Category Archives: U.S.A.

Obama defends Victory mosque and as usual, totally misses the point

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He also said today, that Islam has always been a part of America. In that he is correct. Jefferson started the Marines in order to stop Islamic piracy and constant jihad upon the seas. I suppose one might also say that is a contribution to US society in a way. In exactly the same way that Ebola motivated the creation perhaps, of some specific wonder antibiotics.

Eeyore for Vlad

H/T Ted L

NBC, msnbc.com and news services

updated 6 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday endorsed plans for a Muslim mosque two blocks from ground zero in New York City, declaring that “Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country.”

In remarks prepared for delivery at a White House dinner celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Obama said all Americans have the right to worship as they choose.

“That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances, Obama said. “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable.”

Obama emphasized the point as New York City is immersed in a deeply sensitive debate about whether a mosque should be built near the site of the World Trade Center’s twin towers.

It was the president’s first remarks about the mosque controversy. The White House previously called the matter solely a local one.

At the dinner attended by two Muslim-American congressmen, Obama acknowledged that hot-fire emotions the planned mosque and cultural center have stoked.

“Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground,” the president said.

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My idea for the Victory Mosque at Ground zero

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I am pretty sure of two things.

1. The mosque is going to be built if Obama has to pay for it himself with your money.

2. The gay bar and all you can eat pork ribs hut will not be allowed to be next to it for exactly the opposite reasons that the mosque is going to be built.

So I have an idea.

We, that is all of us, can take up a collection, and have a billboard put up in front, on top, above or near enough to this 13 story monstrosity that its obviously conected, and have our own messages placed there. Even if we can’t get the proper permits, perhaps some kind of, ‘street art’ that seems perfectly acceptable when it is done by illegal gangs in cities today.

Below, are a few of my ideas for initial billboards. Please feel free to add your own ideas in the comments and Ill add them in to the list.

Continue Reading →

Greg Gutfeld: I’m raising money to build a Muslim gay bar next to the Ground Zero mosque

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Here is an article about a fellow who, if he wasn’t so naive about the whole thing, would actually have a great idea. I mean the logic is identical. If they have a ‘right’ to open a victory mosque right next to the attack they did, and frankly they do have that right that has never been the issue, then someone else has an equal right to open a gay bar next to it and perhaps even an all you can eat pork rib BBQ on the other side of it.

Here is the problem:

The mosque gets built. They, the owner-operator of the V mosque, employ two strategies:

1. They use political pressure, the same kind they used to deny heritage status to the building that is there now, to make sure no gay bar or pork emporium (my choice for the land use) gets built on the grounds that it is offensive to Muslims, and guess what, the politicians will cave to it despite ignoring the rest of the American public that the mosque is offensive to them.

2. They will send out thugs AKA sharia police, to harass, threaten, beat and maybe even kill the people or their families or other loved ones who are involved with the other projects. This is already happening and in New York. People who have pre-existing businesses near Mosques that are built will get visited and warned not to serve alcohol or engage in otherwise, ‘un-islamic activities’. (Isn’t alcohol an Arab word anyway?)

Ultimately I think this has to be tried. I think very publicly, several people who have the means and the energy and skill to open a business in New York should attempt to open a Porkery or Gay bar or even a Gay porkery (forgive me if that sounds redundant) and when the permits are not granted, by very very public about the process and expose the hypocrisy that it will indeed have to mean. Same goes for the intimidation and thuggery that will follow from CAIR or other agents on behalf of the proposed operation. They should, at the very least, carry a camera at all times.

Best of luck in any case and meanwhile, here is the article with a hat tip to Sherri and a link to Hot Air

Eeyore for Vlad Tepes

Quick Adendum: I see over at The Gothamist, that one proposed name for the gay bar is, ‘Ram-A-Dan’. I can see that going over well with CAIR real well.

posted at 7:07 pm on August 9, 2010 by Allahpundit

printer-friendly

Andy Levy assures me that he’s quite serious. Media narrative on the GZ mosque: Shining beacon of liberal values bursting through the overcast skies of American intolerance. Media narrative on the GG gay bar: Dangerous provocation that needlessly inflames cultural tensions in the ostensible service of liberal values.

How very insensitive.

I’m announcing tonight, that I am planning to build and open the first gay bar that caters not only to the west, but also Islamic gay men. To best express my sincere desire for dialogue, the bar will be situated next to the mosque Park51, in an available commercial space.

