The amateur journalists at the Pocono Record are following a long tradition of appeasement in the face of tyranny.

“Hitler was a brilliant speaker, and his eyes had a peculiar power over people. He was a good organiser and politician. He was a driven, unstable man, who believed that he had been called by God to become dictator of Germany and rule the world. This kept him going when other people might have given up. His self-belief persuaded people to believe in him.”

“Hitler responds to the vibration of the human heart with the delicacy of a seismagraph… enabling him, with a certainty with which no conscious gift could endow him, to act as a loudspeaker proclaiming the most secret desires, the least permissible instincts, the sufferings and personal revolts of a whole nation.”

The amnesia of its friends is a real problem for Israel

thelastcrusade.org

What’s In a Name: Obama Can’t Figure Out (Or Pretends He Can’t) Why He Worries Israelis

By Barry Rubin

President Barack Obama insulted Israelis by saying they might distrust him because his middle name is Hussein. It’s a small detail but one that shows far more than even critical observers understand.

One reason why all of this is so important is that what a leader or politician says today is only for today. To explain behavior, to understand what’s likely to happen in future, you have to go beyond the words and posturing. (By the way, here’s a serious analysis of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting.)

First, let’s remember that Obama’s first name is Barack, which is as much of Semitic language derivation as Hussein. Of course, that first name is found in Hebrew as well as Arabic. After all, Israel’s defense minister is Ehud Barak and my Hebrew name sound the same though there are two different roots involved, while Hussein is more distinctively Arabic. But still, Obama’s lack of awareness about the implications of his own name doesn’t indicate a great depth of knowledge about the Middle East.

Second, Obama was initially–when he had the same name as he does now–quite popular in Israel as polls show. Only when he evinced hostility did the attitude of Israelis change sharply.

Third, that same name belies the impliction that Israelis are biased against him because of his middle name. Israelis, after all, have dealt with two famous Husseins: King Hussein of Jordan and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. The former was a good friend, the most popular Arab leader in Israeli history. (Note 1)

So one can be a good Hussein or a bad Hussein. Of course the issue with this third Hussein is his policies. And that’s why I find his saying this thing far more upsetting.

I’d respect Obama more, and perhaps trust him a little more, if he had said something like this:

We’ve had our differences and we don’t see everything the same way. But we are so fundamentally on the same side that our friendship and alliance will overcome these smaller issues. And, of course, we know that our mutual enemies are out to destroy us and favor totalitarian dictatorship rather than democracy.

By denying there were ever some problems and underplaying the reality of what I’ll call for brevity’s sake the “bad guys”, Obama shows an ability to rewrite history in his own mind and forget what has happened. This may signal that in six months he will forget all of Israel’s cooperation and concessions, which is precisely what happened last time, between October 2009 and March 2010.

(The amnesia of its friends is a real problem for Israel which, for example, made huge concessions and took big risks for the 1990s’ peace process only to find that forgotten, withdrew from southern Lebanon and from the Gaza Strip only to have that forgotten, etc., etc. Makes me think of Charles Chaplin’s film, “City Lights,” for those who know that epic work of cinema.)

Equally, the problem is not that he’s reached out to Muslims but both the way he has done it and the fact that he has done a lot of reaching out to radical Muslims. A number of U.S. presidents have maintained strong relationships with post-Camp David Egypt, with Jordan, with Saudi Arabia and other countries (take Bill Clinton as an example) yet never stirred hostility or distrust from Israel.

Read the rest at Rubin Reports

IS BARACK SHEDDING HIS ISLAMIC SKIN?

NOW ONLY WANTS TO “REDUCE HOSTILITY TOWARD ISRAEL”

thelastcrusade.org

President Barack Obama said that his egregious attempts to reach out to Muslims reflects his desire to reduce hostility toward Israel and the West.

Speaking to Israeli TV in an interview from the White House Wednesday, Obama said his “outreach to the Muslim community is designed precisely to reduce the antagonism and the dangers posed by a hostile Muslim world to Israel and to the West.”

He said Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “is somebody who understands that we’ve got a fairly narrow window of opportunity” and that “we probably won’t have a better opportunity than we have right now.”

“The fact that he is not perceived as a dove in some ways can be helpful in the sense that any successful peace will have to include the hawks and the doves, on both sides, and in the same way that Richard Nixon here in the United States was able to go to China because he had very strong anti-communist credentials, I think Prime Minister Netanyahu may be very well positioned to bring this about,” Obama maintained, adding that direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians are necessary to build trust.

