kinds of knowledge about Political Islam—knowledge of doctrine and knowledge of history. The full cure requires both. There is a 1400 year-old history of slavery and dhimmitude, so when you are curing ignorance with the history of Political Islam, there is a lot of history to choose from.
The political doctrine is much simpler. You can hold the doctrine in one hand—Koran, Sira and Hadith. Although a detailed knowledge about the Koran is useful, the most powerful element of the doctrine is Mohammed. Mohammed is Islam, so we must educate others about Mohammed, Islam’s first politician, and its sacred political model.
FP: Fair enough, so what do we do, write more books?
Warner: We cannot win by writing another book, putting up another website or blog. Those things are individual in nature. We must move to the political phase. This means boots on the ground, people meeting in the same room, people talking to people. Politics. Groups. Meetings. Real people. Not just computer screens, or books. We must have action against the near enemy in our town. This is the battleground we will live or die on as a civilization.
It is impossible for individuals to win this revolution. Our first step must be to build community. So how do we build community? Of course, there are many ways to go about this. Some people can build within a present group. An example would be forming groups within a church or synagogue. Conventions must be held to form strategies.
We must also build community out of strangers. We must develop ways to meet others in our city. Larger communities must be formed from the small communities. We need ways for revolutionaries to learn what is going on with other groups to learn from each other’s failures and successes.
A community should be formed out of those who have similar functions with the revolution. As an example, writers should get to know each other personally. Website owners have common problems and need to build community to deal with those common problems. People who write letters to the editor should get to know each other.
We have to start working in groups. Join the pack.
FP: It would be very hard to start working in groups because our society is so divided, no?
Warner: Yes, and we must face a fact about getting together in groups. Our civilization may have the Golden Rule as its ideal moral law, but let’s face it, we all fall short. We are endlessly divided with gripes, feuds and sore history. Hindus don’t trust the Christians; blacks have a grudge with whites, and so on. And there are further divisions within each group.
We must face the political reality today. We either learn to work together on a common political ground or become extinct like Buddhism in Afghanistan . We must have ambassadors between groups. If Protestant Christians get together to deal with Political Islam, they should invite Hindus and Orthodox Christians. Their mutual history of suffering at the hands of Political Islam can be a starting point of a political community. On this basis we can talk and work together.
FP: The task ahead is to confront a lot of ignorance, especially in the media.
Warner: Absolutely, every columnist, politician, preacher, priest, rabbi, artist, writer, professor, or correspondent who makes a statement, comment or conclusion about Political Islam and does not make reference to the death of 270,000,000 victims of jihad, dhimmitude, or the doctrine of Political Islam must be challenged about their ignorance. Every leader in every area must learn the history of dhimmitude, slavery and the life of Mohammed.
The Dhimmi Revolution must get in all leaders’ faces and confront them with their ignorance. This has to be without blame. Our leaders are not stupid, but ignorant. And the reason they are ignorant is they grew up in a culture where their teachers were dhimmis, who submitted to Political Islam by remaining ignorant about our history of dhimmitude. These leaders bear the burden of 1400 years of ignorance. Each of them share the psychosis of the molested mind. A mind in denial and fear caused by the violence of dualistic Political Islam.
Our Dhimmi Revolution is about confronting ignorance. We must first educate ourselves and then our political opponents, the near enemy—the apologists.
FP: Can you talk a little bit more about strategy?
Warner: Our strategy must deal with three of the near enemy—the universities, the media and politicians. From a strategic standpoint they are similar. They are organizations that have a small number of middle managers and leaders. This means having a small target list to pressure, lobby and persuade. For instance, a letter to the editor at a paper should not only go to the opinion page editor but up and down the chain of command. Good information should permeate the organization.
Somewhere out there must be some software people who can help us form community and spread information to the right people. As an example: this type of software could be applied to an ongoing letters-to-the-editor group. Fellow writers could communicate with each other, build community and attract new writers, select targets and have organizational email lists of the managers and leaders of the targeted organization. Some of this is being done today, but it must become organized, coordinated and ongoing.
We must utilize the web for community and strategy. But we must also be in rooms with other people we recognize, be with groups who visit politicians and others we want to influence and persuade.
FP: So how do we teach ourselves?
Warner: Some of us must start teaching those who want to know. CSPI has seen that there are many who don’t want to read about the doctrine or history of Political Islam. It is too frightening and depressing. But put them in a group and they love to hear about it and ask questions. There is a change in the air. Some churches are having lectures and classes. The few must teach the many. To take part in the Dhimmi Revolution, you first take the antidote to dhimmitude, knowledge.
FP: How about the universities? The truth about Political Islam is almost not even permitted there.
Warner: The universities are our number one target. Their influence is felt by the politicians and the media. At present the near enemies own the schools. The state universities offer some special opportunities. They are supposed to be in the business of knowledge and they are supported by our tax dollars. We must make demands that the schools teach the history of jihad, dhimmitude, the Tears of Jihad. We can use civil rights lawsuits that claim discrimination and bigotry in the history departments.
Imagine the uproar we can make by insisting that the full history of slavery be taught. We want all of this history taught, not just the West African limited edition. We have to learn the history of white slavery, Hindu slavery, African slavery taught at the taxpayers’ schools. We must know how dualistic Islam enslaved all races, religions and cultures. Arabic has more words for slaves that any other language. We demand the end of ignorance about the history of Political Islam. It is our civil right and we must use every means possible to have the right to know our history of dhimmitude, death and slavery, particularly in a state-funded school.
Universities are a constant forum for Political Islam. We need to have groups visit the campuses and ask good questions. We must harangue, harass, pressure, and make visits to professors, department heads, deans and pressure for full debate. The department of humanities, women’s studies, history, political science, African and Middle Eastern studies departments are all target rich environments. We must always push to have the full and true doctrine of Political Islam taught.