This is not a joke. I’ve already spoken to a number of investors, who have pledged their support in this bipartisan bid for understanding and tolerance.

As you know, the Muslim faith doesn’t look kindly upon homosexuality, which is why I’m building this bar. It is an effort to break down barriers and reduce deadly homophobia in the Islamic world.

The goal, however, is not simply to open a typical gay bar, but one friendly to men of Islamic faith. An entire floor, for example, will feature non-alcoholic drinks, since booze is forbidden by the faith. The bar will be open all day and night, to accommodate men who would rather keep their sexuality under wraps – but still want to dance.

Not an idea that would play well with Christians or Jews vis-a-vis property adjacent to a church or temple, but oh well: If we’re going to celebrate tolerance regardless of the sensitivities of the surrounding area, let’s celebrate! And the best part? Because, as we’ve been assured many times, the “Park51? cultural center will be a model of moderation, gay Muslim men don’t have to worry about being seen entering Gut’s establishment. Flaunt it all you want, fellas; you’re in Moderate Town, U.S.A., on that block. I look forward to the congratulatory Mike Bloomberg press conference.

EDITORIAL: Tax dollars to build mosques

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Washington Times:

7:46 p.m., Tuesday, August 10, 2010

MugshotImam Feisal Abdul Rauf, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative, addresses a gathering as groups planning a proposed mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan to be named Cordoba House showed and spoke about their plans for the center at a community board meeting in New York Tuesday, May 25, 2010. Community members both for and against the plan spoke during the meeting. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle

The State Department is sending Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf – the mastermind of the Ground Zero Mosque – on a trip through the Middle East to foster “greater understanding” about Islam and Muslim communities in the United States. However, important questions are being raised about whether this is simply a taxpayer-funded fundraising jaunt to underwrite his reviled project, which is moving ahead in Lower Manhattan.

Mr. Rauf is scheduled to go to Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar, the usual stops for Gulf-based fundraising. The State Department defends the five-country tour saying that Mr. Rauf is “a distinguished Muslim cleric,” but surely the government could find another such figure in the United States who is not seeking millions of dollars to fund a construction project that has so strongly divided America. Continue Reading →

Judge rules Khadr confession admissible

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NATIONALPOST…U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO, Cuba — The judge in Omar Khadr’s war crimes case has ruled that self-incriminating statements the Toronto native made during interrogations are admissible at trial – and were not the product of torture, as the defence claimed.
The judge also ruled that a video apparently showing Khadr making and planting land mines is admissible, rejecting the defence argument it was obtained based on information coerced from Khadr.
Omar Khadr has pleaded not guilty to all five war crimes charges he faces at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, among them the murder of Special Forces Sgt. First Class Chris Speer, who died in a grenade attack.
Earlier Monday, in a video shown at the Canadian-born terror suspect’s hearing, he warns Guantanamo Bay guards trying to weigh him for the International Red Cross that “God will take … revenge” on the United States.
“I am here in prison, but there are millions of people outside,” Mr. Khadr says in the May 2006 clip. “What’s happening to you is not for nothing.”
Khadr’s defence opposes a prosecution bid to have the video admitted into evidence at his trial, which is expected to begin Tuesday with selection of U.S. military officers who’ll serve on the jury as commission “members.”
Mr. Khadr, 23, alleges in a February 2008 affidavit that guards mistreated him during the weighing session, claiming they “pressed on my pressure points.”
The clip appears to show the guards somewhat restrained as they push him toward the scale and point out that all his “brothers” — a reference to other detainees — had allowed themselves to be weighed without protest.
“Come on man, it’s not that bad,” says a guard after Mr. Khadr claimed the treatment was a “very small example of what’s really going on” at the detention facility.
“We’re not doing this to hurt you, torture you,” another guard’s voice is heard saying, amid explanations that his weight was simply needed for his health record and Red Cross review records.
Indeed, after Mr. Khadr had spent about 20 minutes resisting the guards, there came indications that he had been playing to the camera as he switched from the English he used to speak to the guards, to Arabic to speak with fellow detainees in nearby cells.
“May God reward him. The camera is with him,” a detainee shouts in Arabic, which had been translated in subtitles.
Mr. Khadr was in court to watch the video after saying at his last hearing last month that he intended to boycott further sessions, saying he didn’t want to help the United States further its “political goals.”
Monday’s session had been scheduled to essentially conclude defence arguments that a slew of prosecution evidence — mostly self-incriminating statements Mr. Khadr had made, but also the “weighing” video — should be “suppressed.”
Army Col. Patrick Parrish, presiding judge, is expected to rule later Monday on the defence request, which contends that Khadr made the self-incriminating statements to a series of officers after enduring interrogations that involved the use of coercive techniques.
Mr. Khadr, 15, at the time of his capture in Afghanistan in July 2002, faced interrogations at the U.S. base in Bagram in that country before being transferred to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in October 2002, where he remains.
“By the time he left Bagram, he was broken … by the actions of people in uniform … specifically Interrogator No. 1,” said Lt. Col. Jon Jackson, Khadr’s Pentagon-appointed attorney, as he referred to Khadr’s chief Bagram interrogator — a soldier who was later convicted in a court martial for “maltreatment” of another detainee.
Lt.-Col. Jackson recalled that the interrogator had sought to frighten Khadr by making up a story of how an uncooperative Muslim detainee had been dispatched to a U.S. prison and raped there by other inmates.
“Once he said those words to Mr. Khadr, the well was poisoned, and the government can’t cleanse the well … by saying someone (else) came in and was nice to him,” Lt.-Col. Jackson told the court.
“To him, when he was interrogated, all those faces were the same.”
Lt.-Col. Jackson urged the judge to consider the “outcry” by the U.S. government if a U.S. soldier had been the victim of such a scenario.
“Tell the world that we actually stand for what we say we stand for,” Lt.-Col. Jackson said to the judge.
But air force Capt. Chris Eason, one of the prosecutors, said Mr. Khadr had switched to speaking in detail about his alleged actions not because he had faced any tough interrogation, but after the United States presented him with a video U.S. forces had found that showed the Toronto native appearing to take part in a mine-making and laying operation.
Capt. Eason quoted from the earlier testimony of one of the interrogators, who said: “That’s when the floodgates opened.”
According to Capt. Eason, statements in which Mr. Khadr speaks of tossing the hand grenade that fatally wounded a U.S. soldier, and other matters relating to his alleged terrorist background, should be admitted as evidence at trial.
“It’s truth that we can rely on,” he said.
Mr. Khadr faces up to life in prison if convicted of the five charges he faces.

