Displaying posts published in

June 2018

The USA-North Korea-Iran strategic interconnection Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

The geo-strategic ripple effects of the 2018 US nuclear negotiation with North Korea and the 1994 US nuclear agreement with Pyongyang have been closely scrutinized by Iran’s Ayatollahs. Similarly, North Korea has studied the geo-strategic consequences of the 2015 US-led nuclear accord with the Ayatollahs (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

The track record of the nuclear negotiations with the Ayatollahs and North Korea verifies a clear and direct interconnection between the two processes. Moreover, the nuclear agreements with both the Ayatollahs and North Korea were largely shaped by the State Department establishment, in general, and Wendy Sherman, the former Chief Negotiator and Acting Deputy Secretary of State, in particular.

Furthermore, the overall conduct of both rogue regimes – as far as abandoning or advancing nuclearization, ending or expanding terrorism, subversion and ballistic capabilities – has been immensely impacted by the US negotiation posture. Thus, the less assertive and more eager is the US, and the more reluctant it is to use the military option, the less deterred and the more radicalized are Iran and North Korea.

They consider concessions made by the US and other Western democracies to be a sign of weakness, especially when the concessions are tangible and immediate – in return for future reciprocity – ignoring the tenuous, violent, unreliable and lawless track record of the two rogue regimes.

Enhanced Interrogation: Edward Cline

https://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/

When most people hear or read of “enhanced interrogation” they automatically think of waterboarding or Abu Ghraib (Iraq) or torture. And even of Guantánamo Bay.

James E. Mitchell, author of Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America, is a clinical psychologist, who, shortly after 9/11, served years in the CIA’s interrogation program of “debriefing” captured top al-Qa’ida leaders and terror suspects, held in “black sites,” to wheedle information from them about past acts of terrorism and those being planned.

Mitchell writes in his book that he has never been to Iraq or Guantánamo Bay. He does not identify the “black sites” where he interrogated prisoners; which is a good thing, for otherwise ISIS or some other terrorist organization would raid it. But, to read Mitchell’s book, is to get the impression that he is some kind of peace-loving Quaker. He often intervened in interrogation sessions when the CIA interrogators resorted to physical abuse of the prisoners. However, Mitchell is nothing if not patriotic. He begins his book in its preface. Some time after 9/11, he got an urgent call:

“You need to leave your home immediately.” It was the chief of security for the CIA on the phone. “We have a credible death threat by ISIS against your life, and we want you to evacuate until we determine how viable it is.” ISIS had tweeted a request that a jihadist cut my head off, and according to the CIA, someone had just volunteered to do the job and the person was already en route. It was December 2014 (p. 1)….

Over the next few years Mitchell and his co-interrogator, Bruce Jessen, also a psychologist, “interrogated” over a dozen captured terrorists and passed their appraisals and evaluations on to the CIA to have the information checked and double-checked against information garnered from other detainees elsewhere. When they dealt with a terrorist, it amounted to a mind game with the detainee. Mitchell and Jessen infrequently resorted to EITs Enhanced Interrogation Techniques), such as waterboarding, “wall standing,” sleep deprivation, and stress positions, only and unless a detainee was known to be lying or had been especially difficult, all approved – by the DOJ as legitimate means of interrogation. Reading through Mitchell’s account, one is educated, first, that they are not “torture” in the Inquisition or auto-da-fé sense, and that they are meant to persuade a terrorist to “squeal” the truth without actually harming him. Doctors were usually on hand to check on a detainee if it seemed he had been hurt.

A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Britain: May 2018 by Soeren Kern

May 22. Religious advisers at the Masjid Ramadan mosque in Dalston, east London, said that bitcoin, the cryptocurrency, is halal (permissible according to Islamic law) for donations if it is “transacted in a lawful manner.” The mosque, also known as Shacklewell Lane Mosque, will accept donations in two different cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum. Zayd al Khair, a religious adviser at the mosque, said: “Any money or currency is neither halal, permissible, nor haram, impermissible. Guidance is about the value which it represents. If money is transacted in a lawful manner then it is halal. We do not always know the source of cash donations, but we take these in good faith too.”

May 22. Farooq Rashid, 43, of Bradford, was sentenced to two years in prison for possessing and sharing jihad-related material online. “Terrorist groups such as Daesh [ISIS] rely heavily on their propaganda being shared online to encourage support, radicalize, and provoke individuals to carry out attacks abroad and in the UK,” said Martin Snowden, the head of Counter Terrorism Policing in North East England.

