SIXTH COLUMN

"History is philosophy teaching by example." (Lord Bolingbroke)

New Email Address: 6thColumn@6thcolumnagainstjihad.com.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

After Being Hit In the Wallet and In the Head, Danes Now "Understand and Respect" Islam

Hattip: LGF

Is that understanding and respect out of need for a genuine dialogue, or is out of fear of reprisal? I think the latter.

Regardless of what the Danish Ambassador had to say, what Muslims "understand" about Islam is fear: fear of economic reprisal, fear of violence and mayhem, fear of battery and murder as well as fear of a radical culture change brought about by the presence of a "tiny minority" that intends to impose its will on all.

Should Graduates of American Public High Schools Be Required to Show Proficiency in English for Graduation?

She is only sixteen, an American citizen by birth (i.e. anchor baby), has lived in Mexico almost all of her life, is not proficient in English enough to pass the mandatory California high school exit exam, yet she demands to graduate from a California public school.

This really bugs me. Women return to their home countries with babies born in the United States, only to have the children return years later to demand rights and services. And this by design of the parents.

"I need a diploma," said Iris, a chestnut-haired girl who was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the Mexican state of Jalisco. "I want it. I deserve it. I've been going to school and studying. I want to have a profession."

Iris said all of this in Spanish. She returned to California in 2004 after the grandmother she'd been living with in Mexico died. Now she lives with her Spanish-speaking mother in an apartment near Richmond High in the West Contra Costa Unified School District.


Before the exit test, schools all over the nation pushed students out using the practice of social promotion:

State Superintendent Jack O'Connell, who wrote the exit exam law in 1999 while a state senator, calls it "immoral" to award diplomas to students who can't pass the test.

"I was heartbroken by stories of high school graduates who could not read or write or understand basic computing," he told the state Board of Education recently. "Too many of those students were poor, Latino or African American, or students with disabilities."

Before the exit exam requirement, he said, "some schools pushed each and every student to succeed, while others, wallowing in the status quo of low standards, handed out diplomas to any student who simply put in seat time."

The United States has millions of functionally-illiterate adults that fell the cracks because no one was held accountable for their success.

Joining O'Connell in applauding the exit exam's influence is a number of employers, lawmakers and state education officials who like having a consistent, minimum academic standard for all graduating seniors. Many say the standards, which measure skills taught between grades 6 and 10, should be even tougher.

"The need for the (exit exam) is simple," said Jim Lanich, president of California Business for Education Excellence, which includes some of the state's largest employers, from IBM to SBC. "Too many students graduate from high school unprepared for the challenges that lie ahead."


One wonders why Iris' mother doesn't speak English. Could it be that she lives and works in parts of Los Angeles where Spanish English is not required because millions of illegal immigrants from Latin America have re-created their home countries.

Los Angeles is a city in the United States and English is the official language of the United States. Iris and others like her will not be served by pandering to the demands of immigrant groups that flout the law and social mores.

Thousands of English-speaking students spend time preparing to take college entrance exams, or high-school exit exams because of skill weakness. To allow students such as Iris a pass would be discriminatory. It is unconscionable to expect a system to lower rather than raise standards to accommodate a students with low skills.

Living in Los Angles immersed in Latin culture and among Spanish speakers, Iris may never learn to speak English well enough to contribute outside the Spanish-speaking community. Unfortunately there are groups that would not consider that to be a liability as they intend to create El Norte in California.

Meanwhile, At Home Along the U.S.-Mexican Border

LAREDO, Texas – This border area is one of the least publicized international crisis zones. More Americans have been kidnapped just in this area than in all of Iraq by Islamic terrorists.
 
Twenty-six Americans are now officially listed as missing in the Laredo-Nuevo Laredo region of the U.S.-Mexico border—in addition to the more than 400 Mexicans reported to be suffering a similar fate.
 
The number of American civilians missing or kidnapped in Iraq since the beginning of the war is 23 as of last September, the latest figure released by the State Department.
 
And then there are the executions.
 
Unlike Muslim jihadists, enforcers from the feuding Gulf and Sinaloa Mexican drug cartels favor off-camera basement executions and oil-drum burials.
 
“I’ve seen these barrels with bodies stuffed into them,” said a U.S. law enforcement official, who, like most here, spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s horrible, but it is really happening.”
 
First acid is poured in to break up flesh and bone. Then the drum is filled with diesel fuel.
 
A match—that’s all it takes to turn a life into a heap of ashes.
 
How many of those unaccounted for have already been “processed” this way? Nobody here knows—or is eager to find out.
 
“The Mexican government has lost control along the border,” fumes Rick Flores, the youthful Webb County sheriff.
 
“They had 176 murders in Nuevo Laredo last year, and none of them have been solved. In the first less than six weeks of this year, there were another 27 murders. Again, none solved. At the rate they are going, the death toll will be over 300 by year’s end.”
 
If anything, Mr. Flores said, the cartels have become more brazen, more willing to reach for their guns.


The problem is getting worse. And they say we don't need to militarize the border.

But they are concerned the group has spawned in northern Mexico a kind of cultural franchise with its seemingly infinite litter of Zetas imitators, wannabes and unscrupulous thugs.
 
“They don’t even court women anymore. They abduct them at gunpoint and give them as presents to their bosses,” Mr. Flores says, shaking his head. “Here, beauty can be a curse.”
 
That is what happened, many believe, to U.S. citizens Yvette Martinez and Brenda Cisneros, who disappeared in Nuevo Laredo in September 2004.
 
There is also evidence, officials warn, of foreign fighters heavily moving into the region.
 
The Gulf Cartel, bloodied in the turf war, they say, is actively recruiting reinforcements from among “kaibiles,” former Guatemalan guerrilla fighters. The Sinaloa Cartel is bringing in members of the MS-13 gang from El Salvador.
 
And there have been other new arrivals that officials say worry them even more.
 
Mexico has long had a thriving Middle Eastern community, but there is word it might now be getting new, possibly less benevolent members.
 
“We’ve had source intelligence that there are possible terrorist cells making their way into Mexico, who want to learn the language and culture and camouflage themselves as Mexicans,” said another law enforcement official, who requested anonymity.
 
“There have been new arrivals of that kind in Nuevo Laredo as well, and we don’t know yet whether their business is legitimate.”
 
Coincidentally or not, Laredo police and federal agents busted in early February what amounts to an underground factory for manufacturing improvised explosive devices comparable to those used in Iraq, seizing about half a dozen ready-made bombs and materials able to make almost 100 more.
 
A puzzling incursion, local officials said, was witnessed in the middle of the night 20 miles south of Laredo about a year ago.
 
About 20 physically well-trained men, all dressed in black with automatic rifles slung over their shoulders, crossed the Rio Grande and headed into the U.S., carrying oversized duffel bags.
 
“They were intercepted by the Border Patrol further down. But to this day, we don’t know what was in these bags,” one of the officials said. “Whatever the cargo, these men appeared to be ready to pick up a major fight to protect it. And that’s very unusual for a drug smuggling operation.”


A request for information from the Border Patrol still remains unanswered as well as repeated requests American citizens make of their government at all levels. The answer to all of questions continues to be either a runaround or silence.

What agenda is being served by keeping the borders open? And, who else, other than the immigrants is benefiting from leaving open all of the avenues of ingress into the United States: borders and ports?

D. C. Watson: Muslim organization overreacts to criticism (From Columbus Dispatch)


Muslim organization overreacts to criticism

Monday, February 27, 2006

I respond to the Feb. 9 Forum column by Asma Mobin-Uddin, president of the Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Mobin-Uddin wrote that, "The controversy started by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten when it published insulting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad has ignited debates throughout the world about freedom of speech and the place of respect for religious sensitivities."

Actually, isn't it true that this didn't become a controversy until Muslims began to riot in Denmark over these cartoons, claiming that Islam prohibits depicting Muhammad and all prophets?

Mobin-Uddin's organization appears to have an issue with any type of criticism of Islam by Americans and the West in general.

Her column appears to represent nothing more than a courteous attempt to tell everyone to speak freely, so long as they are not critical of Islam.

Christianity and Judaism have taken their lumps for a long time. Yet, we don't see Christians and Jews rioting over it, making death threats, committing arson and destroying everything in their paths, do we now?

These cartoons were published months ago. So why all of this rioting now?

Was additional time needed, so that what we see going on all over the world could be orchestrated?

Is this the reason for such a delayed, yet synchronized, reaction?

I offer Mobin-Uddin and her organization the opportunity to present the sura in the Quran that explicitly forbids images of Muhammad.

I also encourage readers everywhere to explore the true life of Islam's founder, Muhammad, on their own, without any outside influence or filtering.

There are Muslims living in this country because they enjoy living in freedom.
Then, there are those who are here for far less benign reasons.

D.C. WATSON

Dubai Ports — Strategic Implications

Don't miss a single word of this one. Reproduced in its entirety. Hattip: LGF

By David J. Jonsson

Contents

Creating a Global Ports Empire
Islamic Economics: Not an Exotic Addition to the English Country Garden
Dubai Ports Operating Shariah Compliant Ports
Implications of Financing with Sukuk Bonds
Impact of High Oil Prices
The Well Known Causes of Concern
Dubai Key Transfer Point for Illegal Shipments of Nuclear Components


The goal of Islamists, following in the footsteps of Muhammad is to create the Islamic kingdom of God on earth. The strategy to obtain this goal in our lifetime includes the control of the world’s energy infrastructure, the transportation systems, currency, media, elections, immigration and education. The control of the port facilities is hence a critical element. Foreign ownership, in and of itself, although important, is not as significant as the strategy and goals of the owner. In the case of DP World ownership, my hypothesis is that their plan for utilization of these strategic infrastructure resources is to accomplish the ultimate goal of world domination of the sea borne transportation infrastructure. In similar moves, a newly-formed Dubai consortium unveiled plans to bid for the development and operation of airports in China, India and the Middle East, a market they estimate to be worth $400 bln. The consortium comprises DAE Airports and six other top companies in the United Arab Emirates.

DAE Airports is a subsidiary of Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE), a recently launched holding firm that aims to invest $15 bln in manufacturing and services in the aviation sector. Its partners are real estate-based Emaar, air services supplier DNATA, aviation industry technology firm Mercator, Emirates National Oil Co, Amlak Finance and Dubai Airports Free Zone Authority (DAFZA).

In the case of DP World’s acquisition, the prices paid for acquisition cannot be justified based of strictly economic factors. The implications of Islamists creating global port control have strategic, security and religious implications.