Younes Abdullah Muhammad preaching Islam NYC close to Ground Zero

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Here is a video of an American Muslim preaching classic non-extremist Islam right near ground zero not too long ago.

Younes Abdullah Muhammad is worth a google.

Iraq: Aziz urges Obama to not ‘leave the country to wolves’

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This is a very interesting article. Thanks Gates of Vienna for the tip

Iraq: Aziz urges Obama to not ‘leave the country to wolves’

Baghdad, 6 Aug. (AKI) – Tariq Aziz urged the United States to not withdraw its troops from Iraq because doing so would signify “leaving Iraq to the wolves.”

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper from his prison cell, Saddam Hussein’s former loyal deputy expressed his disappointment with American president.

“I thought he was going to correct some of the mistakes of Bush,” the paper quoted Aziz as saying from his jail cell in north Baghdad. “But Obama is a hypocrite. He is leaving Iraq to the wolves.”

“We are all victims of America and Britain,” Aziz told the British daily, in his first interview since being captured following the fall of Baghdad around seven years ago. “They killed our country in many ways. When you make a mistake you need to correct a mistake, not leave Iraq to its death.”

Aziz said he kept the world guessing about the possible existence of an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction more to appear strong to Iraq’s regional rival Iran than to taunt the US and Britain. Continue Reading →

The facts behind New York City’s new ‘Victory Mosque’s’ Imam

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From Hudson New York

The Mosque at Ground Zero: Who Is Behind It?

by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
July 30, 2010 at 5:30 am

The Imam behind the controversial mosque at Ground Zero dreams of Islamizing United States, as exposed in his book, which has two titles: one in English,m and one in Arabic

In the U.S., his book is called, ‘What’s Right with America Is What’s right with Islam.”

The same book, published in Arabic, bears the title, “The Call from the WTC Rubble: Islamic Da’wah {Proseletism}from the Heart of America Post-9/11.”

Here we get exactly the Imam, who is assigned to “spread Islam right from the WTC rubble.”

Now, let us have some glimpse over the funders and backers of this mosque project. According to information, a scholar and charity head appointed to President Obama’s White House Fellowships Commission is closely tied to the Muslim leaders behind this proposed controversial Islamic cultural center to be built near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks. The White House fellow, Vartan Gregorian, is president of Carnegie Corp. of New York.