FP: What’s after the universities?
Warner: Our politicians. We must use the politicians to pressure the state universities. And that means that we must pressure the politicians. Their ignorance will be our point of attack. We must constantly confront our leaders and show them the ways they speak and act like dhimmis. We must show how there is a cure for dhimmitude: the knowledge of the doctrine and history of Political Islam.
We must repeatedly bring up the lack of actual knowledge. We must demand that all politicians know what Sharia law is and what it means. We must demand that politicians learn the political doctrine of Islam. We must demand they know what a dhimmi is. The duality of Islamic ethics must be put before them. Every politician should know the numbers killed in jihad.
Mohammed’s politics and character must be known. Once you know who Mohammed was, the next Muslim who bends your ear will be heard in a different tone. Every school board member, council member, legislator, and other elected officials must be visited and asked questions about his/her knowledge of Islam’s first politician, Mohammed.
FP: Overall, there has to be a massive tactic of exposing ignorance.
Warner: Yes, and shaming ignorance. Any scholar of Political Islam will tell you that it is easy to learn about Political Islam and Mohammed. What is the most amazing thing about Political Islam is the grotesque ignorance by people who are otherwise well versed. We must shame our professors, thinkers, politicians, and media types with the ignorance.
We must also shame our artists and intellectuals regarding their lack of knowledge about Mohammed’s persecution of artists and intellectuals. Each time Political Islam kills and threatens another artist or intellectual, we must attack the denial of our effete thinkers. We must show the artists and intellectuals their ignorance and dhimmitude and invite them to join the Dhimmi Revolution and produce art to free their civilization from dhimmitude.
In the end, the near enemy must understand that any statement, comment or opinion they make about Political Islam that does not mention violent jihad and Mohammed s based upon ignorance. The constant question that every follower of Political Islam, or apologist for Political Islam, must answer is, 'What did Mohammed do or Allah say?' It is the only question and we must learn to answer it as well.
When we shame the apologists for their ignorance it must be without rancor. But they must face that their opinions about Political Islam show an ignorance about our dhimmi history, and the deaths of 270,000,000 victims of jihad.
FP: So some final words?
Warner: To win the Dhimmi Revolution, we must work as a community. We have to address the frequent hope seen on the web when someone proposes a great legal solution to our problem about Political Islam. But no matter what your idea is or how good it is, it doesn’t matter. CSPI is aware of one Congressman who has the slightest awareness about Political Islam. Before we can implement any political ideas we must have a political base. At this time, we don’t need great solutions, we need to prepare a trained political base before we can do anything. We must take the Dhimmi Revolution to every Congressman and every Senator and every state legislator before we can get a single bill passed.
The Dhimmi Revolution is to build community, know the far enemy, confront the near enemy.
In summary, we have finished the first stage of our struggle to defend our civilization—know the enemy and its dualistic politics and dualistic ethics. The age of individuals is coming to an end and we must enter the phase of grassroots politics. We are too weak and divided to confront Political Islam, the far enemy. We must first confront the near enemy, our apologists for Political Islam. The doctrine and history of Political Islam is the weapon we can use to reveal our near enemy’s ignorance about Mohammed. We must turn to building community so that we can work in groups to do the necessary political work. We must harness existing groups and create special interest groups designed to carry the Dhimmi Revolution to the universities, politicians, artists, intellectuals and the media.
Source: http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=27030
The Terrorism Awareness Project Takes Hold (back)
February 21, 2007
by Peter Collier
Today, the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC) launched the second flash video of its Terrorism Awareness Project. What Every American Needs to Know About Jihad reviews the history of recent terrorist attacks against America and the West and reveals the objectives of radical jihadists. The video is a dramatic four-minute warning that the agenda of jihad is global domination and that a world war has already begun. TAP will be emailing this video to more than one million Americans and tens of thousands of university students and professors. (To view it, click today's graphic or click here.)
The DHFC created the Terrorism Awareness Project on January 31 to combat complacency on college campuses about the intentions of the radical Islamists who declared a holy war on the United States and the West as long ago as 1979, and also to reveal the active support the jihad receives from radical professors and student groups who regard America as the Great Satan and the terrorists as freedom fighters. 'If one thing was clear in the aftermath of the attack (of 9/11), it was this: the terrorists would be back,' said Stephen Miller, a senior at Duke University and the Project’s national coordinator. 'But because of the campaign by the 'anti-war' movement, our populace as a whole is ignorant of the threat, doesn’t know the enemy, and is unaware of its true intent, capabilities and resolve. This is especially true of college students who face a daily barrage of anti-war and anti-American propaganda. The Terrorism Awareness Project is designed to make them aware of the threat of jihad and the struggle that lies ahead if this nation is to survive.'
The release of What Every American Needs to Know About Jihad follows that of the flash video titled The Islamic Mein Kampf (To view this seven minute video, click here) The Islamic Mein Kampf documents the Nazi roots and genocidal agendas of Islamic radicals such Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejdad and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The Islamic Mein Kampf has already been e-mailed to over 1 million recipients including all liberal arts professors and thousands of students at Duke University, Georgia Tech, Cal-Berkeley, Brandeis, Penn State, Purdue, Michigan, Pennsylvania, SFSU, UC-Irvine, and UC-Davis.
Although TAP is less than a month old, it has also produced three acclaimed pamphlets—The Nazi Roots of Palestinian Nationalism, The Islamic Mein Kampf, and What Americans need to know About Jihad to inform Americans and students in particular of the dangers they face. (All can be downloaded at no charge on www.terrorismawareness.org.)
'What Americans Need to Know About Jihad,' is also the message of a print ad the TAP project has placed in college newspapers around the country. So far, student publications at Duke, the University of North Carolina, Brandeis, Texas, Wisconsin, DePaul, Emory, University of California-Irvine, University of California-Davis, San Francisco State University and Pace College have run the ad, which means that it has been seen by over half a million members of these academic communities.
