Category Archives: U.S.A.

Obama treats soldiers as cops, terrorists as full US citizens?

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This is ulcer-worthy weirdness. Many possibilities of course for this kind of insane policy to be enforced in the US against it’s own forces, but what comes to my mind first is the notion that President Obama’s fantasy that the Islamic terrorist threat is a law and order matter, means that suddenly all the various branches of the US forces become police. Trained to treat all they encounter as suspects for a crime at worst with expecttions of being the cops who beat Rodney King if they do not act with all respect against people who are evil and dangerous beyond most of our imaginations ability.

From FOX News with a H/T to GOV Weasel Zippers Reportonarrakis

March 31, 2004: Iraqis chant anti-American slogans as the charred and mutilated bodies of U.S. contractors hang from a bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah, Iraq.

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy’s elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral’s mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named “Objective Amber,” told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Matthew McCabe, a Special Operations Petty Officer Second Class (SO-2), is facing three charges: dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee, making a false official statement, and assault.

Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe, SO-2, is facing charges of dereliction of performance of duty and making a false official statement.

Petty Officer Julio Huertas, SO-1, faces those same charges and an additional charge of impediment of an investigation. Continue Reading →

Speeches from Rifka Barry Rally

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A rally for Rifqa Bary held in Dorrian Commons Park in Columbus, Ohio, on November 16, 2009. Speakers included Pamela Geller, Simon Deng, Nonie Darwish, James Lafferty, Robert Spencer, and Jamal Jivanjee.

Some excellent speeches here by some people who the western world needs to pay a lot more attention to than they are. Simon Deng, Nonnie Darwish and others are amongst this illustrious group of speakers who deal with very important issues of apostasy in Islam and Islam and Western Civilization.

Personally I do not have an opinion on the Rifka Barry case, other than of course she has the absolute right to change her belief howsoever she likes and should be safe from the state, her family and community. There is much I do not understand however about the details. But I do know the people who have chosen to rally behind her and offer her massive support in many ways are far wiser and more experienced than I on these matters so I post this also for that reason. These speakers are excellent. The community represented here in this video is significant so in solidarity also I post this video, even if I have not been a strident voice on this particular individual and issue. One hopes that she turns 18 soon, and becomes a free agent within the US to live her life with the same rights and responsibilities as all Americans. If she is one.

Eeyore for Vlad.

Stratfor: Sanctions and Iran

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This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR

Sanctions and Strategy
November 23, 2009

By George Friedman

The Iranian government has rejected, at least for the moment, a proposal from the P-5+1 to ship the majority of its low-enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment. The group is now considering the next step in the roadmap that it laid out last April. The next step was a new round of sanctions, this time meant to be crippling. The only crippling sanction available is to cut off the supply of gasoline, since Iran imports 35 percent of its refined gasoline products. That would theoretically cripple the Iranian economy and compel the Iranians to comply with U.S. demands over the nuclear issue.

We have written extensively on the ability of sanctions to work in Iran. There is, however, a broader question, which is the general utility of sanctions in international affairs. The Iranian government said last week that sanctions don’t concern it because, historically, sanctions have not succeeded. This partly explains Iranian intransigence: The Iranians don’t feel they have anything to fear from sanctions. The question is whether the Iranian view is correct and why they would believe it — and if they are correct, why the P-5+1 would even consider imposing sanctions.

The Assumptions of Sanctions
We need to begin with a definition of sanctions. In general, sanctions are some sort of penalty imposed on a country designed to cause it sufficient pain to elicit a change in its behavior. Sanctions are intended as an alternative to war and therefore exclude violence. Thus, the entire point of sanctions, as opposed to war, is to compel changes of behavior in countries without resorting to force.

Normal sanctions are economic and come in three basic forms. First, there is seizing or freezing the assets of a country or its citizens located in another country. Second, sanctions can block the shipment of goods (or movement of people) out of the target country. Third, sanctions can block the movement of goods into a country. Minor sanctions are possible, such as placing tariffs on products imported from the target country, but those sorts of acts are focused primarily on rectifying economic imbalances and are not always driven by political interests. Thus, the United States placed tariffs on Chinese tires coming into the United States. The purpose was to get China to change its economic policies. On the other hand, placing sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s or on Sudan today are designed to achieve political and military outcomes. Continue Reading →

Parents charged with child abuse, abandoned raped daughter USA

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In July, four boys were charged with assaulting girl; parents said they blamed daughter

CNN.COM

(CNN) — The parents of an 8-year-old Liberian girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted by four boys in July were arrested Friday on child abuse charges, according to Arizona police.