May 23. A mother who forced her daughter to marry a relative almost twice her age was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison. It was the first time a forced marriage case was successfully prosecuted in an English court. Forced marriage has been a punishable offense in Britain since 2014. Birmingham Crown Court heard how the woman duped the then 17-year-old into travelling to Pakistan to wed the man, who was 16 years her senior. Years before the ceremony, the girl was entered into a “marriage contract” with the man and became pregnant aged 13.

May 23. The Daily Mail reported that Amazon, the online retailer, was selling terrorist recruitment material and bomb-making manuals: “Many of the books, which have radicalized thousands of international terrorists, are available for next-day delivery. Some can be downloaded instantly as Kindle editions anywhere in the world. The inflammatory titles are sold by third parties using Amazon’s platform, allowing them global reach and lending them an aura of legitimacy.” Labour MP John Mann said: “This is Amazon giving assistance to terrorists and putting lives at risk. We’ve just had the anniversary of the Manchester bombing. They need to be held to account. Amazon is allowing terror material to circulate. Free speech arguments don’t apply when it comes to terrorists trying to recruit. There must be a full police investigation into Amazon.”

May 24. Baroness Cox and other members of the House of Lords called on the British government to “respond urgently” to a 2015 review on Sharia courts by drafting a law to protect vulnerable Muslim women. Lord Elton said that the problem of Sharia councils “seems to me bigger and more urgent than Her Majesty’s Government are giving it credit for.” Baroness Flather accused Whitehall of not taking the issue seriously. Baroness Cox asked whether the government “will make it a priority to respond urgently with appropriate legislation.” In April 2015, Baroness Cox authored a 40-page report — “A Parallel World: Confronting the Abuse of Many Muslim Women in Britain Today” — which documented how Muslim women across Britain are being systematically oppressed, abused and discriminated against by Sharia law courts, which treat women as second-class citizens. The report warned against the spiraling proliferation of Islamic tribunals in the United Kingdom.

May 25. Tommy Robinson, a 35-year-old anti-Islam activist, was arrested and jailed for contempt of court after livestreaming footage of participants in a criminal trial outside Leeds Crown Court. The trial involved members of a Muslim pedophile gang charged with sexually exploiting young girls. Outrage ensued after Judge Geoffrey Marson ordered a media blackout on Robinson’s arrest and incarceration.

May 29. A Pew Research Study found that 73% of Britons identify as being Christian, but only 18% attend church. In the UK, 45% of church-attending Christians say Islam is fundamentally incompatible with British values and culture, as do roughly the same share of non-practicing Christians (47%). Among religiously unaffiliated adults, 30% say Islam is fundamentally incompatible with their country’s values. The poll found that 69% of those who identify as Christian were in favor of reducing the levels of immigration, compared to 32% of non-affiliated adults.

May 29. A couple was convicted of forced marriage for luring their 19-year-old daughter to Bangladesh in an attempt to force her to marry her first cousin — so that he could obtain a British visa. Leeds Crown Court heard how the girl’s parents had told her they were going on a six-week holiday to Bangladesh to visit relatives. Just days after arriving, however, she was told by her father that he had found a husband for her. The victim, who was not named for legal reasons, told the court: “He said, ‘I have planned this for years, the guy is really suitable, I’ve given him money for university, and he’s a really attractive guy for round here.’ He was trying to get me to say yes, but at no point did I say yes. I thought it was disgusting because it was my first cousin and stood my ground.” She was rescued by British authorities before the marriage took place. The judge told the two defendants that they should expect an “immediate imprisonment” when they are sentenced on June 18.

May 29. The trial began of Anthony Small, a 36-year-old former boxing champion who converted to Islam in 2007, for terrorism offenses. Prosecutor Karen Robinson told the Old Bailey that Small “implored Muslims to take violent action against the West.” On his YouTube channel, Small described himself as “a former professional champion boxer who now works to take mankind out of the oppression of democracy and liberating themselves with Islam/Sharia.” In the video, he spoke out against McDonald’s and Coca Cola and other symbols of Western culture. He said the choice was to “either accept the flame-grilled burger or we are going to flame grill you from the sky.”