The influential Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and popular host on the Qatari satellite channel Al-Jazeera has commented that…the conquest [of Europe] need not necessarily be by the sword… [The conquest of Mecca] was not by the sword or by war, but by a [Hudabiyya] treaty, and by peace… Perhaps we will conquer these lands without armies. We want an army of preachers and teachers who will present Islam in all languages and in all dialects… Europe will see that it suffers from materialistic culture and will seek an alternative; it will seek a way out, it will seek a lifeboat. It will find no lifesaver but the message of Islam, the message of the muezzin, who gives it religion but does not deny it this world, brings it to Heaven, but does not uproot it from Earth. Allah willing, Islam will return to Europe, and the Europeans will convert to Islam. Then they themselves will be able to be the ones to disseminate Islam in the world, more than we ancient Muslims. This is within Allah's capabilities. (See also: "Iran Reaches the Mediterranean")

Creating a Global Ports Empire

Because of the role of Sukuk Bond financing and the significant impact of ports for the potential of economic jihad we are discussing the acquisition of P&O. On November 29, 2005, Dubai, the upstart sheikdom of the United Arab Emirates, agreed to purchase the storied British shipping company, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation, for £3.3 billion ($5.7 billion), strengthens Dubai’s position as a center of commerce and transport. P&O, as it is known, got its start in the 1830s carrying mail among Portugal, Spain and England, but it later expanded to ferry passengers and goods throughout the British Empire. The company now has operations in one hundred global ports, as well as a passenger ferry service in Europe and a real estate portfolio. Citigroup and Rothschild advised P&O.

Dubai Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI) on February 14, 2006 hosted a press conference organized by Dubai University College (DUC) to announce the renewal of support for the Joint Venture for Finance and Entrepreneurship (JVFE) housed at the DUC through a financial support of US$50,000 Dollars, granted by Citigroup Foundation. This being the second grant to be given by Citigroup to the college for the second successive year.

The Dubai state government owns Dubai Ports World (DPW). DPW was formed in September 2005 from the combination of the Dubai Ports Authority and Dubai Ports International Terminals. This organization is responsible for the Shariah compliant port at Dubai and the Jebel Ali free trade zone as well as the new Port of Klang (Port Kelang, Malaysia) that will become Malaysia’s primary maritime and logistics hub. In January 2005, Dubai Ports International purchased the container company, CSX World Terminals, for $1.14 billion. Deutsche Bank underwrote the transaction. In September, Dubai merged its two state-owned port companies to create DP World, which operates ports from the Middle East to Romania and India.
International law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer–which advised CSX Corporation on the sale of its global container terminal to Dubai Ports—was also doing work for CNOOC, which made a failed bid on the U.S. oil firm Unocal takeover last year and also worked on the United Nations Oil-for-Food brouhaha.

With the acquisition of P&O, the company will have terminals in the most important areas of the world, stretching from Australia to Canada and Argentina to Eastern Russia and the heartland of America.

The $9.3 billion financing package put together by for the DP World’s takeover of P&O includes an innovative Islamic bond issue that is tied to a potential initial public offering (IPO) of the new group. The financing, which includes a $6.5 billion loan, is the largest takeover-related transaction in the Middle East to date. Barclay’s Bank and Deutsche Bank have underwritten the $6.5 billion loan. DP World plans to issue a $2.8 billion Sukuk bond that is partially convertible into shares in DP World, in the event of an IPO within the next three years. The bond will not pay regular interest, in order to comply with Shariah law. Instead, investors will be paid when the bond matures, after two years.

Sukuks avoid Islam’s ban on interest payments by returning a yield and maturity to investors at the end of the note’s tenure. Because they are traded, investors can exit before the tenure period.

On November 15, 2005, Dubai’s port operator, DP World, said it would also set up a $500 million container terminal at Qingdao in eastern China. The terminal, which will be open in 2008/2009, will have a capacity of more than two million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs). It will consist of a quay measuring 1,320 meters in length across four deep draft berths. DP World wholly owns the terminal.

Qingdao is home to the country’s third largest container port, which handles more than six million TEUs annually. The operator has a presence in the Chinese ports of Tianjin and Yantai. "This is a very important step for DP World," said Jamal Majid Al Thaniah, CEO of Dubai Ports and Free Zone Authority. "The new terminal at Qingdao is a crucial development in our strategy of investing and developing ports in the world’s growth markets, particularly in China and North Asia."

Islamic Economics: Not an Exotic Addition to the English Country Garden

Once there are Islamic financial institutions and linked transportation infrastructure, how long will it be before Muslims insist that the state and business direct all their monetary dealings with Muslims through these institutions, for example, boycotting businesses with Jewish connections en route? How long before Muslims, extending the logic of their concentration in places like Bradford and Leicester, seek to establish their own law within these areas, the germ of a state within a state? And how diverse would such a state be?
Once the international ports are controlled, how long will it be before the ports require that products shipped through the ports comply with the principles of Shariah (Islamic law)? Control of shipping and air infrastructure is a critical strategy for the progressive control of world economies.

Dubai Ports Operating Shariah Compliant Ports

Jafza International, the Dubai-based International Free Zone operator, was awarded a fifteen-year contract to develop and manage the Free Zone, which will combine with Port of Klang (Port Kelang, Malaysia) to become Malaysia’s primary maritime and logistics hub. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2006. Port Klang has a great potential of becoming a regional distribution hub for Southeast Asia with its population of 550 million people. Not only do two economic powerhouses, India and China, flank it, but it is also the crossroads of these two giants of world trade. As a predominantly Muslim country, it will be creating a second halal hub for the distribution purposes following in the path of Dubai’s port. DP world is the operator for these ports.

Implications of Financing with Sukuk Bonds

An Islamic Sukuk bond is structured by bundling leasing transactions but behaves in practice like any highly rated bond. The reason for the excitement is rather longer. Firstly, Sukuk brings a new source of funds, generally at attractive rates. And secondly, it is vital to developing deeper and more liquid Islamic capital market. There is a great deal of surplus cash sitting in Islamic financial institutions waiting to be tapped by new financial instruments.

The Sukuk products are asset-backed; stable income, tradable and Shariah-compatible trust certificates. The primary condition of issuance of Sukuk is the existence of assets on the balance sheet of the government, the monetary authority, the corporate body, the banking and financial institutions, or any entity that wants to mobilize the financial resources. The identification of suitable assets is the first, and arguably most integral step in the process of issuing Sukuk certificates. The Shariah considerations dictate that the pool of assets should not solely be comprised of debts from Islamic financial contracts (e.g. Murabahah, Istisna).

Sukuk investors have an inherent right to information on the use of their investments, the nature of the underlying assets, and other particulars that would otherwise be considered redundant in conventional investments. The Sukuk bonds for the P&O acquisition are not guaranteed by the Dubai government even though Dubai's Ports Customs and Free Zone Corporation (PCFC) is fully state-owned. The Sukuk offers an attractive yield because repayments are not dependent on cash flows of the borrowing company but from a future IPO of a strategic government asset. Under the offer, the bonds will be repaid within two years, with 70 per cent returned in cash and 30 per cent as equity shares from the planned public offering. If no IPO takes place prior to the final redemption of the Sukuks, investors would be compensated with a higher yield. According to Sohail Zubairi - Vice-President and Head of Shariah Structuring, Documentation and Product Development, Dubai Islamic Bank, the PCFC Sukuk is based on Musharaka or partnership. It is Sharikat Al-Aqd or contractual partnership where an agreement is entered between the two or more parties to combine their equity (be it in cash or kind) for the purpose of investing the same in a Shariah compliant manner for making profits, which are then distributed according to a pre-agreed ratio.

The potential net result is that, as of now, the unknown "partners" have, because of their investment inherent right to information and use of the funds. These "partners" will also be in a preferred position for the launch of a future IPO. Such an arrangement has far reaching implications for all ports controlled by DP World.

Impact of High Oil Prices

The high oil prices and dependence on imported oil is leading to massive transfers of wealth outside the United States. The people of the United States might get this purchase of P&O in perspective by pondering the extent to which the "Gulf allies" supplying the oil already own vast quantities of U.S. assets, as well as dollar assets held offshore. For Abu Dhabi alone, a 1 percentage point move in U.S. interest rates now means more than a $10 per barrel swing in the price of oil. Do the math.

The Well Known Causes of Concern

Soaring oil prices and a vibrant UAE economy are expected to further boost the private wealth of UAE citizens in the coming three years, according to recent estimates. With some 53,000 dollar millionaires, the UAE already has a greater net worth of billionaires than does the United States. UAE's private wealth sector is expected to grow by a staggering 12.5 percent per year, exceeding the average rate throughout the Gulf. It also boasts the fourth largest gas reserve and third largest oil reserves in the world (excluding the Canadian tar-sands), and is the second largest economy in the GCC after Saudi Arabia.  
According to the Iran Daily dated May 2, 2005, the Iran Chamber of Commerce Industries and Mines (ICCIM) and the Dubai-Based Iranian Businessmen Council have reportedly signed a groundbreaking cooperation agreement as part of efforts to encourage the repatriation of assets held by Iranian expatriates.

According to ISNA, the ICCIM is planning to draw up a comprehensive report on challenges facing export of goods from Iran as well as obstacles in the way of attracting investments by Iranian expatriates. It further said that the ICCIM report would be studied and followed up by the Parliament and the government.

Some 4,000 Iranian businesspersons have invested in Dubai due chiefly to poor facilities and restrictive investment regulations at home. UAE has provided foreign investors with convenient port services, banking and insurance facilities, low-cost labor, straightforward trading laws and inexpensive transportation. Lack of competition in Iranian banking system has largely benefited the tiny Persian Gulf state, which re-exports several billion dollars worth of goods to Iran per annum.
On February 18, 2002 Douglas Farah in the Washington Post published an article entitled Al Qaeda's Gold: Following Trail to Dubai. Farah traces the gold shipments to Dubai from the Taliban in Afghanistan. Quoting from this article.

Since it is exempt from international reporting requirements for financial transactions, gold is a favored commodity in laundering money from drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorist activities, U.S. officials said. In addition, Dubai, one of seven sheikhdoms that make up the United Arab Emirates, has one of the world's largest and least regulated gold markets, making it an ideal place to hide.

Dubai is also one of the region's most open banking centers and is the commercial capital of the United Arab Emirates, one of three countries that maintained diplomatic relations with the Taliban until shortly after Sept. 11. Sitting at a strategic crossroad of the Gulf, South Asia and Africa, Dubai has long been a financial hub for Islamic militant groups. Much of the $500,000 used to fund the Sept. 11 attacks came through Dubai, investigators believe.

"All roads lead to Dubai when it comes to money," said Patrick Jost, who until last year was a senior financial enforcement officer in the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. "Everyone did business there." When the U.S. bombs began pounding Taliban and Al Qaeda targets last autumn, the rush of gold and money out of Afghanistan intensified.