“I think that if you have direct talks between Abu Mazen, Netanyahu, their teams, that builds trust. And trust then allows for both sides to not be so jumpy or paranoid about every single move that’s being made,” Obama said.

Asked about many his commitment to the Jewish state, Obama said, “The United States under my administration has provided more security assistance to Israel than any administration in history. And we’ve got greater security cooperation between our two countries than at any time in our history. And the single most important threat to Israel — Iran, and its potential possession of a nuclear weapon — has been my number one foreign policy priority over the course of the last 18 months.”

In his effort to establish U.S. ties to Islam, President Obama, speaking before Turkey’s Parliament last year, said: The United States is not – and will never be — at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical not just in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject but also to strengthen opportunities for all people.”

Similarly, when addressing a Muslim crowd at the University of Cairo, Mr. Obama said: “American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch.”

The President, by making these remarks, seemed unaware that Islam only became a factor in U.S. history in the wake of The Immigration and Naturalization Reform Act of 1965, and that there remains no record of any Muslim fighting on behalf of the U.S.A. in World War I, World War II, the Korean conflict, and the war in Viet Nam.

MASSIVE MANHUNT BEGINS AGAIN

by

Paul L. Williams, Ph.D.

The Justice Department today announced charges against Adnan el Shukrijumah and four other members of al-Qaeda for plotting to bomb targets in the United States and United Kingdom.

The charges reveal that the 2009 plot against New York’s subway system, involving Colorado resident Najibullah Zazi was directed by Shukrijumah and other senior al-Qaeda leaders from their make-shift headquarters in Pakistan. The same plotters, according to the indictment, attempted to use Western operatives to attack a target in the United Kingdom.

The superseding indictment, which was unsealed in the Eastern District of New York, charges the following defendants each with several terrorism violations: Adnan El Shukrijumah, also known as “Hamad;” Adis Medunjanin, also known as “Mohammad;” Abid Naseer; Tariq Ur Rehman; and a fifth defendant known as “Ahmad,” “Sohaib” or “Zahid.”

Each of the defendants faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Although the FBI placed a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Shukrijumah and made him the subject of a massive manhunt, the federal officials neglected to obtain an arrest warrant even though FBI director Robert Mueller had labelled Shukrijumah “the most dangerous terrorist in the western hemisphere.”

Shukrijumah, a naturalized American citizen, attended Broward Community College, and, later, according to sources, enrolled as an engineering student at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, with other terrorists, in order to pilfer radiological material from the McMaster reactor in order to construct “dirty nukes” for deetonation at various sites throughout the U.S.

The arrest of Shukrijumah was deemed so vital to U.S. national security that a special office to oversee the manhunt was set up in Miami with a 24 hour hotline.

On March 7, 2007, Sean Michels, a correspondent for Global TV and a member of this investigative team, met with FBI Special Agent Andrew Lenzen, who has been appointed to spearhead the search for Adnan el Shukrijumah. The meeting took place in Miami at the request of Mr. Michels.

Agent Lenzen professed to have the only real insight into Adnan’s training as a jihadi and present whereabouts. “I know him almost like his mother,” he once told the press. “I’ve lived, slept and dreamed him for the past three years.”

During his conversation with Mr. Michels, Mr. Lenzen dismissed the findings of several leading investigative journalists and insisted that Shukrijumah was neither a pilot nor an engineer. He maintained that Shukrijumah and his family had no ties to southern Ontario and only made occasional visits to relatives in Montreal. He also insisted that the FBI was “following” the elusive Shukrijumah, not because he committed a crime, but because he had an extensive knowledge of computers.

Agent Lenzen’s assertions, however, are refuted by Adnan’s appearances at flight schools in Florida and Oklahoma, his academic records at Broward Community College, and the photographs from the Shukrijumah family album. For this reason, the Special Agent appears to have been either a disseminator of disinformation to lead the press and the public on a wild goose chase or a victim of the agency’s own misinformation.

According to today’s indictment, Saleh al-Somali and El Shukrijumah recruited Zazi and Zazi’s co-conspirators, Zarein Ahmedzay and Medunjanin, to conduct suicide bombings in New York City using improvised explosive devices made from supplies such as hydrogen peroxide, acetone, flour and oil.