The father, 59, and mother, 47, were arrested Friday in Phoenix on seven counts of child abuse, said police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill. Police were waiting for them at their home after the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office issued the warrants. Continue Reading →

CNN on the UN resolution on blasphemy

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This is much more important than most people are aware of. The UN General assembly is considering a binding resolution on member nations (nearly all countries in the world) making it a criminal matter to say anything which may cast Islam in a bad light. This can actually include accurately reporting Islamic terrorists when they themselves expose their motives for their attack.

Islamist preacher inspired Hasan, other terrorists

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From The Telegraph U.K.

Fort Hood shooting: radical Islamic preacher also inspired July 7 bombers

The Islamic preacher who gave email advice to Major Nidal Hasan, the gunman in the Fort Hood massacre, also inspired the July 7 bombers and a number of other British terrorists.

By Philip Sherwell and Duncan Gardham
Published: 6:30AM GMT 23 Nov 2009

Imam Anwar al-Awlaki

Imam Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen October 2008,

An Islamic preacher who gave email advice to Major Nidal Hasan, the gunman in the Fort Hood massacre that left 13 dead, also inspired the July 7 London bombers and a number of other British terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki were found in the Iqra bookshop in Leeds, where the July 7 bombers held meetings. His lectures were also found among the material seized from a jihadist recruiter, Aabid Hussain Khan, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who groomed Britain’s youngest terrorist, schoolboy Hammaad Munshi, then 15.

Al-Awlaki , 38, a US citizen, fled from the country to live in Britain after it was disclosed that three of the September 11 hijackers had worshipped at two different mosques where he preached.

He moved to Yemen in 2004, where he was arrested and then went underground, but he has been invited to give video lectures, most recently at East London Mosque in January, and his videos are still on sale in Britain.

Major Hasan, an army psychiatrist, worshipped at a mosque in Virginia where al-Awlak was imam at the same time as two Sept 11 hijackers.

Hasan, 39, has been charged with 13 murders. He shouted “allahu akbar” (“God is great”) and shot dead unarmed soldiers awaiting vaccinations before or after deployment. He is lying in a military hospital bed, paralysed from the waist down, after civilian police officers shot him to end the rampage.

It has since emerged that US intelligence monitored email correspondence during the past two years between the officer and the imam.

Hasan asked advice on jihad and whether it was permissible to kill innocent people in a suicide attack.

Al-Awlaki’s most influential lecture, Constants on the Path to Jihad, is based on a 2005 book by Yousef al-Ayyiri, the founder of
al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia.

According to Evan Kohlmann, a US terrorism consultant, the sermon was “a ‘virtual bible’ for lone-wolf Muslim extremists”.

Earlier this year, al-Awlaki also published 44 Ways to Support Jihad, a practical point-by-point guide to pursuing or supporting holy war.

“Constants spells out al-Qaeda’s home-grown terror strategy,” said Mr Kohlmann.

“Al-Awlaki didn’t just translate it, he applied its teachings for a Western audience. So when Ayyiri stated ‘jihad is everywhere’, al-Awlaki explained that meant jihad was in Europe too. This is a very clever individual who understands the power of the Internet to radicalise people. Had al-Awlaki not translated Constants, then most of the Western Muslims who were inspired by it would never have even heard of it.”

Al-Awlaki ‘s lectures were also found on a CD belonging to Mohammed Atif Siddique, 22, from Glasgow, an aspiring suicide bomber, who was found guilty of possessing bomb-making instructions.

Germany wants no part in 911 execution

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And so it begins. Just one of the likely hundreds of not thousands of reasons that this should never have been brought to a civilian trial. H/T to Islam in Europe.

Berlin wants no part in potential 9/11 execution

A legal team is going to New York to prevent the use of evidence provided by Germany in seeking a death penalty. Berlin wants to ensure that promises made by the US are kept if the suspects are found guilty.