On the other hand, campus newspapers at Georgia Tech, Purdue, University of Pennsylvania , Michigan , Columbia , University of California-Berkeley and New York University have rejected the ad on the grounds that it was 'offensive.' Apparently, college leftists think that it is offensive to point out that a holy war has been declared on women, gays, Jews, Christians and other 'infidels.' That is the blunt message of the ad TAP has produced.
In the furor created by these rejections, TAP National Coordinator Miller appeared on Fox News, CNN, and other media venues to criticize the assault on free speech and point out that it indicates the extent of covert support for jihad on campus today.
In addition to mobilizing opinion on campus, the Terrorism Awareness Project has also acted as a catalyst for student activism. Since January 31, 170,000 individuals have visited the TAP website (www.terrorismawareness.org) an average of more than 50,000 per week. Chapters of TAP are already in formation on sixty-five campuses across the country. TAP chapters are now functioning at Columbia University, Duke, Georgia Tech, the University of Colorado, University of California at Davis, University of Wisconsin, among others and coordinators are distributing pamphlets, setting up panel discussions with experts on terrorism, and planning showings of the anti-jihad video 'Obsession,' as they work toward holding campus-wide Terrorism Awareness Days and Months. The first Terrorism Awareness Days featuring a showing of the film 'Obsession' have been scheduled at Duke University and at Columbia , where it will be jointly hosted by the campus TAP chapter and the College Republicans and College Democrats. In other words, TAP has already begun to forge the bi-partisan anti-terrorist coalition that has been so difficult to achieve at the national level.
Source: http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=27036
Egyptians Foil Terror Attack in Sinai (back)
February 21, 2007
Egyptian border and security authorities have arrested 3 Palestinians and Egyptians in the Sinai region, including one who was wearing an explosives belt and had crossed from Gaza to Egypt in an underground tunnel, security officials said Wednesday.
The authorities put their security forces in northern Sinai on high alert Wednesday in a bid to make sure that no more armed people were at large. Police set up more checkpoints and border guards were seen using iron poles to probe the ground near the newly found tunnel in a search for more.
One of the Palestinian detainees, a man in his early 20's, was caught Tuesday as he tried to cross the Gaza-Egypt border in an underground tunnel near the Egyptian border city of Rafah . He had wrapped himself in an explosives belt, said the soldier who caught him, Mohammed Abdel Wahab.
The arrested man told Egyptian state security officials that he had been plotting an attack with other Palestinians in Sinai, said an official.
Eyewitnesses said heavy Egyptian security forces on Wednesday morning surrounded a building in Rafah and arrested two other Palestinians. The security official said the two arrests were linked to the alleged suicide attack plot.
The building's owner, Mohammed Salem, said one of the Palestinian men had rented an apartment in the building a week ago and had been joined Wednesday by the other.
Egypt has suffered a string of suicide terror attacks in recent years at Sinai tourist resorts. Egypt , Israel and the Palestinians have also debated how best to control the border with Gaza , to prevent smuggling of weapons into Gaza and the infiltration of extremists into Egypt .
Source: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1171894484164& pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Four Islamists Arrested in Bulgaria for Promoting Jihad (back)
February 21, 2007
The Bulgarian police arrested four Bulgarians on Tuesday for posting what they said were radical Islamist ideas on two Web sites.
Police said the four had called on Muslims to support 'holy war against infidels' and replace Bulgaria 's secular order with a state based on Islamic sharia law.
The investigation is ongoing, but police said they did not exclude the possibility of the four being part of a larger international group promoting radical Islamic ideas.
'It is logical to think this group is part of an international network. The investigation will show what role it played in world terrorism,' said Yavor Kolev from the police's organised crime fighting unit.
Bulgaria , which joined the European Union last month, is the only member state where Muslims are not recent immigrants. They make up 12 percent of its 7.8 million people.
Both analysts and Islamic leaders say there are no radical Islamic groups in the country.
Source: http://international.ibox.bg/news/id_934756912
Covering Up Islam (back)
February 21, 2007
by Robert Spencer
On Sunday, a cab driver in Nashville named Ibrahim Ahmed picked up two college students, Andrew Nelson and Jeremy Invus, at a city bar and drove them to the campus of Vanderbilt University . Along the way, the three got into an argument, apparently leaving Ahmed enraged: after they paid their fare and left his cab, he tried to run down Nelson and Invus. Invus was seriously injured.
What were they arguing about? Nashville ’s WSMV reports that “a fight over religion became heated.” Associated Press has it that “police said he ran over one of his passengers after they got into a religious argument.” Neither WSMV nor Newschannel 5 nor AP give any details about the argument.
About who Ibrahim Ahmed is, and what may have led him to try to kill two of his passengers because of an argument, we hear nothing at all. One might suggest to the Nashville news outlets, as well as to AP, that Ibrahim Ahmed’s religion, as well as that of Nelson and Invus, would be relevant to a story about a religious argument that turned murderous.
After all, AP has not shied away from reporting on the religion of perpetrators of crimes in another recent case. Around the same time that Ahmed was running down Invus, a man in Chicago apparently bludgeoned three women -- a woman, her stepsister, and their mother. AP doesn’t give the suspect’s name, but does tell us that “the family was Assyrian Christian, a minority group in Iran , Iraq , Turkey and Syria .” Did the murderer kill his victims because of some imperative he believed arose from his Christian faith? Unlikely: AP notes that “the couple had been having marital problems.”
The Chicago Tribune adds that the suspect, Daryoush Ebrahami, “felt ‘disrespected’ by the women, who had told him ‘he was not a man.’” So why is Ebrahami’s Christian faith relevant?