Saleh, according to the court documents, communicated with Zazi through “Ahmad,” an al-Qaeda facilitator in Peshawar, Pakistan. In early September 2009, after Zazi constructed the detonator explosives for the attack, he emailed with “Ahmad” in Pakistan about the proper ingredients for the flour-based main charge explosive. Zazi pleaded guilty to his role in the New York subway plot on February 22, 2010; Ahmedzay similarly pleaded guilty on April 23, 2010.

The indictment adds formal charges against Shukrijumah recruited Zazi, Ahmedzay, and Medunjanin to return to the United States and conduct the attack on New York’s subway system.

The investigation by authorities in the United States and United Kingdom has revealed that “Ahmad” was also communicating with Manchester-based, United Kingdom resident Abid Naseer. Naseer, like Zazi, was in Peshawar, Pakistan in November 2008, according to the court filings.

After returning to the United Kingdom, Naseer sent messages back and forth to the same email account that “Ahmad” was using to communicate with the American-based al-Qaeda cell on behalf of Saleh, the indictment and court filings allege. In the messages, Naseer used coded language to refer to different types of explosives.

In early April 2009, Naseer, again using coded language, told “Ahmad” that he was planning a large “wedding” for numerous guests between April 15 and 20, 2009, and that “Ahmad” should be ready. Notably, “Ahmad” and Zazi had agreed on a similar code to mean the attack was ready to be executed, and Zazi emailed Ahmad that “the marriage is ready” just before he left Colorado for New York in early September 2009.

On April 8, 2009, Naseer and Rehman were arrested in the United Kingdom on terrorism charges. In connection with the arrests, U.K. authorities conducted searches of the plotters’ homes, where they found large quantities of flour and oil, as well as surveillance photographs of public areas in Manchester and maps of Manchester’s city center posted on the wall, with one of the locations from the surveillance photographs highlighted. Naseer is currently in custody in the United Kingdom. The United States intends to seek his extradition to face trial. Rehman is not in custody.

The superseding indictment also adds new charges to the pending indictment against Medunjanin. Specifically, the indictment charges that, in furtherance of the New York plot, and, after Zazi was already in custody, Medunjanin attempted to crash his car into another car on the Whitestone Expressway in Queens, N.Y. as a last attempt to carry out a suicide attack on American soil. Just before crashing his car, Medunjanin called 911 to identify himself and announce his intentions. Medunjanin remains in federal custody in the United States. No trial date has been set.

Medunjanin is charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction; conspiring to commit murder abroad; providing and conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda; receiving military training from al-Qaeda; committing and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries; and using firearms and a destructive device in relation to the above offenses.

Shukrijumah and “Ahmad” are each charged with providing and conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda; conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction; assisting the receipt of military training; committing and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries; and using firearms in relation to the same offenses. “Ahmad” is also charged together with Naseer and Rehman with providing and conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda and conspiracy to use a destructive device in relation to the U.K. branch of the plot.

“These charges underscore the global nature of the terrorist threat we face. They further reflect the effectiveness of mutual investigations and cooperation with our global partners in disrupting terrorism threats. I thank our counterparts in the United Kingdom for their assistance in this investigation,” said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

“As today’s charges demonstrate, we will not rest in our pursuit of those responsible for plotting terrorist attacks,” said Loretta E. Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Ms. Lynch also expressed her gratitude to the law enforcement personnel, both domestic and foreign, who took part in the investigation.

FBI Executive Assistant Director Sean Joyce, National Security Branch said, “The threat posed by terrorists around the world is a threat to security and a threat to the rule of law. The transnational nature of this conspiracy, and its connection to plots targeted outside the U.S. underscores the importance of international coordination and collaboration to do everything we can to ensure public safety.”

“The charges announced today illustrate the coordinated and persistent attempts by our adversaries to harm American citizens,” said FBI New York Acting Assistant Director-in-Charge George Venizelos. “FBI personnel around the world are dedicated to working with our international law enforcement partners to uncover and thwart attacks.”

The investigation is being conducted by the New York, Denver and Miami FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces, as well as the Washington Field Office of the FBI. The North West Counter Terrorism Unit and Greater Manchester Police Department have also provided significant assistance.

The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, with assistance from the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida has also provided assistance in the investigation.