A team of observers from the German government is going to New York to oversee the trial of five suspects accused of orchestrating the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday.

The federal trial of the suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants was announced on November 13 by the US Justice Department. The government also asserted that it intends to seek the death penalty if the accused are found guilty.

Germany, which does not have a death penalty, provided evidence for the trial on the condition that it could not be used to support a death sentence. Several members of the al Qaeda cell that planned and executed the attacks of September 11 were previously based in the northern German city of Hamburg.

“In this case we will observe very closely that the given assurances are kept,” Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said.

However it was unclear exactly how evidence from Germany would be distinguished from evidence procured from elsewhere.

The defense lawyer for one of the accused, Ramzi Binalshibh, said that a conviction of his client would “scarcely be possible without evidence from Germany.”

sjt/AP/dpa
Editor: Andreas Illmer

Sears Tower Terror Plot Leader Gets 13-Year Sentence

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Batiste, who is heard calling the U.S. government “of the devil” and discussing how he wanted to build “an Islamic army for Islamic jihad.”

Narseal Batiste Fox News…MIAMI —  The ringleader of a group described by prosecutors as plotting terror attacks on Chicago’s Sears Tower and FBI offices in hopes of sparking an anti-government insurrection was sentenced Friday to 13 1/2 years in prison by a federal judge.

Narseal Batiste, 35, dabbed at his eyes with a tissue when U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard wondered in court how he was transformed from a hardworking family man struggling to build an inner-city construction business to the unquestioned leader of a quasi-religious, paramilitary group seeking support from Al Qaeda for terrorism.

“You’ve done great harm to yourself, your family, the young men who were your followers, and you’ve violated the trust of your country,” Lenard said.

Batiste, who faced a maximum of 70 years in prison, was convicted in May of conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda, plotting to blow up buildings and conspiracy to wage war against the U.S. Four other men described as Batiste’s soldiers were also convicted and sentenced to between six and 10 years behind bars.

The sentencing marked the culmination of a case that began with an FBI raid in June 2006 on the group’s warehouse, known as the “Embassy” in an impoverished Miami neighborhood.

Top U.S. officials acknowledged at the time that the Sears Tower and FBI plots never got past the discussion stage and the group never acquired the means to carry out such audacious attacks.

The case was viewed as a prime example of the post-9/11 law enforcement strategy of stopping terror plots in the earliest possible stages, before proverbial fuse is lit. Continue Reading →

Stratfor’s George Friedman on Iran, Israel and nuclear negotiations

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Stratfor has done much better stuff than this on Iran, some of which, that which is public, is here on Vlad. In a nutshell, Iran is dicking around everyone on the issue until they have exactly what they want. My guess is they already do, but its fun to mess with the US and the longer they can stall everyone, the better their military position is and the greater the degree of damage to all when it finally comes to what it is going to come to. Can Israel allow a nation who gives speeches about it’s utter annihilation weekly to posses atomic weapons? If I were the IDF I would be very close to action by now.

Major Hassan and his pen pals.

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Here are a couple of videos from an article on Tundra Tabloids. I rearanged them a bit but go over and have a look he has some other great stuff there as well. The man can photoshop what can I say.

In any case it appears that Hassan gave a lot of zakat, or charity money for Islamic terrorist groups, and had for years before he decided to go out in a blaze of murder. Quite the choice of pen pals. It must be getting hard for leftist defenders of Islam to claim he was acting against the peaceful intentions of the faith and was really just some nut.

Here is the video from ABC News on his pen pals. Click over for more info if you like.

Now after watching this, it may be worth noting that he could have spared himself a lot of time and trouble if he just watched a few Robert Spencer lectures. Hell most of us in the anti-jihad could have answered his questions with chapter and verse. Spencer would be who I would go to first though:

Stratfor SITREP:

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November 20, 2009 Stratfor.com

Tehran’s Provisional Friday Prayers Leader Hojjatoleslam Kazzem Sediqi said that the United States shows hostility toward Iran when it seizes the country’s assets, FNA reported Nov. 20. Sediqi added that the U.S administration gives a false impression and that Americans have not changed their behavior toward Iran. He also said the Iranian nation does not fear any threat and that “the language of force and intimidation will bring nothing but misery and misfortune for the Americans.”