May 30. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) called on the Conservative Party to conduct an inquiry into allegations of Islamophobia within the party. At least five Tory candidates have been suspended in recent weeks for making so-called Islamophobic comments. On April 17, for example, Alexander van Terheyden, a council candidate in Hackney, was suspended after, on social media, he called Islam, a “violent political ideology” comparable to fascism and communism. In response to allegations of Islamophobia, Van Terheyden said: “I’ve stated Islam is a violent political ideology. Note the word ‘political’ and not religious. Note I do not refer to Muslims, I refer to the political ideology. My views have always been public. If you mean the fact that I’m happy to voice my discontent for communism, fascism, Islam and other extreme political ideologies there is no secret to this.” In December 2015, a government report found that the MCB is “secretly linked” to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic fundamentalist group committed to a “civilizational jihad” aimed at undermining liberal democracies in the West.

May 31. Khurram Javed, 35, of Rotherham was sentenced to two years in prison for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl. The trial was part of the National Crime Agency’s Operation Stovewood, which is investigating child sexual exploitation and abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

May 31. Husnain Rashid, 32, of Lancashire, pled guilty at Woolwich Crown Court to three terrorism offenses, including one in which he called for an attack against Prince George, son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and third in line to the throne. Rashid will be sentenced on June 28 for the offenses spanning from October 2016 to April 2018.

May 31. Mohammed Aslam Rabani, a 61-year-old twice-married former imam at a mosque in Nottingham, was sentenced to five years in prison for sexually assaulting a teenage boy in the mosque’s attic. Rabani repeatedly assaulted the boy between June 1990 and June 1993, when the victim was 12 years old. The victim, who is now married and a father, said: “He was a father figure to me and everyone. Not even my own family would believe what he was doing to me. I was scared, because beatings at home and at the mosque were commonplace in our community. Children just did as they were told and adults were always right. As a result, I didn’t speak out. Additionally, I thought it was normal, because I also believed that Rabani should be trusted. I assumed that because he was the imam, that whatever he did was right and that he was closest to God.”

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.

WANTED-A BETTER KITE: GERALD HONIGMAN

The Gatestone Institute recently ran an essay by a Muslim Arab writer based in the Middle East, Bassam Tawilhttps://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12467/palestinians-burn-the-jews

Here’s some excerpts from his article about fire kites being sent into Israel by those mainstream media’s “peaceful” Arabs across the Gaza border…

…The jubilant reactions of Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims to the reports about the kite fires that have destroyed thousands of acres of fields and agricultural lands in Israel also leave no doubt that this tactic is a violent jihad waged with the goal of destroying Israel and killing Jews. Each time a report about another blaze surfaces, many Palestinians take to Facebook and Twitter to shout the Islamic battle cry “Allahu Akbar!” [“Allah is Greatest”], echoing calls from ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other jihadi terror groups when they launch terror attacks against non-Muslims. The Arabs and Muslims are now referring to the kite launchers as “mujahideen” (warriors) – a sign that these terrorists are soldiers of Islam engaged in a jihad against the infidels, including, of course, the Jews…

The flaming kites should be seen in the context of the ongoing Palestinian terror campaign that began decades ago and the goal of which is to kill Jews and eliminate Israel. There is no difference between the kites and rockets and mortars. There is no difference between the kites, suicide bombings, stabbing and car-ramming attacks. There is no difference between the kites and drive-by shootings. There is no difference between the kites and the slaughtering of a Jewish family during a meal. The techniques may vary, but the goal remains one: to see Israel wiped off the face of the earth…

On a somewhat related matter, not long ago, a young Israeli soldier was crushed to death by a large stone block dropped from a roof on his head. Other Jews have been killed and seriously wounded by rocks and stones as well, including very young children.

Brotherhood-Linked Congressman Running to be AG of Minnesota Keith Ellison would rather wage war on Trump in court than in Congress. Matthew Vadum see note please

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270395/brotherhood-linked-congressman-running-be-ag-matthew-vadum
Just for the record, Ellison who represents District 5 in Minnesota, got an 8+ from the Arab American Association, for his anti-Israel bias and votes…..rsk

Brotherhood-linked Congressman Keith Ellison is giving up his ultra-safe seat in the U.S. House of Representatives to run for the post of attorney general of Minnesota, a risky move in a state that isn’t as radically left-wing as his home district.