The Pakistani financial authorities said that $2 million to $3 million a day is usually hand-carried by couriers from Karachi to Dubai, mostly to buy gold. Late last year that amount increased significantly as money was moved out of Afghanistan, they said.

Dubai's links to suspected terrorist financing and money laundering have long been a point of contention between the United States and the United Arab Emirates. "There is no question the UAE was used by terrorists, the question is why," a U.S. official said. "It is no more lax and unregulated than many places. The answer is, Dubai is so damn convenient."

Douglas Farah amplified on his findings in "Terrorist Responses to Improved U.S. Financial Defenses" Before The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Committee On Financial Services

According to an article published by News24 on August 19, 2005, an al-Qaeda linked-group in Dubai has launched what it calls a media jihad, or holy war, to "terrorize" United States-led forces in Iraq and their families by bombarding them with e-mails and by posting gruesome photos online.

The group, calling itself the "Brigade of Media Jihad", called on its militants to "post terrifying pictures on the internet in order to terrorize the enemy", said a statement on an Islamist website whose authenticity could not be verified.
"Our objective is to undermine the morale of our enemies, dash their hopes and dreams and reveal the truth of what is happening in Iraq. The media war is an integral part of the war on the ground," said the statement.

Dubai Key Transfer Point for Illegal Shipments of Nuclear Components

Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father" of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and the man who relentlessly pursued it through clandestine means and methods for decades, finally admitted in a written statement that he oversaw its further clandestine spread to at least three other countries.

The incontrovertible truth is that Pakistan’s nuclear program in every aspect has been, and remains, under the firm and total control of its army at least since 1977; even its navy and air force have little role in it. Its clandestine nature relied on building a black market largely managed by trusted senior army (and ISI) officers and senior scientists in the nuclear establishment. Such people have undoubtedly been under a strong security and intelligence cover as much for their safety as to keep an eye on them. With a flourishing $2 billion-plus annual narcotics trade, and banks like the former Dubai-based Pakistani-owned "Outlaw Bank", the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International), and the Mehran Bank to manage the black market in narcotics, nuclear trade and tools for terrorism, there was obviously no dearth of unaccounted funds for the purpose. General Aslam Beg, the army chief in late 1980s who controlled the nuclear program, later publicly acknowledged receipt of hundreds of crores of unaccounted funds which he passed on to the ISI and President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
In a report prepared for the US Senate on the BCCI in December 1992, Senators John Kerry and Hank Brown said one of the areas that required deeper investigation was "the extent of BCCI’s involvement in Pakistan’s nuclear program. There is good reason to conclude that BCCI did finance Pakistan’s nuclear program through the BCCI Foundation in Pakistan as well as through BCCI-Canada". The Emirates government was the biggest shareholder of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, or BCCI, which was broken up in 1991 for its links with drug dealers and terrorist groups.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) set up BCCI in the 1970’s; in order to launder the heroin proceeds to finance Pakistan foreign military ventures. It used the growing network of Pakistanis, which were, as a matter of state policy, being sent by the thousands to oil-rich Gulf states as guest workers, as civil servants, as economists, as police, and as military. Through such links, BCCI was able to enlist the Emir of Abu Dhabi and top Saudis to the board of BCCI.

Another step in shutting down the supermarket would be for the United States to crack down on retransfer points such as the United Arab Emirates. Many politicians believe that there have been sufficient safeguards put in place to reduce this risk. This is a complicated task that must be monitored for a long period of time. Unfortunately, the Emirates, one American ally at the heart of the scandal, despite its role as the key transfer point in Dr. Khan’s atomic bazaar, escaped from criticism. We cannot worry only about rogue regimes without also shutting down the places that allow them to buy what they want. Next to Dubai’s main port is the Jebel Ali free trade zone, a haven for freewheeling international companies. Experts estimate that it has a handful business shops from rogue regimes like Syria and North Korea. So, the United States and the international community have to continue to put pressure on the countries such as United Arab Emirates or Malaysia that allow dangerous trade to flourish, even withholding aid and refusing arms sales.

David J. Jonsson is the author of Clash of Ideologies —The Making of the Christian and Islamic Worlds, Xulon Press 2005. His next book: Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad: The Muslim Brotherhood to the Leftist/Marxist - Islamist Alliance will we released in spring 2006. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in physics. He worked for major corporations in the United States and Japan and with multilateral agencies that brought him to more that fifteen countries with significant or majority populations who are Muslim. These exposures provided insight into the basic tenants of Islam as a political, economic and religious system. He became proficient in Islamic law (Shariah) through contract negotiation and personal encounter. David can be reached at: djonsson2000@yahoo.co.uk

Analysis: The article above shows that at its core, Dubai hasn't really changed: it is still a terrorist state. Why have few Americans heard little of Dubai and the other Emirates even though they are considered a key ally on the "War on Terror"?

The answer is that Dubai has become an economic powerhouse, a key link in the Internationalists supply chain. Businessmen in the West think about business as a way of acquiring money, prestige and power. Businessmen in the Middle East have another component formed in their business model and the use of money, prestige, and power: Islam. Will Western businessmen eventually be forced to conform with the Islamic model in order to do International business? They have made a pact with the devil and will have to pay the price for their stupidity.

Monday, February 27, 2006

"If the Jihadists Penetrate the UAE Company, They Would Infiltrate the U.S."

Walid Phares talks to MSNBC:

Walid Phares to MSNBC: "In the Dubai World ports agreement, the issue is about how successful can the Jihadists be in penetrating the company in the UAE. If they can inflitrate it, which is most likely, they will be able to inflitrate the US. If anything has to be done, it is in this regard. The rest is politics." [ Visit Website ]Feb 26, 2006, 20:20

From Al-Qaeda, With Love to Dubai and the U.S.

From the New York Post and Jihad Watch:

Al-Qaeda claims to have infiltrated UAE government.

Well, sure, ok, Al-Qaeda has infiltrated their government, but not to worry: Americans will still be in charge of port security.

February 25, 2006 -- WASHINGTON.

Al Qaeda warned the government of the United Arab Emirates more than three years ago that it "infiltrated" key government agencies, according to a disturbing document released by the U.S. military.

The warning was contained in a June 2002 message to UAE rulers, in which the terror network demanded the release of an unknown number of "mujahedeen detainees," who it said had been arrested during a government crackdown in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks....
Little is known about the origins or authorship of the message.

"You are well aware that we have infiltrated your security, censorship and monetary agencies, along with other agencies that should not be mentioned," the message said. "Therefore, we warn of the continuation of practicing . . . policies which do not serve your interest and will only cost you many problems that will place you in an embarrassing state before your citizens. Your homeland is exposed to us. There are many vital interests that will hurt you if we decided to harm them."



But all's well, I'm sure, because Bush says it's all fine. I suppose that means that all those al-Qaeda infiltrators into the Dubai government agencies are all gone now, so there will be no fear that any infiltration into our port system is possible. And besides, there's going to be that 45-day review of the deal. . .

What's that, you say?

The people reviewing it will be the same committee that approved it in the first place?

From D.C. Watson: Team CAIR, Speech Police


In August of 2003, WorldNetDaily published a column by the author of Islam Unveiled, Anis Shorrosh, who appears to have hit the spike on the head when he gave his take on how Islamists are working to overtake the United States by the year 2020.

In this column, Mr. Shorrosh laid out a twenty-step plan that he believes Islamists are following in order to undermine the foundation of this country. Lo and behold, step one entails the following: 'Terminate America's freedom of speech by replacing it with statewide and nationwide hate-crime bills.'

In the wake of these overplayed, and overreacted to cartoons of Muhammad, CAIR recently sponsored a panel to discuss the 'cartoon controversy.'

From the column: CAIR board member Mazhar Rishi: "The right to free speech is not absolute," Rishi said. "It does not give a right to defame Prophet Muhammad or any other "religious figure."

If we were all in the Middle East, where they lop off your head for speaking out of turn, this would likely be true. But, no matter how badly some of these Muslim groups want America to be the Middle East, (ie all Islamic), it simply is not. See, America has these little documents called the 'United States Constitution' and the 'Bill of Rights'. Perhaps CAIR's Mr. Rishi should stop talking, and begin reading them. On second thought, why don't we review them right here?

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Amendment 1: 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.'

I have appreciated the opportunity to study the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. In these readings, I was unable to find it written anywhere that freedom of speech doesn't apply if it offends the brittle feelings of Muslims. Actually, the words Islam, Muslim, Mosque, and Muhammad aren't found anywhere in these documents.

From the column: 'During their introductory speeches, several panelists denounced the cartoons as slanderous while discussing limitations on free speech.'

Since the 'Speech Police' have taken it upon themselves to offer their unsolicited input on this issue, and since these cartoons have been described as 'slanderous', I felt that it might be beneficial to define a few terms so that these panelists and Islamic pillars of the community can better understand them.

Libel: A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damage a person's reputation.

Slander: Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.

Defamation: Communication to third parties of false statements about a person that injure the reputation of or deter others from associating with that person.

Threat: An expression of an intention to inflict pain, injury, evil, or punishment.

Revisiting the Muhammad cartoon row, which of these cartoons were libelous, slanderous, defamatory, or threatening?

CAIR can roll out all the 'Explore the life of Muhammad' campaigns they like. The fact remains that Muhammad's legacy is not as peaceful, charitable, and morally sound as the promoters of Islam like CAIR would like everyone to believe.

Also from the column: 'Despite the widespread outrage the cartoons have caused among some groups, panelists and audience members agreed that there is a role for dialogue and tolerance in rebuilding burned bridges.'

With all of these 'burned bridges', and flags, and cars, and embassies, and disabled people, when would all of these rioting Muslims around the world have time for something as civil as dialogue?


What would this 'dialogue' consist of anyway? Muslim Imams and 'civil rights' organizations telling the rest of the world that their brethren is incapable of self control, so it is best not to upset them?

"We as Americans must show tolerance to all faiths," Rishi said.

Yes. And we do, so long as that 'faith' can prove that it isn't out to convert the world to itself by way of subversion, taqiyya, the bomb belt, and the sword.

Westerners, this is a deranged mindset on display around the world. One that will not be changed, so it must instead be challenged and ridiculed. Keep speaking freely, writing freely, singing freely, and drawing cartoons freely. If the Islamists can't deal with it, then they can find more suitable living conditions somewhere else.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Just Say "No" to DPW Forty-five Days From Now

Lemme see: the White House is announcing that Dubai Ports World is requesting a 45-day delay in the purchase of the contract to operate some of our most important ports.

