Snips: In this vein, the video begins with a somewhat typical al Qaeda formulation: “In this fierce Christian Crusade being waged against the Islamic Ummah, with the clear and shameful participation of the agent rulers of the region, Allah made a way out for your brothers from the Mujahideen from the prisons of the Crusaders, Guantanamo, and the prisons of the tyrants.”
Yes, Guantanamo is mentioned right at the beginning, along with what appears to be a deceptive reenactment of a detainee in an orange jumpsuit at Camp X-Ray. As I’ve written previously, this image is a favorite of Gitmo’s many critics, even though it has not been an accurate portrayal since the first four months of Gitmo’s existence in 2002. The far left and the jihadists both love this image though. It makes it seem as if the detainees are blameless innocents who are routinely traumatized by the big, bad American military. AQAP’s video is powerful reminder that this isn’t true, as former detainees such as Said al Shihri and Mohammed al Awfi were always dangerous.
However, Gitmo is only mentioned in the context of announcing al Shihri’s and al Awfi’s miraculous return to jihad. Their recidivism was placed in the context of the “Christian Crusade” — the real rationale given for AQAP’s terror.
In fact, why don’t we just surrender altogether? I bet that would really cut into AQ’s recruiting, right?
Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at obamaisms@edmorrissey.com with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.
Caught out by the Sharia police in Aceh
Snips: Why is wearing jeans and riding a moped without a headscarf now a problem for a woman in Banda Aceh, the Indonesiad city devastated by the tsunami of December 2004? RNW reporter Fediya Andina found out on a recent trip to her native country. The province of Aceh introduced strict Sharia law on 1 January this year.
To this very day, Irwandi Yusuf, governor of Aceh and former GAM leader, has refused to sign the Sharia law. He wants the newly elected Aceh parliament to amend it. It was supposed to be the first task of the new parliament. Eighty percent of the MPs are from the Aceh Party, which came from the GAM resistance movement.
Visualizing the underwear bomber's online life
The Obama administration is due to release a declassified intelligence report today on Detroit terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a.k.a. the Underwear Bomber. Courtesy of the invaluable Computational Legal Studies Blog, we can take a closer look at Abdulmutallab’s online life — and possibly, his increasing radicalization.
Under the online handle “Farouk1986,” Abdulmutallab was a regular on the Islamic forum Gawaher.com, where he appears to have posted 310 times between 2005 and 2007. Thanks to the Evan Kohlmann of the NEFA Foundation, we now have all of Farouk1986’s posts, assembled into a single file. The CLS Blog took this one step further, generating a basic visualization and analysis of the structure of Farouk1986’s online communication network as it evolved over time.
To do that, the CLS Blog expanded on the NEFA dataset to map out Farouk1986’s secondary and indirect communications and generate deeper context. “In order to obtain a better understanding of this communication network, we retrieved every ‘topic’ in which Farouk1986 participated at least once,” the authors write. “Each ‘topic’ is comprised of one or more ‘posts’ from one or more users. Each ‘post’ may be in response to another user’s ‘post.’ The NEFA data contains only posts made by Farouk1986 – our data contains the entire context within which his posts existed.”
An open letter to non radicalized Muslims
Snips: This president bows to foreign heads of state, apologizes for the ‘harm’ that America’s has inflicted on the world and is currently about to host the 9/11 mastermind, against the wishes of New Yorkers, to a Manhattan show trial, whose security alone will cost the American people over two hundred million dollars. In addition to getting Khalid Sheik Mohammed lawyered-up and imbued with all the rights of an American citizen in the system, perhaps Erica Holder can score the Sheik a couple of tickets to “Wicked” while he’s in The Big Apple. Maybe they could catch the shuttle to WDC for beers with Obie One and kinda ‘talk it out.’
If we are going to use popular music to categorize how we should be dealing with Islamo Fascism, let it be “Hair Of The Dog” by Nazareth. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ66UO-iKpc)
Around 700 jihadis waiting to strike in J&K
As many as 700 fully-trained terrorists are waiting in the wings to stage attacks in J&K with their "masters" in Pakistan directing them to open "other fronts" as they did in the busy Lal Chowk area in Srinagar.
Thousands from terror-sponsoring nations entering US on Diversity Visas
Snips: The State Department is planning to welcome thousands of immigrants from terror-watch list countries into the United States this year through a "diversity visa" lottery -- a giant legal loophole some lawmakers say is a "serious national security threat" that has gone unchecked for years.