Compare AP’s report on these murders to the initial AP report about the Salt Lake mall shootings: “Police: Teen Shot Mall Victims at Random,” by Jennifer Dobner. All we learn about Sulejman Talovic beyond his name is that he was a “trench coat-clad teenager” who lived with his mother. When people point out that the religion of nominally Christian murderers isn’t noted in news stories, and that Talovic’s religion should not have been either, they assume that in both instances religion played no factor in the killing, and was hence irrelevant. However, while there is no evidence to suggest that Ebrahami killed his victims in the name of Jesus Christ, or would attempt to justify the killings by reference to Christ’s teachings, it was at very least a possibility that Talovic, like so many others around the world every day, as well as other lone jihadists in the U.S. like Mohammad Reza Taheri-azar, killed in the name of Allah and with justification from the Qur’an and Sunnah.
That’s why Talovic’s religion at least merited a mention, and some investigation. The FBI has ruled out Islamic terrorism as a factor in the Talovic killings. One hopes that agents have done so after sufficient consideration of the possibility -- which seems to have been absent from other cases with some similarities to that of Talovic.
But in the wake of this, some have rushed to condemn me and others who publicly noted the mainstream media’s reluctance to identify Talovic as a Muslim, and to explore the possibility that his killings were jihad-related. This criticism was misplaced, for that reluctance is real, but it does not apply to all religions -- as the Ahmed and Ebrahami cases show. Ibrahim Ahmed is, in all likelihood, a Muslim, and his murderous rage may have been reinforced by Islam’s belief that those who insult Islam have forfeited their right to live.
The refusal of the Associated Press even to consider such possibilities, and its inconsistency in doing so, is readily apparent. While Sulejman Talovic may not have been a jihadist, and Ibrahim Ahmed may not be one, in AP’s selective disclosure of the facts they may find themselves covering up for the next jihadist who does strike. And they may already have done so.
Mr. Spencer is director of Jihad Watch and author of 'The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)' and 'The Truth About Muhammad'
Source: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19497
Terror-linked Divorce Costs Mom her Children (back)
February 21, 2007
A Tennessee woman who wore a wire to give the FBI information on her husband's alleged links to terror – and who sought custody of her two teen children because her husband said they could live best by blowing themselves up for Allah – is launching a campaign to overturn a judge's decision to put her husband in charge of the children.
Rosine Ghawji, who battled prominent Memphis physician Maher Ghawji in divorce court and was left 'penniless,' says her battle is part of a larger tapestry of terror that will affect the nation unless something is done to prevent it.
'Ghawji's determined to turn my two sons into suicide bombers – and has tried to kidnap them many times,' she writes in her online appeal. 'And his one goal in life is to see America an Islamic nation… In fact, Ghawji has said the day's soon coming when 50,600 suicide bombers blow themselves up in different cities – and Americans aren't able to do a thing to stop them!'
Her work with the FBI seems to verify that her husband's activities were of interest to the federal agents, and she also has an explanation for that agency's sudden abandonment of her during arguments over custody of her children.
'Apparently my husband promised to provide them with supposedly new information in exchange for having his evil way with me and my children,' she writes. 'But I know my husband. And I know he'd never betray Islam and his hatred for America . He is no different than most fanatical Muslims…'
A lawyer who acted as her general counsel, and now has filed a civil rights action on her behalf against the divorce court judge, said during the divorce trial there apparently were ex parte meetings involving the judge and the FBI.
Larry Klayman, who founded Judicial Watch and sought a U.S. Senate nomination in Florida , was prevented from acting as Mrs. Ghawji's divorce court attorney when a previous lawyer was released from his duties by the judge in the case.
But he has monitored the divorce case, and now is preparing to ask for a federal court injunction on behalf of the woman in her civil rights complaint.
Mrs. Ghawji, a Christian, said 20 years ago she had no idea of the impact of being married to a radical Muslim. 'Ghawji was … hardworking, handsome, and – at the time – very kind. Then he was a successful doctor, so I never really questioned his being gone for days at a time,' she said.
But several years ago when they moved to Memphis , she saw a letter in Arabic, and got a friend to translate it. It was from Maher Ghawji's brother, demanding that the children become devout Muslims. The brother, Mrs. Ghawji said, had fled the United States several years ago during a federal investigation of a charitable foundation that appeared to be funding terrorism.
Mrs. Ghawji said this was the brother who earlier had had tape recordings of Osama bin Laden in their home. Her husband then turned ugly, making repeated threats against her life and the lives of her children, she said.
'One day when we were in a local department store, he picked up a long sword and pulled it from its sheath, passing it against my throat, saying, 'this is what I'd really like to do to you.'
'It's no wonder when my boys, Louis and KK, would see his car pull into our drive they'd run and hide in their bedrooms. And he'd tell them they were better off dead if they rejected Islam,' she said.
In 2001, 'hours before the planes flew into the World Trade Center and Pentagon I provided the FBI with evidence my husband knew that the attacks were going to take place,' she said.
In 2004, she said, her husband tried to take her sons to Syria against their will, and she filed for separation. She assumed she'd be able to obtain custody, but suddenly her attorney quit, the judge refused Klayman permission to substitute and banned her testimony about terror links, and she went through a divorce trial without legal representation.
'The divorce court judge suddenly won't admit any testimony tying my husband to terrorism. In fact, my husband got the court-appointed psychiatrist to claim I'm delusional,' she wrote.
'I know now I made a mistake by marrying Ghawji and providing a way for him to enter this country. I disobeyed God's Word and was 'unequally yoked.' But I am a Christian and know God will forgive me. However, I refuse to give up my boys to a terrorist. I won't turn them over to someone who wants to strap them with explosives and send them into a crowded bus, subway, restaurant or school here in the U.S. to blow themselves up,' she said.