Here's surely what happened: "Hey, DPW, I'm catchin' hell over here; you guys gotta help me out - you request a delay, and it'll all blow over. You know what short attention spans they have. . . and then we can go ahead, no problem! "

Then all will be peaceful and quiet, and we'll relax for a few years, maybe two, five, seven. . . then some guys in a Dubai Ports World uniform will sidle up and, just as happens with terrorists disguised as police, military, and ambulance workers in Iraq, or oil refinery people in Saudi Arabia, our ports will go "boom."

Conclusion:

1) No points of entry into the United States should ever be under any sort of control of a foreign government.

2) Dubai Ports World is a government-owned company, and a de facto branch of the government of Dubai.

3) Dubai is a Muslim nation, holding the very same notions as the rest of the Islamic world - conquer the infidel, convert this into a Muslim planet. That is their "prime directive," and ultimately, everything they do follows that directive.

4) Of necessity, port management must interface with the people responsible for security - it not only stands to reason, but it was explicitly stated when Michael Moore (no joke), a senior vice president of DPW, was specifically asked whether DPW would have to be familiar with security measures in the ports. "Of course!" was his immediate answer.

Friends, LET'S NOT LET THIS ISSUE FADE AWAY! LET'S KEEP IT GOING FOR HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES TO DEFEAT IT UTTERLY!

Saturday, February 25, 2006

California, Liberalism, and Lethal Injections


At Sixth Column and 6th Column Against Jihad, our only opposition to the death penalty comes from possible errors of knowledge and immorality. One of the greatest of tragedies comes from the discovery that someone put to death was later determined absolutely to be innocent. Mistakes and earlier limitations in technology must make us think many more times than twice about killing labelled as "criminal." Worse yet, there are too many cases of prosecutorial moral terpitude that have resulted in official convictions of persons later determined to be entirely innocent.

Some cases go far beyond any possible doubt, and this California case of Michael Morales seems to be one. Yet, his date with death has been postponed. Errors of knowledge discovered? No. Moral transgressions discovered? No.

In the case of Morales, California "liberal epistemology' prevailed with the notion tha--possibly, perhaps, maybe--the lethal injections might hurt, and the injectee might "suffer."

Mona Charen sums up the Morales morass:

Townhall.com :: Columns :: Lethal injection blues by Mona Charen - Feb 24, 2006

[Read Mona Charen's article for grisly details of the murder.]

Opponents of the death penalty have been rummaging through their bag of tricks and come up with the theory that lethal injection amounts to "cruel" punishment. California had been using a three-drug cocktail to execute criminals. The first, a barbiturate, induces unconsciousness. The other drugs paralyze the muscles and stop the heart. The drugs typically result in death within about seven minutes. Death penalty opponents argue that if the barbiturate for some reason fails to sedate the criminal, he might experience pain when the other drugs are administered yet be unable to gesture or signal distress due to the paralyzing nature of the other drugs.

California opted to seek the services of anesthesiologists but ran into a brick wall.

(Emphases mine)



Before retiring from military service, I practiced as a board-certified anesthesiologist. My comments come from the knowledge and experience I accrued.

First, no anesthesiologist in his right mind in litigious California would participate, as these bureaucrats want, in killing Morales. Aside from having none of organized medicine's support, these anesthesiologists would have to flee America in the dead of night to have another moment of peace in their lives. Journalists and trial lawyers would make their lives hell. Besides, the most important fact is that killing Morales or anyone else is a state function, and not a medical function. These anesthesiologists from all over California were correct in refusing.

But now to the nutsy liberal thinking that sprung Morales from the lethal injections. The three lethal injection medications are thiopental sodium, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. While I do not know the exact doses of the latter two, I can say about all three that they are super doses, enough to kill a platoon of men.

Television news cited the thiopental sodium dose as being 5 grams. That is 5000 milligrams. The standard anesthetic induction dose is well under 500 milligrams. Without vital functions support, 5000 milligrams is a lethal dose, producing unconsciousness in one circulation time of some 9 seconds or slightly longer. FIVE GRAMS OF PENTOTHAL SODIUM CANNOT FAIL TO PRODUCE TOTAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS AND FOR A PERIOD LONG ENOUGH TO CAUSE HYPOXIC DEATH.

Unconsciousness obliviates the perception of pain. Right behind the thiopental sodium comes pancuronium bromide which is a very long curare-like neuromuscular paralyzing agent. Among other muscles it paralyzes is the diaphragm, that essential-to-respiration muscle, for a very long time, way beyond surviving without support. Finally, potassium chloride produces fatal rhythm disturbances in the heart. All of these take a few minutes to produce a hypoxic death in a profoundly unconscious person. It is entirely irrelevant in which order the drugs are given--all are lethal doses of each.

Where is the pain? If there is any at all, it is with the first few milliliters of the thiopental sodium injection. Some persons undergoing anesthesia and surgery have more sensitive vein linings, and they sense a slight sting with the initial injection. A few milliliters of a local anesthetic such as lidocaine just ahead of the pentothal sodium obviates that. Can someone still be conscious after 5000 milligrams of thiopental sodium? Absolutely not, ever!

So, where in reality comes the concern for pain and suffering? It does not come from reality because it cannot. Such concern can come from just one place: defective liberal thinking. Yes, "defective liberal thinking" is a redundancy.

"Inside the Forbidden Fortress"

With thanks to the Avenging Apostate and Pedestrian Infidel , here is a glimpse of what it is like for a Muslim apostate to live among believing, practicing Muslims, and the efforts he must go to to conceal his disagreement with Islam. He gives an enlightening story of the differences in attitudes between the purpose of a "house of worship" in Islam vis a vis in so many other belief systems in the world.


"Inside the Forbidden Fortress"


Even though I am an apostate, in secret, I still have to pretend I am a Moslem by going to the mosque, praying, and reading the Koran. I am still living with my intensely Moslem family and they, of course, don’t know I have converted out of Islam. So I have to keep up the appearance of being devoutly Moslem myself, no matter how much I hate it. So, during the last Ramadan, I was reading the Koran, in the mosque, pretending as usual--since it was the Ramadan so there was no escaping for me anyway.

Now, I love to chew Extra—it’s my favorite gum. And I always chew it during the day, no matter where I am, even in the mosque. I wasn’t even aware of my gum-chewing, but someone else close by apparently was. An Arab approached me, and told me, "reading the Koran while chewing gum is sinful, you might not be able to pronounce the words in the Koran perfectly." I replied, "I am not reading it out loud anyway, so it doesn’t matter." Not backing down one bit, the arrogant Arab said, "it does." And the other Moslems around me, including my father, quickly ganged up on me and supported my opponent; they even wanted me to throw away my precious gum … At that point, I promptly stopped 'reading' the Koran and walked out of the mosque.You might be able to guess what happened after I walked out. My father was infuriated with me, and he lectured me angrily, at length, on how important it was for me to avoid doing something like that ever again. I got his point.

Many out there in the blogosphere might not know what goes on inside the mosque, what the environment is like in such places and what do people do in there, apart from praying.Well, to start off, mosques were actually not just places of worship but also the places for Moslems to gather for any reason deemed necessary. Mosques are the place where Moslems used to gather not just to pray, but to listen to Mohammed (or another appropriate devout follower of Muhammed) harang the faithful, prepare for battles/wars, and most importantly, to store weapons and captured booty.If in the event a Moslem-controlled settlement or town was ever assaulted by a non Moslem force, the mosque would be the location most important for the infidels to capture. The mosques of yesteryear (and this is still true to this day in many places) are literally strongholds, fortresses designed to resist attack. Whoever controls the mosque controls in fact the surrounding area-- something the coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq hopefully are already aware of.

Thusly, mosques are typically a stoutly-built complex of rooms, which are used for housing any required jihadists to defend the structure, as well as any required supplies to resist/endure a siege. During less violent times, this space was given over to the local mullah, his wives, children, slaves and concubines, and other booty captured from the infidels in past battles.Today, in some places, mosques are not used for all these purposes. But in many parts of the world (namely the Middle East and other places in the Islamic world) the mosque still plays an important role.

The mosque is not just a hall; it is ‘the Pentagon’ where Moslems plot and plan the ongoing jihad against the non Moslems. If it sounds strange and weird to non Moslems, it really is—you just have to step inside to feel it.Most mosques are surrounded by high fences and/or walls, which may be topped off with spikes or barbed wire. Not exactly welcoming, is it? Passing through the gates of a typical mosque, you first enter a courtyard which is used whenever the prayer hall of the mosque is occupied. Moslems have to pray, so they don’t mind standing outside to pray if need be. After all, if Moslems don’t pray, Allah isn’t happy and Moslems believe that one must always follow Allah, no matter how much pain and trouble that involves. The more suffering undertaken for Allah, the happier he is with you.

When you enter the mosque's main hall (that’s the place you get to right after the courtyard, bathrooms, toilets and residential rooms are usually in the back or on the side) you see a lot of people in there. Some are standing, some are sitting, some are prostrating, some are bowing, a couple of people might be talking to each other (all this happens after they are done with the normal prayer procedures and the mullah isn’t leading anymore), but that’s not a normal practice.

Being in a mosque gives me an odd feeling inside that’s tough to put into words. Every mosque I've been in (and that's a fair number) has a feeling of submission about it. By submission, I mean that everyone in this place has had their identity essentially destroyed by the straitjacket that is Islam. It is all quiet, but it isn't the peaceful sort of quiet. There is no peace—there is, rather, a palapble sense of fear.

Even today, it seems people are afraid of Mohammed, like he might come back from hell and punish anyone that doesn't follow his teachings. Muslims in a mosque don’t dare do anything that would make him mad--they’re still bowing down to his will and command. Mo still has authority and power over all these people, and a hold over his minions that is difficult for non Moslems to understand. But nevertheless, it is real and must be reckoned with.

It is only when you enter a mosque do you understand fully why they are so crazy about their religion, why they want it to dominate, why they’d do anything for it. Mohammed is still there in every mosque and the old memories are refreshed everyday. The only thing you can hear clearly is the words being recited from the Koran and nothing else. You look around, you see people focusing on just one thing, Islam. Their respect for Mohammed, their will to sacrifice for Islam, it multiplies many folds when they come together in the mosque, and they carry that feeling with them when they walk out back into the world.

If you ever get the chance of hearing a mullah, do listen to him closely, if you can understand. You will surely hear words like ‘May Allah destroy the infidels and give their possessions to us’, especially on Fridays. I've heard such things many times in a mosque, more times than I can count. In some parts of the world that prayer is actually written on the front wall of the mosque. There used to be a custom when the mullah used to give the sermon with a sword in his hand. Many carry that tradition till this day, but some have toned it down by holding a cane instead of a sword. Cane or sword, it still symbolizes the absolute jihadist nature of Islam.