Gregorian also serves on the board of the Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum. The museum is reportedly working with the American Society for Muslim Advancement, whose leaders are behind the mosque, to ensure the future museum will represent the voices of American Muslims.

“[The Sept. 11 museum will represent the] voices of American Muslims in particular, and it will honor members of other communities who came together in support and collaboration with the Muslim community on September 11 and its aftermath,” stated Daisy Khan, wife of the founder of the society and chairman of the of the Cordoba Initiative, Imam Faidal AbdulRauf Khan, and executive director of the society.

The future Sept. 11 museum’s oral historian, Jenny Pachucki, is collaborating with the society to ensure the perspective of American Muslims is woven into the overall experience of the museum, according to the museum’s blog.

Daisy Khan’s husband, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is the founder of the society as well as chairman of Cordoba Initiative.

With Gregorian at its helm, Carnegie Corp. is at the top of the list of society supporters on the Islamic group’s website. Carnegie is also listed as a funder of both of the society’s partner organizations, Search for Common Ground and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. Gregorian was a participant in the U.N. body’s first forum, as was Rauf.

Rauf is vice chairman on the board of the Interfaith Center of New York, which honored Gregorian at an awards dinner in 2008.

Gregorian, born in Tabriz, Iran, served for eight years as a president of the New York Public Library and was also president of Brown University. He is the author of “Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith.”

According to a book review by the Middle East Forum, Gregorian’s book “establishes the Islamist goal of world domination.”

A chapter of the book, “Islamism: Liberation Politics,” quotes Ayatollah Khomeini: “Islam does not conquer. Islam wants all countries to become Muslim, of themselves.”

Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, is quoted stating it “is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

Gregorian himself recommends for Muslims a system he calls “theo-democracy,” which he defines as “a divine democratic government” that, according to the book review, “would have a limited popular sovereignty under the suzerainty of Allah.”

Recently, World Net Daily reported that Rauf refused during a live radio interview to condemn violent jihad groups as terrorists. Rauf also repeatedly refused on-air to affirm the U.S. designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization or call the Muslim Brotherhood extremists.

The Brotherhood openly seeks to spread Islam around the world, while Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction and is responsible for scores of suicide bombings, shootings and rocket attacks aimed at Jewish civilian population centers.

During that interview, Rauf was also asked who he believes was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

“There’s no doubt,” stated Rauf. “The general perception all over the world was it was created by people who were sympathetic to Osama bin Laden. Whether they were part of the killer group or not, these are details that need to be left to the law-enforcement experts.”

Rauf has been on record several times as blaming U.S. policies for the Sept. 11 attacks. He has been quoted refusing to admit Muslims carried out the attacks.

Referring to the Sept. 11 attacks, Rauf told CNN, “U.S. policies were an accessory to the crime that happened. We [the U.S.] have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. Osama bin Laden was made in the USA.”

Madeline Brooks, a regular contributor of Weekly Blitz and anti-Jihadist columnist, who attended a sermon this year by Rauf, quoted the Islamic leader as stating “some people say it was Muslims who attacked on 9/11.”

An unidentified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building with US$ 4.85 million cash steps away from where the World Trade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques or Islamic Mecca right inside USA.

The Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, told the New York Times — which put the story on its front page — that he has assembled several million dollars to turn it into “an Islamic center near the city’s most hallowed piece of land that would stand as one of ground zero’s more unexpected and striking neighbors.”

The 61-year-old Imam said he paid $4.85 million for it — in cash, records show. With 50,000 square feet of air rights and enough financing, he plans an ambitious project of $150 million, he said.

Most US mosques, including many in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx are funded directly or indirectly by Saudi Arabia the country to which 15 of the 19 hijackers who bombed the World Trade Center belonged. The UAE, Qatar and Iran are other major sponsors across the USA.

The source of money matters: a significant part of the hundreds of mosques being built and already erected in this country double up as cultural Islamic centers for distributing literature– Islamist propaganda in fact—from Bay Ridge Brooklyn to Detroit, and for schooling growing Muslim minorities. They house Imams of unknown origin and education, many of whom do not speak a word in English but preach in Arabic and Urdu — radical messages, it often turns out.

While Imam Faisal is gradually moving ahead with his master plan of constructing the Mecca of Islam in NYC, unknown patrons are continuing to put huge amount of cash in gradually having a strong Islamist grip over world media.