'But there is a huge battle ahead of us. And Mr. Klayman is committed to taking this case into the public square, as evidence that the government is not doing enough to stop terrorists in our midst,' she said.
She said she's working with Klayman on an appeal of her divorce ruling, as well as the federal civil rights allegations against the judge. And she's working with an organization called Truth for Muslims that teaches about the threats from Islam.
'Together they've started the CHILDREN OF TERRORISM RESCUE FUND, that's able to accept tax-deductible contributions to assist me with my legal expenses and help publicize this case.' The website also provides an e-mail for readers to send to FBI Director Robert Mueller protesting the case.
'This is not just about me,' she said. 'It's about fixing what's wrong in our government. It's about compromising your safety on the altar of political correctness. … It's about President Bush and other government leaders 'coming clean' about the lie they are telling us that Islam is a religion of peace. Nothing could be further from the truth!'
A spokeswoman for the Memphis divorce court said the hearing was held in the case, but the final divorce decree had not been entered yet. However, observers reported that Mrs. Ghawji was removed from her home and lost her children by order of the judge.
'The judge flouted the federal court process' because a request already was pending in the civil rights lawsuit that she not act in the divorce case until the civil rights dispute was resolved, Klayman told WND. 'She (the judge) did the most draconian thing she could, she put these children in the hands of someone with ties to terrorism, and took away Rosine's house.'
'We simply cannot stand by and let radical Islamic fundamentalists terrorize our children and destroy our nation,' Klayman said. 'Today it is Rosine and her children who are in jeopardy; tomorrow it could be you and your children or grandchildren.'
Mrs. Ghawji and Klayman also have filed complaints in the Tennessee Court of the Judiciary against Circuit Court Judge Donna M. Fields, who presided over the divorce and issued the rulings in it.
The Memphis Daily News also reported that Mrs. Ghawji has presented sworn testimony from an expert in terrorism that gives the opinion the father is 'a threat to [the] well-being' of the children.
Source: http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54361
20-years Requested for Jakarta Schoolgirls' Killings (back)
February 21, 2007
Indonesian prosecutors yesterday sought a 20-year jail sentence for the main defendant in the beheadings of three Christian schoolgirls from religiously divided Central Sulawesi province.
Prosecutors said Muslim militant Hasanuddin masterminded the beheadings of the Christian girls in 2005 to avenge the killings of Muslims during three years of communal violence in Central Sulawesi 's Poso region.
About 2,000 people from both communities died in the violence before a peace pact was signed in 2001, and sporadic attacks and fighting have continued since.
Poso has been tense since the execution of three Christian militants in September over their role in the massacres of Muslims at a boarding school in 2000.
Chief prosecutor Payaman said that during a meeting to plan the attack on the schoolgirls Hasanuddin told his accomplices that killing Christians was an act of charity.
'The defendant asked (accomplices) to hunt for heads of Christians as gifts for Lebaran, arguing that Christians have done the same to Muslims,' Payaman told the panel of judges at the Central Jakarta district court. Lebaran is a Muslim holiday.
He said the prosecution did not demand the maximum sentence of death because Hasanuddin had expressed remorse during the trial and the families of the victims had forgiven him.
The trial will resume next Monday.
The beheadings triggered an outcry across Indonesia , the world's most populous Muslim nation, and beyond. The Vatican described the attack as barbaric.
Two other men are on trial for involvement in the killings while another man who has confessed to having swung the machete that killed one of the girls is in police custody. The defendants are being tried under Indonesia 's anti-terrorism laws.
One of the four girls who was attacked was wounded but managed to escape and report what had happened.
In January, 14 people, one of them a policeman, were killed during gunbattles between security forces and suspected Islamic activists linked to Southeast Asia 's main militant group Jemaah Islamiah.
Last Friday, police in Central Sulawesi said security forces were on highest alert following warnings militants may be planning attacks.
National police chief General Sutanto told a parliamentary hearing yesterday that some of 14 people still wanted for violence in Poso were believed to have fled to Java island or other regions on Sulawesi . Around 85 per cent of Indonesia 's 220 million people follow Islam, giving the country the world's largest Muslim population, but some eastern regions have large Christian populations.
Source: http://www.bruneitimes.com.bn/details.php?shape_ID=21390
Madrid Train Bombings Case Sees the Judge Expell One of the Accused (back)
February 21, 2007
Day five of the Madrid Train Bombings trial in the Spanish National Court in Madrid was marked by the Magistrate, Javier Gómez Bermúdez, ordering Rafa Zouhier out of the chamber. He said he was fed up with his gestures. Zouhier, who is an ex Civil Guard informer, and who faces a 20 year prison sentence in the case, made similar gestures and was warned by the judge last Monday.
The session started with the questioning of Rachid Aglif. Known as The Rabbit, he admitted that he purchased the car which was used to move the explosives from the man known as The Chinaman who was his friend, and who became more religious in 2003, cutting out parties from his life. He is thought to have negotiated the purchase of the explosives used with Trashorras, Carmen Toro, Rafa Zouhier and The Chinaman.
Rachid Aglif cried in court as he spoke about his father’s illness and told how his friend Rafa Zouheir was stabbed in a party.
Statements continued with Abdelilah el Fdual al Akil, who was an intimate friend of The Chinaman and is thought to have helped in his illegal entry into Spain . He told the court that the March 11th bombings had ruined his life, and that it was The Chinaman, who killed himself in the Leganés terrorist flat explosion, who had organised the purchase of the explosives.
Following on from the key players’ declarations at the start of the case, those being called now are mostly facing charges of belonging to, or collaborating with, an armed gang.
Magistrate Javier Gómez Bermudez has also showed a more human side to those charged, by ordering that a catering firm be contracted to supply them with a hot meal from today.
The court is generally in session daily from 10 to 2pm and from 4pm to 8pm, and the prisoners were previously being given bocadillos for lunch.