The words ‘Islam is a religion of peace, harmony and tolerance’ immediately lose all meaning upon entering a mosque. In any mosque, there is no peace, there is no harmony and there is no tolerance for anything but Moslems and Islam. The Moslems whom you may have met an hour before and who said they are against the jihadis and what they’re doing, those very Moslems shout out loud, ‘death to infidels’ in their neighborhood mosques. Not just once or twice, but as a matter of course. The very Moslem who tells you, ‘you have a beautiful son, God bless him’ will go to the mosque and pray for the same ‘son’ to be killed so that the religion of his Allah can take over.

Understanding what goes on inside the mosque, and what a mosque is all about, is critical to understanding what Islam is all about. It's just as important as understanding the Koran and Hadiths. The typical mosque has a power over Moslems that Osama Bin Laden or Zarqawi could ever hope to have, that no mullah could ever have. A mosque is the house of Allah, a sacred place, where hope of victory for Moslems is always reborn. It gives them power, and the delusion that their twisted version of 'paradise', with all the virgins and palaces, is real and will be realized by all who fight the unbelievers.

The mosque symbolizes the strength of Islam; the mosque is a physical and spiritual fortress that Moslems are sure no kuffir could ever conquer.

posted by Avenging Apostate at 7:07 AM on Feb 25 2006

THE THANKS WE GET


We in the USA get a steady diet from Islamists and the journalistic Left about how much Muslims hate us. Michelle Malkin has a brilliant piece, with photograph, showing one of the most prominent of Islamist characteristics: Ingratitude. This follows one of their many cognitive hangups: Context dropping.



With great thanks to Michelle Malkin.




THE THANKS WE GET
By Michelle Malkin, February 25, 2006,
09:15 AM


Check this out:



Kashmiri earthquake survivors set fire to a puppet representing U.S. President George W. Bush during a protest against the publication of cartoons and caricatures depicting Prophet Mohammad, in the earthquake-devastated city of Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir February 24, 2006. REUTERS/Thierry Roge




That's the kind of thanks we get for this:


...U.S. Central Command has led a 63-nation relief effort in Pakistan since Oct. 10, 2005, which includes food, medical care, transportation and other types of post-disaster support.


More than 1,200 U.S. military members and 25 helicopters had been deployed to Pakistan at the peak of the relief mission, Whitman said.


About 650 U.S. service members in Pakistan continue to provide aviation, medical and engineering assistance in earthquake-affected areas, he said. And 12 U.S. CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopters continue to fly disaster relief missions in Pakistan.


To date, U.S. military aviators have flown more than 4,000 missions, delivered more than 11,000 tons of supplies, and transported more than 18,000 people as part of earthquake relief operations in Pakistan, Whitman said.


The U.S. also is donating about $6 million worth of medical, engineering and refueling equipment to the Pakistani government, Whitman said.


That assistance includes more than $3 million worth of medical equipment that's been used in the relief effort, he said, to include a mobile surgical hospital, anesthesia apparatus, ventilators and X-ray equipment."



Now, with that in mind, Bush says he is not stopping "humanitarian aid" to the "Palestinians," and their brand, spanking new HAMAS (read: Iran) government. For that matter, billions keep flowing from the U. S. Treasury to various sink holes of Islamia. What we are getting in Kashmir for being so helpful is the same we have gotten always from Islamia and always will.

Let them stew in their own juices, without any help of any kind from us. Reality will make them shape up or self-destruct.

Another Strange and Interesting Port Story

The Internationalists are driving the world today. The struggle for commercial supremacy has been going on for centuries.

Here is an interesting port story involving the country of Denmark. Once again I tip my hat to Gates of Vienna. Dymphna, a contributor to the blog, noted many interesting features about involvement of Danish company Maersk at the Iraqi port of Khor az-Zubayr. It seems that foreign operations of port facilities is rampant all over the world.

The story is of great interest because of today's port controversy. However, as nations and corporations act in their own interest, especially during the chaos of war. Notice that Maersk is tied closely to the Danish government and to the Danish royal family as is the Dubai Ports World tied to the royal family of Dubai.

Could it be that the Cartoon controversy is some how tied to this action? That would be interesting.

Friday, February 24, 2006

Taqiyya the Movie

Hattip: Junkyardblog, February 9, 2006 via Michelle Malkin.

This is an animated version - check it out.

Quicktime Version.

WMV Version.

Is Bush Guilty of Slight of Hand on Port Controversy?

Gates of Vienna's Baron Bodissey has an interesting take on the reasons why President Bush, "against the tide of his party and most of his conservative base, was digging in so hard on the UAE-ports deal." He quotes from Joshua Pundit, a poster on his site , who has his own blog. (Isn't it great how we all put our heads together!) Anyway, the Baron, with help from other contributors, believes that there's slight of hand going, meaning strategic deal making with other governments:

This bloc appears to consist of Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Bahrein and Qatar. Notice that with the exception of Iraq, all of them are Arab autocracies, and all surround Iran, Syria, and the Palestinian Authority. Another point to note is that except for Iraq, all of them are predominantly Sunni.



Who are they up against in the Middle East? According to the Baron: Iran. Is someone preparing an action against Iran?

There’s ample evidence that Iran is funding, encouraging, and directing Sunni Islamist terror groups throughout the Middle East and Europe, and not just the Shiite ones like Hezbollah. All of this serves the same purpose: to create mayhem, bloodshed, and chaos in order to usher in the End of Days and prepare for the return of the Twelfth Imam.


Very possible.

Did UAE Save Bin Laden?

Troubling, very troubling:

Before President Bush gets anywhere near casting his first veto to ensure that the government of the United Arab Emirates can manage elements of six U.S. ports, someone ought to put before him pages 137-139 of “The 9/11 Commission Report.”

If Bush doesn’t then cancel the UAE port deal, Congress must demand testimony from every person named in those pages and the footnotes. That includes former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet; former CIA Deputy Director for Operations James Pavitt; former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger; Gen. Hugh Shelton, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Maj. Gen. John Maher, Shelton’s vice director of operations; Gary Schroen, the CIA field officer tracking Bin Laden; “Mike,” the pseudonym the 9/11 Commission gave the U.S.’s Osama bin Laden unit chief; and, most importantly, Richard Clarke, Berger’s assistant for counter-terrorism.
Tipped Off

The story the commission tells is that Clarke made a call to a high-ranking UAE official that may have inadvertently saved bin Laden from a U.S. missile strike. The commission’s reporting strongly suggests someone in the UAE government tipped off someone in Afghanistan, protecting bin Laden.

In early 1999, the Clinton Administration wanted to fire missiles at bin Laden without risking civilian casualties. Bin Laden played into our hands. Intelligence reports from Afghan “tribals” indicated he was frequenting a small hunting camp adjacent to a larger camp outside Kandahar, Afghanistan. Here U.S. missiles could score a clean kill.
But then officials from the UAE got in the way. The commission said:

“On February 8, the military began to ready itself for a possible strike. The next day, national technical intelligence confirmed the location and description of the larger camp and showed the nearby presence of an official aircraft of the United Arab Emirates. But the location of Bin Laden’s quarters could not be pinned down so precisely. … According to reporting from the tribals, bin Laden regularly went from his adjacent camp to the larger camp where he visited the Emiratis. The tribals expected him to be at the hunting camp for such a visit at least until midmorning on February 11. Clarke wrote to Berger’s deputy on February 10 that the military was then doing targeting work to hit the main camp with cruise missiles and should be in position to strike the following morning. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert appears to have been briefed on the situation.

“No strike was launched. By February 12 bin Laden had apparently moved on, and the immediate strike plans became moot. According to CIA and Defense officials, policymakers were concerned about the danger that a strike would kill an Emirati prince or other senior officials who might be with bin Laden or close by. Clarke told us the strike was called off after consultations with Director Tenet because the intelligence was dubious, and it seemed to Clarke as if the CIA was presenting an option to attack America’s best counterterrorism ally in the Gulf. The lead CIA official in the field, Gary Schroen, felt that the intelligence reporting in this case was very reliable. The bin Laden unit chief, ‘Mike,’ agreed. Schroen believes today that this was a lost opportunity to kill bin Laden before 9/11.

“Even after bin Laden’s departure from the area, CIA officers hoped he might return, seeing the camp as a magnet that could draw him for as long as it was still set up. The military maintained readiness for another strike opportunity. On March 7, 1999, Clarke called a UAE official to express his concerns about possible associations between Emirati officials and bin Laden. Clarke later wrote in a memorandum of this conversation that the call had been approved at an interagency meeting and cleared with the CIA. When the former bin Laden unit chief found out about Clarke’s call, he questioned CIA officials, who denied having given such a clearance. Imagery confirmed that less than a week after Clarke’s phone call the camp was hurriedly dismantled, and the site was deserted. CIA officers, including Deputy Director for Operations Pavitt, were irate. ‘Mike’ thought the dismantling of the camp erased a possible site for targeting bin Laden.”

Then Clarke visited the UAE.

Read the rest...

Loose lips sink ship and all that. For this reason we need to keep sensitive information close to vest. The adage is true. A secret ceases to be a secret if more than one person knows. Sensitive information should be disseminated to as few as possible. Which brings me to another troubling item: why are 90% of our nation's port terminals owned by foreigners? This might mean that sensitive port information is impossible to keep secret.

Troubling, very, very troubling

Illegal Immigrant Allies Threaten Children of Border Security Group

Should illegal immigrants get jobs that American will do if given a chance? Casa de Maryland doesn't think so and is using intimidation against children to stop the Minutemen from monitoring day labor centers in the Washington DC area.

An article published yesterday by the Sean Sands of Maryland Community Newspapers Online quoted Casa de Maryland’s Executive Director Gustavo Torres saying “We are going to picket their houses, and the schools of their kids and go to their work. If they are going to do this to us, we are going to respond in the same way, to let people know their neighbors are extremists, that they are anti-immigrant. They are going to hear from us.”

The Minutemen have been photographing contractors picking up illegal aliens for work at the Wheaton day laborer center in Maryland spurring conflict with the illegal immigrant supporters.

Casa de Maryland, according to their own website, was “designed to address the multiple conditions of poverty and disenfranchisement that control the lives of many Latino immigrants and refugees“ and “achieves its goals through programs in areas such as leadership, organizing, women's empowerment, tenant support, employment, legal services, health, education, social services, and immigration assistance.”


What the the Minutemen do isn't illegal; what the Casa de Maryland does could be. Isn't aiding and abetting lawbreakers a crime? Aren't illegal immigrants in fact criminals? And they are using taxpayer dollars to help illegals break the law and at the same time they are threatening children.

Should we have compassion on some immigrants that we invite to come here? Yes we should. Should we allow all immigrants that want to come here waltz in anytime they feel like it to strain social services and take jobs that Americans do want? This s a definite no.