The primary election is Aug. 14.

Ellison, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) deputy chairman who essentially endorsed the violent anarchists and communists of the subversive Antifa movement, claims he wants to be the North Star State’s top lawyer to litigate away in a quest for justice.

“It was attorneys general who led the fight against [President Trump’s so-called] Muslim ban,” Ellison said after filing his paperwork on the final day allowed. “I want to be a part of that fight.”

“As Attorney General, I will push for equal rights under the law, for commonsense gun safety laws, and for criminal justice reform that ends unjust policies and creates a pathway for Minnesotans to reenter as contributing members of society.”

“No one — not even a President — is above the law,” he wrote in a statement. Minnesotans “need a fighter on their side,” he added, calling himself the “People’s Lawyer.”

But the term “People’s Lawyer” has a special meaning for left-wing radicals.

The Left likes to refer to some of its legal heroes like Sixties icon William Kunstler as “People’s Lawyers.” It’s not what you might think.

A “People’s Lawyer” – the phrase is always capitalized – is a crusading, small-c communist attorney who devotes his life to using the legal system to fundamentally transform America. As such it is a profoundly antisocial, un-American concept, so, naturally, it is embraced by the communist-dominated National Lawyers Guild (NLG).

Egypt’s ‘Baghdad Bob’ Dies On 51st Anniversary Of Six-Day War But the lies continue. Ari Lieberman

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270400/egypts-baghdad-bob-dies-51st-anniversary-six-day-ari-lieberman

June 5, 2018 marked the 51st anniversary of the Six-Day War, which, as its name implies, was won by Israel in six days. This past Monday, one of Egypt’s chief propagandists during the conflict, Ahmed Said, died. Said worked for the Voice of the Arabs, a Cairo-based station used by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to stir up the masses and whip them into a frenzied state of base Jew-hatred. Ironically, his death occurred on the 51st anniversary of the day that Israel humiliated his country and the Arab world at large. In three pivotal hours of the first day of the war, Israel transformed the Egyptian air force into an expensive heap of scrap metal.

Said was Egypt’s equivalent of the notorious “Baghdad Bob,” the nickname given to Iraq’s comical minister of information during the Second Gulf War, whose amusing government propaganda evoked both laughter and derision. While Israeli fighter aircraft – Mirages, Super Mysteres and Vautours – were flying over Egypt bombing and strafing Egyptian airfields, and Israeli armored and mechanized columns were thrusting into Sinai, Said was claiming that Egypt had shot down dozens of Israeli planes and that its tanks were marching on Tel Aviv.

Said’s imaginary phantom victory claims along with general Egyptian obfuscation as to the extent of the military disaster befalling the Egyptian army had calamitous consequences not only for Egypt but for Jordan as well. Fed on a steady diet of lies and misleading Egyptian broadcasts and government communiques concerning imminent Israeli defeat and Arab victory, Jordan’s King Hussein ordered his troops into action. Israeli pleas to the Hussein to stay out of the war had no effect on the “Little King,” who was by now undoubtedly intoxicated by the prospect of expanding his kingdom and “liberating” pre-1967 “Palestine” from the infidels.

14-Year-Old Jewish Girl Murdered by Muslim Refugee in Germany Another innocent girl pays the price for Europe’s open borders. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270399/14-year-old-jewish-girl-murdered-muslim-refugee-daniel-greenfield

On May 22, Susanna Maria Feldman went missing. It was the day after the Jewish holiday of Shavuot which celebrates G-d’s revelation of the Ten Commandments to Moses and a nation of freed slaves.

The fifth commandment is, “Honor thy father and mother.” The sixth is, “Thou shalt not murder.”

And in the German city of Mainz, whose Jewish community dates back to Roman times, a worried mother waited for the worst. Susanna had gone off with her friends. They came home. And she didn’t.

Her mother received a WhatsApp message from her daughter’s phone on the afternoon of the 22nd. “Mom, I’m not coming home. I went to Paris with my friend. Don’t look for me. I’ll come back after 2 or 3 weeks. Bye.”

According to Diana, Susanna’s mother, the message sounded nothing like her daughter. 4 hours later, the teenage girl’s phone was switched off. There was nothing more.

“I hope and pray that nothing bad has happened to her,” she posted on Facebook. “Please help me find my daughter safe again.”