The release from the U.S. Justice Department neglected to make mention of the testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and other al Qaeda leaders that Shukrijumah has also been commissioned to create a “nuclear hellstorm” in major cities throughout the U.S.

POST-AMERICA JOINS ISLAMIC MUSHROOM CLUB

U.S. MEDIA FOLLOWS OBAMA’S LEAD: WHITEWASHES TURKISH TERROR CONNECTIONS

Humanitarian Aid Ship? Nope, Jihad Ship: No Aid for Gazans on the Mavi Marmara

By Barry Rubin

thelastcrusade.org

How many truckloads of humanitarian aid on the seven flotilla ships? Thirty-four plus 2000 tons of cement. How many truckloads did Israel deliver to Gaza that same week? Answer: 484.

Would the materials carried on some of the ships help the people of Gaza? Sure. There were wheelchairs, mobility scooters for the disabled, crutches, hospital beds, medicine, and clothing, and hospital equipment.

But if the intention was simply to deliver these items they could have been unloaded in Egypt and everything (including the militants on board carrying lots of money) could have gone into Gaza. Or they could have been unloaded in Israel, inspected, and anything not connected with terrorism could have gone into Gaza.

But the goal, of course, was to destroy the blockade, help Hamas poliically, and make Israel look bad.

As for the Mavi Marmara, this ship was controlled by the Jihadist IHH group and its goal was poliical, not humnitarian. And now we know: it carried no cargo of aid whatsoever. Why should a ship carrying no humanitarian aid at all break through the blockade? Answer: To break the blockade by triggering a violent confrontation.

Meanwhile, Germany’s Channel One news conducted the kind of good investigating reporting that should be seen in the English-speaking world. The program, “Questionable Peace Mission,” asked why German leftists were in the same boat—literally–as Turkish Islamists and right-wing extremists. Here is the program in the original German and with English and French subtitles.

The three German leftist activists interviewed claimed all participants were from humanitarian organizations and talked about all the fun they’d had. They had no interest in knowing that they were being used.

The show then contrasts this with material about the extremism of the IHH, which organized the trip. Those about to depart on the ship—who shortly thereafter would be attacking the arriving Israeli soldiers—chanted, “Oh, you Jews.…the army of the prophet Muhamad will return–just like in Kaibar [where Jewish men were massacred and women and children forcibly converted and sold into slavery]….Intifada until victory!”

For the militants, this was a revolutionary act, a raid, not a humanitarian mission. Of course, the vast majority of those on the ships were just trying to do a good deed, but they were not the ones who determined that the outcome would be a violent confrontation.

Mete Cubukcu, editor-in-chief of NTV, one of Turkey’s largest television networks, explains how the IHH, which organized and led the flotilla, is linked to radical groups and Jihad fighters, including those who murdered a beloved Armenian journalist.

Then there’s the interview with IHH and flotilla leader Yildrim on board the Mavi Marmara (3:40). He says they know Israel will stop the ship and that when this happens, there will be huge demonstrations throughout the world.

The show then interviews Michael Kiefer, a left-wing expert on Islam from Erfurt University. He says that the Turks on board were not peace activists as this term is understood in the West, but people advocating violence and revolutionary activity.

What’s most ironic is that many of the Turks on the ship were from the IHH and an extremist nationalist group, the BBP. Three years ago, the left-wing party to which the three German participants belonged applied to the German government to label these groups as “racist” with a “propensity for violence and totalitarian structures based on the führer principle” equivalent to a German neo-Nazi movement.

When asked by a German television reporter: “You seem not to have bothered from the outset about who would travel with you,” Annette Groth, the left-wing member of parliament who was on the ship angrily ended the conversation. She and her colleagues didn’t want to know how they’d served as human shields for violent groups acting in support of a terrorist, racist group, Hamas.

Those in the media who continue to cover up or ignore these facts should be asked why, to paraphrase the German reporter’s question to Groth, “You seem not to have bothered by the nature of the extremists, terrorists, and antisemitic groups for whom you’re making propaganda.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (PalgraveMacmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood.

Psalm 9:17  The wicked shall be turned into hell,
and all the nations that forget God.

Kumbaya amigos!

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http://twitter.com/DrPaulLWilliams

UMMAH ON THE MARCH

STEALTH JIHAD RAGES

By

Paul L. Williams, Ph.D.