Included in the lottery are all four countries the U.S considers state sponsors of terror -- Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and Syria -- and 13 of the 14 nations that are coming under special monitoring from the Transportation Security Administration as founts of terrorism. Pakistan is excluded because, like China, it sends over tens of thousands of immigrants each year and doesn't need to be in the lottery.
WHO advisor secretly pads pockets with big pharma money
According to documents acquired through the Danish Freedom of Information Act, Eskola’s Finnish institute, THL, received almost 6.3 million Euros from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for research on vaccines during 2009. GlaxoSmithKline produces the H1N1-vaccine ‘Pandemrix,’ which the Finnish government -- following recommendations from THL and WHO -- purchased for a national pandemic reserve stockpile.
Several other WHO experts also have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry--a double role that notably is not published by WHO.
The more than 6.3 million Euros (equating to over 9 million American dollars) the WHO’s research center received from GlaxoSmithKline represents the vaccine program’s number one income source.
To which they respond, “We are aware that there appears to be a conflict interest.”
Snips: Overall, this is a far brighter picture than the headlines suggest. It is a diverse one, too. Asked about their race, a plurality (35%) of American Muslims describe themselves as African-American. Another 28% say they are white, 18% say Asian and 18% tick “other”. Racial disparities among Muslims roughly mirror those in the broader society. Asian-American Muslims are better educated and earn more than African-American ones, for example. And an immigrant Muslim dentist will have quite different experiences from a black American who converted while in jail.
Dalia Mogahed of Gallup’s Centre for Muslim Studies argues that because American Muslims are so well integrated, they strongly reject terrorism. This is true, but not uniformly so. Muslim Americans under 30 are twice as likely as their elders to believe that suicide-attacks on civilians in defence of Islam are sometimes justified (15% versus 6%, according to Pew). There is a marked streak of alienation among black Muslims, only 36% of whom say they have a “very unfavourable” view of al-Qaeda. Only a minority of Muslim Americans believe that Arab Muslims carried out the attacks of September 11th 2001.
British radicalization studies
Snip:Our report, published in the summer of 2008, uncovered routine extremist preaching on U.K. campuses as well as the propagation of extremist texts. In conjunction with the polling company YouGov, we also carried out and published what remains the only major survey to date of Muslim student opinions in the U.K. The results were deeply disturbing.
The poll showed that one in three Muslim students believed that killing in the name of their religion could be justified. That figure almost doubled to 60% among respondents who were active members of their universities' ISOCs. Other results included the discovery that 40% of Muslim students polled supported the introduction of sharia law into British law, and that 58% of students active in their ISOC supported the idea of the introduction of a worldwide Caliphate.
Al-Balawi Wife - Osama Bin Laden "Che Gueera of the East"
Snips: “I am proud of him; my husband has carried out a great operation in such a war. May God accept his martyrdom,” Bayrak told the Dogan news agency.
She later told the state-run Anatolia news agency: “My husband did this against the U.S. invasion.”
Indian Muslim extremists threaten to burn Christians alive
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on Dec. 18, 2009, Muslim fanatics in Nutangram, West Bengal attacked Christian converts from Islam and threatened to burn them alive if they don't return to Islam.
The fanatics verbally abused the church members of Khoda-E- Jamat Ibadat Khana (Worship Centre for the Muslim Background Believers) and also threatened to burn their homes. The Islamists also called for a social boycott against the believers and forced all area shopkeepers not to sell anything to Christians and to not provide water to them.
They also urged the Muslim relatives of the Christians not to allow any Christians to use their toilets.
Go to fox...brennan, naopol. gibbs answering and speaking on Bos speach
I fear we are in for some very bad times ahead. The common denominator? ISLAM....and all the “green shoots” springing forth from it. Radical Islam? Peaceful Islam? They are blurring into one horrific entity for me.
Thanks for the posts.
An undending onslaught.
I really wish that Dick Cheney was president right now.
Included in the lottery are all four countries the U.S considers state sponsors of terror -- Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and Syria -- and 13 of the 14 nations that are coming under special monitoring from the Transportation Security Administration as founts of terrorism. Pakistan is excluded because, like China, it sends over tens of thousands of immigrants each year and doesn't need to be in the lottery.
Among the winners for 2010 are:
Nigeria: 6,006
Iran: 2,773
Algeria: 1,957
Sudan: 1,084
Afghanistan: 345
Cuba: 298
Somalia: 229
Lebanon: 181
Libya: 152
Iraq: 142
Saudi Arabia: 104
Syria: 98
Yemen: 72
Thanks for the ping MamaDearest.
Oh my sis, you put in a full work day! Bump!
Thanks for the ping to a good collection of news.