Source: http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_9067.shtml
Maldonado to be Held Without Bail (back)
February 21, 2007
A judge Wednesday found probable cause against terror suspect Daniel Joseph Maldonado, and he will be held without bond and go to trial.
Federal authorities say the U.S. citizen arrested for receiving training from al-Qaida in his effort to help overthrow the Somali government is a dangerous person who didn’t think the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were an evil act and shouldn’t be freed on bond.
But his defense attorney argues the New Hampshire native renounced his violent beliefs before he was taken into custody.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Calvin Botley decided Wednesday that Daniel Joseph Maldonado will remain in the custody of federal authorities until his trial.
Botley heard evidence during a probable cause and detention hearing on Tuesday, but continued the hearing until Wednesday so Maldonado’s attorneys could review reports written by FBI agents who questioned Maldonado after he was captured by the Kenyan military on Jan. 21.
Maldonado, 28, a Muslim convert also known as Daniel Aljughaifi and Abu Mohammed, is accused of traveling in November to an al-Qaida terrorist camp in Somalia , where he was trained to use firearms and explosives in an effort to help another group, the Islamic Courts Union, topple the Somali government and install an Islamic state.
Maldonado grew up in Pelham , N.H. , and lived in Houston from August 2005 to November 2005 before moving to Cairo , Egypt .
During Tuesday’s hearing, FBI agent John McKinley testified Maldonado received training on how to use an AK-47 assault rifle, spent time with a bombmaker and helped interrogate a flight attendant who was suspected of being a spy and later killed.
McKinley said many of the people who were at these training camps were al-Qaida members, including one man who is a suspect in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania .
But one of Maldonado’s attorneys, federal public defender Brent Newton, argued his client never intended to go to Somalia to meet with al-Qaida members.
McKinley said Maldonado was aware there were al-Qaida members at the camps and he said that Maldonado went to Somalia to fight an armed 'jihad' for a true Islamic government.
'At the time he was arrested, hadn’t he renounced his prior beliefs on jihad?' Newton asked.
McKinley said he didn’t know if that was true but that Maldonado had expressed disillusionment because he thought the people running the training camps had lied to him about how they would take care of his family.
When Maldonado moved to Somalia , he brought along his wife and three children. His wife later died of malaria and his children are now being taken care of by his parents in New Hampshire , McKinley said.
Maldonado also contracted malaria, which stopped his training.
He also became malnourished, losing 60 pounds while in Somalia .
Newton alleged Maldonado was sleep deprived and denied an attorney after he was captured.
McKinley said Maldonado agreed to talk with FBI agents and was treated well.
The FBI agent said he didn’t know why Maldonado became angry with the United States and decided to get training from al-Qaida.
People who knew Maldonado in New Hampshire described him as a charismatic, outspoken person who became arrogant and a religious zealot after converting to Islam, according to media reports.
Maldonado faces charges of undergoing military training with a terrorist organization and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, specifically a bomb. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
Source: http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou0702 21_ac_terrorcharges.1f8cce5b.html
EU Anti-Terrorism Chief Urges US to Change Tactics (back)
February 22, 2007
The US needs to re-embrace basic human rights, abandon tactics such as rendition and rebuild trust with the Islamic world if the West's war against terrorism is to be successful, says the EU's anti-terrorism coordinator.
The European Union's anti-terrorism coordinator, Gijs de Vries, has criticized US tactics in the war in terror, saying that victory can only be achieved through a return to 'mainstream' human rights norms and the abandonment of policies such as special rendition.
De Vries said that the abduction of terror suspects to third-party countries where torture is used in interrogation, the holding of so-called 'enemy combatants' without trial at the prison camp in the US naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba and the widely-publicized abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq had all undermined the fight against Islamist extremism.
Image tarnished by scandals
'The CIA renditions, together with Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay , and the military commissions act, unfortunately have tarnished the image of the United States in the fight against terrorism, among Muslims and non-Muslims,' De Vries told Reuters news service. 'I hope the United States , now that there is a new political dynamic in the US Congress, can return to a mainstream interpretation of international human rights.'
The issue of rendition has added resonance in Europe after the European Parliament announced last week that a number of EU governments -- including Italy and Germany --knew about the secret CIA flights transporting suspects through Europe but chose to look the other way.
De Vries, the man charged with overseeing and coordinating the EU's fight against terror, was himself strongly criticized by the European Parliament for not providing answers on the allegations of complicity by EU governments in CIA rendition.
National responsibility for secret services
However, De Vries responded by saying that there had been no hard evidence to substantiate the accusations made against the EU countries by European lawmakers and that judgment should be reserved until the authorities in member states had carried out and completed their own investigations into the allegations of collusion.
He insisted that secret intelligence services remained under national control and that neither the EU as a whole nor he as anti-terrorism coordinator had much power to change that. De Vries told the European Parliament that member states should exercise more parliamentary control on the activities of their secret services.
Rebuild trust, work for peace
De Vries, who steps in March after three years in the job, said that a change in approach by the US and the EU to regain trust from the Islamic world was essential in the battle of ideas with radical Islamists.
'Ultimately that's the long-term approach we need,' he said, adding that a concerted effort to bring peace to the Middle East would also help.
Until these objectives can be achieved, De Fries said, the terrorism threat in the EU would remain at its current high level and would remain so for a number of years.
'We cannot exclude that attacks on the scale of London or Madrid could be repeated. Meanwhile we see that other types of threats are also materializing,' he said, referring to a recent alleged plot to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier in the UK .
De Vries calls for EU streamlining
He also called for a streamlining of decision-making on cooperation against terrorism and organized crime within the EU and for the introduction of majority votes instead of insisting on unanimity among all 27 countries.