The National Ummah – - a Muslim movement that seeks to transform American cities into sovereign Islamic states – - has gained a foothold in metropolitan areas throughout the country.

Few groups are more radical, subversive, and dangerous.

The movement is led by Jamil al-Amin, (H. Rap Brown) from his cell in a maximum security prison on the outskirts of Florence, Colorado, where he is serving a life sentence for killing two police officers.

Some of the Ummah mosques maintain armed militias. Others provide training in marital arts and guerilla warfare. Almost all operate beneath the radar of local, state, and federal law enforcement officials.

Last October, after conducting a raid on Ummah congregations in Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan, federal investigators said that the movement was small and regional with only a few hundred active members.

But thousands of African American Muslims pledge their allegiance to the Ummah (Arabic for “community”) and a short list of mosques affiliated with the movement is as follows:

The Universal Islamic Brotherhood in Cleveland

West End Community in Atlantic

Ta’if Tul Ministry in Los Angeles

First Cleveland Mosque

Masjid al-Islam – Washington, DC

Dar al-Hijrah – Falls Church, Virginia

Masjid Mohammad – Washington, DC

Peace in the Hood – Cleveland

Masjid Bilal – Lexington, Kentucky

Masjid Waritheen – Oakland, California

Masjid Ibrahim – Sacramento

Sankore Institute – Green Haven Penitentiary

Community Mosque – Winston-Salem

Adams Center – Washington, DC

Masjid Mujahidin – New York City

Masjid al-Mumin – New York City

Masjid al-Taqwa – New York City

The movement is an outgrowth of Dar ul-Islam, an Islamic street gang in Brooklyn. Many members of the gang ended up in Green Haven, a maximum security prison in upper New York where they established Masjid Santore, a mosque within the prison.

The prison mosque receives full funding from New York state legislators.

Another offshoot of Dar ul-Islam is Jamaat ul-Fuqra, an Islamic group that operates Islamberg and approximately forty additional Islamic paramilitary compounds throughout the country.

On October 28, 2009, the FBI raided a warehouse in Detroit and two houses in Detroit and arrested eleven Ummah members on charges of mail fraud, the illegal possession of firearms, trafficking in stolen goods, and altering vehicle identification numbers.

In the course of the raid on the warehouse, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the ringleader of the group, opened fire on the federal agents and was killed in the ensuing gunfight.

Luqman Abdullah was the imam of the Masjid al-Haqq in Detroit, a mosque that was part of the Ummah network.

He sought to claim a section of blight ravaged Detroit for his group in order to establish a sovereign Muslim enclave governed by sharia (Islamic law).

In his sermons, Imam Abdullah called upon his followers to launch an “offensive jihad” against U.S. officials and to carry and use firearms.

Imam Abdullah was one of the founders of the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA). Another founder was Siraj Wahhaj, an un-indicted co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and imam of Masjid al-Taqwa in Brooklyn.

MANA was formed to defend Jamil al-Amin and to advance the Islamic take-over of the United States by “cultural jihad” – - pushing for black/Muslim privileges under the guise of equal opportunity and civil rights.

NIX TO NIQAB

BEHIND THE VEIL

thelstcrusade.org

A French journalist who posed as an Islamic woman and wore a full-length niqab in public for five days to report on the experience says she felt isolated, humiliated, and disgraced.

Elizabeth Alexandre, who reports her findings in this month’s issue of the French publication Marie Claire, wrote the article in an effort to deal with with the controversy surrounding the niqab, or Islamic face veil, that is raging in France.

“I wanted to feel the fabric on my cheeks and forehead and see the world from this tiny slit. I also wanted to know how the world would see me,” Alexandre writes. “I felt as if I am inside a tent. I couldn’t see my feet and when I walked the garment rolled around my legs and I had to slow down. I was terrified I was going to fall on my face.”

The French journalist draws three conclusions from her week under the veil. She says the veil is impractical and uncomfortable; that it creates isolation; and that it arouses self-consciousness.

“Being totally covered made me feel that my body is a disgrace. All men around me turned into sexually obsessed beasts that want to devour me. It is then that I felt I need the veil to protect me from this imminent danger. For the first time in my life, I felt I was a sex bomb and a source of sin,” Alexandre maintains. “This secrecy gives free reign to everybody’s imagination and makes people wonder about what the hidden parts look like.”