In United Kingdom, newspapers like Islamic Times, The Muslim News, The Muslim Weekly, or radio stations like Radio Apni Awaz, Radio Dawn or TV channels like Islam Channel, Muslim TV are only few examples. According to information, Muslim “‘entrepreneurs” are gradually buying shares in several news outlets in UK with money received from unknown sources. Hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing into such projects, with the ultimate goal of virtually waging Islamic Jihad over global media.

There are a few dozens Islamic TV channels already on air. Peace TV [run by notorious Zakir Naik], ARY TV, Q-TV, Islamic TV, Muslim TV; and Islam Channel – UK:

Commenting on Britain’s most popular Islam Channel, Britain’s Office of Communications, OFCOM, in a report found that a number of presenters with extremis tendencies were regularly given the opportunity to air their opinions on the network.

The report also condemned a channel headquartered in London for being demeaning to women, saying that programs instructed women that they could not refuse to have sexual relations with their husbands. Under British law — and recently in the US in a case which was later overturned — a husband who forces his wife to have sex with him can be charged with rape.

The report added that on one program, women were told that they should not leave their homes without their husband’s consent, and should always have a male escort. Another suggested that women who used perfume were prostitutes. Concerns were also raised in the report over a religious advice program in which viewers were told that “the majority of people in hell will be women” because they are the cause of “calamities, hardship and suffering” in Western society.

The channel was accused of promoting the speeches of Anwar al Awlaki, an extremist preacher who has been linked to al Qaeda, and the views of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a fundamentalist organization which the former Prime Minister Tony Blair had tried to ban.

The Islam Channel is watched by an estimated 59 per cent of the UK’s two million Muslims. It is also available as a satellite channel across Europe and Africa.

New Islam TV – Africa:

In Africa, a company named Multichoice has launched a channel named New Islam TV, which is added in DStv bouquets, reaching millions of people. The channel offers choice news and current affairs, children and women’s programs, as well as Quran recitals in Arabic with English subtitles, Islamic values and doctrine.

Azhari TV – Egypt

Egyptian Al Azhar University is set to launch a satellite based television channel in months targeting “1.5 million Muslims and non-Muslims alike in the world.”

Head of Al Azhar, Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, commenting on this channel, which is funded by a Libyan businessman named Hassan Tatanaki said, “in the Age of Obama we realized it was time to look at new ways to deliver our message.”

Hassan Tatanaki placed an initial investment of US$ 2.7 million in this project. Several news sources claim that the real amount of investment in the channel is much higher than shown in the document. The channel will feature a daily sermon from Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, documentaries relating to al-Azhar, talk shows and an animated series on the Koran. The channel will broadcast 75 percent of its output in Arabic, with the rest initially in English and French. Other languages will be added in 2011.

Another Islamic TV channel named Al Sufiya Wa Atasawaf will also be launched from Egypt in several months.

Al Falah TV – Malaysia

An Islamic television channel named Al Falah TV has been launched by a Malaysian company, World Islamic Television Network. Its chairman, Khairuddin Abu Hassan. said, “This channel will act as a hub for the collection of television programs from Islamic nations and export the same to Europe, the United States and East Asia.”


Geert Wilders to protest NYC Victory-Mosque

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From Gates of Vienna:

Geert Wilders Will Join Newt Gingrich at Ground Zero on 9-11

Geert Wilders has been invited to come to New York on September 11th to attend the planned demonstration against the Ground Zero mosque. He and Newt Gingrich, among other people, will give speeches at the event.

Our Flemish correspondent VH has compiled a report about Mr. Wilders’ plans, based on translations from the Dutch media. First, from Elsevier:

Wilders will join protest in New York against Ground Zero mosque

PVV leader Geert Wilders will go to New York on September 11 to protest against the construction of a mosque on the site where the Twin Towers once stood. Along with prominent U.S. politicians, the PVV leader will give a speech during the protest, as reported by the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports:

“By accepting this invitation Geert Wilders supports the resistance against the construction of a mosque near the place where Islam committed the worst crime in recent years,” the PVV states. “The attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, was an attack on the entire Western civilization, including the Netherlands.”[1]

Previously Wilders had filed questions in parliament on the alleged Dutch involvement in the project. The Netherlands reportedly provided a million euro subsidy to the American Muslim organization Asma. According to the PVV, this organization was involved in the construction of the mosque, but the government denies this.[2]

Three thousand deaths

In the area where the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers took place on September 11, 2001, and nearly three thousand people were killed, there are plans to build a mega mosque.