The police reassured the frantic mother that her daughter had just gone off with some friends and would come back on her, but she feared the worst while the authorities stonewalled.

On June 1, she published an open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel in which she wrote, “I feel abandoned by the German state.”

Two weeks passed. The police searched. Dogs sniffed around but found nothing. And then someone noticed a flash of white among all that brown and green. It was the white of a clothing label.

Bullies in the White House Press Corps By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2018/06/08/bullies-in-the-white-house-press

Of all the post-2016 credibility casualties—the Clintons, the FBI, Hollywood, professional athletes, late-night comedians—the American news media is the most bloodied.

After fluffing Barack Obama for a decade—so much so that the former president still claims with a straight face that his presidency was scandal-free—the press is going after the Trump White House with a level of malice and animus that borders on abuse.

In its servile, vainglorious attempt to score points with each other and feed an insatiable Trump-hating constituency, the media has participated in a shameful degradation of an institution that was once viewed as a critical American liberty. Newspapers such as the New York Times and Washington Post, and cable news outlets CNN and MSNBC, have done most of the heavy lifting—particularly in fueling one side of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, which includes reporting illegally leaked classified information to damage anyone in Trump’s orbit.

Not only has their collective political coverage been deemed overwhelmingly negative by objective observers (a study by Harvard University last year concluded, “Trump’s coverage during his first 100 days set a new standard for negativity”), the professional conduct of individual reporters and cable news hosts has been—to borrow a term they embrace for others—deplorable. Any pretense of objectivity is gone; professionalism and common courtesy is nowhere to be found. One only has to watch a White House press briefing for evidence.

The Creepy and Creeping Power of Social Media By Ned Ryun

https://amgreatness.com/2018/06/08/the-creepy-and-creeping

With the recent revelations that “

Google allowed “Nazism” to be associated with the California Republican Party in searches, to YouTube removing purely mechanical gun content, to the news that Facebook allowed far greater access to private data than anyone realized, it’s time to have a conversation about what these social and tech giants really are.

We should acknowledge social media has had a positive effect over the years in breaking the monopoly on information flow. The traditional gatekeepers can no longer stop conversations they don’t approve because social media platforms have been an extraordinary means for people and groups to connect and communicate locally, regionally, and internationally. They’ve allowed upstarts, outsiders, and disrupters like Donald Trump, or movements like Brexit, to break through and actually win.

For almost 20 years, the federal communications and competitive regulatory environment that was in place allowed companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google (and their many competitors that either no longer exist or that have been subsumed into the victorious behemoths) to operate more freely and with fewer regulatory impediments compared to other traditional communications companies like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. For example, Facebook, Google and Amazon had far looser federal policies to adhere to related to the kind of personal data they could collect about their customers, how long they could store that data, and what they could sell or share with other entities. The “traditional” communications companies had to adhere to much more stringent rules.

That was then. Now we need a conversation about social media and tech giants in light of what they’ve become. They’re all grown up now and it’s time for the kids in Silicon Valley to start operating under the rules that govern the other adults. And by that, I mean media and telecommunications companies.

If entities are creating content, selling advertising, streaming both live and produced original content, publishing original content, deploying broadband and wireless internet, even offering voice and video communications services, haven’t they become publishers and telecommunications companies? Because that’s exactly what they’re doing and exactly what they are.

Mulvaney Fires All 25 Members of CFPB Advisory Board By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/trending/mulvaney-fires-all-25-members-of-cfpb-advisory-board/

Now this is what I call “draining the swamp”:

The Daily Caller:

Mick Mulvaney, acting director of a controversial consumer finance bureau, fired an advisory board after the members criticized the new leadership for not taking their advice.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced Wednesday that the 25 current Consumer Advisory Board members will be replaced, and will be ineligible to reapply to the board, the Washington Post reports.

Eleven advisory board members held a news conference Monday calling out Mulvaney for canceling several meetings — which are required to take place under the Dodd-Frank Act which created the agency.

“It appears the bureau does not want to engage with us,” Ann Baddour, chair of the Consumer Advisory Board and part of Texas Appleseed, a financial, non-profit, said in a conference call reported by The Intercept. “Staying silent would violate our ethical responsibility to the bureau and the American people.”

The criticisms didn’t sit well with the CFPB, and one spokesman suggested the board missed the perks of taxpayer-funded trips to the capital.