'Unanimous decisions simply take too long,' he said, blaming them for the EU's failure to coordinate cross border operations between national police forces when tracking international criminals.
De Fries became the European Union's first anti-terrorism coordinator just days after the bomb attacks in Madrid in March 2004, which killed 191 people.
Source: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2359267,00.html
Mumbai Link to Train Terror? Cops get Explosive Clue (back)
February 21, 2007
Mumbai link to train terror traced
New Delhi : The investigations into the Samjhauta Express blasts have thrown up several very important leads.
The Delhi police team – probing the case – has based their investigations on three crucial points. Their primary line of investigation is a seven-minute call made on the night of the blast. The call, was made from somewhere in Old Delhi at 0040 hrs (IST) on Sunday night and was traced to Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.
This has strengthened security agencies’ belief that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba could be behind the attacks, timed with the visit of Pak foreign minister Khursheed Kasuri.
The second important lead that the investigators are following is the source of the explosives that were made to trigger the deadly blast. According to sources, the ammunition – that comprised 72 bottles containing liquid explosives and suitcases with IEDs – was sourced from Delhi .
Police on Tuesday night carried out raids in parts of Old Delhi.
The two suspects who carried out the blasts are believed to have purchased four locally made suitcases from the Old Delhi Railway station.
They also purchased a Hindi daily from the station before boarding the train.
Sources also claim there could be similarities between the bombs used in the Samjhauta blasts and those recovered from Rajkot in 2003 and Mumbai's Dongri Chawl in 2004.
Source: http://www.ibnlive.com/news/mumbai-link-to-samjhauta-blasts/34 089-3.html
Bucks Passed: Idaho 's Money , Sudan 's Genocide (back)
February 21, 2007
Imagine for a moment that you are the custodian of, say, $11 billion in public employee retirement funds. Someone comes to you with documentation showing that eight of the companies you hold are buttressing state-sponsored terror in western Sudan , a conflict characterized as genocide by the Bush administration.
Imagine you are an investment manager, scanning your oversized computer monitor for the best returns for state employees. Buying pesos here and selling widget conglomerates there. You come across a great prospect, a Chinese or Brazilian oil prospector with contracts in largely untapped and unregulated Sudan . What factors do you consider before shouting 'buy?'
Imagine you are the governor of a state, elected by the people, or a legislator elected by some of those people, and you get the same information: Idaho has at least $41.4 million invested in a genocidal regime.
What do you do with that information?
If you are New Jersey , you drop $2.16 billion in such investments. Five other states have agreed to approach the offending companies with threats of divestment, and more than 20 state legislatures are considering action right now. Venture capitalists in the Sudan now face a sea of bad PR, downward market trends and actual economic pressure.
But in Idaho , the answer is less dramatic.
You pass the buck. To the fund administrator. To the investment technician with the weight of the world on her shoulders.
The Idaho Senate Committee on Commerce and Human Resources passed the buck on Feb. 8 when it declined to consider a bill that had support from some in Republican leadership, asking the Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho, or PERSI, to drop its $41.4 million in investments in eight companies that do business with the government of Sudan .
'It wasn't like we were going significantly outside the mainstream,' said Sen. Joe Stegner, who wanted a hearing for the bill and said he would have backed it on the Senate floor.
American companies have been largely barred from doing business with Sudan since 1997, and a divestment is on the table in California , Texas and Colorado .
'We act on behalf of the beneficiaries of PERSI,' said Stegner, the assistant majority leader in the Senate. 'In that role, I find it appropriate for this Legislature to declare in policy that we would not support crimes against humanity that I think are evident today in the Sudan .'
Stegner did not speak up at the committee meeting, but PERSI administrator Alan Winkle eagerly shared his position with the senators.
Idaho never got involved in divestment from the apartheid regime in South Africa , Winkle said, adding that there is no prudent financial reason to get involved in so-called social investing now.
'This is other people's money, and the board is the fiduciary,' Winkle told me later. 'So should they be using trust fund money, other people's money, to address international social issues, human rights issues in another country?'
The four senators who voted against printing the divestment bill, as well as Gov. C.L. 'Butch' Otter, who does not support the bill, deferred to Winkle and the fleet of investment managers contracted by PERSI.
'The governor sees no reason to second guess Mr. Winkle,' Otter spokesman Mark Warbis said.
Sen. Dean Cameron, a Rupert insurance and investment broker, thought divestment in Sudan was the beginning of a slippery slope.
'There are hundreds of other egregious situations in the world,' he said. 'The question is, where do we draw the line?'
In an e-mail he sent to a constituent the day after the hearing, Cameron asked: 'Do you want your money invested in companies who have subsidiaries who do business with companies in Iraq, Iran, Syria, or any country who has harbored or supported terrorists, any country who has human rights violations, or how about companies who support gay rights, abortion or environmental stands?'
Sponsors of the divestment bill argued that Darfur was a special situation and that pulling the targeted investments did not open the door for 1,000 different causes.
'Abhorrence of genocide, refusal to enable it, refusal to profit from it, is not a social cause; it is a moral imperative and a fiduciary standard of the highest order,' wrote John Sullivan, coordinator of the Idaho Task Force for Divestment in Sudan in a letter to lawmakers and the governor.
The campaign is strategically designed to pressure the Sudanese government to change its policies. Two large European companies, ABB and Siemens, have already reconsidered their Sudan operations in the face of divestment pressure.
But Stegner said that even if divestment in Sudan were to set a new precedent for the retirement fund in Idaho , the Legislature is perfectly capable of deciding what causes to engage in the future.
'Personally, I've never been asked to take a position like that,' Stegner said, considering his personal stock portfolio. 'Most people don't think of these issues.'
Most people don't think about where they buy their coffee or their pants or their widgets. But some compelling capitalistic arguments are being made in other parts of the country that institutional and state investors ought to start thinking about where their money is held.