Another definite "no" should be directed toward Casa de Maryland that is using tax-payer dollars to break the law. They and their thuggish behavior should go.

Adopt Our Values or Go Home, Foreign-Born Muslims Told -- 02/24/2006


John Howard and Peter Costello for President and Vice-President, or should it be Vice-President and President?


Adopt Our Values or Go Home, Foreign-Born Muslims Told -- 02/24/2006, By Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com International Editor, February 24, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - Australian Muslims already unhappy with Prime Minister John Howard's criticism about Islamic radicalism are bristling at even tougher comments from the man likely to succeed him, who says any Muslim immigrant who can't accept Australian values should leave.

Anyone wanting to live under Islamic law (shari'a) might feel more comfortable living in countries where it is applied, such as Saudi Arabia or Iran, federal Treasurer Peter Costello said in an address to the Sydney Institute, a think tank.

In a pledge of allegiance, immigrants taking on Australian citizenship declare: "I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect and whose laws I will uphold and obey."

Costello said that anyone "who does not acknowledge the supremacy of civil law laid down by democratic processes cannot truthfully take the pledge of allegiance. As such they do not meet the pre-condition for citizenship."

Any Muslim planning to immigrate to Australia should first consider its values.

"Before entering a mosque visitors are asked to take off their shoes," Costello said. "This is a sign of respect. If you have a strong objection to walking in your socks don't enter the mosque.

"Before becoming an Australian you will be asked to subscribe to certain values. If you have strong objection to those values, don't come to Australia."

The debate in Australia over Islam and its more radical adherents has been picking up steadily since 9/11, becoming more urgent after 88 Australians were killed when Islamists bombed an Indonesian tourist resort in 2002, and focusing increasingly on homegrown extremists after last July's London bombings, carried out by British-born Muslims.

Costello, who is widely expected to take over the leadership of Howard's conservative Liberal party within the next couple of years, said anyone applying for citizenship who rejects the notion of living under a democratic legislature and obeying the laws it makes, poses a threat to the rights and liberties of others, and should be refused citizenship.

If foreign-born Muslims who have already become Australian citizens, having not been able honestly to take the citizenship pledge, they should be stripped of their Australian nationality if they also have citizenship of some other country.

In cases where Muslims were born in Australia and did not have dual citizenship, there was a difficulty.

"In these cases we have on our hands citizens who are apparently so alienated that they do not support what their own country stands for. Such alienation could become a threat to the rights and liberties of others."

Costello said for such Muslims it was important that the government engage respected leaders for help in explaining Australian values.

"Ultimately, however, it is important that they know that there is only one law and it is going to be enforced whether they acknowledge its legitimacy or not."

Costello also made a point of saying that among Australian values were tolerance of difference and the protection of the rights and liberties of all.

While he did not like artworks mocking Christianity, galleries that displayed them "should be able to practice their offensive taste without fear of violence or a riot."

Muslims, too, must recognize that their opposition to newspapers publishing pictures depicting Mohammed does not justify violence.

'Raving about jihad'

Costello's comments come amid a debate over earlier ones by Howard, who criticized a radical minority of Muslims whom he said "rave on about jihad" and hold "extreme attitudes" towards women.

Six million migrants have made Australia home since World War II -- a number comprising almost one-third of the country's current population. But Howard said Australia had never before had to deal with newcomers bent on overturning its core beliefs and values.

"It is not a problem that we've ever faced with other immigrant communities, who become easily absorbed by Australia's mainstream."

Publication of the comments this week provoked outrage from Muslim representatives, who called them "offensive and ignorant" and said they were feeding "Islamophobia."

Similar reaction met Costello's speech.

Muslims comprise only around 300,000 of Australia's 20 million people, although in the five years leading up to a census in 2001, the Muslim population increased by 40 percent, compared to growth of 5.7 percent of the Australian population as a whole, according to government statistics.

As in other Western countries, most Muslims are considered moderate, but vocal clerics emerge from time to time to espouse extremist views.

Twenty-four Muslims have been prosecuted under anti-terrorism laws introduced since 9/11. Only one has been convicted to date, a British-born convert to Islam jailed for nine years for plotting with al-Qaeda to bomb Israel's embassy in Canberra.

Mainstream Muslim organizations speak out against terror, while condemning the policies which the governments of Australia, the U.S. and other allies say are aimed at combating terrorism.

Spokesmen also claim that Australia's military role in Iraq and Afghanistan and its support for Israel are fueling radical sentiment among Australian Muslims.

See related story:
'Shari'a Law Has No Place Here' (Feb. 24, 2006)

Subscribe to the free CNSNews.com daily E-Brief.

Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.

Copyright 1998-2006 Cybercast News Service

The Press Is Silent. So what Gives?

Hattip: LGF

Isn't the press supposed to print the news? Well, they aren't.

When telling a story and giving the facts, the press normally gives examples so that the public can decide for themselves. In the case of the cartoons that caused Cartoon Rage all over Europe and in other parts of the world, they have left it all the imagination, telling about what the cartoons were like. This would be similar to explaining the physical attributes to Marilyn Monroe without printing her picture. But why would anyone do that?

The press is afraid. They are afraid of becoming the news. They are so afriad that editors are not staunchly refusing to publish the cartoons and journalists that do so now are being punished by their editors, or, as in the case of the University of Illinois' student newspaper, by the university president. Why, because Muslims complained which is their right. So what.

We've lost more than free speech.

despite these cartoons being huge news, not one major paper has reprinted them. Not the fearless Washington Post, not the thorough Wall Street Journal, not any major newspaper of record that I know of. Nor have any of the major networks shown them, as far as I know.

So here's where we are: we have a first amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech and separation of church and state. That means so-called artists can make art of a crucifix soaking in urine and of holy Christian images made of animal dung and no one can stop them. That means bookstores of brick and on-line can sell Mein Kampf and the vilest writings of Hitler's lackeys. These horrible excrescences are protected and the media screams bloody murder if anyone tries to protect the sacred in Christianity and Judaism from the most putrid attacks.

But the media censors itself about the cartoons mocking the prophet of a religion many of whose adherents want to destroy our country and our way of life. We will fight to the death to protect the artists who create Piss Christ, but we'll also fight to the death to protect the feelings of the people who hate us and kill our children. We have surrendered our free expression to people who are at war with us. They kill us in the name of a religion and we bow and scrape to that religion while letting people dump on Christianity and Judaism.

There's a word for this, beyond the words Stockholm Syndrome and the words Political Correctness. The word is cowardice. Or maybe an even shorter word: defeat. Wake up, America. This is serious.


They are afraid of becoming the news because in other parts of the world, newspaper plants and offices have been burned and journalists assaulted, kidnapped, or murdered. The embassies of some countries were burned and employees of business concerns that had nothing to do with the publication have been murdered. Of course we don't what that to happen here, no, no!!!

What have we lost? We don't mind the murder of freedom of speech and freedom of the press because we are afraid of Muslim bullies that are created mayhem in Europe for months over variety of issues. Free speech was defeated there and, it seems that the riots heard 'round the world killed free speech here too. They got what they wanted...it's called dhimmitude.

As most Americans are Christians, let's look at the plight of Christian dhimmis that existed in the recent past and now in 2006:

In our times dhimmis are found among the residues of indigenous populations of countries that were Islamized during a millenium of Muslim conquests: Christians, Hindus, and a scattering of Jews and Zoroastrians. Christians would seem to be the most familiar group, closer to Westerners by proximity, culture, religion, and subject to the same status under Islam as the Jews, the other ahl al-Khitab, "people of the Book" — the Bible. But this impression is often deceiving as the reassuring appearance of similarity is misleading.

The behavior of Christian dhimmis varies according to the country, the social category, and their association with the ruling classes as, for example, their participation in the Iraqi or Syrian Baath parties or the PLO, a militarist organization engaged in the Arab jihad against Israel. Christian dhimmis appointed to important positions by Muslim rulers have often served as agents between the Arab world and strategic centers in the West: churches, governments, industries, universities, media, etc.

Because Christian dhimmi populations are on the whole highly skilled and better educated than the surrounding population, they often suffer from malicious jealousy coupled with the traditional anti-Christian prejudices of the Umma. The persistence of Christianity in Muslim environments testifies to qualities of endurance and adaptability. Yet survival in dhimmitude had its price: the dhimmi pathology.

Briefly summarized, Christian attitudes can be classified in three categories: active resistance, passive resistance, and collaboration. These three attitudes are manifest within one and the same population, but certain geographical or historical situations favor one or another.


How do these people survive under Islam?

ACTIVE RESISTANCE
Recent examples of active resistance are noteworthy. The repression of the Christian rebellion against the establishment of sharia in the Sudan in 1983 caused more than two million dead and over four million displaced. Lebanese Christians fought against the Islamization of their country during the civil war that began in 1975. At the dawn of the 20th century, Armenian and Assyrian Christians were punished by genocide for their attempts at independence. In the present day, active Christian resistance against Islamization in Indonesia, Nigeria, and other African countries is manifest in the massacre of Christian civilians, the burning of villages, the flight of populations. Westerners, and especially Europeans, turn a deaf ear to the sufferings of Christians who actively resist Islamization, frequently blaming them for their own misfortunes.

PASSIVE RESISTANCE
Examples of passive resistance can be found in Egypt, Pakistan, and Iran. Egyptian Christians denounce the violence of which they are victims and strive to protect their dignity, reduce legal and professional discrimination, and secure basic rights such as permission to build or renovate churches. Here again, the West prefers to ignore their dire situation or underplay it with episodic attention. Christians engaged in active or passive resistance exhaust their meager resources in vain efforts to alert their fellow Christians and enlist their help.

COLLABORATIONIST CHRISTIANS
Collaborators are recruited among Christians who identify themselves as Arabs. This type of collaboration, which caused endless fratricidal battles over the centuries, has been denounced by dhimmis struggling for centuries against an Islamic domination that progressed with the help of Christians.

Christian collaborationism has taken different forms in the course of history, according to circumstances and political opportunity. It is expressed today in a two-pronged political and theological project. The political project is implemented in a trans-Mediterranean fusion, with the construction of an economic, cultural, political, geographical entity composed of the European Union and Arab and African countries. This policy of association and integration, active in all international forums, works to counterbalance American policy, under cover of a notion of "international legitimacy," albeit a legitimacy of sanguinary totalitarian Arab dictators.

Collaborationist Christian dhimmis function as the intellectual and economic mechanism of this project because they belong to both worlds. Their role is to invent the idyllic Islamic-Christian past that upholds the political construction of a future Eurabia and to dissimulate the anti-Christian foundations of Islamic doctrine and history.