The demonstration against the construction of the prayer house is organized by ‘Stop Islamization of America’. Besides Wilders, among others the Republican politician Newt Gingrich will give a speech, as well as relatives of victims of the attack, and members of the Fire Department.

The demonstration is being organized by the SIOA (Stop Islamization of America), and is scheduled to start at 14:00 hours at Park Place between Church and West Broadway, near Ground Zero.

The plans for the construction of the mosque are very controversial. Many New Yorkers [and many others, also outside the USA] regard the project as an insult to the people who were killed by radical Muslims during the terrorist attack.

Fraternization

Proponents of the project argue that the building will lead to reconciliation between the various believers. The center, located two blocks away from Ground Zero, will open its doors to all visitors, irrespective of religion and gender.

This week it was announced that there were no legal objections to the construction of the mosque. Mayor Bloomberg supports the construction of the mosque. He believes the government should not interfere in religious affairs. Continue Reading →

John Bernard on the new ROE

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Here is an article from John Bernard from www.letthemfight.blogspot.com whom I interviewed last week.

For those who held out hope that the ROE was going or undergo a ‘positive transformation’ under General Petraeus, you will be disappointed. This is the point where I am suppose to say; ‘I told you so’.

The truth is that there is very little satisfaction in a comment like that because in almost every case; the moment has passed. The salient points, the truths, the opportunities for change have usually passed; subtly, unnoticed and the great harm those points might have stopped, will, in this case, most certainly lead to the death of someone’s loved one; a cost of arrogance.

When the initial story broke 3 days ago, it went almost entirely unnoticed and even for those who read it, the most egregious element of the story seemed to be missed entirely and that is the highlighting of General Petraeus’s unchallenged ego. In a war that has seen a growing number of well-informed, well-educated and experienced individuals challenging the strategy and it’s ROE, there is also this relentless effort to push forward even in light of a growing body of evidence that it is a losing strategy. Even the entire spectrum of the media seems incapacitated or unwilling to accept the possibility that there seems to be a problem.

The Gulf Oil Spill, the Boy Scouts, Charlie Rangel’s broken compass, Lindsay Lohan, the cost of Mastiffs, Reality TV, Obama’s Maine vacation all seem to bear greater significance in the American psyche than does the plight of young Men and Women who have, in the taking of their oaths, pledged to lay down their lives at the whim of madmen. It just isn’t ‘sexy’ enough.

This morning I got a note from Andy Bostom, a good friend with a passion for the welfare of our troops, with what is now the official release of the good General’s assessment of the ROE and his intent. From the story: “Going several steps better, General Petraeus has reportedly expanded the ban on air strikes and artillery fire to all types of buildings, tree-lined areas and hillsides where it is difficult to distinguish who is on the ground.” The fact is, not only has he deemed the ROE as proper, he has deemed it not tight enough.

For the rest of this article please click over to:

No Fire Support; No Glasses; More ‘Chai’; No Warrior Friendly Change!

Diana West: Eyeless in Afghanistan

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Written by: Diana West

Friday, August 06, 2010 3:18 AM 

This week’s column:

“Live our values,” Gen. David Petraeus wrote recently to troops in Afghanistan. “This is what distinguishes us from our enemies.”

Unfortunately, this is also what distinguishes us from many of our “friends.” This culture-chasm is what makes the infidel struggle for hearts and minds across Islamic lands so recklessly, wastefully futile, something I was once again reminded of on reading Time magazine’s cover story featuring 18-year-old Aisha. Aisha is a lovely Afghan girl whose husband and brother-in-law, on instructions from a local judge and Taliban commander, sliced off her ears and nose and left her dying to set an example for other wives thinking of running away from abusive in-laws. Only her discovery by U.S. troops saved Aisha’s life.

But where was Aisha’s father? Where was her family? Where were her town’s elders? Where was Hamid Karzai? Turns out her family did nothing to protect her from the Taliban, Time writes. Why? The magazine describes a mixture of fear and shame that I hope still strikes the average American family as so foreign as extra-terrestrials. Time further explains: “A girl who runs away is automatically considered a prostitute … and families that allow them back home would be subject to widespread ridicule.” When Aisha’s father enticed her home with promises of a new husband, the girl refused because she was fearful that her family would sell her into slavery, or murder her. Continue Reading →