Highly profitable global corporations whose industries contribute to global warming, e.g. Exxon, may not be the safest investments anymore as Congress considers regulation, consumers choose alternatives and natural resources are depleted.
PERSI owns $56 million in Exxon shares, among its largest holdings. Idaho public employees are also benefiting from more than $38 million in Altria, the parent company to Phillip Morris, with additional holdings in at least four other tobacco firms.
Without direction from the Legislature, the new Millennium Permanent Endowment Fund, which includes Big Tobacco money now targeted for smoking prevention, will likely buy stock in the cigarette companies come April. The state treasurer is bound by the same principles that guide PERSI.
At the back of the hearing room on Feb. 8, about a dozen Sudanese immigrants to Boise watched their senators drop the ball.
It was no surprise to them that a government would put its own interests first.
'We were born in crisis, and we grew up in crisis,' said Acinkoc Adak, who came to Boise in 2000 and works as a downtown bank teller.
The United Nations has been largely kept out of Sudan , and African aid workers and troops are under constant attack in Darfur .
'We have to come out with a solution,' Adak said.
Source: http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A217281
Afghan Muhajideen Granted Immunity from War Crimes Charges (back)
February 20, 2007
It's a good step because we want the unity in Afghanistan . If they bring leaders of the mujahedeen to court it will tarnish the name of jihad (holy war).'
Afghanistan 's upper house of parliament approves resolution granting 'mujahedeen' immunity from war crimes charges
'If they bring leaders of the mujahedeen to court it will tarnish the name of jihad,' one legislator argued. An update on this story. ' Afghanistan weighs amnesty in war crimes,' by Matthew Pennington for AP:
The upper house of parliament passed a resolution Tuesday that calls for an amnesty for Afghans — including some lawmakers and members of the government — who are suspected of war crimes during a quarter-century of fighting, an official said. President Hamid Karzai will now decide whether it should become law, said Kadamali Nekpai, chief of the upper house's press department.
The resolution, which has been condemned by the United Nations and international human rights groups, was passed by the lower house Jan. 31 and covers the mujahedeen leaders who led the anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s and plunged Afghanistan into civil war in the early 1990s. Many of them sit in parliament.
Senators on Tuesday approved the same resolution by a 50-16 majority, Nekpai said.
Although lawmakers describe it as a resolution rather than a bill, they also say it would be made law if Karzai approves it.
Sen. Abdullah Haqahaqi said if Karzai rejected the resolution, it would be voted on again by the lower house and if two-thirds of lawmakers were in favor, it would still become law.
And that law would set a disastrous precedent for upholding a double standard where crimes were committed under the banner of 'jihad.'
Karzai has not made any public comment on the resolution, but his chief spokesman has said the president will not sign anything that goes against Afghanistan 's constitution and has asked his lawyers to assess its legality.
The resolution only applies to those who accept Afghanistan 's constitution and government authority, so an amnesty would apply to a minority of former Taliban who have reconciled with the government, but not for current insurgent leaders such as Mullah Omar.
Tens of thousands of Afghans died during the years of civil conflict that followed the Soviet occupation.
'One thing must be very clear, and it should be clear worldwide: amnesty for gross violations of human rights and for war crimes shouldn't exist,' Tom Koenigs, the U.N.'s special representative to Afghanistan , told reporters Monday.
A U.S.-backed invasion in late 2001 toppled the hard-line Taliban regime and ushered in an era of democracy, but it also has seen a number of powerful warlords elevated to high office or seats in parliament.
'Unfortunately, the majority of the lower and upper houses of parliament are warlords and people with blood on their hands,' said Nafas Gul, a female senator for Farah province who voted against the resolution. 'It's a betrayal of the rights of Afghans.'
But another senator who voted in favor said it would promote national unity.
'It's a good step because we want the unity in Afghanistan . If they bring leaders of the mujahedeen to court it will tarnish the name of jihad (holy war).'
Source: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/015354.php
Syria, Iran Stress Identical Views (back)
February 21, 2007
Syria 's president has denied rumors of a rift between Damascus and Iran during a visit to Tehran , accusing 'enemies' of Islamic countries of trying to sow discord.
'We should co-operate and work to make the public aware of the sinister aims of the United States and the Zionists,' al-Assad said after talks with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
'The creation of a rift among Muslims is their latest weapon, which is more dangerous than their previous plans,' Bashar al-Assad was quoted as saying on the Iran 's state TV website.
The comments were published Sunday, a day after Assad ended his visit, his fifth since taking office in 2000.
The site did not elaborate on who the 'enemies' Assad referred to might be, but during his two-day trip the Syrian president also accused the US and Israel of having 'ominous aims.'
Al-Assad's comments were reflected in an editorial Sunday in Syria 's Al-Baath newspaper, published by the country's ruling Baath party, which said relations between Syria and Iran were strong as usual.
On the subject of Iraq , Al-Baath said, 'Though their visions are not identical on everything, they however agree on two basic issues; Iraqi unity and the departure of the occupation forces, and the support of the political process in Iraq .'
During his visit Assad held talks with Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the country's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani. Ahmadinejad described Assad's visit as fruitful and called for greater cooperation between their countries.
'Current situations in the region, especially in Iraq , Palestine , Lebanon and Afghanistan , have doubled the need for cooperation and coordination between Iran and Syria , particularly to confront plots by enemies,' state television's website quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
Iran and Syria have long been close allies. During the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Syria was the only Arab country to support Iran .
The two countries have both come under criticism from the United States , which does not have diplomatic relations with either Damascus or Tehran .
Washington has accused Syria of not doing enough to prevent militants from crossing its border into Iraq and has blamed Iran for supporting Shiite militias in attacks that have killed American troops.
Both Iran and Syria have rejected the accusations.
Source: http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8512010373
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