Dhimmi collaboration on the theological level is oriented in two directions: toward Christianity and toward Islam. It finds its most radical expression in the "Palestinian Liberation Theology," meaning nothing less than the liberation of Christianity from its Jewish matrix. The spiritual center of this theology is the al-Liqa institute in Jerusalem, created in 1983 for the study of the Muslim and Christian heritage in the Holy Land. This strongly politicized institute, sponsored by international Christian organizations, specializes in disseminating anti-Israeli propaganda through its international religious and media channels.


There is more. Please read the rest.

How should we categorize the press that is silent on this issue yet shrilly expounds every pro-Palestinian, pro-Muslim, pro-Islamic issue? Are they active, passive, or collaborative? I think the answer is obvious.

The Quislings of Eurabia

Quisling - a traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country.

ORIGIN World War II: from the name of Major Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), the Norwegian army officer and diplomat who ruled Norway on behalf of the German occupying forces 1940-45.

From "The Brussels Journal"

The fate of the imprisoned journalists, who now linger in cells in Islamic countries for taking the brave decision to show the public what the cartoons are really like, should be a matter for concern amongst their colleagues around the globe. The resounding silence on the part of the latter, however, proves that most journalists are either downright cowards or the Quislings of anti-Western forces. This reminds me of the infamous Brussels journalist Philippe Servaty who last summer deliberately ruined the lives of more than eighty unfortunate Moroccan women (whom he had each wooed, promised to marry and take with him to Belgium) by posting nude pictures of them on the internet. While Servaty walks free, the women in Morocco were killed by their disgraced families, committed suicide or were locked up as whores in Moroccan jails. Today many of these women are still in prison, serving their one-year sentence. I addressed some of the largest and most powerful international women’s organizations and asked them to launch campaigns for their unfortunate sisters in Morocco – to no avail. The feminists are only interested in their own abortion rights, not in the plight of Muslim women in jail.

It is interesting to compare the behaviour of the Quisling governments of Sweden and Finland to that of the Netherlands. Today (Tuesday) Dutch foreign minister Ben Bot sharply rebuked EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana for the way in which the latter grovelled at the feet of radical Muslim regimes last week, when on a tour of Arab nations Mr Solana, a Spanish Socialist, declared that Europe shared the “anguish” of “offended” Muslims over the Danish cartoons. The Dutch Secretary for European Affairs, Atzo Nicolai, is quoted in today’s De Telegraaf, the largest paper of the Netherlands, about Mr Solana: “He has toured around in order to offer apologies. On behalf of whom, I ask. You and me? We did not draw those cartoons.”

Despite its brave stance, however, the Dutch also have their Quislings. Last month the authorities in Amsterdam prohibited the police from patrolling certain areas of the city in uniform after a Moroccan “youth” had died in a traffic accident. This situation was sufficient for the authorities to consider it unwise that the “youths” be “provoked” by the sight of police uniforms.

One of the worst Quisling regimes can be found in neighbouring Belgium. There the government has an entire organisation at its disposal, the so-called Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CEOOR). This Centre systematically prosecutes people who oppose “multiculturalism.” Yesterday it decided to take a Belgian company to court. The company, Feryn, in the Flemish town of Londerzeel, 20 kms to the north of Brussels, makes and installs security garage gates. Though Feryn has Moroccan employees working in the factory it never sends Moroccans to clients when the gates have to be installed in their villas and mansions. This is so, the company says, because the clients do not want Moroccans working in their houses. The CEOOR is now charging Feryn with racism and demanding penalties.


We should be seeking out quislings in America that are running us for the benefit of Islam. Every time we allow Muslims to make a policy change on a local level, whether in a town council, state legislature, or judicial fiat, we move one step closer to Shar'ia and dhimmitude.

Exiting the Harbor "Problem"?

With stiff upper lip and imperialis chauvinism, "If Churchill were alive today, none of this would be happening..."states Krauthammer (Townhall, Feb. 24, 2006) with characteristic aplomb. We "hapless Americans," however are in a state of disarray over the obvious: "do we want our ports, through which a nuclear bomb could come, handled by a country whose nationals flew into the South Tower on 9/11..."

We're ready to shoot down any that would dare to try that trick again. The danger now is more subtle:

The greater and more immediate danger is that as soon as the Dubai company takes over operations, it will necessarily become privy to information about security provisions at crucial U.S. ports. That would mean a transfer of information about our security operations -- and perhaps even worse, about the holes in our security operations -- to a company in an Arab state in which there might be employees who, for reasons of corruption or ideology, would pass this invaluable knowledge on to al Qaeda-types.

     That is the danger and it is a risk, probably an unnecessary one. It's not quite the end of the world that Democratic and Republican critics have portrayed it to be. After all, the UAE, which is run by a friendly regime, manages ports in other countries without any such incidents. Employees in other countries could leak or betray us just as easily. The issue, however, is that they are statistically more likely to be found in the UAE than, for example, in Britain.

But in fairness, even statistically less likely doesn't leave Britain off the hook or any other nation. Come to think of it, Britain is chock full of Islamists and is, sorry to say, considered a choice destination for various Muslim extremists groups, and the rest of Europe isn't far behind!

The President has to make hard, unpopular calls. What will he do?

It's a fairly close call. I can sympathize with the president's stubbornness in sticking to the deal. He is responsible for our foreign relations, and believes, not unreasonably, that it would harm our broader national interest to reject and humiliate a moderate Middle Eastern ally by pulling the contract just because a company is run by Arabs.


A charge of racism has been lodged against those who are uneasy about turning this information over to Arabs. What racism? "Arab" is not a race. "Arab" is culture taken from a location: the Arabian Peninsula where presently we find several countries. Arab culture is Muslim, an imperialistic and expansionist ideology developed and spread for more than a thousand years by use of the sword. Islam is still be spread in the same way in Africa (Nigeria), the Far East (Thailand, Bali, the Philippines), and more quietly (Canada, the United States, Australia, Japan, Europe).


Islamic culture does many elements expressed must fully in Shar'ia law that clashes and will always trump Western democracy if Muslims are given half a chance. Arab culture is what America is reluctant to experience when resisting the entrance of the Emirates in the ports. The resistance to a culture could be termed bigotry if there were good reason: the threats of Shar'ia and Arab cultural imperialism, the world's scourge.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Circle the Wagons, We're Surrounded!

Do you sometimes feel as though we're surrounded, that the pace at which Islam is infesting us is increasing?

You wouldn't be wrong. It IS happening faster. And faster and faster! The reason is, that if a new set of ideas is introduced into a system and the existing set of ideas is not defended, the new set will ultimately replace the existing set. Unfortunately, that's what happened when the postmodernist ideas, which were first cousins to Islamic ideas, were introduced into an undefended modernist society, which was the product of the Enlightenment.

Let me explain.

It started slowly, at first. We had a few troubles with the Barbary pirates, but President Jefferson took care of that, all the while saying things about Islam that our president today is too PC to say. Jefferson identified Islam as the enemy - and this was from the guy who stated, "It injures me not whether my neighbor believes in twenty gods or none; it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." He easily recognized the Islam, religion or not, as an enemy, pure and simple. He didn't care what they believed, but he deeply cared about their motives and actions.

Well, we were still enjoying the enormous benefits of our Englightenment heritage when, around the mid-1800s, two things happened; 1) because we were still mightily pissed off at the Mother Country, with whom we had just concluded a couple of wars, we began to send our (mainly) sons to Germany to complete their educations, rather than to Britain.

The significance of that was that Britain, the Mother Country, wasn't yet in the stranglehold of the Three Stooges of Philosophy, Kant/Hegel/Marx. Britain was still the birthplace of the Age of Enlightenment, which in turn had given birth to the U.S. and our Constitution.

Then 2) at about the same time, good ol' Horace Mann, the de-facto founder of our government-run schools did his thing, and voila, we had a tax-supported, attendence-required, compelled curriculum system.

Many people think that that's not so bad - after all, it enabled all kids to attend school. The unintended consequences were many, however, and none of them favored us. The one that relates most significantly to current events is that the anti-Enlightenment crowd, the followers of the Three Stooges, salivated when they saw that virtually all our children, and their children, and their children, etc. were captive minds. If they played their cards right, these anti-Enlightenment forces, now called by the term "postmodernists" (the thinkers of the Enlightenment were the "modernists") realized that they could have their way with our children and convert the U.S. into the country of their dreams.

And what would that be? OK, here it is, very briefly. The "modernists" of the Enlightenment recognized that the individual was the most important unit of society, and that if the rights of the individual were rigorously protected, then society as a whole would be rigorously protected. The Founders were modernists, so when they designed our country, they did so in order to apply Enlightenment principles. They designed a government whose sole legitimate function was to protect individual rights (a duty delegated to a police force and the courts) and our sovereignty as a nation (a duty delegated to the armed forces).

The Three Stooges, on the other hand, whose views prevailed in Europe, especially (at that time) Germany, were responsible for the "Organic Theory of State," where the state, or the government, was the most important entity, while the individual existed only at the pleasure of the government; it was the function of the individual to support the state, rather than the function of the government to protect the individual. The state was the "organism," while the individual was just a "cell" of the organism.

Needless to say, these views are 180 degrees apart.

So here's what happened; we sent our youths to Germany, where they absorbed Marx et al. like little sponges. Then they came home and went out to seek their fortunes - they got jobs as journalists, publishers, professors, school teachers, entertainers, politicians - well, you see the problem. The Stooges' postmodernist thinking, the one that was 180 degrees from the modernist thinking that our nation had been founded on, began to seep into the national fabric.

The best tool they had was the school system. They worked very hard, and a mere 100 years after the establishment of the government-run school system - that would be about 1950 - they had pretty much taken over what our kids were learning.

Result: Dumbed-down curriculum (can't have too much of that knowledge stuff, kids might begin questioning what they were being taught); kids who began to believe that the "organic theory of state" was virtuous, while "capitalism" was the boogy-man. Of course, they couldn't talk about either system, but they "felt it" like crazy.

This went on for generations. It wasn't long before the ultimate postmodernist tool was honed and sharpened and widely applied. That tool would be, of course, Political Correctness. At first, Political Correctness seemed like some sort of benign "be nice to others" sort of platitude. Then it grew into something approaching the legal prohibition against criticising anything the postmodernists said or did. In fact, criticism of the kind of thinking favored by the postmodernists utlimately bordered on the immoral.

It wasn't "nice" to criticise religion, for example. That is true, and entirely in line with good manners, provided the religion in question is merely someone's personal business, and not a government in disguised as a religion that wants to replace all governments on the planet with its own.

So while the great tool of the postmodernists, Political Correctness, was initially applied in an attempt to achieve their own Kantian/Hegelian/Marxist goals of subordination of the individual to the state with equalization of property and income, it also supported the creation of a blind spot to the danger of Islam. Under the aegis of political correctness, lesson plans on Islam, created by Islamic propagandists, were given to our teachers, who were even "helped" by Muslim mentors. Islam is a great religion of peace, they learned, among many other things, and it isn't "nice," or even moral, to say anything critical of it.

So today, the enemy has succeeded in flip-flopping the country from a modernist to a postmodernist one which welcomes its enemy, Islam, with open arms. What's the problem with turning over our ports to the same people who flew into the Twin Towers? And we all know that they are the very same people; all Muslims, be they from Dubai or Saudi Arabia, know that it is their religious duty to impose Islam on the infidel.

The warm-fuzzy relationship that the postmodernists have with Islam is not coincidental. Way back in the 4th century B.C.E., Plato and Aristotle had a big fat fight. Plato was the teacher, and Aristotle was his student. The fight was so bad that they had a very cool relationship thereafter.

What the heck does that have with turning the ports over to Dubai?

I know this is pretty long, but bear with me; I'll try to make it as brief as possible.

Up to the time of Plato, everything that happened was caused by the will/actions of some sort of god or spirit or something like that. Aristotle started looking around, and he noticed that there was a relationship between the way things were constructed and what they were able to do. The fins of a fish caused it to be able to swim, the fur of an animal caused it to be warm in cold weather, the heat of a flame caused a cotton boll to burst into flame, and so on.

That seems pretty obvious to us, but in those days, it was a paradigm-shifting event. From this kind of thinking, Aristotle went on to conceive of the Law of Causality, the Law of Identity, and a whole bunch of other things that we take for granted today (if we aren't Muslims - but that's for later), including how to define words, from which, naturally, the invention of the dictionary followed.

Because of this, Aristotle realized that events everywhere - here on earth, or out there in space - happened because of the Laws of Nature, and not because of spirits' whims etc. The whole universe took on a more predictable, understandable quality as a result, and people began to think in terms never available to them before. They were also happier, since they realized that they could depend on the universe to act in predictable ways, and they could plan for the future and so on.

Now that was where Aristotle and Plato only began to have differences, but it wasn't what the big fight was about. Both men were interested in how concepts were formed. You know, there are "percepts," the actual concretes that you can touch and smell etc., like a "chair" and a "table." But there are also "concepts," ideas that you can't touch or smell etc., like "furniture."

Be patient. Plato thought that in order to be "real," something had to be able to be touched or smelled etc. It had to be a "percept." But he knew that ideas - "concepts" - actually existed. After all, he could look at a "chair" and a "table" and when someone said "furniture," he knew what they were talking about.

But he couldn't figure out just how to make "furniture," which he knew was just as real as a "chair" or a "table," really be real. Finally he had an "aha" moment. "There must," he thought, "be another world, another 'reality,' where such things are possible, where you can actually touch 'furniture' as well as a 'chair' or a 'table.'" So he told all his philosopher buddies and students that he had solved the problem; there were TWO realities, the one we lived in, and the other one, where concepts existed in a "real" form.

He maintained that the "other reality" must be BETTER than the one we lived in, because after all, concepts were touchable there. Even the concepts were BETTER than the percepts we had to live with. He went even further, and decided that the world where concepts existed in a touchable form was "perfect," while this one, where they didn't, was a mere "pale reflection" of the "perfect forms" in the "perfect world." Even we, the people, were mere pale reflections of "perfect people" in that "perfect world."

Aristotle thought he was nuts, and that was what the fight was about. Aristotle just said, "Hey, we don't know how the mind works. Learning takes time; we'll figure it out one day, and then we'll understand how concepts are formed, but trust me, there is only one reality, and this is it; you, Plato, are just trying to cover up the fact that you haven't figured out how concepts are formed, so you've invented this phony storeroom where you can throw all the stuff you don't understand."

He was right, too. Today, there actually exist philosophers who understand how concepts are formed (it ain't Kant/Hegel/Marx, though).

But the point is, that Aristotle started a revolution in terms of how to think about reality. People began to look for causes, and not just accept the "spirit" thing. And when they started finding them, along with a lot of other Aristotelian ideas, all sorts of things began to happen. There were breakthroughs in architecture, engineering, medicine, geography, meteorology, mathematics, biology, manufacturing - well, you catch my drift.

All schools of Greek philosophy spread around the known world with Alexander the Great, who was tutored by Aristotle. Very quickly, because of that, great centers of learning began to spring up in the areas conquered by Alexander; Byzantium, Pergamom, Alexandria (the one in Egypt) etc. They sprang up for the same reason that Greek civilization bloomed so quickly - Aristotelian philosophy.

Plato could write better than Aristotle could, though, so even if he was wrong about a lot, he could "get through" to a lot of people, and his mistaken ideas hung on.

The biggest mistaken idea of Plato that hung on was that the process of understanding two realities was so complicated that only an elite few could guide the rest of us "little people" enough to help us muddle through. That was the beginning of the notion that eventually became "the organic theory of state." We BTOs in the government will take care of (read: "control") you poor slobs, since everything is so complicated. When's the last time you heard "Well, it's so complicated!" or "It's not that simple!" when some government toady is asked about something? Muddy the waters; that's their specialty. Keep 'em confused and uncertain, that way they'll accept your "help."

Artistotle said that existence, reality, the world, was entirely understandable, and that we were all very capable of taking care of ourselves, thank you very much. Because we are all capable of managing our own affairs, we don't need an intellectual elite to manage them for us (read: "control us.").

Well, Plato's argument with Aristotle not only damaged their friendship - they were never able to work closely together after that - it also eventually led to the concept of a heaven, a nice place to go when you died. It ceased to become an epistemological issue, and became a theological issue instead.

That happened because a Roman philosopher named Plotinus got excited by the two-reality concept (no pun intended). The "Perfect World" with its "Perfect Inhabitants" and "Perfect Concepts" became Heaven, which was a lot more fun than the gloomy underground world of Hades and all its equally gloomy counterparts around the world.

When Christianity became widespread, Plato became a sort of "honorary Christian" because of his contribution. Aristotle, on the other hand, became something of a red-headed stepson, since he said there was no reality except this one.

His admirers weren't exactly welcomed in Christian hangouts like Byzantium, so they drifted into other areas of the world where they could think and create and invent in peace. Those places were often the still pagan Arab lands - places like Damascus, Persia, and fairly soon, Baghdad, and they also became great centers of learning.

I'm not making this up - remember, Islam didn't exist yet.

Anyway, all sorts of intellectual gains were made. By the time Mohammed showed up on the scene, universities, libraries, the arts and sciences, etc. were already making great progress. And since Islam wasn't all that well organized in the 700s, progress continued. There was a sect, the Mu'tazilites, that really seemed to adapt well to Aristotelian thinking, then they shot themselves in the foot by trying to compell - there's that word again - reason, which was entirely unreasonable, of course.

Their opponents, the literalist/fundamentalist Ash'arites, won that little quibble at a Muslim equivalent of the Council of Nicea, where the mullahs gathered together to decide what Islam was to "look like" from then on. That was in the 900s. Needless to say, it was the fundamentalism that we are all familiar with today. Aristotle wasn't well liked by the Muslims, either. They liked Plato much better, what with it's ruling elite and all that. And they liked the notion of Paradise, too, since it gave them a carrot to shape the behavior of the "little people."

The thing the Muslim fundamentalists especially hated about Aristotle was the idea that there was one reality, and that everything had a natural cause and a specific identity which made the way it would behave in a given set of circumstances quite predictable. This notion was at serious odds with their hangover from the old days that a spirit or one of their gods or something had a whim and boom! it happened. For example, they (you gotta hear this!) believed (and still do) that a flame will burn a cotton boll because Allah WILLS it at that particular moment. It's only because Allah wills it so often that we have gotten into the habit of EXPECTING the cotton to burn. Really, it has nothing to do with the nature of cotton or of a flame - Allah wills it, and that's that.

So from now on, whenever you hear some poor Muslim utter "If Allah wills," you'll know he really means it. We're all in deep doo-doo if Allah gets up on the wrong side of the bed one day!

As you know, Islam spread from Arabia throughout the rest of the lands it ultimately occupied; Spain was the last on the list. So the Muslims in Spain were the last ones to pay a lot of attention to the decisions made at that meeting, and they pretty much kept on reading and doing whatever they wanted.

There was one very bright man born in Cordova named Ibn Rushd. He may have been the son of Spaniards who were forced to convert, but anyway, he was a bright man - a physician, a jurist, and above all, an Aristotle freak. He spent his whole life trying to "clean up" those works of Aristotle that were still extant. Over the centuries, people had translated them into different languages, made changes, and generally messed him up. Ibn Rushd worked very hard to return Aristotle's stuff to its original form.

He lived in the 1100s, and by that time, the fundamentalists had caught up with him. They destroyed his works, and he was sent into exile, where it is rumored that he may have died under suspicious circumstances. Fortunately, though, he was reinstated just in time to enter Paradise.

But the cat was out of the bag. The Spanish had begun their push to evict the Muslims, and the man who became Bishop of Toledo found a library that still had copies of Ibn Rushd's work. He called on Muslim, Christian, and Jewish translators to translate everything in the library, including Aristotle, and to the everlasting credit of his intellectual integrity, he did not try to impose his own religious views on the work, and did not allow the translators to do so either.

Ibn Rushd's writings were designed for student consumption, at the elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels, and now, available in Latin, they began to leak into the infidel universities of Italy. You know how university students are - well, they got terribly excited about this stuff. Then St. Thomas got a hold of them, and even though he was officially a neoplatonist (the Church favored Plato), he admired Aristotle and tried to reconcile him with the Platonic orientation of the Church. He worked so hard on that project that he was probably a "closet Aristotelian." Problem was, the two men hadn't been able to clear up their differences in their own lifetimes, and bright as he was, neither could St. Thomas. But his efforts were the best advertising you could ever wish for, and the rest is history.

The Dark Age began to disappear within the usual 100 years of the availability of Aristotle's work. With the printing press, Aristotle became widely spread very rapidly. The Renaissance bloomed, followed by the Age of Enlightenment.

And that brings you up to the time in which the United States was born.

As you already know, the ideas of Plato and his scheme of a ruling elite held by people like Kant, Hegel and Marx, and loved by governments everywhere, were still going pretty strong in Europe, especially Germany.

And that catches us up with the Great Philosophical Flip-Flop that has put us in danger of extinction today. I mean, it wouldn't be NICE to tell Dubai Ports World to go sit on it, would it?

Anybody around here speak P.C?

Who says ideas aren't important? Only the people who want to control you, that's who.